new me land.

my one-night stand with insomnia

2015-07-30T19:36:00.001-07:00

It’s 12 a.m. and some other brightly lit numbers that I can’t read without my glasses on. Why didn’t I get Lasik back when people got Lasik? I only slept for two hours before my cough woke me up to have that regret.

Another regret. Moving out of the country and telling people we’d only be gone two years almost five years ago. Does that make me a liar? Or an accidental liver? Not the organ but the other kind that isn’t a word.

Nobody wears Uggs out of their house in Australia. Not one body. I realized this when I wore mine out of my house when I first moved here and my new friend became a best friend when she reprimanded me with a raised eyebrow and a comment section.

She also taught me you can have ‘fashion trainers’ (sneakers) or regular ‘trainers’ (still sneakers) but you should never call a ‘jumper’ a ‘sweater.’

If I was at a dinner party and went to the bathroom, would anyone be alarmed if I never came back? Why isn’t anyone alarmed? It has been almost five years. Prom girls have babies in toilets. Snakes live in them.

My $8 supermarket mascara is $18 dollars here. When it goes on sale at Woolies for $16, I celebrate the savings and buy two.

I can’t sleep while my husband can do nothing else. I want to lean over his face and steal his dreams but my cough won’t let me. Maybe I have walking pneumonia even though I’m lying down. He doesn’t seem to care.

My ebay account here greets me with ‘G’day, Tiffany.’ I refuse to donate my Seven for Mankind bootleg jeans, because they were once so very expensive, but I will package them up and send them to you for just enough money to buy half a tube of Very Black.

Some people, my husband, think Facebook is a waste of time. I think not being on Facebook is a waste of time because can you imagine the amount of emails and phone calls it would take to find out who got Lasik or a new job or wrote a book or read a book or booked a holiday or if it rained or snowed or stopped raining or snowing all together and that kittens are cute without it? We all have to think of more creative birthday greetings though.

My family moved into a new house in October, ie. summer, only to find out it leaks when it rains. It rains a lot in the winter. It is now winter. G’day, winter.

People don’t tip on this side of the planet. We once had this lovely brunch at this café in Auckland and were compelled to leave some gold coins. This made our waiter chase us out to the car. He thought the tip we left on the table was forgotten money. We had to convince him with more words than necessary that it was on purpose and his to keep. And why.

I used to feel strange about not tipping and then I went to my first hair appointment. I left 20% happier than normal. And no one chased me to the car.

My American children know everything Australia. You can ask them anything about the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, rugby league vs. rugby union, Rabbit Proof Fence, the early settlers, Anzac Day, Prime Minister Toe-Knee-Ab-Butt (you have to point to the body parts when you say it), hot cross buns, metres, and mateship. But if you have a question about America, keep walking.

We live on a peninsula with water on three sides so there is one main street that runs through our neighborhood. We are on that thing exactly too many times a day. For our commute to school or bread or fruit or a glue stick. You cannot walk down that street without seeing every single person you know. This is where the mascara comes in.

The President of the United States was on television last month. My then seven-year old recognized him immediately: “Barack Obama!”

Me: “Do you know who he is?”

Seven did, “The President.”

“That’s right!” I was thrilled.

Until he added, “Of Australia.”

Less thrilled. “Well. He’s not the president of Australia...”

Seven nodded and adjusted his answer, “I know. He’s the President of the United States.”

“Yes!” said me.

“Of Australia!” said him, louder and wrong-er.

I worry about this night’s sleep, those five gyres of ocean garbage, if my cough is wet or dry, my pilot spec, what to make for dinner and then I remember we are going to another family’s house for dinner so I stop that one.

I think everyone should live out of the country. Because it is scary and amazing and you don’t have to tip, but also because you find people you didn’t know you were missing. I now have a collection. A collection I can no longer live without so when I move back to America three years ago, like I told everyone I would, I will somehow have to smuggle some very attractive, not middle-aged kidnapped ladies through customs.

I can’t decide if it’s my cough medicine or my cough that is keeping me awake so I vow to do neither again, and then mucus flies out of my face so I take another swig. I fall asleep right before my husband wakes me up for the day and tells me I have mascara smeared under my eyes.

Save my seat at the dinner party.

Our Darling Street in front of Woolie's
WITH our chalk birthday greeting to our friend Ava captured in front by Google Maps.
Thank you, Google Maps.

the colbert series

2014-04-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

It started as a way to deal with me hijacking the television. I needed to watch Letterman from the night before. My six-year old needed to draw. It was fun and adorable and priceless. Unless your name is Sarah Jessica Parker then so many apologies.

Then it became something my seven-year old just did. 'Is that Justin Bieber? Yes! Can you pause that, Mom?' You know I could and did.

And then it became that thing my eight-year old had no interest in continuing whatsoever. 'Hey, Sting is on.' 'Who?' 'Sting?' 'I don't know what that is.' So I paid him. High one figures. He was thrilled.

I'm not saying Colbert is definitely getting a book. But he might.

the letterman series. | Sarah Jessica Parker + David Letterman

the story of my wife

2014-02-25T19:43:00.000-08:00

I didn’t know I was missing one. I didn’t even know I needed one. All I know is once I had one I never wanted to be without one.

A wife: (n) a female spouse; and/or Meg Mason.

one awesome beach house.

Our Australian friends were in between homes. Like crated calves with no developed connective tissue, they had outgrown their teeny tiny and needed a bigger place to unfold their stiff baby cow limbs. They found just the house but also found that it wouldn’t be ready for weeks right after they rented out their old itty bitty. They were desperate. We were not but always liked the idea of living with these people. You have one amazing beach house experience with the Masons, you need another. This was our another. We pounced on the opportunity and opened our door, our guest room, our garage, our boys’ room and one shelf of our refrigerator to them.

Meg opened my windows.

From the moment this family of four stepped in our house, it was breezy and awesome. Here is my theory why. They weren’t our house guests. The only expectation anyone in the history of everyone has of house guests is that they have a good time and flush the toilet. My wife and her people came in with a need for fresh air, a pop-up commune mentality, and, gasp, a meal roster.

Being a wife slash anything has moments of hardness. Being a wife slash mother is nothing but exhausting. Not because it’s my most favorite thing in the world to be or he’s so handsome I can hardly look at him or they are ridiculously and redundantly cute. Being a wife slash mother is exhausting for one reason only: Dinner.

Just typing dinner makes me hate dinner.

To be clear, I don't hate eating dinner or the beautiful time I get to spend with my family as we consume it. It's all the everything that has to come before those ten delicious minutes. The thinking and planning and buying and prepping and cooking and flambéing and serving. Every single night. Always and so forth. For as long as everyone eats. Makes me want to lie down and take a nap.

THAT is not the case when you have a wife with a meal roster.

When you have a wife with a meal roster, every other night she does all the thinking and planning and buying and prepping and cooking and flambéing and serving while you don’t do any of those words. She feeds you and your family while you don’t. Which means, you could actually lie down and take a nap. But, the win-win version of catch-22, you will no longer want a nap because you’re not exhausted from making dinner every single night and always and so forth. Dinner, even on your every other other night, is just no longer exhausting even if this paragraph is.

I didn't even mind typing dinner right then.

The point is. I am not telling anyone how to live their life or saying those Sister Wives are doing it right, but, single family dwellers, you need to scoop up another family and live with them because those Sister Wives are soooo doing it right -- except for that one man married to a bunch of ladies 'no thank you' arrangement.

For three and a half perfect weeks, my boys had sisters. My husband had another silver fox to check his phone next to. And I had a wife. Someone who opened the windows and made me dinner and watched my shows and took my kids to and from school and let me eat her licorice and swept the floor and washed my husband’s morning daily egg pan ONE THOUSAND TIMES (still sorry, Meg) and emptied the dishwasher and bought two avocados every time she went to the store because one was never enough and flushed the toilets and it was awesome.

Backpacks-clipped-together-and-walk-to-school awesome.

an Australian chain gang.

