Why Looks Matter, Though I Wish They Didn't

In a recent post I referenced a woman who had shamed a man who didn't find her attractive because she was fat. Very contentious stuff. And I've been thinking about it a lot since.

Attraction is important. We are not just brains - we are brains walking around in bodies with faces attached. Our bodies and faces are as much a part of who were are as our minds. And our brains have a tremendous influence on our bodies and faces. Think about it. What do you eat? How much do you exercise? How much makeup do you wear? What clothes do you choose? How do you do your hair? Do you have tattoos/piercings/weird feather type things sticking out from odd places? 

All of these decisions come from your brain, and will change your appearance accordingly.

But it works the other way, too. We are all born with a particular body - a body that can be altered to an extent, but not entirely. How tall or short we are, how conventionally attractive our features, our genetic predisposition to being thin or fat, any disabilities or illnesses, will all dramatically affect our personalities.

My last boyfriend.

We are a combination of mind and body. And when we meet other people, we are attracted to their particular combination of mind and body, or we are not. 

I don't really understand the science of attraction. I know that I can find classically good looking men remarkably uninteresting, and can be devastatingly attracted to men who would be more suited to the cover of Horse and Hound magazine than Men's Health. But I also know that I can have a visceral repulsion towards a man who may be perfectly pleasant in personality, but whose appearance triggers something negative in me. It may have nothing whatsover to do with traditional notions of beauty, but rather his appearance doesn't resonate with me for reasons I can't articulate.

Of course, attraction is fluid. We can find someone unattractive on first meeting, get to know them, and decide they're not so bad after all. I remember thinking a friend's husband was the least attractive man in the universe until I became friends with him, and realised he was nice looking after all. As I said, brains and body are inextricably connected.

But what to do when you're dating? And is judging people on their looks something we should feel bad about? Lana and I discussed these issues the other day. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Unattractive kids and why I'm a bad person and, well, bye...

Sometimes my opinion pieces trigger a flood of negative comments. I very rarely see these coming. I never write pieces to be controversial. I write what I believe, and usually I imagine that most people feel the same way.

So when Essential Kids asked me to write a piece about a woman who was worried because her child was unattractive, I was amazed by the response.

I discuss it with Lana below. And I apologise to Lana for the way I ended the video. It seemed reasonable at the time. Watching it over... well... I have never laughed so hard in my life.

 

this will make sense when you've seen the vid

The Huge Flaw in Online Dating

One of the tough aspects of being single (apart from, well, the loneliness, the sexual deprivation, the having-no-one-to-go-to-the-movies-with, and the talking to myself at night) is to learn about other people finding partners. It's not that you begrudge anyone else a love interest; it's just that you think, how come they can find someone, and I can't?

Charles Manson, for example. He has found a fiancee and I don't have a date for Saturday night. Do you know what that does to my ego? He is a serial killer with a swastika carved into his forehead and a life sentence for murder! Clearly I am doing this all wrong.

In reality, however, I have decided to take a break from dating for a while. But taking a step back  has given me some valuable perspective, particularly about the online scene. 

It is very difficult to meet people organically if it is not through contacts. I don't meet people through work contacts because I work from home, and there aren't many people here.  (Hang on... I hear something in the kitchen.... No, no, it's just the cat.) And I don't meet many people through friends because very few of my friends know anyone single who is even remotely suitable for me. So if I do want to meet people, I have to either hang out at pubs (and seriously? I'd rather eat my own bedsocks) or go online.

But there is a serious problem with online dating: it is inextricably tied to appearance. Now, here's the irony - I am not someone to whom appearance is particularly important. I have been madly in love with men who are not at all conventionally attractive. But that's because I had time to get to know them, and fell in love with them for their personality, and the attraction followed.

When you are dating online, you simply don't get that opportunity. You cannot possibly date everyone, and so you have to be selective. And how do you select? Most men give only the briefest of bios, so all you know is their age, educational status, suburb, whether or not they have kids, and a short tag line. If there is Bob, who you find physically unappealing on initial look, Phil, who you find physically unappealing on initial look, and John, whose appearance appeals, who are you going to pick? You'll pick John. 

Hello, John! Is it me you're looking for?

Now, it's possible that you would find Bob or Phil attractive if you went out with them several times and got to know them, but that's a huge amout of time to invest on a complete stranger. And most of us just don't have that much time.

There are thousands of Bobs and Phils online. Maybe one of them could be my future partner. But the paradigm of online dating means that I probably won't find him, because I don't have time to spend getting to know thousands of men in the hope that one of them will become attractive to me after several dates. And so I'll stick with the Johns, which a) is incredibly limited, because there aren't that many Johns online, and b) is a ridiculous criteria for meeting people.

But how else do you do it? How would you do it? How do you do it? Is the man in the picture single? Do you think he's financially secure and is comfortable around children?

And has Charles Manson's fiancee ever tried RSVP? Do you think that's what pushed her over the edge??

FLAUNT MY ARSE

Flaunt your curves this summer.

Supermodel Blah Blah flaunts her post baby body.

Large Actress Hoosiwhatsis proudly shows off her curves.

Flaunty Flaunty Curve Curve Curve

I tell you, if I see one more headline like that I'm going to take my own curves and wrap them around the neck of whoever wrote that stupid article and suffocate them till they repent.

Seriously. What is it with women flaunting their curves? Women do not flaunt. Okay, the occasional actress or model poses for the red carpet with certain parts of her thrust at a pleasing angle, because she's trying to take a nice photo, and it's her job to look alluring. But these headlines generally appear under pictures of women walking down the street, or standing in front of the camera doing nothing much at all.

You don't see headlines screaming about men flaunting their curves. "Jack Nicholson flaunts his curves at the beach on Sunday!" "Jonah Hill flaunts his curves in Armani at the premiere of his new movie."

No. Because men do not flaunt their curves. Men simply occupy their bodies. They live in them. If they are big men, if they have rounded bellies or fat arses or a broad chest they are not accused of 'flaunting' them. That is just the shell surrounding their personhood. As well it should be.

