Confessions of a Bondi Blonde

Is this the end of the world, as we know it?

The trains don’t work; our Premier reportedly is a jerk. Our financial future seems calamitous, economic uncertainty is now part of us.

But.

 Look up and see the deep violet jacaranda flowers against the crackling azure of another perfect Sydney day. Walk our beautiful tree lined streets at the near dawn or dusk and be bewitched by the heady perfume of star jasmine, hanging fat and heavy from a neighbour’s fence.

I love reading The Herald with my first coffee of the day, being informed as the synapses snap together. But at the moment it is like immersing yourself in the shrouds of obituary columns as consumer confidence dies, leeching optimism from the economy and from our society. Apart from the nascent promise from President-elect Obama, it seems from the news that although it’s not as bad as it can get, that’s only because it is only going to get worse.  The planet is very sick and we are killing each other ruthlessly and effectively in many places on it. Our previous safe harbours of certainty, including the seemingly strong and regulated financial systems, seem as precarious as if we had ignored the wise men all along, building our houses on the sand rather than the rock. Is it all coming tumbling down?  With foreboding and foreclosures, we wish we had been forewarned so we could have been forearmed.

It’s November and it is not at all beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Small businesses are holding on, extending their trading terms and waiting for their clients to get paid, so they can get paid. Big businesses and business leaders are admitting “mea culpa”, crossing their fingers, scratching their heads and planning on the hop. Politicians are as inspiring and reassuring as a Bundaberg Base Hospital doctor.

But it is still a beautiful day. At 8:00 a.m. I was with my children at Bronte beach. We frolicked among the waves and acted like banshees, chasing seagulls and throwing wet sand. We then moved to a local cafe, quickly hoovering down crunchy Turkish toast laden with butter, Vegemite and thick fruit jam. I was rich with the wonder of family life. My kids go to their dad every second weekend and this before-school ritual has become part of our family folklore to carry forward. 

And although it is true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, surely gloom can be as much as a personal decision too? So if you are waiting for a train that will be late, crowded, old and tired to go home to a house that’s hard to pay for, try to think of the nice smile you got from the ticket man or the prettiness of the balloon being held by the little girl, coming home from a birthday party or a visit to her grandparents house.

And if the news today is getting you down, throw aside your paper. Take the hand or the arm of your lover, your child, your parent, your friend and walk our perfumed streets. Count your own blessings and those we all share: being alive, living in a lovely place no matter how bad the transport or silly our cockatoo pollies, being free to walk free of persecution or segregation. And no matter how gloomy the outlook in our news, remember we’ve got it so much better than almost everyone else.

It is a beautiful day. Isn’t that enough – just for now?

 

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I’ve heard that there is this great movie on at the moment.

It’s called Tim Tam or something and it’s about the real Australia. You know the one where we ride horses and survive being bombed by the Japanese. Cause I so hate it when you’re out at Westfield and you have to hit the ground when crossing from Target to Coles because you’re being strafed again by enemy fire. So inconvenient.

I heard it cost 200 million dollars to make and there’s this big marketing campaign around it to make visitors really think that Australia is just like in the film. I heard they test marketed it in Japan. Not to worry, I’ll think they’ll just add dubbing and say that we were actually being attacked by North Korea, so come on down your honeymooners and international students from the land of the midnight sun.

Hugh Jackman is so hot. He’s the hero and says Gidday all the time. I reckon that’s what they say in the bush though I wouldn’t know ‘cause I’ve never been there. I had a chance once to go for schoolies week; two weeks travelling through Australia by campervan. I went to Bali instead. Half the price and got massages on the beach everyday. Hugh is meant to be a great guy, fantastic father and an amazing husband. A good cook, apparently too. Not sure about the acting skills, but he did a divine turn as Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz, so maybe there’s a musical number or two in Tim Tam. Gee, that actually makes sense. “Our Baz” Luhrmann is known for his musical ditties, from Strictly Ballroom to Moulin Rouge. Maybe our Hugh and our Nicole have a little sing along by the camp fire. That would be classy. And so believeable, like a cross between Australian Idol and The Farmer Wants a Wife.

Still, I’m a bit confused about our Nic (she used to be Tom’s Nic and an almost American, but we reclaimed her when she hit 40) being in it. Apparently she’s a Brit in Tim Tam. No one would believe that, despite her amazing acting skills (she’s got an Oscar to prove it – remember she played a walking dead woman really convincingly in The Others.) She’s as Aussie as oi, oi, oi.

She’s got more ice on her than Mawson’s Hut, that’s true, but if anyone can stoke her into a slow and steady melt, well it would have to be our Hugh, surely. He’s taller than Keith, a better singer than Keith, and doesn’t hail from Caboolture (famous for cheese) like Keith, which is just three reasons why the film might have some real heat (apart from being set in the Northern Territory).

So I urge you to do your bit to support the economy and spend your $15 on seeing a movie that defines what it means to be Australian, just in case you were wondering.

 

 

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What is a perfect moment?

For me, it may be:

• A baby’s hand curling around your finger.
• A hot cup of milky tea warming your hands as you watch the sun rise and your family sleeps on the first full day of your holiday.
• The birth of a wanted child.
• The warmth of a lover’s hand on the small of your back, protecting you, imparting safety and love while propelling you forward to an occasion of shared intimacies and soft laughter.
• A sleep-in on a rainy day after you’ve worked hard and when there is absolutely nothing that needs doing until lunch-time. You can roll over, stretch and sink back into soft, white clean pillows while the world hurries past to its deadline.
• An unexpected kiss from your beloved, on your shoulder, your neck, the top of your head.