And then my wife left me and it was not awesome at all.

The opposite of awesome.

Ugh. Dinner.

And then.

I found out the Byrnes are getting new carpet. They move in on Sunday.

My second wife: (n) another female spouse; and/or Nikki Byrne.

'sculptures by the sea' is a thing

2013-11-13T16:07:00.000-08:00

Every year some really creative people come up with some really interesting art installations and plonk them down by the sea and along a coastal walk from Bondi Beach to Tamarama Beach. It's a mad mob of people and iphone cameras and sand and, this past Saturday, us.

Here is just a really tiny snippet of this very free event.

File this under: Sights Bears Will Never See.

big circle of tiny flags

recycle!

blow pop

old mattress spring maze

led. zeppelin.

baby cheeks!

some guy on a bike with a ball

the crowd went wild

snowless globe

that way

mandatory kid coast shot

There are rather nice pictures of this event on their website. They don't have my children in any of their shots so they're not great. But don't let great get in the way of good.

http://www.sculpturebythesea.com/image-gallery/bondi.aspx?Year=2013&Location=Outdoor

home again

2013-10-29T19:07:00.001-07:00

It was the dead of winter. In Sydney. So probably can't really use 'dead of.'

It was August.

Sure, it was two months ago but that's not the point, this is.

We were going home for a visit and we were experiencing some serious pent-up excitement. It was to be the first time this family four pack had been back since we left the country in 2010. In Charlie years, half his tiny adorable life. One third of Max's dimple time. We couldn't wait to see our people.

Second up on the emotion list: scared shitless.

The thing about moving away from LA, with every intention of returning to live in LA, is doubt exists and when enough time and moments and TV seasons have passed and you can't remember for the life of you if The Grove is on 3rd or Beverly, it shows up on your doorstep. Unannounced. With a key. And a real mean point to make.

Doubt: (real mean-like) Seriously? LA? LA LA? You're actually thinking of one day leaving Sydney -- this picture perfect postcard place that has those people you now can't live without and those ferries you're always on -- to move back to Los Angeles?

Me: (suddenly full of doubt) Huh? Well. One day.

Doubt: (now way meaner) LA DOESN'T HAVE FERRIES!

Me: (still trying to figure out where The Grove is) What?

Doubt: Dumbass.

Did doubt just call me a dumbass?!

And with that, you'll throw doubt out the door and chase it with a slam. Because no one calls you dumbass in your own house. To your face. But it will be too late. The damage will have been done, and any time you try to think anything, you will always end up back at the same place: 'Am I a dumbass?' So you'll call your husband to find out the answer only to learn that doubt swung by his office and called him a dumbass too.

Dumbass 1: I mean, our plan was always to move back. Our friends, our family, my--

(career cut off again)

Dumbass 2: I know we've always said that, but.

Dumbass 1: But what? What if we no longer like LA?

Dumbass 2: What if we hate it?

Dumbass 1: Or. (real mean-like) What if it hates us more?

And that is how a pact between two dumbasses is born. We decided this and nothing else: We'd go, we'd see, we're reassess.

We landed at 6:15 am in Los Angeles after departing Sydney at 9:30 am on the same exact Saturday. Try to explain that to a six-year old. The husband and I had four blinks of sleep between us because the airport chemist sold me a mislabeled why-am-I-still-awake?! pill. We were exhausted and in no condition to judge a potato chip much less the fate of an entire city but from the moment we were jostled out of LAX, judge we did.

The air. Had thick layers of not blue. Should air have layers? The 405 had no answers for us because it was under construction. Again. How much wider could a freeway get and still be called a freeway? We didn't know so we got off and made the mistake of going through our old neighborhood. Brentwood adjacent. When we lived there, it felt like almost Brentwood. Now that we don't, all we could see was the adjacent. Multiple closed down businesses left for dead. A new ihop restaurant in old Blockbuster bones felt offensive. Abandoned shopping carts desperate for a push. It was depressing. And if Giggles and Hugs couldn't make it in West LA, what made us think we could? That was rhetorical but Coffee Bean didn't care. The giant cup of hotness they served me that made my tongue mad was a statement. A statement that said, "Get out!"

So we got out. Out of Santa Monica. Out of West LA. Out of Brentwood adjacent. And started our journey to Sherman Oaks, to our friends' house, in traumatized silence. Only one hour into visit home, I had bad thoughts. I know my husband had bad thoughts too. My children verbalized other thoughts: "When will we be in America?" Things were clearly not going well in our assessment process.

I stared out the window with worry and not enough sunscreen and WHERE WERE THE FERRIES?!

And then.

We saw our first friend. Our first family. Our children played with their children like it was what they were born to do. The parade of people and all four parents and parties and dinners and cousins and so many kids and the W and birthdays and dogs and my sweet little 96-year-old grandmother on her very last day on this planet.

And that was it.

We were homesick for it all.

Signed,
Mr. & Mrs. Dumbass

Target visit #3.

The airport where one of our children declared to another passenger
in the Southwest boarding line: Guess what. I'm an American!

J Crew at The Grove.
Corner of Fairfax & W. 3rd.

one wedding and a family reunion (with a side of legoland and a whole mess of birthdays)

2013-07-31T21:18:00.001-07:00

Sixteen hours.

That's how long it will take me to get back home. To get back to Target. To get back to my friends and family and the 405.

For sixteen hours I will be on a plane. Up in the sky. I will watch a lot a lot of movies. Random TV shows. Eat some airplane food. Think about Deep Vein Thrombosis maybe once or twice. Do some ankle/leg exercises immediately after. Drink a lot of water. Go to the lavatory too many times to count, or maybe less, but probably more. I will break up some kid fights. Smile at my husband. Make nice nice with the flight attendants because I was once a waitress and I know. I will sit in only one seat with not enough leg room and wish I had more. And then wish I was in my pajamas. And then wish I was horizontal like those horizontal people somewhere way in front of me. And then I will stop wishing because those wishes aren't coming true. Not on this flight. And so I'll start piecing together all the little unfolding stories around me. Him and her and how are those pants comfortable?! And then I will get bored and notice my family is asleep. So I will moisturize everything. And find my glasses. And take out my contacts. And adjust my multiple blankets -- because of the nice nice earlier, I will have at least two. And this is when I will pull it out. One half of my tiny over-the-counter sleeping pill and it will be in my mouth and down my throat and absorbed into my bloodstream as I pray beg hope for sleep. And, in this version of that story, I will sleep.

And just like that, I will be back home. And at Target. And with my friends and family and the 405.

And that is what I will be doing for sixteen hours in August.

In comfortable pants.

door 13 (@ tedx sydney)

2013-06-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

I am more or less inspired by five things. My friends and family. People who write well. The others who don’t. Actual puppy breath. Not my hair. And all of those free on-line TED talks.

Last month TEDx came to Sydney. I had to go. I tried to get a ticket but somehow ended up with a filled-out application to volunteer instead.

I nailed it.

My day started early that Saturday. Too early, I thought, until I got to the Sydney Opera House and saw the sunrise. Oh my breathtaking. If you’ve never seen morning come up over the Opera House, put on your pajamas and look at the picture below. Look at it!

I am not this pretty at 6 am.

It went uphill from here.

All the food on this day was grown or bred or made by locals specifically for the event. Produce, meats, butter was whipped up on the spot. Actual bees were set up in the neighboring park to make honey for the conference. The food was donated on Thursday and from this edible pile of randomness, the chefs made the most amazing, fresh, healthy meals for Saturday.

I ate a plum the size of a water balloon and the innards of this box.

#delicious

My job that day was Door 13 of the concert hall. Behind my door was where you wanted to sit. The sweet seats. But you only got through Door 13 if this was the door number listed on your ticket for that particular session. I assume it was to prevent melees and the stampeding of me. Welcome to Checkpoint Charlie. Only Door 13 people came in Door 13. Some disoriented Door 14 people were not happy. All Door 13 people were the opposite.

