Living in Carlton North

Not Getting a Job

2015-07-13T20:52:00.003+10:00

By the third time that Harvard Medical School asked for my resume, I knew I was in with a chance for a job. After all, why bother to request a rambled list of jobs and grades if you have no intention of using it? With that in mind, I felt quietly confident going into Harvard to deliver my talks and conduct my meetings. Well, actually I was nervous, but also humming with the sense that something great might bloom.

Moving to a new city, even more so a new country, takes planning. For example Boston has a big problem with the weather. Last winter, 2.8 metres of snow collapsed the city into a frozen heap. “The T”, Boston’s subway, got frostbite. Some of its limbs were clogged and dead for days on end. Snow ploughs worked around the clock to fight the blocked arteries, but there was another problem. The snowplough men were having breakdowns – literally – according to my soon-to-be Harvard Medical colleagues who told me that they had tried to counsel them back to health.

Granted, the winters sounded bad, but on the plus side people can get sad during dark winters. This would mean that there would be more need to employ me as a psychologist.

The other problem with moving to Boston was Mr. B. I knew that my job was pretty much secured, but Mr. B didn’t have a job in Boston… yet. So I decided to network to find him one.

I started with my AirBnB host Andy. Andy had been a medical researcher until he realized there was more money in watching TV, eating cornflakes, and renting rooms out to people like me, so he now does those three activities full time. I felt that Andy’s past life as a researcher might put him in good stead to tell me about job markets in Boston. Specifically, I was wondering about jobs in technology – Mr. B’s field.

“Are you kidding?” Andy yelped. It was a kind of ambiguous yelp – I couldn’t quite tell if he was yelping up into the heavenly sky of lucrative possibility, or into the ice caves of death.

“We are practically San Francisco of the east! There is a ton of work in IT here. Why do you ask?”

Now I was planning to be modest. After all, I hadn’t exactly been offered a job. And I had already decided I would wait until I had signed the contract before spreading the word of my new job to my friends. But Andy’s ‘ton of work’ answer bursted me out into excitement mode. I also figured that Andy wasn’t really a friend, so I wasn’t breaking my conservative contract of modesty by telling him about it.

I sat down, poured myself a generous bowl of cornflakes and puffed out the story about Harvard and the job.

Andy was polite. Perhaps I even thought he might be jealous. Then he said something strange.

“So tell me, why exactly do you think you are about to get a job? Is it because you are doing a grand round?” (a grand round is medical-speak for a talk)

I felt that Andy missed my point entirely. I know that giving a talk doesn’t equal getting a job. I would be stupid to think otherwise. But the three CVs? I politely corrected Andy on his point of misunderstanding.

Then Andy said something even worse. It wasn’t quite a catastrophe, but it wasn’t exactly good.

“Oh no, everybody asks for CVs all the time here in Boston. It is just a point of reference. I am sorry but if they weren’t explicit about an opening beforehand, then the CV submission is probably just a formality.”

I couldn’t believe it, I could have nearly been devastated except for the fact that I had a golden trump card to throw down.

“Yes but they have asked for it three times!” I explained.

Picture from here

“People lose things”, the spoil sport said. I felt my threading start to unravel.

“…yes but not Harvard people. They are smart. Super smart.”

“That’s all the more reason why they might miss the details, if those details don’t happen to be too important. I am sorry.”

Part of me wondered if Andy was just jealous, and so ruining my fun. But the other part of me wondered if Andy might have a point. I spoke with a friend of a friend about it over dinner that night.

Bri confirmed the bad news. Apparently CVs are just a kind of currency here in Boston, where everybody’s bank account is based on prestigue not bucks.

In Boston, you don’t put your Versace perfume on to impress people, it’s the CVs that come out and fragrance the air. Asking for a CV is seen to be a bit like a throw away compliment, kind of like saying ‘your earrings look nice’.

The next day, my grand round went well. But my Boston friends were right. Asking for a CV, even if you are asked three different times, does not mean that you are getting a job in Boston.

The Zen of Silicon Valley

2015-06-14T11:42:00.003+10:00

It makes sense to have a yoga room at an airport. After tens of hours curled up like an iPhone cord on a long haul flight, stretching out is the logical thing to do. Most of the world isn’t that logical, except for San Francisco.

