Need some last-minute gift ideas? Or possibly just a giggle at the expense of the poor?

Well, the Onion A.V. Club is here to help! And if you need any more encouragement than knowing that it comes to you from the minds behind The Onion, I submit the following quote:

Either way, it’s kind of a disappointing mess, as games centered on catching fish vomit so often are.

XOXO

Enter the Confessional #4: ID Parade

(It's up to you to determine if that 'D' should be lower-case.)

Through a convoluted series of events that I won't even bother trying to explain in depth, beyond:

Equation 1
fervent homesickness + pain-in-the-ass Lawyer +
quiet Sunday evening alone in the flat =
bad televisual decisions

I have become infatuated with 'McLeod's Daughters'. It's on NetFlix - it got picked up Stateside a while back by one of those estrogen-fueled basic cable channels that usually specialises in made-for-TV movies starring the mom from 'Family Ties', and I guess it got enough of an audience to justify making it available - and last weekend it showed up at the arse-end of my recommended viewing list. On a whim I decided to have a look... and now it's five days later, I've got through 30+ episodes, and while the initial shine is starting to wear off, I'm still thoroughly enmeshed.

To make matters worse, I am also a little bit in love with Claire McLeod. Not in a TV crush way, though there is a bit of that:

Equation 2

[(butchy walk + Bonds singlets + deep voice) * covered in dirt]/

vague facial expression resemblance to The Canberran Who Shagged Me =
CATNIP

No, this is more in line with a recurring pattern of mine: wildly overidentifying with a fictional character.

I've done this for... well, most of my life, I reckon. It will usually (but not always) be a character from a book I love; this (usually-but-not-always) book will resonate with me in some objectively ridiculous fashion; and, critically, the specific character will have qualities that I desperately want for myself. I will often end up adopting some bizarre trait of that character, though it's usually something fairly minor and definitely something that isn't obviously connected to anything. This is fortunate, because it means that the manias generally pass unnoticed: I am unlikely to get whatever the current version of 'The Rachel' is, for example. It's subtler than that, assuming that the word subtle can ever be applied to me without an audible question mark at the end.

So with all that in mind, here's the chronological starter's guide to my multiple personalities:

Name: Velvet Brown

Book: National Velvet by Enid Bagnold

Trait: Crunchies

I don't remember how old I was when I read National Velvet for the first time. I got it as a gift from my aunt Franny, part of a beautiful blue leather-bound set of four totally mismatched books: National Velvet, Harriet the Spy, Catcher in the Rye, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It took me years to pick up Velvet, but when I finally did I *loved* it. I still have that copy somewhere, and it's shot to hell: pages folded down, leather cover warped, the whole thing expanded out to four times its original size from having been dropped in the bath and dried out so many times.

The Brown girls were always getting 'sweets' 'on tick'. They ate Fry's and Cadbury's chocolates by the bucketful, talking with special rapture about the chocolate-covered honeycomb Crunchie. They liked the ones that were a bit underdone so they were chewy in the middle. Totally foreign to me... until I was 13, on a layover in Shannon Airport in Ireland. It was early morning and I was hungry, but nothing appealed to me through the haze of jet lag. And then I saw the heap of shiny gold wrappers in the middle of a Cadbury's display, and I raced up to my mother and babbled inarticulately about 'Velvet's favourite'. I bought one, and I still remember the first bite: the thin layer of chocolate was sweet and creamy, and the honeycomb(esque) centre was smoky and crumbly and just amazing. An addiction was born.

Name: Nickel Smith
Book: Bingo by Rita Mae Brown
Trait: down-home Southern bitchery
NIckel Smith appears in three of Brown's books, but Bingo is the one that counts. Nickel serves as Brown's appointed voice (all of her novels feature someone who's a thinly-veiled version of herself), which means that she gets most of the good lines, including some first-class Southern sniping. Lines that have made it into heavy rotation include, '[he]'s got resonance where his brains should be', 'you look like the dogs got at you under the porch', and '[she] couldn't help being born ugly but she could have stayed home'.