But I was probably happiest of all the peoples because once the doors were closed, it was an inside job. I got to stay with my Door 13 people.

With the sweet seats.

And with these five badasses.

Joost Bakker. A fifth-generation tulip farmer intent on saving the world with recycled pee, minimal waste and growing food everywhere.

David Sinclair. An Aussie biologist from MIT and Harvard who wants me and you to stop getting old. But really me.

Tom Thum. A beatbox genius who definitely spat on his microphone.

Ron McCallum. Adorable, interesting, blind. Standing ovation by everyone.

But the unexpected prize of the day and the reason for this post: the irreverent Kate Miller-Heidke. A classically trained singer from Brisbane who became an alternative pop artist. Her voice is magic. Whether she's doing a cover of The Real Slim Shady or original material. "The Tiger Inside Will Eat The Child" will make you eat your child.

And my very very very favorite song of Kate's: "Sarah." About a friend of a friend who went missing at a music festival. It is hauntingly beautiful and a perfect follow up to her lady part story.

my nude scene

2013-05-05T21:50:00.000-07:00

There is no such thing as an annual physical in Australia. You go to the doctor and ask for it, and they look at you like you’re some overindulgent yahoo who wants her bones counted. Here, and in New Zealand, you are considered well until you come forward with a cough, lump, or plague to prove you’re not.

Or. You’re of that age and you get a letter.

I recently got a letter stating it was time for my health check. It opened with how as we get older, many of us become more vulnerable to disease and it ended with me. Their records showed I was within the “age rage” for a health check. A perfectly placed typo. Old me was furious. I didn't like being of that age. But if you add up all the cakes, I was. So I made an appointment. My bones couldn't wait to be counted.

Now I’ve been to my doctor here before for a sore this and a swollen that. The specifics of this and that or my incessant need to Google it all is not important. What is important is my doctor and I have a relationship. One based on respect, honesty, and both of us being fully dressed.

That relationship changed on health check day.

Things you should know at this point:

No nurses at doctor’s offices here.
None of the doctors I have encountered wear a white coat or drape a stethoscope around their necks like they do in the movies or America.
Most family doctors’ offices are in old repurposed buildings. Craftsman houses. Terrace apartments. Mine screams low-performing brothel.

Things I didn't know at any point:

NO PAPER OR FABRIC GOWNS?!

I was called into my doctor’s room by my doctor. Her office is old, wooden, creaky. There is no sink even though I (and all those girls before me) wished there was. An examining table is pushed up against one wall. A desk occupies the opposite one. In between the two, so much space you could twirl.

What happens next is what nightmares are made of. You know the ones where you show up to an exam, your in-laws’ house, your work four jobs ago and find you have no clothes on. This is that guy but with more gravity.

Standing in the so much space, I twirl to face my doctor. In her floral dress. With no doctor’s coat. Or stethoscope. Or medical anything anywhere on her person. And this is when I realize that my doctor, as competent as she is, doesn’t look like a doctor. She looks like she could be anything. And this exchange we’re about to have? Well. It could be between me and just about anyone.

Doctor: Okay, so I’m going to need you to take your clothes off.

Me: Okay.

Anyone: Down to your underwear.

Me: Right.

I wait for some sort of gown to be offered to me and privacy.

The bookstore clerk offers me nothing and waits.

I awkwardly take off my top.

The accountant awkwardly watches me fold my top.

I hope a curtain will soon be pulled. But I notice there is no curtain for the off duty security guard to pull.

I unbutton my denim.

The librarian doesn’t.

Confused but compliant, I pull my jeans down, all the way down, and step out of them. I try not to trip over my shoe as I trip over my shoe.

The bus driver looks away to check her bus schedule as I discover I’M WEARING THE WRONG UNDERWEAR!

I am mortified.

The florist looks up and sees my inappropriate thong.

I apologize for my panty selection.

Astronaut: No worries.

Oh but I am worried. Because I am nearly naked! Just standing there.

The CEO of a Fortune 500 company, also just standing there, reminds me: Bra too.

Bra too? I think out loud with words.

The farmer nods.

I begrudgingly take off my bra. And, yep, there are my boobs. I am now super naked.

Your sister: Let’s get started.

I cannot believe we’re not done.

The very not naked human resources manager walks over to the examining table and pats the piece of hygienic paper covering it.

I want to Project Runway that piece of hygienic paper into a robe but it is too small to turn into anything besides a thong, which would be inappropriate and redundant, so instead I sit on it.

Not Google: Lie down so I can count your bones.

End scene.

I wish I could say the above word jumble was a one-time dealie, but it wasn't. It happened again weeks later at my mammogram and again at my mole check with varying degrees of me being nude in front of people who weren't nude and had no gown cover up drawer. But that's okay. With experience comes confidence. I now take off my bra before I'm even asked. And I can rattle off my chicken sausage pasta recipe with my pants off. Which is good because I am of that age.

Tomorrow I go to the ophthalmologist.

our tom cruise to tasmania (part two)

2013-02-28T17:46:00.000-08:00

The Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania is interesting and fun and weird and shocking and unexpected and irreverent and special and very much like the HBO show "Girls." You don't think you want to see Lena Dunham in a see-thru yellow mesh top with no bra on but then you do and there's something appealing about it all. Her. The show. Even that top.

MONA's just like that.

Located in Hobart, MONA is Australia's largest private museum owned by David Walsh. His bio says that his mother named him Glen at birth but then found God and changed his name to David. He has a dog named Bruce and a cat named Christ. And he is, he says, a prick. Glen/David came up with some sort of mathematical gambling equation that he applied to poker and ponies and made millions. With this money and that backstory and no allegiance to God, he built a museum.

It is free for locals and $20 for me.

But. Beware, socially conservative toddlers. It's not for everyone or children or my dad, as it does dabble in the disgusting and inappropriate, but it is so incredibly amazing and not many things are these days.

Lena Dunham should definitely put a bra on and go.

http://www.mona.net.au/

You can take a bus or ferry there.
Take the ferry.

The three-level, cliff-face museum, carved out of the very sandstone it sits in, starts here.

An artist buying stories on the street for a dollar bought this one.

A dark room with one light.
And the blurry, hard-to-articulate/impossible-to-photograph, mesmerizing aura that surrounded it.

This is a scalp. And that is a bullet hole.

I loved this painting.

Of tiny little things that I couldn't or wouldn't stop looking at.

Choreographed rain.

Erect bubbles in rubbish bins that moved when you blew on them but just stood there when you didn't.

The human digestion system in machine form.
Food scraps go in, number twos come out.

A socioeconomic statement with backs.

The ones that I thought were the happy rich backs were actually the sad poor ones.

God's mistress drives a really nice car.

The entrance and tennis court and view.

One of the cottages on the grounds you can rent if your name is Brett.
It comes with a peacock, Brett.

Go.

our tom cruise to tasmania (part one)

2013-01-31T22:32:00.001-08:00

Does Tom cruise? Who knows. But we do. And just did.

It was an eight-night cruise. Sydney to Melbourne to Tasmania. It was beautiful. I saw a lot of fat people. I became a fat people. I had no choice. Sydney then sea then Melbourne then more sea then two days in Hobart then a whole lot of sea back. I ate the entire time. Never because I was hungry; mostly because it was there and free; once because I had to see what kanga tasted like.

Gamey.

The point is, there were freestanding automated hand sanitizers everywhere. Purell® is no dummy. If you entered a dining room, one of the many bars, the casino, or stood in line at the buffet at Windjammer's, you had to sanitize. If you stopped by the gym, the spa, or contemplated climbing the rock wall and then kept walking, you had to sanitize. If you had to go to the bathroom, thought about going to the bathroom, or actually went to the bathroom, you had to sanitize. This coupled with the army of railing and button wipers that Princess employed meant that if you were hoping a gastrointestinal illness might do you some swimsuit favors, you were on the wrong cruise.

