Wax on, Wax off

So no-one actually told me that a Brazilian was one of those things I had to do before I was thirty. Maybe its not. Maybe everyone just assumed I had already been there, done that. Maybe my friends just prefer not to think about my nether regions (a status quo I am happy to preserve).
But for whatever reason, I veered into "Snip n'Strip" today, and am a Brazilian virgin no more.
Step One - Say the words. Sneak it in there in between another request, if you need to. “I’d like an eyebrow shaping, please, a brazilian, and my upper lip”. See now, these people are professionals, they aren’t going to bat an eyelid. Plenty of women have a little facial hair.
Step Two - Resist the urge to turn and run. You can do this. Everyone up to and probably including Margaret Thatcher has had this done, and realistically, you do need more painful experiences in your personal compendium of Ouch, just so you can compare things with other people. (For example…Brazilian - worse than a tattoo, better than a three year old screaming in the seat next to you on a non-stop from Jakarta to Dehli).
Step Three- Get over the fact that the aesthetician/beautician/sadist is a size 3 and is about to see your inner thighs in all their glory. She’s obviously into pain, she’ll only get more of a kick out of the fact that you are embarrassed.
Step Four - Disrobe. Stare blankly at the moist towelette that she has handed you with the instructions to ’Wipe’, with a vague gesture to the portion of your body between your chin and your knees, realising it was not intended to cover such a large surface area. Oh. Right. Wipe. Gotcha.
Step Five - Discover that the foot of the table faces the door, which opens into a full waiting room, which in turn leads to a crowded shopping mall. Realise this before the Wax Wielding Warrior Princess returns. Wrap yourself tightly in the provided sheet to resemble an Egyptian mummy.
Step Six - Drift into a vague trance, musing on the fact that the Egyptians were one of the first civilisations to wax many parts of the body…wondering what that stuff is in that pot over there….finding out that indeed it is sticky, and doesn’t seem to want to come off your hand….removing any stray hairs from the inside of your left elbow, your right hand, and the sheet in the process.
Step Seven - Attempt not to have a heart attack when Mistress Pain flings the door open. Remember, adrenaline is your friend.
Step Eight - OK, there is no getting around it. This is not going to be dignified. Nothing that involves another person snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves and putting your ankle on their shoulder is intended to be dignified. Close your eyes and think of your happy place.
Step Nine - That buzzing you hear/feel is her using a pair of clippers to remove excess hair. Please come back down from the ceiling.
Step Ten - Yes, that is hot. That is very, very, very hot. That is hot in a place where hot really doesn’t belong. Try to remember that if you attempt to run now, your legs will be glued together with wax, and you will fall into the waiting room (crowded, remember?) like a lassoed calf. A lassoed calf with no pants on. I don’t advise it.
Step Eleven - Happy place, happy place, happy place, happy plAAAWOOOOO HOLY MOTHER OF DEAR FUCK!!!!!!!!!
Step Twelve - Grit your teeth, try to smile, and squeeze out the words “That wasn’t too bad” to Madam Snatch n’Grab when she asks how you are doing. Show no weakness.
Step Thirteen - Repeat steps 10-12 as needed for the duration
Step Fourteen - Try not to look completely bewildered when she asks you to roll over and “spread em” . She is not about to search you for smuggled contraband. You wish.
Step Fifteen - Repeat step eleven, this time with feeling.
Step Sixteen - Thank the nice lady. (she can hear you mumbling under your breath, and for all you know she does speak German. I’m sure her mother is lovely, really.)
Step Seventeen - Pay. No soap, no moisturiser, no nookie. Got it. Smile, you made it, its over, you did good kid.
Step Eighteen - Walk to the door, with the slow realisation that any tiny bits of wax that are left are going to randomly rip any stray hairs/skin you may have left out for the next twenty four hours.
Step Nineteen - Repeat in 4-6 weeks.

