It's perhaps rather shameful that my entire night's work can grind to a halt when the ink cartridge in my beloved, rather crappy, fountain pen runs out, but I have no other pen (I am monogamous in that regard) and an entire stack of Factiva'd news items to scribble on, so tonight that's the way the cookie crumbles.

So I turned to my swollen to do list to find and found this:

'Blog entry on Pikelet (like sitting in the back seat of your parents' car listening to Peter and the Wolf, to use a Mel-ish turn of phrase), Lala and Shane ('I want to go sit right at the docks and watch the cranes.' 'Well, it's not safe... [kids from Laverton in their nice cars with their Croatian girlfriends retaining their virginity], 'I love a velvet singlet.' White asparagus, productive self-pity, and the drunk hairdresser)'

I'm quite tempted to leave it as it is. I've got to say it's rare for me to be so structured about my bloggerating as to put it on a to do list, but clearly at some point I thought the Pikelet album launch, Lala's wise, dry hilarity, the charming harrassment of bar staff and my own ever-present self doubt were rather important.

So... I have been listening to Pikelet's album ever since the show at Cloud City. That is a good thing. After I tagged along with the Chlo to have drinks with Lala and her Mr Shane. Lala is one of my favourite people. We met when she began going out with my (now former) housemate. She ran into some real estate issues and came to stay with us for a while. Usually having a housemate's partner move in is a recipe for disaster, but I really don't know what I would have done without the good lady Lala. She came along right when I entered what can best be described as a three month long karmic fart, one I probably wouldn't have emerged from so quickly without her compassion, kindness and good humour. Out of anything Lala has the same TV watching philosophy that I have, which is that TV viewing is a discursive activity, where the action on screen is really only there to facilitate whatever clever things the viewers have to say.

Clearly there was the odd hilarious anecdote thrown around that evening, but I truly can't remember what the kids from Laverton have to do with anything. I do remember Lala's Sydney-based business partner Mr Shane heckling the glassie by calling out, 'oh, I love a velvet singlet,' but I don't remember why that is important.

Well, that's one thing off the to do list, at least.

You know, I'd really like it if I had a body part I could refer to as 'the squids,' so I could say things like 'oh no! I've been kicked in the squids!' Sadly, I'm not a man. I have no penis (but I do have a mighty phallus). Could this be patriarchy in action?

Apropos of nothing, I've long imagined that my uterus might look like a squid lolling around in a bucket, but that's neither here nor there, and I would really prefer if no one kicked my uterus as I may use it in the future.

There's a copy of the Encarta Thesaurus sitting on the desk next to me in the library. For a second I wonder why anyone would consider a thesaurus with the Microsoft logo on the cover to be any kind of authority. Then I realise that I haven't used a dictionary that wasn't either a talking paper clip or in widget form since primary school.

I'm also becoming judgemental in my old age.

Today is all about growing old.

I'm starting to get really annoyed when people ask if my vertical labret hurt.

So much so that when a shopgirl asked me that the other day, pointing to her own lip, leaning in to my face with the wide-eyed, brow-furrowed expression such a question demands, I snapped 'that's something of a redundant question, don't you think?' I don't think she knew what I meant but she didn't pursue it. I immediately felt bad about being something of a cow and explained that it didn't, not really. I didn't buy anything from her, though.

My, but I'm becoming a bit stroppy in my old age.

Talking with someone today I've realised that I can't talk about what I do during the day (I think they call it working?) without itemising what exactly I did. I didn't just sit aimlessly in the library pecking at the great Akira-esque fleshmound that is this thesis, I re-drafted two sections of The Cunting Application, read some articles and wrote swear words in some book on... anyway, you get the picture. I swear I'm not trying to be a bit painful, it's all unconscious. I reckon there are two reasons for this. Firstly, lately I spend my days without any other human company. It's hard to get motivated and I have to employ every Pavlovian, hacky trick in the book to not just sit on the couch picking my toenails watching 'Gilmore Girls.' One of those is a relentless itemisation of everything that must be done, otherwise those things won't ever get done.

Secondly, sometimes I really doubt that I'm doing anything of worth at all. Why didn't anyone tell me the first semester of this business is just like being an unemployed person, but with a student card? Perhaps I'm trying to remind myself, out loud, that things do happen in those long hours in the library.

Le sigh.

I kind of wish I had a real job.