 I have had all of the above at different times of my life. But being a busy, bossy, brittle, Bondi blonde has meant that, as these buds of joy flower in my life, I have often acknowledged them briefly with a distracted air; usually registering their beauty and filing it away, to be pulled from its chrysalis of memories and hopefully enjoyed at some later, more convenient time.

On Saturday I had a series of perfect moments  that I will carry in my heart to examine when the going gets tougher, as it does.  

I was up at the near dawn, awoken by my pre-schooler who decided to re-enact Batman Lego Playstation moves in my bed. I bore the brunt of his wee-filled night-time nappy landing on my head as he killed the bad guys with his shoot-gun and I accepted my fate, regretfully saying adieu to the sleep which had been my companion for the previous six hours. Arising from tousled sheets, I stood alone on my balcony, the war continuing on my mattress. Soft light filled the hollows of the valley with pastel colours. In the next five minutes the light hardened, a cockatoo screeched a morning greeting on his way to Centennial Park and I viewed the birthday party burdened, travel itinerary planned day with trepidation.

After feeding my savagely hungry children a quick breakfast we were off to the 8:00 am cricket at the local park where my children frolicked, playing like Australia in India; unfortunately. I was knocking back the first latte of the day when I ran into a friend with whom I had shared laughter, champagne and secrets with a few times. She runs a successful company to which I had pitched my rusty writing and PR skills, part of my strategy to keep my kids fed and sheltered without having to sell a vital organ. Our welcome hug got a little bit tighter when she told me I had won the job ahead of a slicker competitor, because I could do the job better. Imagine. Bringing home the bacon while being there for the children. So many women have to sacrifice the intimacies of parenting to fulfil employer expectations, commuting and diluting their lives into manageable chunks. Other women accept family friendly hours in McJobs, burning their brain cells on the pyre of family need. Now I am one of the lucky few who can be clever while working from home, being there for the children as well as having the extra money to feed them too. As an added benefit, I now have the perfect excuse to buy the cream patent leather shoes that have been tempting me at David Jones for far too long.

I surveyed a brighter 2009 as the sun got hotter and the children returned for hugs, kisses, water and a journey to our second destination of the day, a birthday party on Dangar Island, a 90 minute drive away.

It was a new thing for me being the long-distance driver. Childhood holidays always had my father at the wheel and the tradition had continued into my own family life. Being a single mum put me firmly behind the wheel and although it felt a little strange for a while to be the head of the family outside as well as inside the house, we all survived the journey, no matter how out of tune the singing was or how tired the kids got of playing “who can spot the red car, blue car, black car, first” game. A  nine year old’s birthday party, the reason for our trip, may have been the nicest time I have had this year. It was simple and relaxing and a joy to see my children playing as part of an extended group of almost-family while I shared laughter and champagne with their parents;  we splashed into the long afternoon in water phosphorescent with sunshine and sunscreen.

On the ferry back to Brooklyn we sang 10 green bottles and other silly songs, the children’s words slurred from fatigue and from mouths half-filled with lollies from the party treat bags. During the car journey back home, my precious cargo quickly fell asleep, their faces innocent and flushed with sunburn and youth. Surveying them through the rear view mirror, I felt a long lost peace descend. Nobody had told me that there would be wonderful days like these.

The moments of perfection in life are rare and fleeting. We should store them safely, like shells we find on the beach; memories of other, happier times and examine them when we need a little reminder that things do get better. Day follows night just as much as night follows day.

So as other little jigsaw pieces of life slide into my heart, some making me melancholy, others contemplative, others hopeful, I am getting better at avoiding the sharper fragments. Just to up the sugar content to “dangerous to diabetics”, I’ll end with another perfect moment of mine, a favourite poem by e e cummings.

‘i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                            i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you’

‘here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or the mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart’

‘I carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)’

So, know that when you are being buffeted about in a perfect storm, a perfect moment or a perfect calm or will arrive in time, just hold on.

 

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Being the Bondi Blonde has been a fun thing for a while. I’ve had lots of laughs making stuff up and almost as much fun living implausibly true life. For example, recently while I was at a local cafe I was invited out on a “date” by a young, attractive male (YAM) junior enough to be carded at a pub. I know that some guys are into cougars, but really, I felt kind of uncomfortable with the whole thing.

So, in the interest of my readers, I went on the date.

First, YAM could text like Dostoyevsky could write. His mum probably text messaged her friends upon his birth, so though his spelling was questionable, he bombarded me with lots of sweet nothings way before the date, so I felt obliged to show up at the pub meeting place where the music was too loud and not a comfy seat could be found.  He was late so I bought myself a drink and settled in to watch the NRL on the big screen. I was just getting into the game when Prince Charming arrived. The bouncers let him pass without requesting his ID, but they did give him a second glance.

His fashion sense was on the money. Way too young to be classed a metro sexual, he had the black T-shirt, black jacket, dark blue jeans thing down pat. When I said that he looked like a mafia version of Don Johnson in Miami Vice, I was rewarded with a blank stare. “Don who? Miami Ice – isn’t he a rap artist like Flo Rida?”

OK then, I thought. Conversation may be tricky, just how old is this guy? I didn’t want to show my low cool quota by just coming out and asking. And I definitely didn’t want to be asked back because I wasn’t ready for a lie at this early in proceedings, so I bit my filler-plumped lips and waited for the urge to pass. We had a general chat about school. YAM was doing a Masters in Business at Uni. My kids go to one. That lasted till the second drink ended (luckily he drank alcohol – and didn’t partake in the Red Bull and Ecstasy combination that apparently is all the rage for post-teens, according to a recent article I had read in Madison magazine while waiting recently at the supermarket checkout.).