Looping the Loop

The Boy was given an aerobatic flight for his birthday, and when we woke up to sun and blue skies yesterday, we hassled Ray, the pilot, mercilessly until he agreed to meet us at the airport. I pictured myself spending the afternoon lounging on the deck outside the airport café, watching Boy as he was put through the paces, glass of wine in hand, ready for resuscitation if he stumbled out of the plane weak kneed and white with fear.
Instead I found myself signing up to do a flight as well. And then the fear really began. Butterflies the size of parakeets flooded my stomach, and I felt my hands beginning to shake, as Will, our safety instructor, detailed what was about to happen. What had I got myself into? Waiting for the others to go first nearly killed me, but inevitably, there was no avoiding it. I too had to stand on the scales, and have my weight read out to the room.
With the worst over, I practically ran to the plane, squirming my way into the front seat of the Pitts Special, and donning authentic flight helmet and aviators. I whooped enthusiastically into the intercom as we took off and did a few preparatory banks and turns, pushing my lungs somewhere into the region of my knees.
And then…then the first flip upside down. When it suddenly dawned on me that, due to the confined nature of my seat, and the fact that most of the buckles were between my legs, the actual securing of the harness had been left up to me. Yes, someone had told me which bits clicked where and what to pull to tighten, and there had even been several good yanks on various sections to make sure they were on. But I was upside down. With that harness (and a flimsy bit of plastic canopy) between me and the deep blue sea.
At that point, I abruptly abandoned the ‘weeeeeeee!’ and instead gripped onto the harness for dear life. With something of a muffled ’meeuuuuuphh!’ noise . Until another thought struck (and yes, we were still upside down) what if there was some kind of quick release system and I accidentally pulled it? The ‘meeuuuuuuph!’ increased slightly in pitch and volume, as we flipped right side up again. But then…then the looping and rolling and plunging headfirst at the waves began, and with the security of centrifugal forces pushing comfortingly against me, I giggled and cackled like a kid on a sugar high.
I think Ray thought this might have indicated hysteria, rather than glee, but each time he asked if I was ok, and up for more, I gave the 'ok' signal with both hands (wrenching them away from the harness, to which they still appeared to be glued), and we zoomed into another 6G plummet.
Fear factor? Pure blood fizzing exhileration aplenty. A few seconds of absolute terror until I realised that I had, in fact, managed to put the harness on correctly.
Fun factor? Sky high.

29.4

Little more than six months lie before me before I hit the third decade. Your twenties, people assure me, are the time for having fun, for getting the crazy out of your system, for 'living a little'.
I think I've done a couple of important things (get a degree, build a career, learn how to make pancakes), and I seem to have ticked off what most lists on the internet hold vital (visit another country, kiss a boy, maybe, like, have sex omg!!!!). But I still thought I should check with my near and dear to see if I had anything left to achieve. And apparently, yes, yes I do.

1) Sky diving. Now I have to say, I don’t really see what the entire point of this is. I suspect it’s a little bit of population control, or Darwinism in action. In fact, I think it’s a government plot to reduce superannuation. Yeah. A conspiracy. Damn the Man.
2) Drink absinthe - I have a feeling absinthe is like the 60s. If you remember drinking it, then you probably made the whole thing up. If you think you never drank it, but do recall this night where you made great friends with a magic rhino who wore tapshoes…well yes, you may have drunk absinthe.
3) Get married in Vegas - because we all want to be a little bit Britney.
4)Break a bone - does it have to be one of my own? Can I maybe combine this one with number 1 or 2?
5) Have a song written for/about me - going to have to go hang out with music school dropouts, aren't I? I can drink absinthe with them, and they'll write a song about the fish in my eyes, and the way my blue hair sambas in the light from the dairy.
6) Read ‘War and Peace’. I can do this while I am recuperating with my broken bone.
7) Imitate ‘Sex and the City’. I’m choosing to interpret this as owning at least one pair of Manolos or Jimmy Choos. Thanks for the heads up, Felix.
8) Have a third child for Australia - The Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, urged Australians last year to do their "patriotic duty" and have "one [child] for your husband, and one for your wife, and one for the country. Well…as long as its for Australia. (Does that mean I can sue Australia for child support?)
9) Go to a life drawing class - yes, what indeed could be more young, fun, or crazy than drawing nude stick figures?
10) Climb Everest - ok, fairly sure there is someone out there with a death wish for me. Not only have I never climbed anything higher than the steps in an Imax theatre, the only safe window for climbing Chomolungma is in May, and I hit the big three o in January. Add to that the cost (nearly $100,000 ) and my inability to recognise the difference between a crevasse, a crampon, and a karabiner, and I think I can safely write this one off.
11) Shave your head. (What's with the Britney, people?)

Shorter

I wrote a story in my dream the other night, and all I can remember was that the beginning started "Herbert was thirty five and dressed it. He had spent much of his twenties preparing the not so silent art of old manhood - the hack and hoik, and the meaningful sniff, not to mention the muttering at inanimate objects - and now felt he could finally start to put it all to good use. 'The time' he said 'is right for plaid.'" And I can't remember the rest. I can't even remember if Herbert was to be my protaganist, or simply some random stranger (serving to start a scene, you see) to be killed off on page three (enter our wandering hero). But that's dreams for you. Ephemeral whosiewhatsits. Flowing through cupped hands like...you know. Stuff.
I used to think Camp Freddie was like Camp David. Somewhere the President went to relax and get back to nature. I suppose it still could be, really....
Saturday was full of the joys of fried foods and fermented beverages. Sunday began the time of mourning and rage, fasting and thin strips of humanity roasting over open fires. And today - today begins a blue underwater time of waiting. Counting ripples of information as they pass over my head and leave a shadow on the sandy floor of my brain. Little fish (the music guppies, remember?) swimming in the warm spot near where memories of red formica and Hawaii lie. Blue green. Algaefied. If I wait long enough this may become the evolutionary soup. With noodles.