Still. It was super fun. Even if I didn't climb that rock wall. The boys gave us a preview of the teenage years and spent all of their non-eating hours at kids' club. I got to have peace and quiet and read Joan Didion's lovely little sad perfect memoir about her year of magical thinking, and eat bacon. American bacon. My husband played basketball and didn't comment on me eating American bacon. And my in-laws, who were in the cabin right next to ours, were just there. After a couple of years of no relatives anywhere, it was really nice to have the opposite.

And American bacon.

Nine days and an unmentionable amount of extra pounds later, I was back home. With 99.9% germ-free hands, some nice mid-summer abominable squish, zero Tasmanian Devil sightings, and my new found museum crush: MONA!

To be continued whether any of us likes it or not.

Passengers.

My boys, some ferries, and that Opera House I can't stop taking pictures of.

Friends who happened to be loitering nearby the day we left.
From tiny left to tiny right: Sheila, Claire, Bob, Coops, Dave, Nikki, Sally, Tyler, Fin, Toby.
Possibly not in that order at all.

The other angle: Me, at the top, between the golf balls, arms up, pre-bacon.

Goodbye, you.

Unsolicited cop face.

Boys who love lanyards.

Port Melbourne.

Puffing Billy aka a really old steam train in Melbourne.

Our VW camper van/cabin #3558.

Our bed's POV.

This is not a time out even though it looks like one.

Tassie.

Royal Tasmanian Botanical Garden is a place.

Our ride back to Sydney.

The reason why I do anything ever.

on love, loss and being a million stupid miles away

2012-12-31T13:09:00.000-08:00

I don’t know how to write about what I’m about to write about, but I also know I can’t write about anything else until I do.

So.

Let me tell you about Kellie. She was the best of the best. One of my dearest. The kindest soul, the most loving heart. She was nothing but my very favorite adjectives. Kind, thoughtful, generous, beautiful, smart, funny, amazing, Kellie. She was a world traveler, a doctor, she was a rock star and, as fate would have it, she was dating a rock star. Literally. But. She also had cancer. Four-and-half years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer. These two words were heartbreaking. To us, to her, to everything she had worked so hard to get. She vowed to beat it and on those days when she didn’t feel like it, we reminded her she could. And she did. She beat the bananas out of it.

And then I moved out of the country.

Shortly thereafter it came back. The cancer. In all the wrong places -- as if there are any right places. It was devastating. To us, to her, to everything she had worked so hard to get back. And to me. Because I was now so far away, I couldn’t participate in the day to day. I couldn’t rub her feet. I couldn’t bring her dinner. I couldn’t physically be there for her as I had before. Many others thankfully were.

The second diagnosis was a terrible blow, but she found the courage and strength to face it. She was determined to beat this life interrupter one more time. And on those days when she didn’t feel like it, we reminded her -- me through email, texts and Skype -- that she did it before and she could do it again. She would do it again. And for a while, she was. She was beating the bananas out of it.The lung cancer disappeared. The brain cancer was getting smaller. The clinical trial was a miracle. She was a miracle. She saw God.

And then. A month or so ago. I don’t know why. It all stopped working. The clinical trial. The miracle. I prayed to God. He felt very far away. I felt further.

Kellie died on December 14^th. She was hardly forty. She was the best of the best. One of my dearest. I will mourn her forever and celebrate her always. She was nothing but my very favorite adjectives, and she always will be.

And it is because of Kellie that I will be moving back to the country one day. There was a moment, the day of the Newtown shootings, that I thought I wouldn't. That I couldn't. Hours later, on the same horrible day, I learned about my sweet friend and I knew I definitely would.

I don't know what it's like to lose a close friend when you're right next to them. But I do know it's profoundly and unbearably painful to lose one when you're not. The inevitability of life is death, and I want to be there for it all.

The last text Kellie sent me was a week before her death. “Hi, beautiful girl!!!!!!” Three words, six exclams, all love. That was Kellie.

So.

I miss you, beautiful girl!!!!!!

I so very much do.

One of our many birthdays we were so lucky to celebrate together.
Kel is the beautiful smile in the upper right corner.

a pilgrim is a doe

2012-11-22T17:47:00.001-08:00

You can take the child out of Thanksgiving but you can't take Thanksgiving out of the child, is not a saying. And nor should it be.

The last time my five-year old celebrated Thanksgiving in America he was two. He had some turkey. Ate a slice of pie. Watched Charlie Brown and his on-again off-again Peppermint Patty dramatically explain the meaning of the holiday before Christmas.

He has no memory of this or anything remotely like this whatsoever.

My children are being educated abroad. I always thought that was a good thing. They’d learn about different cultures, see the world, grow up with tolerance. I didn't really give much thought to what they weren't learning.

Until yesterday.

It was Thanksgiving here. Even though the date label up there says it is today. It's not. Yesterday. Thursday. Thanksgiving. Which I only remembered was happening on Wednesday. So. After morning band practice, a full day of school, one birthday party, swim lessons, endless homework and shopping for a new mattress, we threw together an instant just-add-water holiday dinner starring a store-bought roasted chicken. The locals were begging for an invite. But it was just us.

And this conversation I had with Charlie.

Charlie Gray.

Me: Do you know what Thanksgiving is?

Charlie: You give your own food to old people-- no, I mean, you give things to lonely kids that don't have anything.

Me: Do you know what day it is?

Charlie: No.

Me: It's today.

Charlie: No it's not.

Me: Do you know who Christopher Columbus is?

Charlie: Is he a famous person?

Me: Yes.

Charlie: Is he a lonely people?

Me: Do you know where the United States is?

Charlie: Yes. In the United States.

Me: What about the Mayflower?

Charlie: I don't know what that is.

Me: It was a ship.

Charlie: Does it have missiles?

Me: No, it was an old ship.

Charlie: So no missiles.

Me: What are Native American Indians?

Charlie: People who live in the jungle.

Me: What is a pilgrim?

Charlie: A doe.

Me: Like a deer?

Charlie: Yes.

Me: What do people eat at Thanksgiving?

Charlie: Giving leaves.

Me: Do you know what a turkey is?

Charlie: It's a chicken.

Me: Do you like pie?

Charlie: No, only my friends do.

Me: What's your friend's favorite pie?

Charlie: Lemon.

Me: What are you most thankful for?

Charlie: Max-- no, I mean, lonely kids. I thank you for lonely kids.

Me: Do you know any lonely kids?

Charlie: No.

Me: Do you know who Charlie Brown is?

Charlie: Yes.

Me: Who?

Charlie: Me.

the two-year rebuttal by meg mason

2012-10-30T18:30:00.000-07:00

Last month I made a list. Of all the many wonderful things I miss about home and Los Angeles in the two years since I've been away. I called it What I Miss.

This week she made a list to my list.

She: Meg Mason.

Meg Mason is a journalist, an author, a wife, a mother, the one who drinks coffee with me on milk crates outside of Bertonis almost every day. She lives in a small house, lets me read all of her books, has two daughters the exact same age as my two sons, always wears a onesie, and hates having her picture taken. We write together on Tuesdays. When we don't forget. I make her cookies. She makes me laugh.

This is Meg's first book.

This is Meg's only back.

And this is Meg's guest post.

* * * * *

You have been here, with me, sitting on a milk crate at Bertonis for nine months now so...

My sister wives. My besties. My friends. So much.
Nikki, Sally, Other Meg, Andria and I are yet to decide how we feel about this. John the barista is taking it hard though.

My family.
They came with you! Max? The little guy? I've seen them!

Mom.
We have moms here.

Having a babysitter.
Oh, hi.

Having another baby.
You could have had one by now - it's been nine months.

Watching the babies of my friends turn into people.
Do not let Daphne Mason (age 6) read this. After every cute thing she's done for you?

Watching Barbara Walter’s 10 Most Fascinating People.
The Kardashians were on the 2011 list. The Kardashians.

Nora Ephron.
Do you want to borrow Heartburn?

Oprah.
Gail. (Are we free-associating?)