YAM was a sweetheart and very polite and so we decided to go home and have sex. Well, not really. I was thinking about cutting to the chase, considering the conversation was so boring and reminded me of the chat I had had with my eight year old kid’s friend that afternoon during a play date. Less a focus on Star Wars Lego, granted, but still a lot about the Roosters chances next year. I care because?

YAM was a sweetheart and very polite so we decided to have dinner. I wasn’t up to considering sex until he was drunk enough and it was dark enough for him to miss my mummy jelly belly and my caesarean scars rudely unveiled in that afternoon’s Brazilian waxing encounter. We decided on a cheap and cheerful Italian Restaurant, with lighting soft enough for me to hide in and a wine list big enough for us to drown in.

Finally I couldn’t control myself. After one bottle of Chianti, the main course, two conversations about Snoop Dog versus Grand Master Flash and me not talking about school fees, kids, property prices or female gynaecological issues (that constituted me ditching 97% of my usual conversational repertoire), I asked, “So, YAM, you’ve a younger brother who lives with you. How old is he again?”

“27”

AAAAAAARGH!

“How much younger is he, did you say?”

“Three years, I’m 30 and am having a party soon, do you want to come?”

“Why, to babysit?” I didn’t say it, biting again on my lips to stop the words dead in their middle-aged tracks.

Then it came. I felt like I was defenceless on a beach, watching as the tsunami relentlessly descended.

“How old are you, Blondie?”

I gasped for air, searched frantically for a distraction to hang on too or escape with. Nothing doing.

“Me? 39,” I lied, retreating further away from the harsh flickering candlelight.

“Neat. That’s only really not much, considering I’m almost 31. Thirty and one-half, really.”

“Hmmm, yes indeed, more wine?” I asked, pouring the second bottle freely into our glasses.

 I’d been 39 for three years and was glad for the lie. But, eeew, I know it’s not fair that it is considered OK for men to date someone a dozen or so years younger while considered a bit carnivorous for women to do so, but still I felt a little bit yuck for keeping this kid up so late and away from the PlayStation.

Dinner was over. We went Dutch and headed to Crown Street for another drink. My old feet hurt in their new shoes and I wanted to go home. I couldn’t decide however if I wanted it to be a solitary journey, back to late night chocolate encounters on the sofa, or a journey to the brave new world of YAM love.

Certainly this darling man didn’t seem at all phased by the age difference. He was kind, polite, Canadian. We had a wonderful conversation at dinner about things that mattered, not involving house prices; more to do with truth, justice and the Canadian way. He was sweet as fairy floss and handsome to boot. No-one would call me “slut” or throw rotten fruit at me if we did what came naturally. It was a wonderful thing to be fancied again by a fanciable man. I had suffered recently numerous close encounters of the RSVP kind with dysfunctionals of all kinds; men old enough to have more hang ups than the David Jones menswear section. Oldies who drooled, not necessarily over me, just generally drooled.

So, I went back to his Alexandria apartment. Freedom sofa, flat screen TV, IKEA everything else. Soft bed.

And then.

Yee-ha! It was a like an all day pass at Dream World, Wet and Wild and Movie World all at the same time. Granted, some of the positions were a bit like riding the roller coaster three times in succession, making me a bit up-chucky, but overall I lasted the distance, kept my end up (a little bit tired, but I bravely struggled on), he kept his end up (no problems there) and it was zipless fun (button tab jeans). I got a cramp with my legs over my head while trying to hold my tummy muscles in, but YAM was understanding and gave me a very nice massage.

It was a lovely, happy encounter. Great sex with a yummy YAM. No consideration of him step-fathering  my kids or me having his. We met a few more times and each encounter was simply enjoyable.

So, dear readers. Yes, I am a cougar. But a harmless one and my prey ran to me, so I don’t feel guilty.

Still, we did end it around a month ago. For me, generally if it doesn’t happen between the ears, the between the sheets part won’t last for long. My YAM was a sweet heart, just very different from me. I like books, words, stuff like that. He likes balls, sport, business. We just ran out of things to talk about.

He was great about it, kind and sweet and I think we both enjoyed all of it. I ran into my YAM yesterday at the coffee shop where we met. He was with his younger brother, talking football and university. I was with my pre-schooler, talking Star Wars and eating cookies.YAM and I kissed hello, introduced our family members, smiled gently into each other’s eyes and said goodbye.

No-one was hurt, no one had their heart broken. It was all quite lovely. Purrrrr.

 

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Family is a genetic illness.

I have inherited a large nose, long spidery limbs and varying degrees of craziness from my father; usually our individual levels of weird increases in direct proportion to the temperature. We are temperate in temperate climes and absolutely barking mad during a heat wave. Christmas in Queensland is best avoided by rational people when me and my dad fight over the ham mountain or pop the Crazy Charlie’s Christmas crackers. Ho, ho, ho. From my mother I have inherited a desire to eat all matters of sweet junk after 8:00 p.m., no matter how controlled the diet in the daytime and also a sophisticated martyr complex, enhanced by lessons learnt over the years at the stockinged knee of mother master. We both can make those nearest and dearest feel guilty for the smallest misdemeanour while insisting, “Really, there’s nothing wrong”. We can engender the most complex blend of hate, love, frustration and anger with a raised eyebrow or the smallest shrug. We have made a silent pact, in the way women do, not to use this skill too often on each other, just send the others in our very scary family killer-mad with its usage. Sometimes, however the beloved/bedevilled matriarch can’t help herself and winds me up, up, up so tight I snap into an explosive, expletive-laden offspring. The killer blow is always perfectly delivered by mummy dearest as I lay squirming like a large Queensland cockroach on the linoleum floor, apoplectic with rage, “Really Blondie, you never did have a sense of humour. It was just a joke.” Ho, ho, ho.