Name: Mikage Sakurai
Book: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Trait: katsu-don, motherfucker

I can't remember when I first read Kitchen: I think it was when I was in college, but I'm not sure. The copy I've had for years has gone missing sometime in the last year - I lent it out and forgot to whom, as I've done many times, but this time it didn't come back to me - and I'll have to get another copy soon because it's been too long since I last read it. It's short, more of a novella than a novel, but it's full of small details that I have loved since whenever that first reading was.

The climactic scene centres around a bowl of katsu-don, a Japanese dish consisting of crumbed pork and sauteed onions over rice, with hot broth poured over it and an egg cracked over it that cooks in the broth. But I realise that my description is unflatteringly prosaic, so I'll turn it over to Yoshimoto:

This katsu-don, encountered almost by accident, was made with unusual skill, I must say. Good quality meat, excellent broth, the eggs and onions handled beautifully, the rice with just the right degree of firmness to hold up in the broth - it was flawless.

When I first read Kitchen, I had not yet had katsu-don. But it didn't matter: when I read that paragraph, katsu-don skyrocketed to the top of my comfort food list. Don't get why? Read it again, slowly. Everything you could want from comfort food is right there. It's warm, flavourful, substantial. It is perfect. I wanted it.

I didn't get the opportunity to try it for a long time, but when I did, I got lucky: I happened into the best version anywhere in Sydney. It was at Don Don ('Don x 2') on Oxford Street. I went there with my ex Thy-Anh and a few of her friends. I didn't know much about Japanese food at that point: I hate seaweed so sushi was off-limits, and I hadn't explored any other dishes. But this night they really wanted Japanese and I was assured that there would be non-sushi things for me to have, so I went along. It never even crossed my mind that katsu-don might be on the menu, but there it was. I was beside myself.

When the bowl appeared in front of me a few minutes later, I was nervous: I had wanted it for so long and had built it up to so much in my head that if it wasn't good, it would actually hurt my heart. But no, it was everything I had hoped and more. It was like this meal was custom-built for me. It was, as Yoshimoto said, flawless.

Name: Serena van der Woodsen
Book/TV show: 'Gossip Girl'
Trait: ridiculously long strands of pearls (and also perfume, kind of)

Some things fall into your lap when you really need them. Serena van der Woodsen fell into mine, courtesy of recaps of the TV show by the sublime Jacob Clifton*. I've never seen the show, and at that point I hadn't read any of the books, but Jacob's recaps stand alone in their awesomeness and familiarity with the subject is unnecessary. (He has also recapped several seasons of 'American Idol', and ditto for that.) This means that my introduction to Serena came through the recaps, and I was hooked from the fucking first.

Serena van der Woodsen is beautiful, rich, mysterious, and universally adored. She's fundamentally kind and endlessly generous, but she will exact payment out of your ass if you're stupid enough to fuck with someone she loves. She is also utterly artless and has only recently learned How to Be Places. Serena van der Woodsen, in short, does not give a fuck.

In the first season, Serena wore insane strands of pearls wrapped all around herself in complicated ways. In an attempt to channel some of her glamour and total detachment from reality, I found myself a stupidly long string of something approximating pearls at Diva and started wearing them every way I knew how. And you know, it kind of worked, if only as a total placebo. I think there are assumptions that are made about a girl with pearls wrapped 18 times around her wrist, and they were assumptions I was entirely happy to have made about me at the time. (Those assumptions may also have existed entirely in my own head. I do not care.)

I was delighted to find out subsequent to declaring Serena my hero/ Oprahesque life guru that her 'signature scent' - specially created for her, of course - is a blend of patchouli and sandalwood with other warm accents. Many of you will know that the perfume I wear was specially created for me way back when I was 15. It too is a blend of patchouli and sandalwood with other warm accents. Clearly, we are soulmates. And don't you dare accuse me of stealing it from her, because she wasn't born when I first put mine on. It is just an incredible coincidence. Also, she's fictional and has never actually been born. I'm not so crazy that I don't know that.

