The Look?

So here I am, minding my own business, enjoying a mid-morning cup of coffee and flicking through today's Sunday Life magazine. Since its revamp the Sunday Life has been a bit touch-and-go. It's having a little bit of trouble deciding on its new identity. Is it, as it proclaims to be The Sunday Age Magazine? Or is it perhaps The Sunday Age Magazine for Women Between the Ages of 25-40 Who Have an Enormous Disposable Income and Enjoy Being Patronised? Alternatively, it has crossed my mind that it is simply a 45 page advertising feature. Nonetheless, solid mindless fodder when your two-year-old has scribbled all over the Good Weekend's Samurai Sudoku.

According to one Ms Thelma McQuillan on page 35 of this week's Sunday Life, "one of summer's hottest trend is the new playsuit". Let me state this once and let me be VERY clear - unless you happen to be over six feet tall and a size 2-4 there is NOTHING remotely "hot" about a playsuit. As its very name suggest, a playsuit is appropriate for one thing and one thing only - playing. When you're three years old. If you ask me, the very idea of suggesting that grown-up women don clothing appropriate for toddlers playing in the sandpit is a little creepy.

I don't care of Ms McQuillan claims that this one-piece wonder is "super-versatile". For all of you out there contemplating the $395 Ginger & Smart disaster pictured, ask yourself is this is honestly what your life needs right now. McQuillan suggests adding "heels and jewels" to turn the "super-versatile" playsuit into instant evening wear. Is she serious? No item heralded as the fashion of tomorrow should require a woman to totally undress in order to sit on the toilet.

"The Look"? I think not.

Lights and Peanut Butter Crusts

I need to know.
I simply must know what makes men so incredibly and unbelievably stupid. Before my male readers take an oath never to read this blog again, you should be aware that this is a genuine attempt to help my very female self understand why it is that what seems so very basic to those of us born sans penis, our male counterparts struggle to comprehend.

Hubby is what I would consider to be an intelligent man. He can explain the minutia of Cold War relations and actually understands – as much as anyone can - Obama's plan for health care reform. However, despite having the intellect to be able to tell a good Brezhnev joke and know why it's funny, he cannot understand why leaving fourteen lights on when you leave the house is a bad thing. Nor can he get his head around the fact that, for the most part, if you want your two year-old daughter to put her peanut-butter sandwich crusts into the bin, you will have to TELL her to do so. Hubby also struggles to grasp the concept that Little Princess will often neglect to inform you that she has mashed those lovely sandwich crusts into the dining room carpet. He believes the highly complex excuse "I didn't see it" is sufficient to acquit him of all charges. Further, he truly believes it is I who am being unreasonable. Expecting him to look either up or down is clearly a mark of my always too high demands.

But Hubby truly excels himself every time his mother is in town. For some reason men who are for the most part, able to function on a normal (albeit male) level are thrown into a spin the moment a ditzy (dyed) blonde who happened to have given birth to them comes into the picture. Now it wouldn't be nice to refer to his mother as Useless-WASP-Who-Has-Never-Contributed-Anything-To-Society-Other-Than-Keeping-Her-Home-Dust-Free, so instead she shall be named Mommy Dearest. Mommy Dearest has never worked. In fact, she believes working is "demeaning" – her words. Mommy Dearest had two children 5 years apart because she couldn't possibly have coped with having more than one at home at a time. Hubby's memories of his childhood include washing his hands and watching Mommy Dearest vacuum – a lot. When our eldest son was born Hubby was astounded to discover that it was okay for children and their mothers to be seen in public and they in fact did not have to always be at home in the throws of domestic bliss. Mommy Dearest washes all the towels and linen in her home every day. In my honest opinion Mommy Dearest has some serious issues.

Mommy Dearest can also be a bit of a bitch. After two days in a car listening to endless rounds of Wiggles music, punctuated by the always loved "Are we there yet?", to visit MD and her new husband, who shall henceforth be known as Sleazoid Nazi (a whole other story), Mommy Dearest enquired what our plans were for dinner. Hubby was off to a Bucks Night to catch up with old school buddies and so it was just me and the kids (in a hotel room, because we couldn't possibly stay in her three bedroom, two bathroom, three living areas home – "Simply not enough room" she claimed, with a straight-face). When I said I had no plans as yet, MD helpfully informed me that there was a supermarket just down the road from where we were staying. Thanks. You're awesome.

But the part that really pisses me off is that MD has zero interest in seeing her grandchildren. She does of course, for precisely 90 minutes every time she comes to Melbourne. At some stage she must have been told that 90 minutes is the minimum amount of time you can visit family and then leave without seeming rude. But I know even these visits are not so much to see the kids, but more so she can report back to her parochial, gossiping friends that yes, she too has seen her grandchildren. All her friends are doing it, and the only thing worse that having to spend time with noisy, sticky children, would be not doing what all your friends are doing. Although she still can't for the life of her understand why my five year old human hurricane doesn't want to sit and have a cup of tea and a nice chat with his nanna. Go figure.