San Francisco is the midwife of the west. The hills and the fog here create a kind of mystical atmosphere that sprouts up all sorts of delicacies. There are compost bins on every corner, a spread of start-ups, a trail of Prius hybrids and the constant smell of weed in the air. Well, actually, the poor people smoke weed and the rich people buy it in vials and drink it in smoothies, so where there are poor people you can always smell weed in this golden city.

Every weekday morning, unmarked buses funnel through downtown collecting the brain-powerhouse of Silicon Valley. These people are the geeky cool kids, and they meditate the whole 40 minute commute to and from work in the valley.

I was so proud when I heard about the culture of Noble Silence on these buses, and how Facebook and friends so smoothly integrate the ancient Asian wisdom of silence into their razor-sharp tech success.

In fact, they also teach the Zen practice of ‘beginners mind’ to their staff. This is where the coders are taught to code in Koans. “Code for a screen of size one inch by half an inch!” The Zen master bosses at Apple say. Then the coders get to work doing something that they don’t really understand. ‘How could a phone be so small?’ or ‘are we going back to the ancient iPod?’ they might ponder. But mainly, staff in The Valley don’t have much time to ponder because they are so busy being dynamic and hurling the Western World into the future, one Koan at a time.

Image of the SF Zen Centre

Inspired by the Zen in Silicon Valley, I decided to pay a visit to the San Francisco Zen Centre for an early morning Zazen meditation. I entered the pure, bare interior to a sea of silent people holding their hands together in a fist. I kicked my shoes off, and followed them all with fisted hands into a long, pure room of Zen mats. A black robed nun showed me to my mat, and we all sat in silence for half an hour. For some reason, though, the silence pulsed with life and beauty and love. I could tell this place was filled with all sorts of hidden gifts.

After a while, lots of bells started ringing, and we all got up and shuffled upstairs. The austere concrete opened up into a roof-top courtyard Zen garden, filled with cherry blossom, bonsai and light. We traced around its circumference, and then into a large Tatami matted hall where we sat down for a talk from the swirly-robed boss. She just reminded us to be kind.

But it was the place and the ritual that shook me – not really the words. Kindness was imprinted everywhere, somehow, in an invisible paint. But I learnt that kindness isn’t always friendly. As I laced my shoes up on my way out, I was poked in the ribs by a monk.

“No shoes on the Tatami mats!” he shouted, and with a formal bow he sent me out into the street.

Things weren't quite as they seemed. It was my own Koan to unravel with time.

Climbing Mt Taranaki

2015-03-15T19:48:00.000+11:00

Last spring my uncle was buried under bright green grass at the base of Mt Taranaki, New Zealand’s second largest volcano.

He had gone to some effort to be buried there – heaving up his life in Auckland a few months before he died to come home to the place of his birth.

He didn’t say anything, but I am sure that the mountain was part of the attraction. The locals agree that it seeps into your soul if you are around it long enough.

The Maoris call Mt Taranaki the ‘shining mountain’ and it hangs on the horizon of New Plymouth like a single timeless jewel. From the mountain’s perspective, a human life is like a short afternoon at the beach – golden and refreshing and over in a flash.

From his great height, Mt Taranaki doesn't get attached to any of that human stuff. He is like a (mostly) friendly alien visitor, pointing up to remind us of the existence of another hidden world.  

Inspired by Uncle Jim’s choice of resting place, and perhaps a whisper promise of the timeless, I decided to see the world from the mountain’s perspective. I booked a ticket to fly to the mountain in February, when Aunty Mary said the weather is most settled, to attempt to climb up its cloak with Mr. B.

On the day of the climb, we woke up to the sound of heavy rain. After Mt. Cook, Mt Taranaki is the second most fatal mountain in New Zealand (mainly due to people climbing in bad weather), so I was willing to give the plan over to the angry sky.  But we drove to the start point, just in case it cleared.

As we drove, the rain smacked down on the car. It looked like I was about to have another big, sad lesson on impermanence. But as we wound up the edge of the cone, the rain softened. Then stopped.

It sounds freaky, but the clouds even parted just as we arrived at the visitors centre to reveal the mountain against the backdrop of a dawn blue sky.

You can’t see it, but Mt. Taranaki is throbbing with energy, in fact it is fuming inside and it is overdue to erupt. But there, against the strangely cloudless sky, it was perfectly still like a meditating monk.

We snapped photos, gobbled down calories, and then started the climb.

We pushed up through forest, through short shrubs and then we were out into the rock. A 4WD track thinned into a path, which thinned into sheaths of rock. This is the famous part known as the scree slope.