O Magazine at a reasonable price.
Suddenly $18.95 for a magazine that is three months out of date and in opposite seasons isn't "reasonable"?

Domino. Still.
We all feel like that. I can set you up with some Cookies from '08 though. They are $18.95. Each.

Target. The one on Jefferson.
Target. The one in Broadway.

Trader Joe’s. All of them.
I don't know this Joe, double air quotes, or what he is trading, double air quotes, with whom, but... alarm bells, is all.

Veggie sausage patties.
Veggie what? It's sausage but it's veggie? Nope. Not real.

Saying tomato without thinking “tomayto/tomahto” in my head.
It's tomarto, but we know what you mean. And we like it that you try.

Saying I’ll be home in one to two years.
I told you to be home by 11.

Knowing when I will be home.
Not a minute after.

Not the 405.
One day you will not miss Victoria Road.

Having a drive on.
I don't know what this is but walking is better.

HBO.
Read a book.

Hulu.
Read a book.

Tivo.
Read a book.

My writers’ group.
Write a book. With me.

Beth Stine.
She sounds nice.

New release movies.
God is teaching you patience.

The fall TV season.
God is teaching you missing out.

Having Christmas in winter.
God's birthday is in summer.

Being hot in July.
November until March, all hot.

The fourth of July.
Fireworks? Wait until New Years. Ka-pow.

Fahrenheit.
Makes no sense. I've checked.

Miles, feet, and inches.
Google conversions.

Knowing how much my children weigh when the doctor asks me.
Tell him, Google conversions.

Having my blood pressure taken when I go to the doctor.
Come over at 3. I have some time.

Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies.
You need to lose this one. That recipe with those Cadbury's sweet and semi-sweet chips you found, edible happiness.

Crest toothpaste.
I'm getting tired.

Garbage disposals.
Bad for the earth.

Being one day younger.
That happens everywhere.

Dr. Harry Saperstein.
He actually sounds awesome. Is he played by Billy Crystal? Genuine question.

The 40^th birthday parties.
Give me five years!

The life events.
I'll have another baby. You'll be my doulah.

The everyday moments between the parties and the events.
Bertonis. Milk crates. Every. Day.

Bacon.
Come on! We have bacon here. You are scaring the people.

it's been two years since we ran away from home

2012-09-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

What I Miss

My sister wives. My besties. My friends. So much.

My family.

Mom.

Having a babysitter.

Having another baby.*

Watching the babies of my friends turn into people.

Watching Barbara Walter’s 10 Most Fascinating People.

Nora Ephron.

Oprah.

O Magazine at a reasonable price.

Domino. Still.

Target. The one on Jefferson.

Trader Joe’s. All of them.

Veggie sausage patties.

Saying tomato without thinking “tomayto/tomahto” in my head.

Saying I’ll be home in one to two years.

Knowing when I will be home.

Not the 405.

Having a drive on.

HBO.

Hulu.

Tivo.

My writers’ group.

Beth Stine.

New release movies.

The fall TV season.

Having Christmas in winter.

Being hot in July.

The fourth of July.

Fahrenheit.

Miles, feet, and inches.

Knowing how much my children weigh when the doctor asks me.

Having my blood pressure taken when I go to the doctor.

Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Crest toothpaste.

Garbage disposals.

Being one day younger.

Dr. Harry Saperstein.

The 40^th birthday parties.

The life events.

The everyday moments between the parties and the events.

Bacon.

*My uterus put that one in.

stranger ipad danger

2012-08-31T09:00:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, two countries prior, we were introduced to stranger danger. Not from a dangerous stranger, but from a hired woman telling a room full of five-year-old kindergartners that there were bad people out there. At the park. In a white van. And they would claim to have anything to lure them away. Puppies. Candy. Rainbows. Me!

Max wondered why I was in a van. Charlie the toddler toddled. And as the only one of us who could read the alarming pamphlet, I got serious.

I was vigilant before. It was Los Angeles, after all. But I stepped up my game and became crazy vigilant. If I even suspected that someone wasn’t one of the world’s best guys, I was out of there. I’d scoop up my children and evacuate. Abandoned snacks, empty swings, confused play dates left in my wake. I judged. I profiled. I never parked near a white van. Ever. I didn’t care. I was my children’s guardian and guard I did.

A year later we moved to New Zealand, and I lost my pamphlet. I got over it. I had other things to think about. How to drive a car and not kill people was at the top of my list. Because, as you might suspect, driving on the wrong side of the road is hard. And wrong. And nothing is where it’s supposed to be. Do you know how many times I meant to indicate my right turn and instead just wiped my windows? Every. Time. I had very clean windows in NZ.

In Australia, it is a different story. Every time I turn? Blink-er. I could give lessons I am so good. But it is not without a cost. The amount of times I have brought up stranger or danger to my children? Zero. Something’s gotta give. Apparently my hired woman white van memory was replaced by foreign car blinker knowledge. Which makes sense because everyone is really nice over here, and how else was I going to turn into the mall that day?

It was time to buy a television. We didn’t have one because we went from furnished to unfurnished and, therefore, had to furnish e-very-thing. Helloooo, Ikea Tempe (Ikea Burbank sister store). We held out on the TV because we thought that could wait. After two months without -- with kids, during school hollerdays, in the rain -- I realized we couldn't. So there we were. In the television department of Myer (fancy Macy’s). Sixty sets of varying sizes and price points flickered before us, each trying to win us over with the same exact image, only sharper or bigger or more dimensional. But since none of the images were Pixar produced, my children were instantly bored. They got in position to wrestle -- a fun activity they can do anywhere! – when all of sudden they saw them. Out of the corner of their headlock. In the next department.

The iPads!

We don’t have an iPad so every chance they get to rub their grubby fingers over a screen that billions of grubby fingers have rubbed before them, they take it. They know a germ opportunity when they see one. This day was no different. Just like that, they were over there, contaminating or being contaminated, in ‘computers’ right next to ‘entertainment.’ ALL BY THEMSELVES. That’s right. Even though I could see them, past the Samsungs and the Sonys and the LGs, they were technically alone. Eight and five. Unsupervised. Free for the taking.

See where this is going? We didn't.

As my husband and I tried to figure out the difference between LCD and LED, a saleswoman approached our boys and started talking to them. I know this not because I never took my eyes off of them but because when I looked over to check out a plasma in their direction, I saw her. Talking to Max and not stopping. Oh, crap, what’d they do? I hurried over, thinking my speed would somehow lower the price of the broken iPad I was about to buy, and threw out an apologetic ‘hi.’ She asked if I was their mum. Depends is what I thought. ‘Yes’ is what slipped out. This is when I noticed that this clerk was missing a name tag. What she wasn’t missing: fleece.

The anonymous fleeced woman then asked if she could talk to me. Alone. No. ‘Okay.’ Once out of small ear and iPad range, she proceeded to tell me that she was with Child Protective Services. Three words I was not expecting to hear that day or ever. She had noticed my two sons, alone, playing with the iPads, and struck up a conversation with them. Max, a kid who feels no information is too private, including my age, which he enjoys sharing with everyone who doesn’t ask, was all too happy to participate. In thirty seconds or less, Max had apparently told her the following: his name, first and last, where he went to school, what grade he was in, his brother’s name, how old they are, probably how old I am, and where we live. Cross streets were mentioned. The cozy government employee then asked my son if he was supposed to talk to strangers. Max's scared straight response: ‘uh-oh.’

That day we got a free lesson in stranger danger abroad. It was unsolicited, decked out in imitation North Face, and necessary. There are bad people out there, even over here. They may or may not be in a park or own a white van or work for Child Protective Services (never really saw a badge), but they are here and they are definitely by the iPads.

Dick Smith (a low rent Best Buy) entertains my children.

The portable headlock.

australian gun laws

2012-07-24T18:03:00.002-07:00

When a major event happens in the US, it may or may not make the front page of the paper way over here in Australia. American news usually comes in around page 4 or so. In New Zealand, it was always a hunt.

