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Ah, Boggle
I’m going to stop playing you. I keep saying this, and then I keep playing. You allow the word ‘tit’ (presumably because it’s a bird) but not ‘tits’ (because two birds would be offensive). You don’t...
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New Gumboots
I recently splashed out and bought myself a new pair of gumboots for my birthday. I’m over all this chicken poo being tramped through the house. I also got a new schmick new Apple Mac and a pair of...
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I’m Not Sure Which Is Worse
The gender essentialism or the lack of apostrophes? Big W Toy Sale Or maybe it’s that in order to get the odd ten dollar discount at Woolworths Australia I have to get these emails every second day,...
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The Easiest Time Of Your Life
Our six year old gets on the bus at the end of our street, along with a number of other kids from the village. One of the fathers is off work this week due to rain, and said to his daughters as he...
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The Real Difficulties In Giving Up Sugar
Yesterday I made pancakes for breakfast, and drizzled maple syrup over the top. This was to celebrate a birthday in our family. Normally for breakfast we’d be eating eggs fried in coconut oil, free...
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Feminist Film Review: Silence Of The Lambs
Silence of the Lambs is one of those films which I seem to watch every few years — always on a rainy day — because it’s showing on free-to-air TV. I first saw it as a teenager. (I was making Japanese...
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Literary Insults
bitchsquealer it is only respect for your parents that will prevent me from murdering you outright… I would rather eat dog shit full of razor blades than have anything to do with you. “Obviously,” Tiny...
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What it’s not like to have breasts
“My breasts felt like two empty sacks.” - Molly, Leaving Cheyenne by Larry McMurtry I’m a big McMurtry fan, but I do prefer when he’s writing from a male point of view. Here he writes from Molly’s...
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No Such Thing As Secular Education
Not in these parts, anyhow. Our daughter started primary school this year, at the zoned state school here in New South Wales. Upon enrolment you fill out a small pink form and tick whether you want...
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Gendered Insults Still Okay; Racist Insults Appropriately Not
So, this latest thing where Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) made a reference about watermelon when presenting Jacqueline Woodson with the National Book Award for her memoir Brown Girl Dreaming. With me...
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Getting Through Difficult Fiction
There’s a good case to be made for not bothering to wade through difficult fiction, and for me that comes when I’ve lost faith in the author. An unenjoyed book can put you off reading for a long while,...
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Ugh. I usually regret checking in on Facebook.
Discrimination Against Men = Offering Women Jobs If only I could view my friends’ updates and never read a single comment made by their friends. Is there an app for that? Ah well, back to the...
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Everything I Know About Cowboys I Learned From Lonesome Dove
Pulitzer Prize winners may have a reputation for being dense and requiring much work, but if that’s the case, Lonesome Dove is an exception. This is what you’d call ‘super readable’. A page-turner....
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Just Another NY Resolution Post
1. Sit on my arse even more wasn’t actually a plan, but is a plan by default because I have some big phat books on my tbr pile, plus another Goodreads challenge of a book a week (which I blew out of...
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The Problem With Scare Quotes
Even punctuation can get lost in translation. Square brackets can be used simply for emphasis in Japanese, but have here been translated into, what English readers will no doubt recognise as, ‘scare...
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Is This T-Shirt For Boys?
Last week I was in Target buying socks and undies when a woman and her son (about 12) walked past. At least one of them had terrible body odour, but that’s by the by. The more interesting thing is...
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Feminist Film Review: Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Based on the novel by Ira Levin (who also wrote other big-name works such as The Stepford Wives), this is a psychological thriller made in 1968 and set in 1966, New York. A young recently married...
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Now That I Have Watched Six Feet Under For The Third Time
Everything is foreshadowed and everything ties together thematically in some way. Humour makes the sadness even sadder. Audience expectations are constantly thwarted, making every scene an ironic one...
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“You remind me of my sister.”
We don’t discriminate carefully enough, you know, between things that seem alike but are different. – Richard Ford, Canada Next time some woman I hardly know tells me with side-eyes that I Remind her...
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Did women used to cry more?
A while back I wrote a couple of blog posts which included thoughts on the gendered nature of crying. It’s commonly accepted that women cry more than men. Then I happened upon a summary of a...
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