So why the fuck are we women referred to as 'flaunting' our curves if we dare to have them? Well, I suspect it's some kind of deranged backlash to the whole 'thin is best' culture that we are trying to shake off. It's okay, the magazine headlines are screaming. You don't have to be thin! Curves are good too! And so women who have curves are seen to be flaunting them with pride. We are happy to be curvy! We want to show off our curves to the world!

But that's bullshit. Curvy women are not necessarily flaunting their bodies any more than skinny women are necessarily flaunting theirs. They are just walking around in the bloody things, because you know what? They don't have a choice. It's not like you can browse through your body wardrobe and decide, hey, I want a curvy look today, let's put on the size 12 bod and have some fun with it! No. We wake up every day in the same body and it just IS.

There are days when we all feel good and flaunt ourselves, curvy or thin, short or tall. There are days when we feel crap and want to hide away, curvy or thin, short or tall. But to automatically assume that a women is 'flaunting' her body, no matter what she looks like, no matter what she is wearing, no matter what she is feeling, is incredibly disrespectful and objectifying.

Please magazines. PLEASE stop referring to women flaunting their bodies. Just write 'Here is actress Dum De Dum Dum standing in front of a building wearing clothes.' Because you know what? That's all it actually is.

Or talk about Jonah Hill flaunting his bloody curves. And then we'll have something to discuss.

Ridiculous Situation 79032

So this morning I woke up with an infected eye. I have no idea how it got infected, although I suspect it may have to do with the fact that:

1. I am useless at applying mascara, and spend more time jabbing myself in the eyeball with the wand than applying it to my actual lashes; or
2. I haven't washed my makeup brushes in about three years; or
3. The cat tends to eat my eyelashes when I am sleeping; or
4. I am just generally disgusting.

Either way, I had to cancel today's modelling job* and tonight's hot date** because I look so hideously unsightly.

I did, however, venture out to the chemist at my local Westfield, where of course I bumped into 75 people I knew, all of whom looked at me strangely, but none of whom worked up the courage to ask me what the hell was wrong with my face.

I went to the pharmacy and asked for help and they advised me to bathe my eye with saline. And then they sold me a packet of ten saline solutions, and ten little sterile eye-baths.

And because I couldn't wait to commence the process of becoming less hideous (and, also, to be able to see) I went straight to the public toilets to perform the procedure***.

I took out one of the eye-baths and a tube of saline, broke the top of the saline and filled the bath. It is a small, oval shaped container that fits over your eye. You bend down, place your eye over it, tip your head back and the water sloshes around in your eye-ball.

Or so the theory goes.

I didn't hold the bath firmly enough against my eye, and so the solution ran down my cheeks and on to my top. It was a little embarrassing, as I came up gasping for air with water dripping down my nose and into my mouth. But the other toilet patrons studiously ignored me, and I patted my face dry with a paper towel and pretended that it had all gone to plan.

There was still half a tube of saline left, so I tipped the rest into the cup and decided to try again. This time, I pressed my eye more firmly against the bath, until I felt the pull of suction against my skin. I tipped my head back and the water rolled beautifully around my sore eye. I felt triumphant and delighted. I knew that the infection would soon be gone.

And then I tipped my head back down and realised there was a problem.

The eye-bath was still suctioned to my face.

I tugged and I tugged but I couldn't break the hold. Women came, looked at me curiously, and hurried out again. I smiled and shrugged my hands in helpless despair and wondered if I could make it home with a cup on my eye. In the end, I decided I couldn't, as my sunglasses wouldn't fit over the cup, and so, with one final, determined tug, I yanked the fucker free.

My eye is now even sorer than ever, but I have decided to leave the healing to time. It is a week till my next modelling job and hot date**** and I can't risk having to go to either with a cup on my face.

*Disclaimer 1: I don't have any modelling jobs

**Disclaimer 2: I don't have any hot dates

***I mean the eye-bath. No other 'procedure' requiring a bathroom. Just to clarify....

****Disclaimer 3: I have neither

What IS It With Men & Hair?

The other day I got my hair cut. It's not a big deal. I didn't get a buzz cut, or a mohawk, or - god forbid - a mullet. I got a fairly standard, chin length, concave bob; you know, shorter in the back, slightly longer in the front. My hair is curly so it bounces up. But it's not that short, and it wasn't that drastic a cut, and at the end of the day it's just hair.

So why did my husband freak out so much?

Okay, he didn't exactly 'freak out'. He didn't cry or throw things or rent his clothes or tear his hair or run of the house screaming 'WHY, KERRI? WHYYYYYYYYY?'

If my husband had his way.....

But he did look horrified.

"I hate it," he said to me. "I hate it!"

I shrugged. "I really like it," I told him. "And there's nothing I can do now, anyway."

"Grow it!" he pleaded, despairingly. "I want you to grow it back! Now!"

My husband is 46 years old and has a masters degree. I hadn't anticipated his faulty grasp of the laws of biology and physics, but it's always interesting to learn new things about your partner.

"You do know hair doesn't grow six inches overnight?" I asked him.

"I can't look at you," he cried. "I'm not going to look at you till it grows back!"

"Okay!" I said. I poked him in the chest. He looked at me. I giggled.

Since getting my hair cut I've discovered that many men seem overly invested in their partner's tresses. They become distressed or unsettled if she cuts her hair significantly, with the level of upset proportionate to the number of inches trimmed. It's like a Rapunzel complex, only without the eternal youth, and I have to wonder what it's all about.

Perhaps men subconsciously link their own masculinity to the length of their partner's locks. Or perhaps some primal instant links long hair with fertility and the ability to skin and cook a woolly mammoth. Or perhaps they just like to see hair on the pillow that's not theirs. I DON'T KNOW.

All I know is that I love my new hair. And my husband seems to be getting used to it. Or at least, he's stopped talking about how little hair I have. Which is good. Very good. Because once we're on that topic, let me just say....