I've since retired the pearls, though they're always close at hand and still make the occasional appearance if needed. The perfume, of course, is still with me daily.

* TWoP was one of my favourite sites for yonks. Unfortunately, Bravo bought them a few years ago and there were a lot of unfortunate changes, including the loss of many of the best recappers and a seizure-inducing new layout. Jacob stayed on but reading anything on the site is too much like hard work, so I embarked on a ridiculous but thoroughly rewarding project of copy-and-pasting all of his recaps into Word. Should any of you want seasons 1-4 of 'Gossip Girl' or seasons 4-6 and 10 of 'American Idol', let me know in the comments. You'll thank me. True.

Name: Claire McLeod
TV show: 'McLeod's Daughters'
Trait: silver star necklace

This is the one I'm most embarrassed about, with good reason. First of all, it's the one I'm wearing at the moment, so talking about it makes me feel way more exposed than any of the others do. More importantly, though, it's embarrassing because it means admitting that I watched 'McLeod's Fucking Daughters'. I say 'watched' because in the weeks since I started writing this post, I finished the first three seasons and have officially given it up. I knew that Claire got killed off at the end of the third season and I promised myself that I would chuck it once that happened; fortunately, the show had become so ridiculous by then that it wasn't hard to stop. How ridiculous? Well, in a single third-season episode, Claire gave birth to her ex-boyfriend-who-was-still-married-but-didn't-tell-her's baby (and of course she'd told her ex that the baby wasn't his because... well, why not?) alone in the North Paddock, where she was found by her half-sister Tess thanks to the guidance of a faerie-folk-ish six-year-old... though Tess shouldn't have been out walking by herself because she'd just been rescued from near-drowning in a silo of organic wheat (that shit is like quicksand, but of course Tess didn't know that because she's from the city) and had aspirated some grain, which is a fucking problem that would land you in hospital for a stretch if you had any sense or didn't exist only on a crappy Australian bush drama.

This is not even the full story.

Anyway. I am comfortably in remission from 'McLeod's' now, but the necklace remains. Some of you may have seen it at some point; I got it very shortly before leaving Australia, at the same silver shop on King St. where my going-away ring and bracelet came from. It's very plain, just a small silver star on a short black rubber cord. It sits right below my throat and is exactly the right length for playing with while lost in thought... just the way Claire's always playing with the gold horseshoe necklace that her father gave her. (BEFORE HE DIED.)

I don't want to think the only reason I put it on for the first time in months was because I wanted to emulate the way a soapie character fiddles with her accessories; that would be unspeakably pathetic. I was having a particularly rough spot of homesickness, which may have made me reach for the necklace in the first place. I bought it as a souvenir for myself, so that makes some kind of sense. But I can't deny the coincidence of the timing, or of my sudden interest in touching it all the damn time.

In my defense, I will say that Claire is fucking awesome: tough, capable, take-no-bullshit, and with a core of pure red fury. She's stuck in a craptastic show for sure, and there are plenty of moments when the plots and dialogue go from eye-rollingly goofy to full-on ridiculous; but Lisa Chappell knows the heart and soul of her character, and even in the most maudlin situations manages to make Claire's reactions seem honest and consistent. (And her Kiwi accent only breaks through sometimes! That's acting.)

Claire's a bit of an exception: the other characters all come from books or TV shows I revisited over and over and over, while I cannot imagine ever wanting to watch 'McLeod's Daughters' again. But Claire had an impact on me and I'd be lying if I said she didn't. I'm wearing the necklace right now, for christ's sake... though I hope to have moved on by the next time I see anyone who reads this. It's embarrassing enough.


XOXO

Introducing: Colleen

There's someone I want you guys to meet. Her name's Colleen.