Cheers

To the man who pulled his car over in the pouring rain, to dash across traffic and remove the upturned supermarket trolley lying in the middle of the opposite lane -
I'm sorry I glared at you when you hit your hazard lights and swung your car of the side of the road - I didn't see why at first. I hope you realise the smile I gave you as you ran across the road in front of my car was intended as a 'Thank-you' for doing such a nice, sensible, good thing. Not just because you had a cute bum and looked hot with rain slicked hair. I hope you heard me shouting 'You're my hero!' through the window and over the traffic noise.
You're lovely. And you looked like sex on legs. I hope good things happen to you.

In other news, boo hiss to colds. My vocab seems to be reduced to 'Uuughg' and *sniff*. I apparently sound like a Southern Belle on valium, and feel like my head is the size of one of those ginourmous pumpkins that turn up sporadically in the newspaper. As sort of an 'Oooh, look at the size of Mr Albert Fletcher, 76, 's pumpkin. Mr Fletcher has been growing pumpkins since the Boer War, and believes this is the largest yet. He says the secret is regular mulching, and burying his dead budgies in the pumpkin patch' filler for when there's no news.

Oh kom op scheidsrechter!

I've been musing on this for some time. I've tried listening quietly, intently, like I was at Bletchley Park in the 40's trying to figure out Enigma. I've tried singing along loudly and with enthusiasm, channeling my inner Brighton boy band and hoping the words will automatically flow out of me. I've asked other people's opinions, hoping someone in nuhziland can interpret britspeak. (Not unless it refers to sport, it appears. Kiwi fans are able to repeat 'Aw, come on ref!' in at least five languages, and perform the haka in nearly 30 english dialects, but would be unable to ask directions to the nearest library in Leatherhead or Statford on Avon.)
I refuse to resort to looking it up on Lyrics.com or its ilk. The last time I did that, I went around singing about stoic squirrels in Alanis Morissette's 'Uninvited'.
What the hell are the lyrics!?!
I know, she knows, that I'm not from the right school...
I know, she knows, that I'm not a fond rascal...
I know, she knows, that I'm not the Fonz on skis...

Aagh!

Blatant prejudice.

I am terrified. I am about to reveal the secret inner working of my soul here. Unbeknown to any, I have a small 'meeehh' to reveal. (Meeehh is pronounced in 'small squished meerkat trying hard not to let anyone else know its been squished' voice)
Ok. Here we go. Deep breaths, deep breaths.

I don't like Dutch people.

I know, I know, in todays PC society, the shock and horror you must be feeling right now to hear someone proclaiming her dislike for an entire nation of people. Allow to me to explain.
- First there was the crazy Dutch lady and her farmer husband who went insane (er) on me during my farm work experience, and chased me off the farm wielding a shotgun for asking no more than 'So, what are we doing today?"
- Then there was my flatmate K's husband A, who shagged round behind her back with various interbimbos. Dutch. (Him. Not sure about interbimbos).
- Every single dutchoid I have ever met has a bizarre sense of humour. Which seems to come across as a bizarre *lack* of humour, normally expressed in a clipped, curt, dutchy accent. It freaks me out. Seriously,maybe it's not so bad in A'dam when they can have all the pot and canals they want, maybe overseas they are suffering from tulip and clog deficiency and it turns them into fucktards.
- Tulips. I mean,seriously. Fields and fields of freaky tulips, and they can't manage to make a black one. And they've been trying for some time. I hate failure.
- Rembrant. Actually, scratch that, let's say the entire class of Dutch Masters. Paintings that only belong in a brown cafe, because they looked like they've alredy been smoked at for five hundred years. Brown, murky, realist paintings of ugly flowers, dead pheasants, and ugly dead people. Oh, also add horrible tiles and porcelain.
- Dykes. Small boys with fingers in. Canals. The entire fact that nature wants this country entirely under water should tell you something.
- The Dutch. Live in The Netherlands. Also known as Holland. What the Prague? They should be the Dutch from Dutchland, the Nethers from the Netherlands, or the Hollish from Holland. Seriously folks.

I will concede windmills, salt licorice, and cheese as exceptions to this rule.