When Is It Too Late?

When I was born, I was born with flat ears. My mum had sticky-out ears (still does) and was thrilled to note that her first-born daughter did not suffer from the same affliction.

But somehow, fairly soon into my life as a human person, my ears sprung out from their position neatly against my head, and assumed the shape they have held ever since - my right ear at around 45 degrees from my scalp, and my freakish left ear more like 85.

Can't really miss it

My sticky-out ear has bothered me for as long as I can remember. When my hair is down, it is well disguised, but when my hair is up, or pushed away from my face, it is out there boldly on display. When I look at photos, I inevitably catch a glimpse of my ear poking through my curls, or jutting out jauntily to wave at the world. 

I have frequently told my mother off for not getting my ears pinned back when I was a child.

"Well, do it now!" she tells me cheerily (which is a deflection from her own culpability if ever I heard one).

And I think about doing it now. I scrape my hair back from my head and hold my ears back with my fingers and marvel at how different - how much more sophisticated - I look. Or I stick them back with blu-tac and parade around for my husband.

"You really do look different," he told me the other day. "Maybe you should go and get them pinned back."

"Really?" I asked incredulously. My husband has always claimed that my ears don't bother him. 

"Sure," he said. "And you can get your boobs done while you're at it!" He laughed and I rolled my eyes. Perhaps he wasn't the best one to ask.

But truly, I'm in a dilemma. Not, as you might think, because I'm in two minds about the actual procedure. Ear correction surgery, or otoplasty, is very, very low risk, and can even be performed without general anaesthetic. It's not dangerous, it's not particularly expensive, and there is virtually no recovery period. There is nothing stopping me from having it tomorrow.

What bothers me is a different dilemma. And it's my age. 

I am forty-four years old and have got to this stage in my life with one remarkably sticky-out ear. And whilst a part of me longs to experience life with a nice flat ear, a huge part of me feels that I'm too old. I've only got forty or fifty years left on this earth - why bother altering my appearance at this advanced age? How will it change my life? And even if it will change my life for the better, is there any point when said life is already half way over?

But then that makes me sad. Sad because I'm not opening myself up to the possibility of change just because of my age (even if that change is just to the shape of my ear). Sad because I feel like I've given up the right to shake up my life because it's half way over. And - more significantly - if I feel that way about my ear, then surely that translates to other areas of my life as well: my relationships, my career, the way I think and operate as a person.

So this post is not really about plastic surgery. It is about age, and new beginnings, and when it is time to accept our lot in life, and when it is still okay to change and to grow. Is it ever too late to turn things around? Is it ever too late to pursue a dream?

I'm still no closer to sorting out the ear dilemma. I don't know whether I'll go through life like this, or whether I'll turn around one day and get the surgery. But it's certainly got me thinking about life in general, and about aging in particular. 

You?

Worst. Pic. Ever. Now with ACTUAL PHOTO.

YUP.

So today I took the worst photograph of myself in five years. Yes, it was time for my license renewal, that most hideous of chores for anyone who doesn't like seeing themselves portrayed on a small oblong card as a demented, ice-addicted criminal.

My old license expired yesterday, and I was happy to see it go. Even though it was taken five years ago, when I was still in my thirties, the picture makes me look like a fifty four year old - a fifty four year old with a bad case of scurvy who hasn't slept in about a year.

I knew that license photos are never attractive, but I felt that with a bit of preparation and a lot of makeup, I could beat the odds and produce one that, at the very least, wouldn't make my daughter cry when she stumbled upon it in my purse.

So this morning I carefully applied some eyeshadow and lipstick, and used about three litres of concealer on the bags under my eyes. I washed my hair and put in lots of 'product' to make it bouncy and curly, and made sure that it was draped artfully over my sticky-out ear (and the other ear too, just to be symmetrical).

And off I went to the RTA.



I filled out my forms and paid the bill, and then the lovely young man behind the counter told me not to smile.

Well, let me tell you this. I don't respond well to being told not to smile.

I began to giggle. Then I began to laugh. Then I tried to smother my laughter by biting my tongue. Then I took a deep breath and pursed my lips to calm myself down....

And that's when the photo was taken.

It is terrible. Just awful. I look like a middle aged virgin schoolteacher who lost her fiance in the war, and has never recovered from the pain. Even worse, my hair is flat on the top and the bags under my eyes are dark grey.

So the moral of the story is, don't even bother trying. License photos are there to hurt you and amuse everyone else.

And if you can't hack that bitter truth, go buy yourself a pushbike and leave the car at home. Which is what I am thinking of doing in another five years time.

Sex. On A Plane. Interrupted. By My Husband.

I have written in the past about my imaginary friend Cherie and her totally inappropriate sex dreams. Well, I don't know what Cherie was up to this morning, but I was sure having a doozy. Because when my husband woke me up at 5.20am by turning on the TV*, he disturbed one of the most fantastic dreams I've had in a long time.

And it was about a man I find extremely unattractive.

Except, clearly, in my subconscious.

Actually, the dream was about two men. Three, if you count my husband (which, if you were conducting a census, you would). One of the men is someone I do find quite attractive, so it wasn't that odd that he popped up in my dream (um... metaphorically speaking).

My husband, Handsome Man and I were all on an aeroplane, and my husband and HM were arguing about which direction we were heading. (Freudians, you can just shut up right now.) Then a third, unattractive man boarded the plane via the emergency exit, which was peculiar as we were mid flight.

UM walked straight up to me, took my hand, and began kissing me.

"This is strange," I thought to myself as I passionately returned his embrace. "This man quite repulses me. And yet this is rather erotic." (Note that I didn't find it 'strange' that he had boarded a plane mid flight. So goes the shaky logic of dreams.)

Artist's impression of WHAT MY HUSBAND RUINED

I lay down with UM on the floor of the plane (we must have been in First Class because there's certainly no such leg room in Economy) as my husband and HM argued away, oblivious. And then we started to engage in some quite heated sexy-type business, and it was going really promisingly, until... oh god, oh god, oh GOD Melissa Doyle on Sunrise!