So, with these lovely scrapbook memories in mind, I looked warily forward this school holiday to a week away from Bondi with the nippers at a fancy Queensland beachside resort…. With…my…parents.

The ghosts of Christmas past nagged at me as I made the airline bookings. For years in the era BC (Before Children) I had been a sharp shouldered, sharper tongued corporate thing, living large in London. Each Christmas I took what was left of my savings and spent them on a ticket to hell and back, a return trip to the family home in deepest, fluorescent-lit Gympie. A twenty-four hour flight in cattle class was always followed by a one hour wait at Arrivals while my parents argued then decided that my mum should meet me at the luggage carousel and my dad should “do the block” and drive around in circles rather than pay the six dollar parking fee. Needless to say, my mother and father lost each other every single time. We would wait in the 30 degree plus December heat while my dad decided to nap in a nearby lay by. By the time he awoke, partly dehydrated and a little rested and drove illegally to the taxi rank to pick us up, my mother’s tongue was hotter than the pavement and I was just pure ectoplasm and unfortunately, inherited DNA. As we went homeward bound though the new Brisbane suburbs, each of which seemed to have popped up from the red soil where small farmers used to plant flowers and corn, we always had to stop at a hardware store or a supermarket. Like I needed to see a Bunning’s after the bright lights of big City London.

So this year, being a grown up and a mother and therapied into understanding that I could stop situations from becoming problems by exercising free will, I decided to ensure that all encounters would be friendly by ensuring that we stayed in separate locations, meeting on neutral territory like ice-cream stores or parks. I stayed in fancy Noosa digs (on the cheap from an indulgent multi-housed friend) and the oldies hit the highlights of Tewantin Caravan Park, a handy eight kilometres away.

We had a blast. And nobody died.

The parents proved themselves admirable grandparents. They spirited my children away for new adventures through hardware stores and supermarkets, chasing red light specials at Spot Light. Caravan Park delights, unknown to my city slicker kids, were unveiled in shimmering layers; 50 cent white paper bags of mixed lollies from the caravan park store; sausage sandwiches on white bread, cooked on the communal barbecue; and swimming in pee-filled camp ground pools with dozens of similarly happy-faced, toilet-shy kids. These are the things that my kids dreamt of after long holiday days. It was a joy to see my extended family working so well and my kids building bonds that wouldn’t break with their eccentric, loveable-in-small-doses grandparents.

My oldest son sat with his grandfather, who is a mix of Steve Irwin and well, probably an escapee from the local loony bin, and learnt interesting facts, such as:

• The best way to kill a bull shark is with a baseball bat. (My precocious eight year old replied “a baseball bat will probably kill anything, grandpop”.)
• Rum is medicine. Mix it with milk and it will probably cure cancer.
• Colloidal silver, when ingested, will cure the cancers that Rum can’t fix.
• Kookaburras at dusk mean that it will rain in the next 48 hours.
• Most worryingly, my father explained how electricity works.

My mother rolled her eyes so often at my father’s questionable truths that I thought she was having a “turn”, which they both seem to have frequently since hitting the magical age of 70, taking their “turns” in turn.

We moved en masse to ice-cream stores, where all of us had a kiddie cone, slurping merrily away and making repeated trips to the free topping bar; my father liked the nuts best (takes one to like one), but the four year old preferred the sprinkles. We sat at long park tables, eating mystery meat rissoles, burping in tune and laughing together as the Kookaburras joined in. The highlight for my children was the last night, after six marvellous days of sun, no rain, sand and family feasting. Their Aunty, my sister, had been working hard all week but managed to escape the cold clutches of professional responsibility to see her nephews and give them cuddles. She’s the perfect aunt and brought the perfect gift. A whoopee cushion. Fart. Fart. Fart. 50% real, 50% fake. Only those creating the noise knew which was which and I stood near the door for air, wondering what it would have been like to have daughters. Then I saw my mother give an assisted bottom burp, to the hysterical delight of my sons, and I thought it probably would have been the same. You can’t escape your gene pool.

The next morning, our last in Noosa, my parents joined us early to consume the left-over food. Breakfast comprised bacon, pancakes, cereal, toast, pasta, steak, lettuce, tinned apricots and ice cream with chocolate sauce. I shoved the left-over vegemite and peanut butter into the luggage, almost collapsing trying to reach the suitcase zip over my distended tummy.

We drove in convoy to the airport following my sister, as my father forgets his way to the car, much less a destination. (Note to self: Buy a GPS for Dad’s Christmas gift. One with a female voice, so he can tell the stupid bitch to shut up – something he’d love to say to me, if he’d dare.) My children drove with their aunty and sang songs. I drove with my parents and tried to meditate my way to sanity as my father took on every other driver between Noosa and Maroochydore, outgunning, out speeding and outswearing every other Queensland Bogan on the road that day. He lost his way, I lost my mind. Finally all were found and we arrived at the airport almost sane, and luckily, two hours early for a domestic flight delayed for a further hour. Yippee.

We managed one last feeding frenzy at the airport cafe. Parking is free at Maroochydore Airport so my father was reassured that he could stop the car for more than a minute. The kids sat on their grandparents’ knees, cuddling and giggling in equal measure and taking turns to be Indiana Jones in my father’s Cancer Council hat. The holiday had exceeded my wildest expectations. My kids were happy, I was happy. Amazingly, for the first time since Queensland won the State of Origin, my parents were happy. It was the perfect moment. Then somebody farted. Somehow, we improved on perfection.