Zombies are running
America's arsed it up
Hey, that guy from 'Oz.'

I know it sounds bitchy, but I know, in my heart of hearts, that I will never truly understand anyone who wears Crocs.

When Antony Hegarty's honeyed, quavering voice emerged in 'The Dull Flame of Desire' the hairs on my neck stood on end. Reviews be damned. I'll be listening to this for days on end.

'Will you show me some Matthew Barney?'
'No. You have nothing but scorn in your heart for Matthew Barney. You won't get it and you'll make fun of him.'
'I won't, I promise. I'll give up my scornful ways and have an open mind.'
'Well, okay. So long as you have an open mind.'

...

'Why is that man eating that sheep?'
'I don't know.'
'Is he a giant?'
'Yes, he's a giant.'
'Oh. What's that rock thing peeking between his legs?'
'I don't know.'
'Does that rock thing represent Matthew Barney's cock?'
'I don't know.'
'Oh. Well, what about that thing?'
'I don't know. I don't think so.'
'What about that stern Madonna-like woman with the thing on her nose?'
'Eugh. I don't know.'

...

'Why is that man biting that pole?'
'I don't know.'
'Hee.'
'What?'
'Pole.'

...

'So you're saying that thing doesn't represent Matthew Barney's cock?'
'Yes.'
'Well, what about that thing?'
'I don't know.'
'And that thing?'
'I don't think so.'
'Is that cheetah lady, like, a metaphor for a vagina dentata or something?'
'Sigh.'

I'd actually quite like to see more of Matthew Barney's inexplicable work, if only so I can ask a series of maddening and inane questions throughout. It should be said that at least two knowledgeable art-types have slammed my ill informed dislike of Bjork's Yoko recently, so perhaps I should bite my tongue. But, still. Glass leg lady? Clambering about the Guggenheim as though you're playing some kind of elaborate game of 'the floor is made of lava'? Creepy Rockettes? I don't know, I really don't know.

A while ago a friend told me she feels inspired by that Special K ad, you know, the one where they encourage women to 'take time for themselves' by going on long runs and buying blueberries for their cereal in the morning. For some reason I couldn't quite put my finger on that ad squicked me out, and I've been thinking about it ever since. I think I've finally figured out at least one way to articulate why, exactly, the Special K ad pisses me off so.

Firstly, why is it that men are never prevailed upon to set aside 'me' time in ads? Is it that men are stoic enough to need no bracketed off 'me' time, or is it that, for the mythical man addressed by TV advertisers, every time is 'me' time, every activity in the service of a robust and singular self? The problem with 'me' time is that it suggests that every other time is not-me time, time spent in service of others. The Special K ad assumes a priori that, of course, women must be forever putting others before themselves, dedicating themselves to the needs and desires of partners, friends, children and relatives who can scarcely be expected to reciprocate. By calling on women to 'think of themselves' the Special K ad reinforces that, not only should women be expected to look after everyone else, they should do so with no expectation of being cared for themselves. Look after your kids, the ad says, your husband, your co-workers, you friends, and then, at the end of the day, look after yourself, too, because no one else will do it for you.

Moreover, the 'me' time prescribed by the Special K ad is, depressingly, dedicated to maintaining an appropriate appearance. The woman who 'remembers herself' remembers to exercise her ass into shape and eat the 'right' kind of food. Call me crazy, but waking up at dawn to hit the gym, then meditatively chewing down a bowl of Special K and blueberries doesn't sound like a particularly good time. Another friend once told me she spent her last New Year's alone in her studio drinking and masturbating. Now that sounds like 'me' time I could get into. My version of 'me' time usually involves swanning around the living room watching 'Australia's Next Top Model' and doing my nails. Somehow I don't think Kellogs can tie their product into that.

But, of course, the woman the Special K ad seems to be addressing isn't really a real woman. She's a fiction, designed to induce as much guilt as possible. She says to the viewer 'oh, you poor dear, you take care of everyone else, all the time. At least you should. Because that's what good women do. But, go on, take some time for yourself. Remember you. Take that fat ass out for a run. Buy yourself a $6 punnet of blueberries instead of your usual bag of Cheezels and cleanskin of cheap red wine. Go on. You deserve it.'