And then I woke up.

There is no moral to this story. There is nothing you can take away from it and use to enrich your own life.

Unless, of course, you are the Unattractive Man. In which case, you should feel mighty good right about now. And hope that next time, bloody Melissa Doyle doesn't interrupt our rendezvous.

*which is a whole other post in itself - I mean, not very considerate, huh?**

**and before he starts bombarding this post with comments***, yes, he had the earplugs in, but the light from the screen was still dazzling

***assuming he will read this post, which he probably won't****

****which is a good thing, considering it's about inappropriate sex dreams

Kerri's DIY Repair of Sticky-Out Ear

Yesterday I was inspired by the brilliant vlog of my gorgeous-as-she-is friend Eden. And it gave me a idea that I had to see through.

I decided to have an otoplasty - surgery to pin back a sticky-out ear.

Those of who who know me know that I have one sticky-out ear, which makes the left side of my head look like I could take off like Dumbo the elephant in a gust of strong wind. The other side, however, is completely normal. So I'm stuck between Dumbo on the left and Human on the right. I'm in some kind of limbo. Dumbo-limbo, if you will. And it's absurd.

Not my left ear. But very similar.
 

 

Sadly, though, I can't afford plastic surgery right now, due to annoying things like the mortgage and needing food.

So I thought I'd do it myself.

I do have some experience with invasive self-surgery, having pierced my ears twice with a safety pin. One time the ear got infected and closed up, but that's still a 50% success rate.

Still, when I tried to make the incision, I realise I couldn't see the back of my ear because my eyes are actually at the front of my face. So I had to satisfy my desire for perfection by sticking my ear to my head with a lump of blue tac. It looked very nice, and gave me a very flat ear, but kept springing up again within five or six seconds, and proved a little cumbersome to maintain.

So for now, I'll just plod along in Dumbo-limbo. But if blu-tac wishes to sponsor me, I'll certainly be receptive to that.

An Open Letter To Samantha Brick, Who Just Won't Shut The Hell Up

If you haven't heard of Samantha Brick by now you must be living under one. She's the woman who wrote an article in the UK's Daily Mail claiming that women don't like her because she's so good looking. You can read it here, but you may want to throw things.

Now, I'm not going to enter the debate about whether Ms Brick is even good looking or not. I'm sure some people find her attractive. And up until today I had no intention of writing about her at all, even though her article made me absolutely crazy.

Yup.

Why? Three things. Firstly, her assumption that we females are threatened by beautiful women is just WRONG. I have never rejected a woman because she is more attractive than me. I have never been rejected because I am more attractive than someone else. Most of us women are concerned with what's inside.

Secondly, Ms Brick's claim that she is disliked because of her looks has no grounding in empirical evidence. Not once has she considered that maybe it's her, and not her appearance. Far easier to blame society in general than to look within yourself.

Thirdly, studies time and time again have shown that more attractive people do better in life, earn more, and get more promotions. It's been proven. It's FACT.

But all of that, I could let go. Today, however, Samantha Brick took things too far. Today, on Channel 7's Sunrise program, she talked about 'prejudice'. The real reason she wrote the article, she said, was to highlight the prejudice that exists towards beautiful women.

"Racism isn't acceptable," she said (or something like that, I was screaming at the TV at the time), "sexism isn't acceptable, so why is this acceptable?"

And with that, I completely lost the plot.

PREJUDICE? What the FUCK does Samantha Brick know about prejudice? How DARE she talk about prejudice.

Who experiences prejudice in our society? Let me make a list.

Blacks.
Gays.
The obese.
The elderly.
Disabled people.
Teenage mothers.
People with physical deformities.
People with mental illness.
Muslims.
The poor.
....and the list goes on.

But attractive, blonde, forty-something, affluent white women?

No. I DON'T THINK SO.

So Samantha Brick, please shut up now. You are insulting all of us with your privileged whining and I, for one, have had enough.

Ashley Judd: Fair Cop?

Ashley Judd has responded angrily in the media to recent accusations of plastic surgery, after she appeared in public with a puffy face. (Read her open letter here.) Without actually answering the question 'has she or hasn't she' - which she is in no way obliged to do - she has condemned media and the public in general of being "nasty, gendered, misogynistic and (embodying a)... degradation of our sexuality".

Now, there is nothing worse than being accused of something you haven't done. If Ms Judd hasn't had surgery, it must be enraging to be accused of having done so. I would be furious if someone accused me of having had plastic surgery. (Actually scrap that. I wouldn't. I'd be thrilled that someone thinks I'm so incredibly good looking it just couldn't be natural.)

I understand Ms Judd's anger, even if I can't exactly understand all of her points. ("The accusations and lies, introduced to the public, now apply to me as a woman across space and time; to me as any woman and to me as every woman.") However, I don't think she's entirely capturing the spirit behind the speculation on her appearance.

Yes, we women are judged on our appearances, no more so than actresses. Yes, we women are scrutinised as to how well we are aging, definitely no more so than actresses. And yes, this serves to diminish our value as human beings, to focus with such intensity on the physical and not on the emotional, intellectual or spiritual. I agree. One hundred percent.

But our public fascination with the 'who has, who hasn't' had plastic surgery is, I feel, a backlash to that. For so long we have been fed images of impossibly beautiful and youthful celebrities, who claim to look twenty-six at the age of forty-two because of nothing more than 'sunscreen', 'good genes', 'drinking lots of water', 'an organic diet', or 'insert name of ridiculously expensive cosmetic here'. And we, as the public, gaze upon these miracles of nature and think, 'WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?' Why can't we look like them? We eat well. We drink lots of water. We use sunscreen. And yet our foreheads still move and our necks are getting crinkly and we keep on looking older and older and they are FROZEN IN TIME.