Where else but Queensland?

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Today, for the first time in a long time I was a successful, slick business babe. I was in the zone and the big occasion was a meeting with a potential client. He had the capacity to pay me major shoe, food and handbag vouchers for months to come and he’d increase the list of clients at my PR boutique by 100%; my only client at the moment being a internet based provider of Russian wives, but that’s another story.

The dishevelled Bondi blonde was shuffled off in a pile of overstretched Lycra just after the 8:45 a.m. school drop off. By 10 a.m. an ironed and blow dried me was talking the talk I had last had seven years before. I was even walking the walk in new shiny patent shoes I had bought for the meeting, just a half sized too big but a steal at $150 at the David Jones sale. My suit was vintage – well, old – and I had updated it with a cream frilly shirt from Dotti. 100 nylons had been euthanized to make it, but the whole look didn’t look too bad, especially on a winter’s day when any lurking BO smells were easily masked by a spray of the Charlie whiff juice that the kids had bought for eight bucks at the last school Mother’s Day stall.

The big handshake-of-yes was getting closer with every clever suggestion I made. I was loving myself almost as much as I was being loved in return. Client-guy was Gen-Y cute and was as glossy as my shoes; being something big in built environment. Maybe, I thought, almost orgasmically as the almost-client agreed with me yet again, if I sealed the deal, I could promote his awarded erections in a way guaranteed to excite.

Then my head itched in a way that needed attention.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

I extended my newly varnished fingernails from my head and had a surreptitious look. A varmint interloper waved at me from under my nail, fat and happy.

A nit.

The bloody little sucker dropped onto the marble boardroom table and sprinted on his six little legs towards Built Environment Guy (BEG), seeking refuge in the forest of his hairy forearm. Carpe Diem! I seized the day and squashed the nit. The quick kill (one skill that isn’t mentioned on my resume) saved BEG from certain infestation. Unfortunately my little interloper also killed the deal and the blood was mine. I could feel the desire to do business with me ebb away as quickly as the blood dried on BEG’s Free Trade hemp paper notebook where the cootie had met his end.

In the smooth lift ride down to the cold street, I did a quick rethink. That morning I had hugged my children tightly before I pushed them out of my car and onto the pavement to face their school day. The nit probably was transferred to me from my youngest during his daily slurp goodbye. My lacquered scone was a tasty new address for the nit invader who certainly knew how to make an entrance as well as an exit.

I have for a goodly while been a parent first and a provider second. But, considering the pressing need to pay for frivolities like Vegemite, a win today had been vital to up the income and down the mortgage. The life time cost of a first child is $385,000, according to a recent report by the Federal Government’s Productivity Commission. I have two kids and we live in Sydney where everything is more expensive than the national average. So I figure raising my two until they migrated out of the nest could easily cost me the best part of $1 million. I get the family taxation benefit from the Federal Government and the $200 dollars a week helps a little, but I need to brush up and polish my long dormant professional skills pronto if I am to keep my post-nuclear family in the manner to which we had obliviously become accustomed to while living off the fat of the land and my ex-husband’s finance industry income.

Frankly, I just don’t know how I’ll do it and as I caught the 380 bus back to Bondi, my too big for me shoes rubbing my heels into blisters, I began to regret my decision made eight years before to leave the career track for the mummy track. I have never for a second regretted having my kids. But if I knew that marriage was a word, not a life sentence, maybe I would have returned to work when my maternity leave finished, rather than exiting the career for child rearing. If I had stayed at work my divorce would have had a less of a train smash effect on my life and my economics.

Scratching idly away as the bus idled at the Bondi Junction interchange, I paused, considering the decisions I had made and the difficulty of single parenting. I have reduced confidence, musty skills and little recent experience. I used to fly business class between meetings with high flying clients who showed me the money with scant regard to the zeros charged per hour. Today’s debacle confirmed that I couldn’t get a gig charging cut rates. These days my Mercedes Benz transport, complete with RTA chauffeur, had to be shared with 60 or so others.

As the bus chugged along the Bondi Road and I did a quick check of the mummy contingent heading with me for their afternoon at the beach with their little ones. There were six mums and toddlers on the bus. It looked to me that many mothers chose the path that I had and were forgoing the upward trajectory of career to raise their children. But as one in two marriages splinter, leaving the bulk of the childcare responsibilities with single parents, often mothers, the decision to stay away from the paid work force looks even more dangerous in terms of economic and resultant emotional security of the next generation.

Making a decision on whether to return after maternity leave is never an easy one. And when people like children’s author Mem Fox berate women who chose to return to work, placing their kids into child care, I want to kick her sorry ass. Economic stability makes stable, happy parents. If a woman can reassure herself and her kids that that she can put the food on the table, the roof over their heads and manage just about everything else, surely that is more important in the long run to a child than who wipes their noses or kisses them better when they fall over in the playground.

Last week a Spiderman torch was put to use after lights out as my boys did canyoning activities in the dark up each other’s posteriors. They were happier than when Indiana Jones uncovered the crystal skull when they found the magic tapeworms peeking out of their butts. Yum! Combantrim chocolate flavoured worm medicine all round. It’s actually quite tasty and we all fought for the last piece.

I was there for this great event. Like I am there for the school sports carnival, tuck shop duty and the paraphernalia of family life. Many full time working mums miss out on the questionable joys of these events. I don’t envy these women their harassed, always a little late lives. But they can provide economic security that’s simply out of my reach at this point in my life. Neither groups – the stay at homes or the go back to works have it all and in my school a gang of each support each other – the stay at homes email their working friends with things too important to miss (like class music presentations) and the working mums pass on information of job opportunities for those looking away from the playground towards the workforce. We are working together to keep it together and the sisterhood is intact and doing it, in the end, for ourselves and our children.