And yet, despite acknowledging that he doesn't like his mother, doesn't respect her, hates spending time with her and has to drink a double scotch just to get through a ten minute phone conversation with her, Hubby will still attempt to move heaven and earth to make sure Mommy Dearest gets what Mommy Dearest wants when she wants it. I, who have stood by him when we had nothing, ate two-minute noodles for months on end because that's all we could afford, carried and birthed him three beautiful children am declared unreasonable for suggesting that MD can simply go fuck herself.

So, I ask, what makes men think so differently to women? Why do they so fear telling the truth? They can start world wars from the safety of an office desk, but they seem unable to say, "Mum, why are you so selfish and self-absorbed? Would it be so hard to boil up some pasta for your daughter-in-law and grandkids?"

I know males aren't born that way – my eldest boy is, at the tender age of 8, far wiser than I am on a number of levels. So, what happens? Is it hormones? Is it societal roles that we just adapt to without even knowing it? Or is it the mothers themselves? Do mothers raise boys somehow differently, expecting more on some levels and infinitely less in regards to others? Or is it about the way some mothers represent themselves? Has Mommy Dearest knowingly raised a boy who has turned into a man who will never tell her the truth because she has marketed herself as fragile and unable to cope?

Whatever the reason I encourage male readers to make two solemn promises today. Promise the woman who continues to share your bed despite your flaws that you will always look up to see if the lights are on and look down to check for peanut-butter crusts.

Plastic Fantastic

I've got a friend. Actually, I had a friend. I now have someone who calls me asking to throw parties so she can sell her wares. This young woman - let's call her Plastic Fantastic, used to be a really good friend. We spent many a night watching bad movies, eating bowls of cookies n' cream ice-cream smothered in hot chocolate fudge and Baileys, drinking goblets of cheap red wine and gossiping and commiserating over one guy or another. She knew my husband and I before we were my husband and I, she has been auntie to my children. Then she met Mr You-Got-To-Spend-Money-To-Make-Money.

Mr You-Got-To-Spend-Money-To-Make-Money is constantly investing thousands of dollars, which by the way he does not have, in an attempt to make his fortune. He does not have the brains to realise that he has in fact already spent that fortune investing in the incredibly dodgy Fashion Slick who is taking him for all he's got - and a bit of what he doesn't have. Fashion Slick has convinced Mr YGTSMTMM to pay all his expenses while he lives overseas "designing" and "promoting" a range of the world's crappiest t-shirts - you know, the ones with skulls and graffiti font which Target sold in the late 1990s. Watching Mr YGTSMTMM around Fashion Slick is like watching the fat dork in the fourth grade who has been tossed a bone by the cool kids. "Oh my god! I'm sitting with the cool kids! This is soooo great. Okay, so I have to do their homework and give them my lunch money. But who cares? By sheer osmosis I will become cool by being near them, right?" Wrong.

Plastic Fantastic has changed considerably since meeting and marrying Mr YGTSMTMM. Mostly, she's become less financially secure as her beloved spends all her money. And her parents' money. And his own parents' money. She has decided that like her entrepreneurial hubby she doesn't want to work in the conventional sense. She's got a two year-old she believes would be irreparably harmed if he had to suffer through childcare with the rest of our pleb children. She doesn't want to rely on her mother-in-law to babysit while she's at work - although she seems happy to rely on her when she wants to shop, go out with friends, or when she just needs a break. In short - she's lazy. So, in lieu of the hum drum life of getting your arse to work to earn a buck, she's decided the best way to make up for the financial hole her husband is digging for them is to sell stuff.

Now, this in itself is not a bad thing. I have plenty of friends who have gone into business for themselves and I support all of them with my heart and soul. In fact, I am faintly jealous of those who have a marketable talent. However, none of these friends have ever asked me to sell stuff for them. Plastic Fantastic has gone from being a close friend who I could talk to for hours to the woman whose phone calls I now dread because they are always bound in what she wants me to do for her. She never calls to see how I am, to arrange to catch up for a drink or a coffee, she never wants to see a movie or go for a walk, she now wants to explain how she's calling on everyone she knows to support her during "challenge week".

I don't claim to be the world's greatest gal pal. I know I could be better at the whole "just calling to say..." thing. I recognise that often I become self-absorbed and forget about those around me - those who I love and cherish even if I'm unable to say it (but that's a whole other issue). However, I would like to think that I don't actively set out to take advantage of those who once relied on me for friendship. I would like to think that if I ever decided to abandon the classroom in favour of a new and not so exciting business venture I would seek my friends' emotional and mental support NOT their ability to sell my product of choice to their friends for me. I would like to think that I could attend a dinner party without talking non-stop about my new life as a plastic fantastic rep. I would like to think that I could call my friends and knowing it was me, they would still pick up the phone.