She's really nice, and she's smart, and funny. She's cute, too. She has a great dog, whose name is Simon. She likes football and wine and most of the food I cook. She's good at crossword puzzles and she makes the best popcorn I've ever eaten.

She's 34, and a little bit taller than me (but just a little bit). She has short brown hair that sometimes looks auburn, and hazel-blue eyes that sometimes look grey. She looks great in polo shirts and pretty much any kind of sweater. She has two pairs of Fluevogs. Her smile goes up a little more on one side than the other, and when she's distracted she winds her fingers through a bit of hair on the side of her head.

She likes some really good music and some really bad music and some surprisingly soft-cock cardigan music. She has the travel bug almost as much as I do. She swears like a sailor, or at least like an Australian. Oh, and she's a lawyer.

Actually, she's The Lawyer. You've met her before. But because she's now also My Girlfriend, I thought I'd better give her a real name.

You guys, I'm... it's pretty fucking great.

XOXO

Tiny Triumphs

So you'll all know by now that I've been working to lose weight for a while. It's now been a year since I started, and I'm celebrating my anniversary with a new accomplishment: I am right this second wearing a brand-new pair of size 6 jeans.

Size 6, people. 6.

To be fair, I'll note that these are size 6 'Curvy' jeans from the Gap, which means I'd be an 8 in anything else. But when I left Australia I was struggling into a size 10 of these jeans, and when I started losing weight I had got all the way up to a size 14 - they was a bit big for me, true, but the 12s were too small so I wasn't far off.

I don't know how much weight I've lost. I never, ever look at scales because I worked out a long time ago that the numbers only upset me - in my head, I'm a 43 kg Japanese teenager and anything that contradicts that makes me cry - so I go by my clothes. I'm at least a size smaller now than I was at my previous smallest, which was back in 2004 after my IBS was at its worst and my weight crashed down because I didn't eat for two or three months (funny how that works), but I'm not sure what that equates to. I've looked at some websites to try to work out how much weight lost equals a size lost; the consensus seems to be that the smaller you are, the less weight you need to drop to lose a size, and for small girls 8-10 lbs (3.5-4.5 kg) will bring you down a size. I reckon it would have been more for me, certainly at the start; but I think it'd be safe to say I've lost 20-25 kg.

I'm still a big girl. I don't think I ever won't be. I have too much thigh for my size, and no matter how much weight I lose it seems that that will always be the case. (According to a maternity/pedi nurse I work with, the only time women really lose weight off their thighs is when they breastfeed. Not worth it, but thanks for the information.) And I have a big ass, and tits that enter a room about 15 minutes before the rest of me, and while they're both a bit more proportionate to the rest of me now I'm never going to be without them unless I undergo an extensive series of liposuctions.

But the weird thing is that I keep catching myself in mirrors and not recognising my body. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I swear it's true: I'll be in the locker room at the gym and I'll see a reflection out of the corner of my eye, and I will have to look again to realise that it's me. I look at the clothes I can wear now and I can't believe I can fit into anything that size. I still feel way bigger than I actually am, and I don't know what to do about that. And I'm worried that I'll get really big again, because it's so fucking easy for that to happen. I hope that the changes that I've made will stick, but I could undo all of this work in a couple of bad months, and that's scary.

For now, though, I'm feeling good. I have very few clothes that fit me well, which is annoying, and I don't have money to replace them, which is even more annoying, but apart from that I'm fucking thrilled. My original goal was to lose the size and a half I put on when I moved home; I then changed it to lose another size after that, to bring me down to an 8, so that I was into single-digit sizes for the first time ever; but then I wanted to come down to a 6 in the jeans so I'd be an 8 in everything else. I'm here now, and I think I'm okay with staying here... for now. My next goal is to complete the American Lung Association Stair Climb in February: 41 stories, 82 flights, 789 steps. It sounds like a goddamn nightmare, but I wanted something to train for; I can't run or cycle because they both fuck my back, and I already know I can walk for ages without a problem, so I needed something else and this seemed like a good place to start. It means doing a lot of stairclimbing cardio and endurance work at the gym, and I'm hoping that even if it doesn't help me lose more weight/inches off my thighs, it might at least help me build up more muscle there so I look more toned - which would be a nice thing to have in place for the weekend after the Stair Climb, when I'll be flying down to sunny Florida to try to catch a bit of sun... oh, and to meet The Lawyer's family.