Ashley Judd in a not-puffy moment

And you know why they are frozen in time? Because they are having PLASTIC SURGERY. They are NOT REAL. And whilst that's fine, that's a legitimate choice if that's what you want to do, lying about it is NOT FAIR to the average human who begins to think something is wrong with them in comparison.

I am NOT saying that Ashley Judd has had surgery. I have absolutely no idea and it is not relevant anyway. But I am saying that the motives fuelling speculation about her puffy face have less to do with pure spite, and a lot to do with us trying to deconstruct the myth of ageless beauty, so that us normal people in the trenches can stop feeling like failures for actually getting old.

Life at *cough* twenty two...

Those of you who read this blog regularly will know that I recently got reading glasses. (And those of you who don’t? I’m hurt.)

I was very surprised to find that I needed glasses, given that I am only thirty five years old*. In fact, it never would have occurred to me to even go and get my eyes checked, except that I was struggling to read. The pages of my books would swim before my eyes, my computer screen would go blurry, and the messages on my mobile phone looked like tiny ants marching across my screen. What’s more, I kept sending people texts like ‘Set you in jive’ and ‘Be yer doon’, which made people think I had a drinking problem**.

So off I went, to get my eyes tested. It turns out I do have visual signs of aging, in addition to the visible ones (which, ironically, I hadn’t fully appreciated until I got my reading glasses and could see how wrinkly I’ve become).

Despite the shock to my ego, I am happy to have my specs. Not only can I now read books in comfort, but I can work out that I am meeting my friend Karen ‘in Westfield’ and not, say, ‘in Wee fish’ (which can be very hard to find).

On the other hand, I am very unhappy to have my specs, as they are a constant reminder that I am already thirty years old***. I don’t want to be old. I want to be forever young.Now, I know that that’s not a politically correct thing to say. I am supposed to ‘embrace aging’, ‘celebrate my forties****’, and ‘feel empowered and powerful’. Well, yeah, I do, definitely. I’d just be embracing, celebrating and powering much more cheerfully if my eyesight wasn’t failing and my back didn’t hurt.

To be fair, I’m not doing too badly. I’m not grey yet (except, inexplicably, for two of my eyebrow hairs), I don’t have to pluck my chin, and I can still recall exactly what I did yesterday (if I put on my glasses and look in my diary). But I want to be younger.

My mum is no help when I discuss this with her. She scoffs, ‘You think you’re aging? What about me? I’m fifty five!*****’ But just because my mother is older than me doesn’t help me to deal with it any better. And besides, if my mother wasn’t older than me, well, we’d have even bigger problems on our hands.

Still, I am trying to accept my fate. For one thing, there’s not much I can do to halt the pace of time, other than certain surgical procedures which I have ruled out on the basis of a) cost, b) health risks, and c) the faces of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (which I have only been watching because I have been too blind to read).
And for another thing, I have a long way to go. After all, I’m still only twenty two.

*that may be a slight underestimate

**which I don’t. Noon is a perfectly acceptable time to start drinking.

***even more inaccurate

****if I was in my forties, which of course I am not....

*****this may be a slight underestimate

tickled by a magic pen.... or something.....

Today I got tickled by a magical pen after I was caressed by a total stranger. Nothing weird about that. Right?

I'd booked myself in for a technologically advanced facial, with microdermabrasion, light therapy, and a massage. I've never had a facial before, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And if you saw me just after I rolled out of bed this morning you would know. The times, friends, they are a-desperate.

I walked into the salon and was introduced to my 'facialist' (as opposed to, say, my 'bottomlist'). Elizabeth was very friendly and asked me if I would like to use the toilet before my treatment (so, quite possibly, she actually was a bottomlist as well).

When I returned from my toilet trip, Elizabeth told me to relax, and then instructed me to take off my top. This surprised me as I assumed that, given that this was a 'facial' and not, say, a 'breastial', that Elizabeth would be working on my face. Apparently, however, she would be working on my shoulders too (which I guess made her a shoulderlist) and needed access to my 'decolletage'.

The first part of the facial wasn't so bad. Elizabeth cleansed my face with some kind of industrial strength potion, and then scraped a really rough rolling pin over my skin. This was, apparently, the 'microderm' portion of the treatment, and had something to do with exfoliation. It was scratchy and sandpapery and felt most uncomfortable and I enjoyed the process immensely. 

MAKE IT STOP!

Then came the facial massage. Elizabeth tilted my head back and caressed my face gently all over in delicate circular motions. It was healing and loving and caring and nurturing and it made me want to run and scream. For - as I remembered at the exact moment Elizabeth started the massage - I cannot stand people touching my face. Unless you're one of my kids, or actually having sex with me (which, depending on how many readers I currently have, rules out at least 50% of you), I do not want your hands on my facial skin. There's no deep psychological reason. I just don't like it. I'd rather you touched my bottom. And quite frankly, I don't want you touching my bottom at all.

Of course, Elizabeth didn't know that, and kept on with her rubbing. And, because I'm so passive in the hands of beauty professionals, I let her do it. Really, I'm pathetic. The woman could have started shaving my head, or tattooing my chest with a giant panda, and I would have just sighed inwardly and said nothing.

To my relief, Elizabeth stopped massaging after about 15 minutes and began the next part of the session. This was the most important part of the treatment, the part that would radically change my skin for the better. The Pulsing Light Therapy (or, you know... words to that effect).

Elizabeth put patches over my eyes so I wouldn't be blinded by the light (or revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night). And then I lay on my back for about 30 minutes while she trailed something that felt like a slim metal pen all over my face as an important 'beep beep beep' sounded rythmically in my ears.

Now, presumably that pen did something special and magical, because I now look far better now than before the treatment. (Sadly that last stanza was a lie. I actually look exactly the same now as before, but as I paid lots of money, I'm not going to admit it.) Still, as I lay there on the bed, I couldn't help but wonder if the joke was on me - if there was no Light Therapy, if Elizabeth really was just trailing a slim metal pen all over my face whilst playing a 'beep beep beep' in my ear, and then giggling all the way to the bank.