But on our Saturday morning/your Friday, that wasn’t the case. Your front page was our front page. Sydney Morning Herald. Massacre. Movie theatre. Twelve dead people. It was horrifying and shocking and the worst kind of awful there is. I felt so much sadness for those victims, those families, those injured, my country.

I texted my friend in Los Angeles. The one I text when something really good or really bad or anything in between happens. Two inadequate words were all I could manage. Colorado. Ugh.

She texted me back immediately. Don’t get me started. And then she started. We’ve learned nothing. Nothing changes. No more gun laws. No one says enough. Makes me want to move to an island.

I felt the same way.

And then remembered I did move to an island.

I had to wonder. Am I safer here in Australia? Are there gun laws here? How do they differ from America? I didn’t have the answers. But youknowwho did. And here’s what Google and I came up with.

In 1987, there were 6 gun massacres in Australia. 32 were murdered with guns. Most murderers held their guns legally. After that, most Australian jurisdictions made stricter gun laws resulting in a significant lowering of gun homicide and gun suicide rates.

In 1996, 35 people were murdered at popular tourist spot in Tasmania. The murderer was a mentally disturbed person who purchased his weapons legally. Afterwards, more gun laws were introduced resulting in further lowering of the gun homicide and gun suicide rates.

In 2002, another individual who had mental problems and had acquired his handguns legally murdered two students at Monash University. Stricter controls on handguns came out of that tragedy.

The government of Australia followed the wishes of the public regarding gun laws, and not the wishes of Australia's major shooting groups, and changes were made. By 2004, it became clear that stricter gun laws were working. Less people were being murdered. Less people were committing suicide.

In 2011, according to The Sydney Morning Herald, researchers at Harvard University reviewed the evidence on the impact of reforms and concluded, "The National Firearms Agreement seems to have been incredibly successful in terms of lives saved." There have been no gun massacres since 1996. There were 13 such tragedies during the previous 18 years. And there have been drastically less deaths as well. In the early '90s, approximately 600 Australians were dying each year by gunfire. Now the number is fewer than 250.

To answer my own questions, it does seem I am safer here and there are gun laws here and they differ oh so greatly from America. I know it’s like comparing 311 million apples to 22 million oranges. But here, on this island, when something bad happens, it seems my friend’s words happen. People learn. Things change. More gun laws are made. People say stuff. And then less bad things happen.

I know nothing about guns. I have never touched a gun. I don’t ever want to touch a gun. And I completely respect those who exercise their right to own a gun. But something has to be done. The mentally ill are legally buying guns and no one notices until it is too late. We need more mental health programs. We don’t need semi-automatic anythings. And it should be way harder for anyone not of sound mind to obtain a gun license, much less a gun.

I have no doubt there are a thousand holes in my simplistic cut-and-paste argument above, but the bottom line is, how can we let yet another tragedy happen and not do anything? At all. Again.

the other surry

2012-06-26T17:00:00.001-07:00

When you live on a peninsula, you stay on a peninsula. That's the deal with peninsulas.

I live on a peninsula. Around every corner, down every block, up every street, is everything I need. A smile, a sunny day, greener grass, a view of that bridge, a friend, a hug, my coffee, dirt, a play date, a chalkboard footpath, Thursdays, the perfect little book store, a fat person to make me feel thin, a thin person to remind me I'm not, six bottle shops because grocery stores don't sell alcohol here, access to a ferry, bright green wild Australian parrots that make you never want to blink again.

Free birds!

But. One can only not blink so long before you suddenly do and you're snapped out of your I-got-everything-I-need-and-I-don't-need-much haze. Birds, boats, overpriced alcohol, my weight, loitering near the very best sellers that are written by everyone but me, those days after Wednesdays, chalk on the bottom of your shoes, children, being dirty, the coffee queue, so much embracing, that one foe, views, weeds, squinting, smiling. Sometimes it all gets to be too much.

And sometimes you just need a really good paper store.

So you have to leave the p word.

And you have to take two mates with you.

And you have to go to Surry Hills like Pixie 2, the American, and I did.

Surry Hills in an inner-city suburb of Sydney that features off-beat designers and cool housewares and PAPER. It is there that I found my new favorite paper shop. The one I've been looking for for almost two years. New Zealand does manuka honey. Not tags and twine. I have been deprived. Until now.

Paper 2. Lame name. Worse website. But the store? I want to stick it on my peninsula.

Paper porn below.

for the love of alice

2012-05-31T22:07:00.000-07:00

Moving house. That’s what they call it when you move in these parts. I call it a pain in my ass and why do I have so many tube tops?

We moved house again last weekend. That’s four times in under sixteen months. Do not do this. It takes a lot of time and too many boxes and there is almost always regret on the other end when you unpack something you never should have packed in the first place. That list is long for me, and always begins and ends with a tube top.

When we moved to Auckland from Los Angeles in September 2010, we had a plan. One to two years in New Zealand (for husband’s career and family belly fluff) and then we’d come back to the States (for my career and Target).

In January 2012 we shoved that plan into one of my stretchy bands of cloth that I always pack and never wear, and moved it to Sydney. The plan was not happy. Our bank account was livid. By the time February rolled around, aka the month we realized money doesn't grow on magical trees, we were paying rent on three places to live. Do not do this. If Zagat reviewed housing decisions, it would look like this.

1. Auckland home (NZ). They gave three months’ notice two months before they left. $$$

2. North Sydney high-rise (AU). They broke their lease two days after they started it. $$$
3. Temporary tiny in Balmain (AU). It was temporary and tiny but mandatory since they broke a lease with two kids and had no car yet to sleep in. $$$

$$$ + $$$ + $$$ = Lots and lots and -- let me really stress this part -- LOTS of dollar signs, right out the window.

But that was then and dumb, and this is now.

And now! We are done moving house. We found a great house to call home. In the same neighborhood as temporary tiny so school, friends, standing order at local coffee shop all remain intact. My tube tops are all unpacked and put away never to be seen again (or until I become ridiculously redundant and move again). And my boys? They have won the kiddie lottery. This house has a huge giant attic bedroom for my guys to share. Hugely huge. And I rent so this isn't bragging. It's reporting. They run laps in this cavernous room. A whole corner is devoted to who-can-make-the-tallest-Lego-tower contests. Stomp rockets are launched on a daily basis. That's not to say this room isn't without its problems or closets. My sons only wear folded clothes and if you're anywhere near the outer perimeter of the room and you're taller than an eight-year old, you will hit your head on the sloped ceiling forty times a day. But a few shirt creases and a couple of head bonks are worth it. It's a great room and one that would make Greg Brady and his bead door wish they never made that episode.

And in the end, isn't that what life is all about? Having better life episodes than those bunch of Bradys. I think so. And I'm pretty sure Alice would agree.

On one side, Max's corner.

Way, way, way on the other side, Charlie is off the grid.

there are no words

2012-04-30T00:15:00.000-07:00

But, man, are there a lot of pictures!

Our first hundred days. In Sydney.

These guys.

This guy.

Our fish market.

The bridge that Oprah touched.

Charlie and his school hat hit Bronte Beach.

View from the zoo.

This is what chlamydia looks like.

Charlie and his daily activity of tormenting an Ibis.

Scootering at Bondi Beach.

Darth Maul and some other guys.

A younger Aussie version of Martha Stewart.

Just a roo.

The Cross City Tunnel.
At $5 a pop, it is always this clean and empty.

My new favorite artist: Marise Maas.

1st goal e-ver!

Charlie is the one over-stretching in the middle.

One guess.

Shelly Beach in my shoes.

One of the smaller Australian spiders.

Max cannot not put up the bunny ears.

You can't escape them.

Charlie multi-tasking with cricket gear.

Our Anzac Bridge.

Seconds before that bad wet dog trampled my good dry purse.

The one day a year where it is legal to bet on a coin toss.
We won $40. And then I lost $40.

It's true.

let's not talk about my organs

2012-03-31T12:00:00.034-07:00

When you move to a new country, what do you do? Explore? Shop? Have surgery? Same.