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Pssst.

Want to know a secret?

Well, that’s the bloody problem isn’t it? I can’t keep a secret.

I’ve told so many people about my supposed “anonymous” blog that anything that I write, fact or fiction is going come back and bite me right on my size six bottom in my real life. That’s my very pert and very cute bottom, by the way.

I knew from the beginning that being “anonymous” was a very good theory to have though not to hold for too long. My first whispers of my alter ego were done with secret handshakes and vows of secrecy on pain of death. With my closest thirty friends. After nights out with bleary eyed (and that was at the beginning of the night) frenemies and acquaintances I usually had told bar rooms of people about my exciting new life as a self published tart.

No-one has been safe from my relentless self-promotion.

“Hey Mr Lollypop man, have you seen my blog?”

“Really officer, only two little drinkies and a glug of Listerine for the minty breath effect. I’ll blow in the bag if you give me a pen for something you’re just gonna love…sheerioulsy gonna love.”

And so on.

So. That means that if I write shite about my real-ish life, I’m in danger of exploding the glossy future that I am trying to build for me and the biters – ankles and each other.

Maybe I should only write stuff that shows me to be a world leader type in training, like Nelson Mandela but female, younger and hotter. Or J’aime King from Summer Heights High. But a female and hotter.

Might as well have a go.

Today, after feeding some huddled masses outside Westfield Bondi Junction with Wonder White bread and tins of dolphin friendly tuna I ran to Bondi Beach in 8 minutes, beating my previous best time by .05 seconds. Luckily I arrived in time to save two Japanese tourists from a nasty rip. I swam out, grabbed one by the throat and the other by the camera strap and headed back to shore, kicking a lurking great white shark out of the way. Oops, sorry Greg Norman (actually not sorry at all). After performing CPR on the two tourists, saving them from the Bondi Rescue TV crew, I ran home. Then I baked a kosher cake from scratch for my neighbour’s son’s Bar Mitzvah, wrote to my sixteen World Vision kids and did cartwheels to school in time to mentor a child who needed some special help from a concerned, involved parent. That’d be me.
Note to self: After kids have eaten their vegetable based healthy dinner, meditated and sung themselves to slumber tonight, convert the Volvo to run on cooking oil from local restaurants.

That sounds good. And plausible. Doesn’t it? Oh that’s right; I don’t have a kosher kitchen.

The thing is that I need to be anonymous. There are a few people that are best kept in the dark about all the fun I have been having while writing if not living this self-published stuff. They would be mightily annoyed if they knew that I was having a hoot in my new improved life rather than wearing the sack cloth and ashes they keep on telling me I should be encased in.

One friend was really concerned that somehow writing this would land me in jail. Go figure. Anyway I asked my lawyer and she delicately replied:

WITHOUT PREJUDICE:

“You want to pay me $450 an hour to read this crap? You really must be desperate for readers. Tap away, lady. It reads a bit like a chimp on a typewriter but you’re doing no harm to anyone in particular, only the world literary community in general.”

Cheers for that, you pompous wig wearer in training.

Also, I don’t mind embarrassing myself if there’s a laugh in it. I am a happy little birdie most of the time these days and laughter has been my best medicine. Only around 25% of it has been hysterical, but my friends have bitch-slapped me out of it on those, getting rarer, occasions.

So, all those in the know, I’m probably going to keep on writing stuff that does not paint me in the gentlest of lights. It keeps me giggling and you too, I hope. Just don’t think that it’s all true. I am really a soft and feminine woman who is gentle and loving and kind. And a great driver. You can stop with the giggling now.

Just for the heck of it I’ll try two versions of the same scenario, one as a kinder, sexier, better in every way real blonde and the other as the original Bondi blonde.

Version One – the better blonde.

Today, after cleaning the house and weeding the neighbour’s garden, I rang my father to wish him Happy Father’s Day and asked him if he had received the present that I had sent last Monday. Sure enough, it had arrived on Thursday. He loves the socks I knitted him and the presents the boys and I made as craft over the past three weeks. After going to church for the 6:00 p.m. Father’s Day service, I went to dinner at a wonderful friend’s house, bringing dessert. It was nothing much, just a sherry trifle I had started to make yesterday. I think that it’s always a good idea to start a trifle the day before, so the sherry can soak into the sponge cake, which I always like to make myself. I had bought a really good red wine at the local specialist wine merchant the day before. My friend loved New Zealand Pinot Noir and I had asked the merchant to keep a bottle of his best for me. We had a lovely night. I didn’t drink more than one glass (I was so glad that my friend had kept the pinot for himself and gave me a lovely Shiraz that went beautifully with the meal) and dropped off three other people on the way home.

Version Two – the Bondi blonde.

11: 00 a.m. Shit. It’s Father’s Day. Christ. Better call the old bastard and wish him the best.

11:30 p.m. Great night. I love playing Celebrity Head. But I couldn’t agree that Brendan Nelson is a celebrity. He’s not even a politician. The food was great and they thought that the wine and chocolate combo I brought along was “satiric”. Good. I think that they meant cheap, but were too polite to say. Didn’t drive home. Not that stupid. Got a lift with someone who lives in Vaucluse, only 10 minutes out of their way. Somehow I’ve got to get the car back from the boonies by 8:00 a.m., tomorrow. Bus, train, bus. That’ll be fun.

Think I’ll stick to version 2. There goes my future!