So yes, some things are changing.

XOXO

Works in Progress

I've been working on a big post for a couple of weeks, but because work and Other Things are keeping me quite busy at the moment it's blowing out into a project with no clear end in site, so I've decided to put up a little something in the meantime.

Thanksgiving was last Thursday, and I missed you guys a lot. As nice as it is to have it with my family (and not to have to cook two bloody turkeys and my weight in stuffing), it will never be as fun as it is in Sydney. The warm weather, the franticness (franticity?), the running all over Erskineville with half-cooked birds because my oven died in the ass... they were fucking good times.

Anyway, a couple of people e-mailed me saying that at this time of year they missed my pumpkin pie. I figured that this at least is something I could provide from the other side of the world, so long as you-all promise not to miss me any less because you can make it without me. :)


XOXO

Best Pumpkin Pie
(Cook’s Illustrated)

2 cups (16 oz/4.4 kg) butternut pumpkin puree*
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup double cream
2/3 cup milk
4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 400˚F (205˚C). Blind-bake pie crust in pie pan for 5-10 minutes or until just a touch golden.

Process first 7 ingredients in a food processor fitted with steel blade for 1 minute.

Transfer pumpkin mixture to a 3-quart heavy-bottomed saucepan; bring it to a sputtering simmer over medium-high heat. Cook pumpkin, stirring constantly, until thick and shiny, about 5 minutes.

When crust is done, whisk heavy cream and milk into pumpkin and bring to a bare simmer. Process eggs in food processor until whites and yolks are mixed (about 5 seconds). With motor running, slowly pour about half of hot pumpkin mixture through feed tube. Stop machine and scrape in remaining pumpkin. Process 30 seconds longer.

Immediately pour warm filling into hot pie shell. (Ladle any excess filling into pie after it has baked for 5 minutes or so — by this time filling will have settled.) Bake until filling is puffed, dry-looking, and lightly cracked around edges, and center wiggles like gelatin when pie is gently shaken, about 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for at least 1 hour, and serve with homemade whipped cream (not ice cream - it doesn't seem to work well).

*To make butternut puree:
Peel and cube fresh butternut. Boil in lightly-salted water until soft but not breaking down. Drain off water, then mash or blend pumpkin until very smooth (it should look like baby food). Do NOT add any additional salt or other ingredients, as that will stuff up the rest of the recipe.

An Unhoped-for Return to Form

Or: Our Heroine Regards Her Intestines Once More.

As you might have guessed from the titles, I am in a bit rough shape at the moment. The ol' IBS has resurrected itself from the bowels of, well, my bowels, and let me tell you, I hadn't realised how much I hadn't missed it until it came back.

I think now that it started while I was in Barcelona: right when I got back I had some digestive unpleasantness for several days, and I had thought it was food poisoning. It cleared up eventually, but then a few weeks ago I overindulged slightly on awesome cocktails at Drink and ended up very sick indeed; then a few days later I was sick again after a totally reasonable amount of wine; and then this past Sunday night I was sick AGAIN after feeling off all weekend and avoiding alcohol altogether... and now I'm finally connecting the dots. The painful, bloated, vomit-covered dots.

I had a bit of a cry last night at my mom because I was - and am - scared that this will be as bad as and last as long as the first time. The first time that lasted months and months, and was painful and embarrassing and limiting, and meant that I didn't feel comfortable leaving the house for any period of time in case Something Happened. I can't bear the thought of my already limited social life suddenly crashing down that much more.