I had surgery this month and not on my boobs. Long story fragmented: shattered kneecap in Los Angeles three years ago, wired back together, life went on, hardware broke in New Zealand right before we moved to Sydney, and ouch. As much as I hated the thought of surgery, the reality of being shredded from the inside out with every step from poke-y broken wire bits was worse. So I found the surgeon with the best Australian accent and a date was set. That was that.

And then the public service announcements began.

These public service announcements.

It was Donate Life Week in Australia and the loved one I lived with didn’t know diddly about my wishes. Not because I’m mean or an organ hoarder or all rotten inside, but because I never wanted to put that sort of thing out there. Into the universe. Where it could accidentally manifest itself into reality like things you put out in the universe always end up doing. But I was about to have surgery. And we’ve all seen Grey’s Anatomy. What if the surgeon with the best Australian accent wasn’t actually a doctor but a nut job who couldn’t cut a cake and things didn’t work out so well for me and I ended up with the brain activity of a carrot? Then what?

This thought haunted me.

Then came date night. In our living room because I have no idea where they keep the sitters around here. My husband and I were watching the most genius show e-ver. Homeland. Is he a terrorist? Is he not? We don’t know! When all of a sudden that PSA came on. Again. With all the questions. And the music. And the oh so sad faces. I couldn’t take it anymore. Without giving it a second thought, I turned to my loved one and gave him a look. A look that pretty much said it all.

A look that said this:

Listen up, Loved One. I'm only going to not say this once. If something bad goes down and I can’t make decisions for myself, you know what to do. You know you know what to do. SAVE ME! Find the best doctors in the best hospitals, shake them by their doctor coats, and tell them to SAVE ME! Send home the slackers. Weed out the weak. SAVE ME! Make sure no one gives up. No scratching heads wondering what to do next. No talking about topics other than me or the saving of me. SAVE ME! I want baseball caps turned backwards, sleeves rolled up, dream teams assembled. If Patrick Dempsey is free, get him in there because he or his handsome character might have a solution. Don’t mock me. SAVE ME! Heroic efforts, out-of-box thinking, throw money at the problem, whatever it takes. I’m going to need everyone to come together for this one goal, one purpose, one moment, and SAVE ME! But. Sigh. If after all of that, there is absolutely no chance that I can be saved and I have a carrot for a brain and this has been confirmed by no less than five doctors and Patrick Dempsey, then you know what to do. Scoop me out like a cantaloupe and save the others. Save them.

My husband's look in response said this:

Wha-?

And Homeland was back on. As Carrie went bonkers from being off her bi-polar meds and my loved one reached for my hand, I knew. He had heard everything I didn't say. And this, my friends, is one of the many reasons why I married my husband instead of Patrick Dempsey.

so now i live in sydney

2012-02-29T17:00:00.000-08:00

And about 7,530 miles from home. Somebody please change my subtitle thingie.

Opera House. 3 o'clock.

A handful of Saturdays ago we left Auckland, moved into our beautiful new 12^th floor apartment overlooking the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and could not stop staring at our amazing view. This amazing view. It was breathtaking. Spectacular. Boat-y. We found Nemo.

Two days later we moved out. It came down to sanity or a bathtub. Just like it always does.

In Auckland we only had showers. If we didn’t want to be dirty, vertical cleaning was our only option. Our bathtub toys were out of a job and pissy. But day after day after every other day of standing in a shower, bending over for a dropped this and a misplaced that, were just really bad action lines in a porn script and ex-hausting. I longed for a lazy horizontal soak, where I had the option of participating or not and still ended up clean.

12^th Floor Apartment had a tub. I know this because as soon as I stepped into that apartment, I was in my bathtub suit, horizontal, and up to my neck in water. For an hour. I didn’t have a washcloth and emerged spotless. It was great. And then night fell.

The fear of living in an apartment was always the neighbors. You know the ones. With the loud parties and dumb friends and terrible music and weird cooking smells and not smart choices when it came down to smoke or not to smoke in bed. Well, as the story goes, those neighbors were not our neighbors. I actually have no idea who our neighbors were because we didn’t hear a peep out of them in the 48 hours we lived there.

What we did hear a peep out of was EVERY SINGLE THING ELSE.

Every Single Thing Else

1. The cars. That drove back and forth across the Harbour Bridge. In and out of our amazing view and our ear canals. Where were those people going at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the morning and why couldn’t they take the super quiet and very underground train???

2. The master air conditioning unit. Which housed about thirty very giant black cables the size of my very small thighs. On my 8-year-old son’s patio. That sucker went on and off every five minutes. It sounded like a Zamboni was resurfacing our ice rink and just couldn’t get it right.

3. The bedroom windows. Made of 10% subpar window material, 90% wind gusts. Sleeping pills shoved down our throats only made things windier.

4. The words. Between me and my husband. Over and over, always the same. "What're we going to do?" "What can we do?" "I don't know." "We have to do something." "Well, try to sleep." "I can't sleep!" "Neither can I!"

5. My tears.

When you can’t sleep, you cry. I cried. I didn’t know what we were going to do. We signed a year lease. I couldn’t not sleep for a year. I would be bat shit crazy by Tuesday. My husband hates when I’m bat shit crazy.

So on Monday morning, after being robbed of sixteen hours of sleep and subsequent beauty, the man I lived with told me to pack. He was going to work and he was going to find us someplace else to live. That day. And then he said this line: “I will not having my family living like this.” And I cried. Because I hadn’t slept and I was probably already crying and I loved that line and he was going to save us. And also because I needed to drown out the jackhammers that were suddenly busting up the uncooperative earth in the empty lot next to our building. That's right, freeway on one side. Day one of "hey, let's build a high-rise here" on the other.

That afternoon we broke that lease, shoved our only piece of furniture, a brand new mattress, into a handicap taxi van, and moved to a quiet little apartment in Balmain. And that night we slept. Like very sane babies on a brand new mattress.

The next morning I did the only thing I could do: Shower.

I will miss you, view, but not you, crazy stupid irregular corners.

oh ship

2012-01-18T17:22:00.000-08:00

Four months. Three major holidays. And waaaayyyyy too long. Is exactly how long it took our shipping container to get from Los Angeles to Auckland when we moved out here. We had nothing while we waited. And there are only so many toys you can make with a paper towel carcass. Most of them are guns. All of them weapons.

But this time around things are different. Eight days ago all of our stuff was wrapped and packed and carted off by two Kiwis with muscles. I expected it would be a long time before I saw any of our belongings again. If ever. Ships crash, containers sink, pirates pirate. Happens all the time out here. But apparently not this time. Guess what arrived in Sydney today? Our shipping container! In eight days. Crown movers are nothing if not inconsistent. And muscular.

The boys and I are not muscular. And we move in nine days.

So the house hunt has now been upgraded to a full-blown freak out. We have to live somewhere because we can't live nowhere. We have far too much stuff and children for nowhere. So that's where we are. Actively avoiding nowhere.

And aging.

After two stressful moves, I have proof. This is when the wrinkles happen. During the sleepless sleeps. Between the brows. The scowl that was never invited and refuses to leave. It all makes me want to put a paper towel gun to the head. Full of muscle-paralyzing botulism.

The good news is, the toxic poison would show my unwanted guest to the door and off my face and I would look five years or months or minutes younger. The bad news is, poison is toxic and I was just redundant up there.

*Two hours after I posted this post my husband got us housing. In a really tall building. With multiple floors. And elevators that I pray don't rip me or my children in half. And what about the Sydney Opera House you ask? We have a full frontal of that place.

The castle gun.

almost homeless

2012-01-14T12:00:00.000-08:00

I don't want to alarm anybody but we're moving to Sydney in two weeks -- that's fourteen days -- and we have no place to live. Still. And now I'm alarmed. My new year's resolution for 2012 was don't be homeless. I'm not going to be happy if I can't keep this one. In January.