Still, I'm not even sure it matters. I had a nice little snooze while I was being tickled by the pen, so the session wasn't entirely wasted.

And besides, the relief after the massage stopped was enormous. It was worth paying money just for that.

Saved From The Elephant Woman

Let me state for the record: this is not a sponsored post. I have never had a sponsored post on this blog, and never will*. I paid for everything mentioned in this blog, and will continue to pay for them**.

Before we get into paying for things, though... a confession. I am 42 years old (no, this is not the confession, I am very proud of my age and have no problem with it at all***) and I have never, ever taken care of my face.

It's disgraceful. Up until recently I would wake up in the morning, wash my face in the shower with some supermarket face wash, bung on some supermarket moisturiser, and be done with it. At night I would (usually) take off my (supermarket bought) makeup with a (supermarket bought) face wipe and go to sleep. And I would wake up looking like the crumpled eighty year old love child of Bette Midler and the Elephant Man. Except with pimples.

And then, ten days ago, it all changed. I had had Enough. It was time for Change.

I needed Products****.

I headed over to Myer, where I made a beeline for the Clinique counter. Why Clinique? Well, the one makeup product I have used religiously since I read about it in a Marian Keyes novel (which was fiction, though the product was real) is Clinique pore minimiser. I love it. It makes my pores look minimised (funny that). I don't go anywhere without it. And I figured if Clinique's pore minimiser was good, then their moisturiser should be good too. Plus there was no way I was spending eight hours trying products from every range. I'm a busy woman, you know.

I picked up a bottle of Clinique moisturiser and headed for the counter. "I'll take this, please," I said politely.

The saleswoman picked up the bottle and raised her eyebrows. "Well, sure, I can sell this to you, but it doesn't have any anti-aging properties," she said pointedly.

Ah. Right. That '42 years old' thing again. How did she know?

"So what moisturiser does have anti-aging properties?" I asked. Because god knows I need anti-aging properties. Lots of them. Anti-aging skyrises. Hell, anti-aging cities.

"Let me show you our three step program," she said. And my heart sank. Because I knew what 'three step' meant. It meant there were at least three steps. And I only wanted a moisturiser.

Well guess what. There were more than three steps. There were dozens of steps.

There was the moisturiser. There was the post-moisturiser night cream. There was the cleanser. There was the toner (oops! Sorry. 'Gentle exfoliant'). There were the lifting, soothing eye creams (one for day, one for night). And of course there was the tinted moisturiser, to give me that even skin tone I've always dreamed of.

And you know what? I needed them ALL.

But still, there was more. So much more. And I wanted all of it. I wanted the face scrubs and face masks and blemish fighting concealers and petentrating liposome bust firmers and pro-magnificence radiant extractors*****. Quite frankly, however, I wouldn't have been able to carry them all home. And our bathroom cabinets aren't big enough to contain them.

So I got the first lot - the.. er.. basic essentials - and took them home with high hopes. (Actually, I had no hopes at all; in fact I worried terribly that I'd been ripped off, and that I had been conned into spending a great deal of money for absolutely no reason).

Still, despite my misgivings, I used my 'regime' twice a day, every day. Faithfully. Without fail. And it has added at least 20 minutes each to my morning and bedtime routine, which is 40 minutes less time I spend interacting with my family, or - more importantly - browsing the internet.

But it is worth it. Truly, truly worth it. My investment has paid off. I look a zillion times better. I look glowing. Okay, so maybe not glowing, but I no longer look like mandarin peel left out in the sun to wither, so that is definitely a vast improvement.

So my message is this. To all you readers out there, look after your skin. Invest in some products. It does make a difference.

And to all you Clinique executives who are no doubt reading this post (because I have a huge following amongst the Clinique family******, I can be contacted via this blog and am happy to receive truckloads of free products at any time.

I wouldn't write a sponsored post, but I'd sell my soul for a youthful glow.

*unless I am offered a great deal of money, in which case I will happily reconsider.
**unless I am offered them for free, in which case I will happily accept.
***This is a lie. I would much rather be 30.
****Capitals intended.
*****I may have made those last two up.
******well, I did give my card to the saleslady....

I Got Punched!

On Saturday I got into a fight. I admit that I made the first move, but then I got slapped, hard, and I didn't like that at all. It got me right in the nose, and took off a big chunk of skin, and I bled all over my nice clean face.

It just goes to show. You should never muck around with a cupboard door.

For the record, I was the one opening the cupboard door. I was reaching up to take out a glass and leaned in just a little bit too close and WHAM. The damn thing swiped off the side of my nose. I felt the impact, but my nose immediately went numb, so I had no idea if there was any damage. I was too frightened to go and look in the mirror (I'm not scared of blood, but I am scared of gaping holes in my face) so I ventured out into the living room.

"Um... have I hurt myself?" I asked my husband.

His face said a thousand words, all of them starting with "AAAGGGGHHH!"

"AAAGGGGHHH!" he said.

"So that's a yes?"

He directed me to the bathroom where I noticed a sizeable piece of skin flapping in the breeze, as blood trickled down to my chin. It wasn't pretty, but it was strangely fascinating.

"Stop looking in the mirror and get down to the doctor's!" my husband commanded. Ah... doctor shmoctor. I couldn't be bothered, and besides, I had five boys turning up in 30 minutes for a slumber party. I didn't have time for facial surgery.

"I'll call Karen," I told him. Karen is my doctor friend and is delighted to take calls from me at all hours of the day and night to dispense medical advice. Or at least, that's what I tell myself when I call her at all hours of the day and night. I can't see why she'd have a problem with it. I mean, if she needed blogging advice I'd be very happy to give it. Of course, she doesn't actually have a blog, but that is completely beside the point.

Karen told me to gently ice the wound, stick the skin down, and get some steri-strips from the pharmacist to help the healing. I followed her advice to the letter, especially the bit about getting black jelly beans from the pharmacist to help with the trauma. (Karen may not have specifically advised that, but I know it was what she was thinking.)