Well, fuck you, Special K. I know bitching about advertising is like shooting fish in a barrel, but come on, there are better ways to sell things. Beer advertisers catapault deer into the sky and send collections of be-robed men running through the New Zealand wilderness. Sony does surprisingly touching things with coloured balls and that Jose Gonzalez cover of 'Heartbeats.' Either of those are preferable to the construction of rather complex ideological Rube Goldberg devices out of slightly overexposed shots of tastefully clad women jogging and smiling into their cereal. Not that it matters. Special K tastes like bum, anyway.

So I bought 'The Monthly' today out of misguided habit and, also, because, sitting next to magazine files full of old copies of Cosmo and Marie Clare they make me appear at least moderately curious about the world, and, lo and behold, Anne Manne thinks something is terribly wrong with the People of Today. In her words, we're all terribly, terribly lonely. Except her, of course. She's got a husband.

In her words:

Loneliness is the malady of love in the age of freedom. Who will watch over us when our crutch falls to close to the edge of a path? That so many in our company are lonely is part of hte way we live now.

Manne begins her downright maudlin article by musing on the tenderness of her physiotherapist's hands after she injures her ankle. What would it be like, she wonders, if she didn't have the benefit of her devoted husband, and was 'so utterly alone in the world that the only time you felt the touch of a human being was when a podiatrist trimmed a corn?' And it goes down from there. Manne has nothing to say on the origins of apparent epidemic loneliness in our society, nor on what can be done about it. Rather, she vaguely attacks the rather predictable straw-man of a hazily defined feminism, commenting on the dreadful phenomena of childless women then quoting Virginia Haussegger's ill-informed and vicious attack on feminism. It appears that what Manne is really talking about are falling rates of marriage and the fertility rate, not loneliness per se, and I find her analysis simplistic and galling.

Manne comments on gendered differences in the experience of loneliness, citing childless women who just couldn't find a man to settle down with and men who were too blokey to seek social support, but she fails to criticise or contextualise these differences. Perhaps I'm asking for too much, it is just a short article, but after Malcolm Knox' remarkable and thoughtful article on the Dianne Brimble case from last year I would have thought 'The Monthly' would have the balls to really examine gender in Australia. It certainly appears that Manne is agreeing with Virginia Haussegger when she says

I am childless and I am angry. Angry that I was so foolish to take the word of my feminist mothers as gospel. Angry that I was daft enough to believe female fulfilment came with a leather briefcase. I was wrong. It was crap.

Sigh. There are at least two problems with this kind of feminism-bashing. Firstly, the whole 'mommy wars' dialogue out there is so full of shit I won't even go into how full of shit it is. There are a great many reasons why the fertility rate is slowing in the developing world, and savaging a largely de-fanged social movement that, really, barely made any substantial change in society is massively missing the point. Secondly, the backlash against feminism appears to radically overestimate the spread and influence of the feminist movement. Did Virginia Haussegger's feminist foremothers really roshambo her into a barren, besuited career, or did the expectations of her social class and historic moment push her in that particular direction? Or, could it be that all this rhetoric of 'choice' is ultimately hollow and meaningless?

Here you go, Anne Manne, a video of a pit bull dog licking some chickens. In the immortal words of many, fuck up, sooks.

And now for another chapter in the strange, sniff-my-glove relationship I have with my Maltese waxer...

I popped in this morning to get the eyebrows and eyelashes 'done,' which is to say waxed and dyed a more mysterious black, respectively. As I arranged my hair in such a way that it would not get waxed or made mysteriously black my Maltese waxer bent over me, frowned and said 'really, it is so nice to see you wearing a bit of makeup.' The 'for once' was not said, but, really, she didn't need to.

It should be said that I'm only wearing the little foundation and blush I wear most every day, and that a red pimple had emerged beneath my left eye in such a way as to be strangely evocative of a black eye. Honestly, some people would pay far more for the kind of service she gives. As she smeared hot wax between my eyes I squirmed uncomfortably, prompting her to remark 'you don't like it when I touch you near your eyes, don't you?'

Oh. She didn't quite say it in a smoky, breathy tone, but give it time. I think she half-expected me to respond with something like 'oh, yes, it's ever so awful when you touch my eyes! Please, please don't touch my eyes any more! I'm so very helpless and vulnerable here on your big white table in your little white cubicle!' Perhaps next time I go in I shall have to tell my Maltese waxer that, open-minded as I am, I don't quite roll like that.