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My life has been like a dating Ground Hog Day.

My 20’s were an endless round of dating dickheads, relationship-phobes, sports nuts, creepy intense men who wrote letters in their blood after the second date, Italian stallions in pastel shirts and the rare normal guy.

I spent more time breaking up than being in a relationship. I often dated two people at once to insure against a Saturday night alone watching Daryl Somers on Hey Hey it’s Loser-Day while all the shiny people were out having fun, fun, fun. But somehow I’d end up on the couch at least one Saturday night a month clutching a packet of Tim Tams and an irrational fear of being eaten by rats if I fell asleep during the Pluck a Duck segment.

At 39, I’m back on the endless mouse wheel of dating. I thought that marriage, however average it may be, was a protection against having to trawl the streets in uncomfortable please-fuck-me shoes ever again. But the marriage went Hasta la Vista, baby, and I’m back in bars and in the ether of the internet, going through a new, definitely not improved list of Mr Wrongs. The talent pool is much smaller these days, with over 50% of men still married. Bastards. Of those still available, I’m sure that there is a much higher proportion of tossers, tuggers and tools than ever before. It’s like natural selection in reverse. All the good, vaguely normal men have been winnowed out and are having loving Saturday nights in, eating roasts, playing Ker-Plunk with their kids and gazing into their wives wrinkly eyes. It’s only the weak or those destroyed through divorce that are left for those of us needing a date, a shag or someone to change a light bulb.

So, here I am. Dating, dating, dating. And, inevitably, breaking up, breaking up, breaking up.

It’s not so hard to do anymore, thanks to the wonders of technology. The big bye-bye doesn’t have to be face to face, thank goodness. I’m not one to text message a “sorry, goodbye” mainly because I’m really bad at texting. But if a big night turns into endless boredom or if I feel that a hot and stud-ly is losing interest I can do the drop by email before their taxi has arrived to their door.

I have to multitask now that I am a mother, employed, a gym junkie, a sometimes surfer and a very bad domestic so I drafted some pro-forma bugger-off emails to make the inevitable break up more efficient. After a bad date, I just choose the one that’s right for the drop. Below are just four of my Hallmark moments that I share with you, gratis. But remember to change the names to suit; otherwise you’ll really confuse the punter in question.

For a decent guy who’s basically nice but boring. Often obsessed with cars or trains and who uses the Cancer Council voucher book on first dates. Usually engineers, those who have never married or those who live at home with mum at 48.

Dear ditched,

The Bondi blonde

For a guy who buys bad presents and wants a blow job after a $50 BYO pizza meal.

Dear I’m-not-that-desperate-yet,

Snap. Get the picture?
Ciao,
The Bondi Blonde.

For the guy who’s into himself and thinks he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you. He laughs at his own jokes and doesn’t listen. He’s probably going to dump you soon because you’re really a size 12, not a size 10 like your profile on RSVP promised, so be quick with this one.

Dear God-you’re-amazing-don’t-you-think? NOT.

Speak to the hand instead.

For a guy who has been professing true love until you discover he is either still married or in a de facto relationship.

Dear One, True Love.

The Bondi Blonde.

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I went to the zoo yesterday and the animals were amazing.

But I didn’t visit Taronga Zoo or Sydney Wildlife World. I went to Queen Street, Woollahra and had the pleasure of seeing exotic breeds of humanity strolling carefree in their own, highly evolved environment.

First I saw the rare spotted celebrity. The recent full moon must have signalled the beginning of the migration season from the television stations to Fox Studios. Jessica Rowe was nervously sipping a latte at the local watering hole while across the road, busy with BMW 4-wheel drives, Naomi Robson was reading the Confidential Section of The Daily Telegraph, protected by the shade of a large tree. Two Kidman’s gazed at their reflections in the local real-estate windows, seemingly as in awe of their image as the rest of us. Alas it only the lesser-spotted celebrity Kidmans – Antonia and Janelle. The recent successful breeding programme of the highly prized Urban-Kidman’s had resulted in them staying holed up in Darling Point, bonding with their newborn.

Some film types were chattering away behind me like monkeys. I turned to see if there were any stars in their midst. Yep,Jacqueline Mackenzie was keeping a very high low profile.

Then the small, scattered pack of celebrities lifted their noses and sniffed the breeze. It wasn’t the perfume drifting down the street from the Jo Malone shop which had them aquiver. An alpha male was wandering past Paul Keating’s former home and the B lists could sense his pheromones from a mile away. His plaid shirt was not ironic and for a moment I thought that he was the local Big Issue guy. But he had good shoes. And great eyes. And a South’s Sydney Rabbitohs’ sweater. Oh. Gidday, Russell.

This was in the space of 10 minutes. I was cursing myself for not having a phone with a functioning camera (mine had been drowned beyond repair at Nippers), so I could launch myself in a new career as a street paparazzi.

After the herd of celebrities passed by, probably off to a movie launch or somewhere equally shiny, the street seemed empty and quiet.

But then the less noticeable but still highly bred second wave of rare birds made an appearance. The Woollahra blondes arrived and quickly filled the vacuum with the trill of their mobile phones. Paul Sheehan wrote about these women in The Sydney Morning Herald on 24 March this year. He wrote that “where wealth and power co-exist, blondes are not just overrepresented in our culture, but more overrepresented than ever.” Paul also did some maths and worked out that there are more blondes in Woollahra than in other locales; it’s a blonde meeting place. Celebrities and blondes feel safe here. It’s close to the water, has lovely rest spots and sources of high protein, low calorie nutrition.