So since Saturday afternoon, I have sported a bandaged nose with dried blood peeping out from around the edges. It's a very fashion-forward look, and I would recommend it to all who want to stand out from the crowd this winter. It's also done wonders for my husband's reputation, as the general consensus from friends and family that smacking oneself in the face with a cupboard door is utterly preposterous, which means that someone must have hit me. And, the only people in the house at the time were my husband and Boo - and Boo was sleeping - clearly he must have done it.

Now, it's not nice for people to think that my husband is a wife beater. However, it's even less nice for people to think that I'm a self-slapping moron. So yes, my husband did it. Bad, bad man.

Oh, and for the record, we were going to put the cupboard door down - after all, there's every chance it could strike again - but the cupboard looks pretty silly without it. So we've put it in the naughty corner. Conveniently, this is located in the back of the kitchen, right where the cupboard lives. It will stay there till it's learned its lesson.

Or until I work out how to open it without smacking myself in the face. May be a very long time.

Taking Shots

Last week, I had some professional photos taken for my soon-to-be-released book. The last professional picture I had taken was in the late nineties, and if I remember rightly, I was wearing a long white dress and clutching a bunch of tulips. So it’s been a long time between shots.

The day began with the arrival of my personal makeup artist (who I had promoted that morning from her previous position as ‘babysitter’ when I’d learned she could wield a mascara wand). As I’ve never been able to apply makeup, I needed Gab to do it for me.

Actually, that’s not quite true. I can apply makeup. It’s just that I was hoping to achieve a certain ‘look’ for my author pic, and ‘messy eyes’, ‘blotchy base’ and ‘smeared lipstick’ wasn’t exactly what I was going for. I wanted to look good. Effortlessly good, to be more precise. And looking effortlessly good, I discovered, takes an awful lot of effort.

First Gab applied foundation. Then eye makeup. Then powder. Then concealer. She applied blush, and mascara, and eyeliner, and lippy. By the time we finished I still looked liked me, a ‘trying extremely hard to look good’ kind of me. Which kind of defeated the ‘effortless’ part, really.

Gab told me to ‘trust her’ (which I felt compelled to do, as she was holding my eyelashes firmly between her fingers). So I resisted the urge to scrub my face clean, and obediently wiped lipstick off my teeth.

The photographer was lovely, and did her best to make me feel at ease. She told me I looked nice, and shouted things like ‘Big smile!’ and ‘Lovely!’ She photographed me in a number of locations all over my house, trying to capture me in the most flattering light (or, in other words, ‘disguise my oldness’). She placed me on the stairs, in a chair, on the floor, by the pool.... I think she would have put me in the bath had it effectively covered my wrinkles.

We also tried a number of poses, with varying degrees of success.

First up, there was the ‘Big Cheesy Smile’. It was early in the shoot, I was feeling a little awkward, and the smile came out a bit forced. This resulted in a series of pics that weren’t right for me, but would have been perfect for a book entitled ‘Jokes For Silly People’, or the cover of a Dental Surgery pamphlet.

There was the ‘Serious Author’ pose, which was supposed to look thoughtful and wise. Unfortunately, I’m not good at looking ‘thoughtful’ or ‘wise’, and instead appeared ‘mournful’, ‘depressive’ and ‘pained’. Perfect, had my book been called ‘Memoir Of A Life Of Sorrow’, or ‘A Life Without Hope Or Happiness’.

There was the ‘Sultry’ pose. I tilted my head slightly and looked up at the camera through sexily half closed eyes. Tremendous, had my book been entitled ‘Chronic Sleep Deprivation And It’s Consequences’, or ‘How Not To Flirt: The Ways I Get It Wrong’.

Still, in the end, the pics were taken and we had a winner. It was a huge relief. Of course, I’m still going to have to change the book title to match the photo, but it’s worth it.

Look Happy, For Goodness Sake. We’re Going Into Overtime!

Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

P.S. This pic is not the winner. Just one of the runners up.

Women In Plastic Masks

I'm not hugely interested in the Golden Globes. I don't watch a lot of TV, other than Mad Men, Entourage, Chelsea Lately and every episode ever made of Spongebob Squarepants. Oh, and documentaries on women obsessed with big breasts and the history of pole dancing. (What can I say? My husband hogs the remote.)

However, last night, after the kids were in bed, I idly turned on the GG coverage. A close friend of mine was there with her director husband, and I was hoping to catch a glimpse of them. I didn't, of course. This was partly because there were a lot of people there, and partly because my eyes kept going out of focus at the sight of Jake Gyllenhaal. My GOD have you seen him? But, er, anyway...

In the past, when I've watched the Globes, I've been in awe of the beauty of the actresses, and the finery of their clothes. (And, when Simon Baker has been in attendance, the gross unfairness of his being married to someone else.) This time, however, my feelings were very different.

I felt a bit sad.

The young women looked great, as young women do. But the older women looked better - freakishly, perfectly better. Like they were wearing tight, plastic masks of the faces they once had.

I KNOW everyone wants to look their best. I KNOW that Botox and fillers are a fact of the world. But this is different. These are women so surgically altered that they don't actually look like real people anymore. There is no expression in their faces. No softness. No lines. They are not the faces of mothers. They are not the faces of friends. They are not the faces of partners, or aunties, or sisters. They are the blank faces of perfect, surgically created beauty.

Now, I'm not arguing against plastic surgery. Everyone should have the choice to do what they want to do with their own bodies, provided that it doesn't hurt anyone else, including themselves. What saddens me is that women feel pressured to do this. Can you imagine the insecurity of these gorgeous, talented, accomplished women that inspire them to go under the knife, presumably repeatedly, in the desperate attempt to look 20 years younger than they are? I feel sorry for them. I truly do.

Yes, these are Hollywood stars. They have money. They have fame. They have success. But at the end of the day, they are women, and I believe that they are terrified. Terrified of losing their looks, which to them equates to losing everything. And I feel sorry for anyone who has to live their life in fear of something so inevitable, and natural, and normal.