Before I was born, my granddad use to complain about the scree slope when he was a mountain rescue guide. I could see why. It is dust and slippery and steep. Fortunately, though, we each had a stick to help forge something solid into the crumbling land.

We braked regularly. While we rested, we breathed. And I ate jumbo liquorish allsorts and melted chocolate. The sky was still blue, but now, looking down, clouds had enclosed us in this strange new world.

It is similar to the looking-out-of-the-window-in-an-airplane world, except different.  Here, there was no life. Just the buzzing tinnitus sound of silence.

It was like the world had been stripped away to reveal pure simplicity. Simple air, simple sight, simple sound. I wondered if my uncle was living in this kind of realm now that he had died…

Then when we had caught our breath, we pressed ahead. Up up, up. Clinging to the mountain’s rocky back, we went up and up. I was too tired to notice when my ears popped, we just kept on up with the climb.

Then, after passing through a strange rocky corner, we looked down on the ice crater.

Instead of the classic circle shape I was use to in volcanos, this crater was a huge hourglass. Nicknamed the ‘shark’s tooth’ the crater was like the groove inside a molar that the dentist had plugged up with white to prevent decay.

The crunch of the ice was a welcome relief after so much rock. We crossed the ice, then scrambled up the last few rocks to the summit.

Below us, white clouds plumped all around us like a wedding dress, protecting us from the iphone drudgery of daily life far below.

Uncle Jim was buried somewhere down there. So was my granddad who I had never met. He use to rescue people from this mountain – except for the chain of nurses who he couldn’t save. They slipped off this mountain and died, one after the other in a row.

Looking down, for a second, I felt huge and small all at once. Opposites collide at great heights, as life and death curl up next to each other like good friends.

Mr. B and I munched our peanut butter crackers, and then slowly made our way down to the other side of the cloud. Down where the birds sing, and where WiFi signals are strong.

Murray's Inner Critic Cost him the Game

2015-02-05T19:58:00.003+11:00

Physically, Andy Murray had the upper hand in his match against Novak Djokovic at last night’s Australian Open men’s final. But the true battle was psychological. Murray was defeated because he lost his mental cool.

The flame haired Scotsman is famous for wearing his heart on his sleeve. When he messes up on court everybody knows about it. He beats himself up no end.

“So many times. How do you do it to yourself?” he shouted after slamming his racket down in frustration in the third set after losing his own serve to score 3-5. It is true. Murray made lots of small slipups, but criticising himself about it only made things worse. He didn’t win a single game after that point.

Like Murray, many high achievers face the daemon of their inner critic. The critic is like a high-school frenemy. It pretends to have your best interests in mind, but is really out to undermine you.

Keeping a cool head when the stakes are high is tough. But in my research, I’ve found releasing the inner critic frees up enormous energy to get on with the game.

The act of self-criticism drains large amounts of energy. When Murray was sitting down swearing repeatedly during changeovers, he missed the chance to centre into the moment.Hitting a tennis ball that’s flying at you at 200km an hour requires enormous attention and control. Murray simply could not afford to wallow in whirlwinds of criticism. He needed every ounce of focus for his game.

In response to last night’s match, former number 1 Jim Courier said it’s difficult to understand what the pressure of a grand slam final can do to someone, unless you have been ‘in the cauldron’ yourself. He’s right. But as a psychologist I suggest if Murray is to overcome his 0-4 trail of losses in Australian Open finals he’ll first have to silence the negative voices inside his head.

Photo originally found here

According to recent research the most powerful psychological tool to combat the inner critic is self compassion. It involves treating yourself with kindness when you fail. With demons set aside you’re free to get back up on your feet.

In last Sunday's game, Djokovic had to navigate debilitating leg weakness, but we saw that mental weakness can be even more paralysing. Rather than using Djokovich’s disability to advantage, Murray found it distracting. “Don’t worry about him.” Murray said to himself. “He does it all the time.”

Self-compassion doesn’t come naturally, especially for those who set superhuman standards for themselves. Remarkably, though, it could be just the skill Andy Murray needs.

Organic Kale Farming

2014-12-16T10:48:00.001+11:00

Part of a hipster’s job description, alongside soy macchiatos and man buns, is growing organic vegetables. I had put food growing on the backburner, in favour of adopting more accommodating balcony succulents that thrive on neglect, but time was running out. I was about to leave Carlton North for good. If I left without a home grown bunch of organic vegetables tucked under my arm, I would be an official hipster flop.