Woollahra is like Taronga Zoo for the glossy animals in our midst. And for the cost of a skinny latte you can come and feast your eyes on the passing parade of people just like us – just skinnier and richer.

This is embarrassing to admit, but my kids aren’t competing in the Beijing Olympics.

I live in the Eastern Suburbs where there are more A-type personalities than the national average. In this neighbourhood, kids have been Kumon tutored within an inch of their lives to keep up with their parents’ turbo-charged, Porsche Cayenne aspirational lifestyles.

The first dead giveaway of a parent’s gold medal desires for their kid is in their name. Check out the class list and among the usual suspects there is always one or two names that indicate that a kid has been bred for greatness. It’s a sure bet that Kristal won’t be working at Kmart to pay for her University fees and Hunter won’t be fixing your roof or dunny. Oh no. Mum and dad have had their lives mapped since conception. The plan usually involves Arts/Law at Sydney University, followed by either Investment banking or NIDA actor or medicine. Legend has it that there are a pair of twins bubbling away somewhere in the East with the names Champagne and Carrington. Now, if you’ve been christened Champagne (did they break a bottle against her head, like she was a ship when she was named?), it might go to your head that you’re something special and expensive and you’d expect a life to match. But what about poor cut-price Carrington? Is she destined to a pale, fizzy alternative to her sister’s sparkling life?

We all hope for the best for our children and want to provide as much as we can to make their journeys safe, happy and successful. But if it was as easy as giving them a wannabe name, I’d have called my first born “Powerball Mega pick-win” and sat back on my arse waiting for the riches to flow.

And success and upward mobility mean different things to different people. Last week in Sydney a poor little innocent was christened Torana. Her mum and dad have a thing for Holden and if they’d had a boy he would have been Brockie for the rest of his life. Somehow, I don’t think Hunter will be riding off into the sunset with Torana at the under 18’s disco if their parents have anything to do with it.

Enrolling your kid in every sport and extra-curricular educational activity going is also a sign that mum or dad is gunning for the Laurie Lawrence Parent of the Year award.

Kumon, Aussie. Kumon, Kumon. That’s the chant around the bubbler at my kids’ school, where they gather before their 4:00 p.m. maths tutoring, followed by the 5:00 swim squad, followed by the 6:30 scouts meeting, followed by relaxation meditation, followed by homework, followed by dinner, followed by bed. Then up and out for their 8:30 a.m. piano practice.

In the year of the XXIX Olympiad, I’ve taken stock of my chances of winning a medal or even a gold star in the parenting Olympics and I don’t think I am a contender.

My second grader has the IQ of, well, a second grader and his sporting prowess hovers around there as well. And my kindergarten kid is built like a Kinder egg. He’s perfect for Rugby League and loves running in a pack, but when the ball is passed to him, he’ll quite cheerfully give it to the opposing team if he spies an interesting flower or lady bug. No-one seems to mind, excepting the coach. And even he doesn’t mind too much, seeing we’ve taken home the “most improved player” trophy twice (it’s a pass the parcel kind of prize and it was my kid’s turn). In fact, Sunday morning is the funniest time of my week, and most footie parents are on the ground laughing when their kid does something equally unsporting but excruciatingly funny.

My kids also love playing soccer and kick the ball around our flat like they are Harry Kewell or David Beckham. The TV is the goal. But they are so enthusiastically average that I usually can get through 20-1 with only the odd “goal” whacking into the football-headed Bert Newton.

But my kids are mostly happy and I am as proud as Libby Trickett’s granny of their ability to come through their parents’ split with their spirits intact and cheekiness in place. After the carnage of divorce, I’m grateful to report that my children are deliciously average and bear no obvious scars. They are clear eyed and love school and McDonald’s and their mum and dad equally (though not as much as a Happy Meal).

And they enthusiastically embrace life, even when it’s not a contest. My oldest kid had to make a vehicle for his school project. Handily combining a 50 metre roll of alfoil with the Plasma TV box left on the landing by the upstairs neighbour on the arrival of a new bub (compliments of the Federal Government’s baby bonus bonanza), he’s made a solar panelled car that’s around half the size of a Toyota Prius. I was as pleased as Stephanie Rice’s sister as I showed it to the Rabbi next door.

It would be great if we could all be a bit kinder to ourselves as parents and relax a bit. They’ll grow up anyway. Recently, while waiting for a leg wax, I read some research on whether there were distinguishing characteristics shared by Nobel Prize winners. The researchers wanted to identify the traits or experiences which separated these amazing people from the rest. The finding was that Nobel Prize winners almost all had a mentor between the ages of 11 and 14. When these brain boxes hit puberty, there was someone they trusted who was fully available to guide their intellect and passions. (I don’t think I was reading Who Weekly, must have been something clever, like Maxim, in the salon for the members of the back, crack and sack waxing community.) It didn’t matter so much if the kid had done nothing but eat snot for the first 10 years, what mattered was that when that crazy combination of brain and hormones peaked there was an older, knowledgeable individual who could channel their passions into a passionate vocation.

So, if you’ve got a potential Grant Hackett or even a Milhouse Van Houten from The Simpsons at home, be careful that you don’t burn them out by putting them too close to your burning desires for them. Maybe it’s better to chill out with the bug catcher and some books rather than stress yourself out in traffic, taking your beloved to one extra-curricular activity after another. No-one wants to be so hard training a gold medal hopeful that they end up with a sad Nick Darcy, commenting from thousands of miles away while other people live the dream he shattered with one nasty punch.

Looking at my kids in the back of my crusty, rusty Volvo I know that I couldn’t ever trade their scabby knees, dirty faces or reassuring pre-teen averageness for all the tea, or medals, in China.
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