But after a lovely Halloween with my family, Caitlin's family, and Colleen and her awesome dog Simon, followed by a good night's rest, I woke up this morning feeling heaps better about everything. I know what's wrong with me; I know it's not going to do me lasting damage; I know how to deal with it. It might take a few weeks or even longer to settle down fully, but that's okay. I'll drink lots of peppermint tea, and avoid anything carbonated or alcoholic. I'll eat very carefully and in small amounts. I'll restrict myself to soup and chicken and pureed fruit, all with minimal preservatives. I'll be on the three-bite rule: whenever I feel I can, I'll eat three bites of something I know is safe. I'm aiming for once an hour so long as I feel well, and today it seems to be working: so far I've had two 3-bites of a bread roll and three 3-bites of applesauce, and while it's not what you'd call satisfying, I also don't have much of an appetite so it's okay. In fact, that becomes one of the hardest things to deal with: when I feel like this, I don't want to eat and I'm often afraid to eat, and not eating anything only makes it worse - and then when I do feel well, I eat too much and it makes it worse all over again. But three bites? I can usually manage three bites, even when I don't feel great; and I know that I shouldn't have more than that right now, so I won't overdo it.

So that's that, for now. It's an overshare, and I wish it were better news, but... well, it feels good to talk about it and have my plan written down, so you're all helping me with that. :)


XOXO

Another two fucking months?!

I clearly don't understand how time works. That's the only excuse I can come up with.

Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes! Spain was awesome, and I would recommend Barcelona as a birthday destination to anyone. The weather was spectacular, the food defies description, and the architecture would break your heart. I'm planning a return trip very soon.

I also had a pre- and post-birthday presents in the forms of Paul's visit at the start of September and Rob and Irena's visit at the end. My friends are besotted with my Australian guests, and I strongly encourage you all to keep coming and besotting them.

Apart from all of the excitement, things here are going... well, they're going. I'm still really struggling to find my niche. It's bloody hard trying to settle into a new life at this age and by myself. I actually think it would have been easier if I'd gone somewhere entirely new, because it's really easy to be complacent here when I know the city so well. It wouldn't have been at all feasible, of course - I needed the material support that people in Boston could offer me - but it's deceptively hard because I feel like it should have been easier to settle back into somewhere I know, when in fact I've lived my entire adult life elsewhere and I don't have the slightest idea how anything works, but I also don't have any obvious markers of foreign-ness so people expect me to get it. It's... I don't know. It's not easy.

On the other hand, though, I'm really trying not to dwell too much on this stuff. It's hard, as I have a dwelling-oriented brain and not nearly enough to occupy/distract it at the moment, but I'm trying to do some power-of-positive-thinking things. Like, I've decided to allow myself to spend up to $15/week on nice, (usually) tropical flowers for the house. They make me happy, and happy is worth $15. And I'm trying to find something beautiful in every situation - like, actively looking for it. Right now I'm at my desk at work, so there's not much immediately in front of me (except a bottle of mannequin lubricant, which is... I mean, I have the *most* ridiculous job), but I'm able to find something in most places, and that seems to help. I at least feel like I'm trying, so that's good.

Things with The Lawyer are officially off again. It's... guys, it's rough, I'm not going to lie. Paul met her, and Rob and Irena met both her and The Chef; the verdict is that she's great (true), and The Chef is great (true), and... and I need to meet someone who is neither of them, because both situations are fundamentally busted (entirely, completely, 100% true).

I think a big part of this is that I need to meet new people full stop - I need to broaden my friend base - but it is bloody hard to do that at this age and in this situation. I've met a couple of people I like at work, but no one I want to pursue as an Outside Friend; and I love my belly dancing crew but most of them live outside of Boston (well outside) and aren't really viable options. If I were the sort of person who liked playing sports or going to bars to socialise with people I don't know? I'd be golden. However, I am neither of those people and I like neither of those things - in fact, both send waves of panic through me. So... seriously, what else? Please, suggestions. I need to find a way in.


XOXO