We all want to look good. But when the need to look good is so extreme it leads to turning yourself into a plastic mask, it makes me sad.

Behind The Scenes - The Truth About Beauty

Many of you will know that I live in a very special house. My Husband The Architect designed a super modern residence reminiscent of the physical incarnation of a DJs mix of the Titanic versus Apollo 13. Or something completely different from that. I'm not so good with the architecture lingo.

ANYWAY... as a result of living in this very special house, we have a lot of fashion shoots take place inside its walls. This is a great thing for us, as the fashion shoots pay a great deal of money with virtually no effort required on my part, except that I must clean the house beforehand, which of course does take a great deal of effort, but one which many people (notably, My Husband The Architect) argue that I should be taking anyhow.

Having fashion shoots in my home gives me an Up Front And Personal insight into the workings of the fashion industry, one which very few people who do not work in said industry ever get to have. And, though we all read about how unglamorous fashion shoots actually are, when these words of wisdom come from people in the very glamorous magazine industry, we tend not to take them too seriously.

So let me tell you, as an absolute layperson, I can assure you, they are completely unglamorous, and completely illusory.

Let me elaborate:

There is a photo shoot occuring in my backyard as I type. Out of the crew of about eight, none are particularly well dressed, most are wearing jeans and thongs (the daggy kind you put on your feet, not the sexy kind you wear under your clothes, though I suppose it's possible they are wearing both), and a couple are markedly overweight. None of the women are especially attractive or stylish, though one of the men is nice looking - or at least he would be, if it wasn't for the big sty on one of his eyes. Not a good look.

The model, when she arrived, was totally nondescript. Yes, she was taller than the average person, and slimmer, but certainly not someone you would look twice at in the street. After an hour in hair and makeup she looked lovely, but then after an hour in hair and makeup I would look lovely too, and no doubt so would you.

Out of the dozen or so models who have posed in this house, NONE of them has been particularly gorgeous or glam. They tend to be very thin, and pretty-in-a-bland-way. Some have nice skin, some have pimples. They are also usually very young, reserved, quiet and shy. Whilst the crew seem comfortable with each other, joking around and laughing, the models generally stand alone and outside the group, obediently waiting to be called upon to pose for the cameras.

Each shot is set up carefully, with lighting, shade, camera angles and props carefully positioned. Makeup is reapplied between shots. Often the model's clothes are pinned or clipped at the back to give them a better line. And if something is out of place, or there is blemish or mark, the photographer isn't fussed. 'We'll take care of that later,' he'll say.

But you know what's really weird? Even when the clothes are pinned and the makeup is done and the lighting is arranged and the model is standing in front of the camera - even then she doesn't look as good as she will on screen. It's bizarre. I can look at her across the room, and she looks nice, but when I look at her image on the monitor she looks incredible. Why? Well, I have no idea, because I'm not a photographer, but it's got something to do with the magic of the camera.

It's all an illusion. So please remember this when you're looking in your fashion magazines. And please also remember this if you visit my home.

Because I don't clean my house unless the cameras are coming. We may look glamorous from the outside, but the truth on the Spaceship Titanic is far, far messier.

All Your Questions Answered

So after my star turn on this episode of A Current Affair last night, I have been bombarded with questions about four particular issues (and yes, three questions can definitely be a 'bombardment'). People wish to know:

A) What on earth am I doing with a white sofa when I have KIDS?

B) Were they my real children or stunt-double pefect children?

C) Were they my real eyebrows or stunt-double perfect eyebrows?

D) Why was I cut off so rudely at the end of my interview?

Thank you all so much for your interest in these terribly important issues. I shall now address each question in turn.

A) Why do I have a white sofa when I have kids? Because I also have a Husband, and he is a Designer (said in Very Important Tones), and according to my Husband the Designer, a white sofa is the only possible design solution for that particular Space. (Architects do not refer to 'rooms' or 'areas', they refer to 'spaces'. Please remember that.)
Never mind that one out of three of my kids is a Toddler, that two out of three of my kids are very clumsy, or that three out of three of my kids are incredibly messy. Never mind that I spend approximately 47 minutes EACH DAY OF MY LIFE cleaning that couch with special White Sofa Cleaner (also known as 'Chux Magic Erasers', and no thisisnotasponsoredpost, but while we're on the subject they are the best thing since sliced bread, in fact better, because they get rid of the Vegemite stains that sliced bread leaves behind). I HATE that friggin white sofa. It is the bane of my existence. I'm kicking it now.

B) Yes they were my real children sitting on my real white sofa. And yes, they are perfect. They sit there for HOURS like that, placid, serene and compliant, with their little legs sticking out and their little mouths hanging open. Sometimes they even drool. And then I turn off the TV and they become hideous monsters again. So I try to turn it off only rarely. After all, I don't have time to deal with monster children. I'm too busy cleaning the white sofa.

C) Yes they were my real eyebrows. However, they have not always been my real eyebrows. My real eyebrows used to look like this:
It took months - no, years - of painful - no, excruciatingly painful - electrolysis to get them looking so perfect. So praise my eyebrows. And keep it coming. Because every single one of those hairs needed to be plucked out at the root and a red hot poker thrust in to kill the follicle, and I'm going to need a LOT of appreciation to make up for that hideous trauma.

D) Why was I cut off so rudely at the end of my interview? Well, as Tracy Grimshaw so eloquently expressed in her tweet, it was an itchy trigger finger in the control room of ACA. But to tell you the truth, I must accept some responsibility. After all, I did not stop talking. For about two hours. In fact, I continued to talk long after the camera crew had left my house, driven down the road, and off into the night. I continued to talk long after the TV had been switched off and my kids had resumed smearing Nutella all over the white sofa. If you really want to know, I am still talking now, as I kick the white sofa with all my might. So don't be too harsh on ACA. I pose a pretty tough editing challenge.

I hope that answers all your questions. So, from me, and Tracy Grimshaw....

Goodnight.