Although we do have a completely non-working kitchen in our current house we could use if that were to be our fate. The water dispenser does dispense imaginary water, hot chocolate AND milk. Not everyone can say that.

The yellow pieces of paper are imported pineapple.

Here's what happened. Our super clever plan where we were going to pick a place to live in Sydney from our living room in Auckland turned out to be endlessly flawed. Supply and demand poked a thousand holes in it. There is very little available property to rent and endless humans who want to gobble it up. That means that open houses are only 15 minutes long and every place is a million dollars a week. It also means that real estate agents in Sydney could care less what two American yahoos in Auckland were looking for and didn't respond to our emails.

So we quickly cobbled together a new plan. A better plan. Husband goes over there before me and the kids and battles this beast in person. By offering six months rent in advance. Six months! That's a million dollars a week times four times six. It was a costly plan but we had no choice. So my husband went this weekend. Driving his big, fat, stolen Brink's truck. He saw property after property with busloads of people in 15-minute increments and didn't exactly want to gobble up of any of it. Either the places were too small for a family of dwarf mice or they were dumps. Really, really, really expensive dumps. With a wait list of twenty people before him.

There has never been a more appropriate time for a parade of these guys: &*%$!

After we put away our cuss words and wiped away my tears of defeat, we hatched a new new plan. A fancy apartment on the water. Right? That sounds like a good plan. It also sounds fancy and like we could pretend we had a boat. The only only only thing I'm worried about with apartment life is our two boys and their inability not to wrestle, jump, scream, chase, bounce and be two boys. And neighbors. House neighbors and apartment neighbors, two different kinds of neighbor experiences. If you're in a house and your neighbor sucks, build a really tall fence and dig a moat/rent a gator. If you're in an apartment and your neighbors suck, you're stuck with sucky neighbors. Who suck.

But.

Maybe they won't suck. That's my other resolution rearing its beautiful head: be positive! If we rent a fancy apartment, maybe our new neighbors will be delightful. Or maybe they'll have boys. Or maybe they'll have no vocal chords or musical instruments. Or maybe just maybe they'll be Mayans! I could invite them to my December 22nd party on our boat.

So that's where we are. Almost homeless. But circling fancy apartments and pretend boats. Wish us luck.

Save the date, Mayans.

our safe house

2011-12-20T18:34:00.000-08:00

We're moving to Sydney in about five weeks. Which means I can't poop right and my left eye is twitching. Because, so far, all we have in Sydney is one brand new shiny job. For my husband. That's it. No house. No schools. No neighborhood. No car. No brand new shiny jobs for me. And Jesus' birthday is in five days. Not a good time to have kids running around without teacher supervision or shoes and my Christmas cards not done.

This week we plan to pick a neighborhood in which to live in Sydney from our living room in which we live in Auckland. I can’t order a pair of pants off of J. Crew.com and get it right but for some reason my ass thinks choosing a house overseas is going to be easier.

But we do have some frontrunners so that’s something. We found areas in Sydney that we know little to nothing about but seem cool when you say them out loud. Paddington. Balmain. Rozelle. You've got to roll your "r" to make that last one work. These little pockets of people are located near where my husband will work. In the city. Close proximity to his office so I don't have to be a mad single mom is one of the demands of our new home. Also on the list: a great public school system and a bathtub. You really don't know how much you miss a bathtub until you live in a house with three bathrooms and zero bathtubs in a country where shoes are not a priority. Showers don't clean dirty feet. Bathtubs do.

The good news is people have been very helpful here. They say nothing but nice things about the areas we're thinking about. Lots of families. Lovely. Really good schools. That's what I'm talking about. In the city. Sounds like a bathtub must be involved. But not as safe as New Zealand. Come again?

One frantic Google search later, I discover the bad news. The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research website. It lists all the hotspots for crime in Sydney and classifies them by color. Yellow for low density hotspots. Orange for medium density hotspots. Red for high density hotspots. Which I read as yellow – oh, orange – my, red – GOD! I plop in our areas as fast as one can plop in areas and for a second I think a blood vessel has burst in my retina. Red is everywhere. Paddington. Balmain. Rrrrr-ozelle. I already feel violated and I haven’t even packed a box.

Which is good. No boxes packed means no boxes to unpack because I suddenly decide I'm not moving. I make high stakes decisions just like that. But before I allow this thought to become words and these words to become a beautiful little breakdown, I see BOCSAR is kind enough to break their color-coded system down further by offense. There are a lot of offenses. Some really bad ones. Breaking and entering and assault. Bring in the paddy wagon. And some not so bad. Malicious damage to property and stealing from a motor vehicle. Crimes that my four-year old perpetrates on me on a daily basis. And I realize I’m not afraid. Just like Eminem. I need a box.

Side note: I like Eminem.

hello, car thieves!

The problem with living in the safest country in the world is you're living in the safest country in the world. New Zealand. It’s like a G movie over here where the cops have no guns and the kids don’t lock their bikes and streets are clean without ever having street cleaning day. But, sadly, this is not reality. Reality is the rest of the world. And the rest of the world is rated R and they have guns and locks and really dirty streets. There are 4.5 million people in all of New Zealand. Take that same number of humans and pack them into one city -- Sydney -- and you are going to get a couple of dumdums doing dumb things.

So, to the future dumdum who is going to break into my car and steal my CD player, you are a dumdum. And stealing is a dumb thing. And you should really think twice about it. And if you don't, please pop out my CD as there is a good chance it's Eminem and it's mine.

a kangaroo named russell crowe?

2011-11-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

You know those Lifetime movies where the husband lures his American wife to another country so he can kidnap their children -- but replace ‘their children’ with ‘her career’? This is nothing like that.

That said, we’re moving. Again. But not back to Los Angeles or my career. To someplace closer and far more stable. Sydney, Australia. Where they keep the kangaroos and Russell Crowe. Come February you will be able to add us to that list. My husband got another new job. He seems to be printing them like flyers in the basement. Even though we don’t have a basement. Maybe in Australia we will.

The job was offered last week while we were on vacation in Fiji (with my very generous in-laws who hand out holidays like handshakes) so we came home, unpacked and repacked our luggage, and flew to Sydney. Like a bunch of jackasses. If you’re in three beautiful vacation destinations – Fiji, Auckland, and Sydney – all in the same week and you are not in the Navy, that kind of makes you a jackass. If not, saying that last jackass statement definitely does. Either way, we were doing what we had to do. Recon mission.

My husband has been to Sydney a couple of times but the kids and I haven't so we had to make sure we could live there. Our hot Fijian tans were greeted with cold Australian rain. My first impressions attacked me. Sydney is so big and a city and there were buildings ev-ery-where. Panic set in. I can’t live in big and a city with buildings ev-ery-where. Besides, we were supposed to move back home next. I mean, what about my career… and our friends and family… and my career?! We never seriously talked about moving from another country to another country. I wanted to go down to the basement and print flyers with pictures of my WGA card on it. I wondered if the American consulate would help me with the reward money.

And then I calmed the crazy lady down. In the Lifetime movie version of this, I would’ve slapped myself. My supportive best friend/lawyer played by Tracey Gold would’ve tried to stop me and told me to breathe. So I breathed. Because the next day came with clarity and sunshine and coffee. Just what you need when you’re making big life decisions. I went over everything I already knew. I moved to New Zealand – NEW ZEALAND! – and most of my hair didn’t fall out of my head. My husband found a great house and a great school in a great neighborhood. I worked on three NZ television shows. I finished a feature spec and it's way better than the one I didn't finish. And my family was happy and intact and full of belly fluff. In the end, the belly fluff was all that mattered. Everything I already knew reminded me that moving to Auckland was the best decision I have ever made. (The worst: that asymmetrical haircut/bob in the late 80s.) There was no reason why another leg of our once-in-a-lifetime adventure wouldn't be the same.

So we're moving to Sydney. And it's going to be great. I just hope Russell Crowe is hiring. And that he likes jackasses.

Fiji.

Auckland.

Sydney!