Mr. B whipped down to the Italian deli to get some kale seeds, sleeping inside a packet with photos promising luscious deep green forests of success. I prepared a terracotta pot, and nested my new arrivals into steroid pumped soil.

Image first appeared here

The lush earth ripened in our balcony spring sun, and within two weeks my baby green dreams burst into the light. I was expecting a similar attrition rate to sperm (plant 1,000s and maybe one survives), but hundreds of shoots were arriving – jammed together like Hong Kong apartments blocks. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but like any good new mother, I welcomed each member of my booming family with equal and shimmering love.

Then one morning, out of the blue, a terrorist attacked. The pristine green babies had been nibbled back to sticks within a single night. It was like a radioactive wasteland, with just a few green shards of life left hanging onto bones. As far as I could see, the culprit had fled the crime scene. I was left to deal with the mess.

Buddhists and Hipsters agree that organic is the only option, and that killing invaders with chemicals is just plain wrong. But things are different when emotions are involved – I couldn’t stand to watch my babies die without a fight.

That night, cloaked in anonymous darkness so the housemates wouldn't witness my treason, I returned to the balcony. Pyrethrum in hand, I squirted a few generous sprays on the remains of my family.

Then the earth began to shake. The stalks started rustling, and baby caterpillars began to drop from the mini kale trees in a heavy rain.Some just plummeted. Others bungeed down toward earth, suspended by a web-like string. They were twisting and foaming in a horrific modern dance.

It was horrible, and totally un-Buddhist. I had inflicted caterpillar genocide. With the solemn tranquility of a funeral director, I lifted my failed family inside.

Weeks past, and almost all of the stalks shriveled away into a defeated blackness. Somehow, though, about five shoots survived and their leaves are now crinkling into non-organic kale. So I will leave my Carlton-North pad with some authentic kale after all. Just don’t tell the hipsters that it isn’t organic!

Good-bye Golden Plains

2014-03-10T15:29:00.002+11:00

When you are in your early twenties, going to a music festival is the coolest thing ever. You hitch up your wonky tent in the dust, down beers, and dance in a swarm of unwrinkled, blossoming freedom.

Weed is in the air, and if you are lucky a boy will be passed out in your hair by sunrise. Then, with a full bladder and lungs teeming with stale air, you will rip out of the seams of your tent together in a kind of festival ‘walk of shame’ that isn’t so shameful because everybody is doing the same thing as you are.

Back when hangovers weren’t so bad, and when sleeping with friends was socially acceptable, the festival equation was a winner. It was a guaranteed reverse-pokies kind of scheme where you would flop home on the Monday pulsing in cherry-jackpot bliss.

Now, in my late twenties, festival things have taken a turn for the worse.

Image from Ballarat Courier

The earth seems to know when a music festival is coming, and it heaves up its own tune of dust or mud, heat or storm in response. This weekend, from the safety of my Carlton-North iPad, I discovered that Golden Planes became a dustbowl whipping up dirt-tans for all. (A dirt tan use to be fun, but these days I find that MAC foundation offers more sophisticated facial cover that doesn’t even clog up your lungs.)

I admit that I am still a sucker for fried dumplings and wine on a Friday night, but these days on a Saturday I have to wake up to duties that festival life just doesn’t permit. In Carlton, Mr. B. will drag me to the ‘hangover cure’ gym. At Golden Planes the closest thing to a gym is the walk to the organic toilet, where earthy smells just solidify any feelings of queeze.

After the gym in Carlton, I would usually settle into my desktop for coffee and work. Granted, Golden Plains does have coffee, but it does not allow for work. At home I would always abandon work for a better offer, but jumping in a mosh-pit or chilling in beer encrusted grass just doesn’t win out. Now I am like a restaurateur, lured out of my hole by the promise of delicacies or culture or soft, French cheese.

So now, nearing my 29^th birthday, I wave good-bye to the delights of the music festival. It is a kind of happy good-bye. The fresh-blood 18 year olds can swarm in like flies and take my place.

Heatwave Melbourne

2014-02-09T12:06:00.000+11:00

Even our courtyard succulents have been shrivelling like old men in the glazing heat. The ‘Vietnam Vet’ plant that I nicknamed for its wonky resilience against neglect is now burnt to blackness. The lemon tree has curled its leaves to cigarettes, and charcoal-dots have appeared on my draping, long haired green friend. It is close to a disaster zone, but some selfish beasts are profiting from the post-apocalyptic mess.

The wavy red plants are booming. These plants have never looked very human

Photo from Alexander White's twitter

at the best of times, with odd phallic displays of flowers to boast their distorted status, and the tendency to turn radioactive pink at the end of winter. Before the heat, these varieties tolerated earthly conditions. Now they are stretching up to the heavens like a time-lapse video, greedily gobbling in the burn.

Like the plants, some humans are shrivelling up too. Alongside my housemate’s broken air conditioner, we are in an expansive queue waiting for the mirage of the air-con-man to manifest. The news says that people are even dying, with a 300% surge in heart attacks last month, and the Koalas are sweating it out too.

Professor Steffen of the climate council said that the strange weather can be attributed to climate change, with fossil fuels trapping more heat in the lower atmosphere. I’m not an expert on the science, but it looks like we might see the rise of the red plants in our post-apocalyptic Carlton-North world.

Sex and Housework

2014-02-02T17:55:00.001+11:00

A strange smell had been coming out of our ensuite sink since we moved in. It wasn’t terrible, just an earthy smell that would make sense in the context of camping, but was out of place in Carlton North. I suggested the U bend might need some attention, but Mr. B was doubtful.

“I have heard that men who do more housework get less sex.” He said. “I need to think about my priorities here.”

It sounded like something a couch-surfing pot head might think. The kind of person a girl might sleep with as a hobby if he were hot enough, but who would be blacklisted for any full-time kind of thing. It couldn’t possibly be evidence based. I quickly reassured him that housework was sexy, passed him the gloves, and rushed to Google to debunk his crazy idea.

Image first seen here

Google wasn’t on my side. Newspapers and science magazines from around the world were chanting the unfriendly mantra. Granted, the key data was collected in the early 1990s when women had Beverly Hills and Bold and the Beautiful to aspire to, but I couldn’t help wonder if the research had a point.

Some chores can be extremely sexy. Like the time Mr B. dealt with the deadly whitetail that scuttled out of my washing and onto the floorboards by my right foot. A Manly act is a better aphrodisiac than oysters, or even champagne because it proves he has something to give. But the problem is that opportunities for such feats are scarce. Dishes, on the other hand, are plentiful because they grow like weeds.

Scientists of the female orgasm say that the path transcendence begins well before clothes are unravelled. When you see your boyfriend scrubbing pots, you are not exactly turned on, but it softens the heart. Any bitter threads of resentment melt into a warm glow that makes fertile ground for the open expanse that is climax. The ground work is laid, and golden shimmers await.

Mr. B was scrubbing the final clunks of junk out of our U bend. I could detect a hint of satisfaction in his eyes, like he had just gutted a beast and it was ready to eat. The earthy smell had swirled away, and a faint glow of libido lingered in the air.

Around the home, the manly feats and the mundane weeds are both keys to a woman’s heart. They are like a massage, kneading her tension into the ether so that she can grow into the gift that is release.

Choosing a Housemate

2014-01-27T21:30:00.003+11:00

“You know, looking for a housemate isn’t like internet dating” Mr. B said as Lucie and I were scrawling through her inbox of gumtree potentials.

As always, there was a random mix. I was keen on the pizza chief fresh from Rome, as I thought he might impart some traditional baking techniques. Lucie was keen on the comedian who worked for the ABC. We blacklisted all the backpackers because they can smell. We also ditched the two lawyers who said nothing more about themselves than their profession and age.

Most people said that they were social (but not too social) and that they liked to share the odd glass of wine (but not too much wine). They also all said that they were clean and that they had a good job. We added a gourmet chief/soccer enthusiast and an asylum seeker advocate to the list, and then one Tuesday night we settled in with a glass of red to judge the finalists.

The pizza chief arrived first. He was a traditional Italian beauty, with chestnut locks of hair, olive eyes and a sporty physique, except something was wrong. Blood was dripping down his shin, and so Lucie helped him out with paper towels and band-aids before the interview began. He explained that he was accident prone, and that seconds earlier a taxi had opened its door into his leg. He had also recently broken his hand rock climbing, and he had a surfing scar on his right shoulder. If he moved in, he promised he would teach us all about how to make pizza, and said that we could go surfing together, but I wasn't too sure if he would bring us home from a trip in one piece...

Next came the comedian. He was lean and extremely long, stretching up to seven foot tall. We all arched our necks up to speak to him as we showed him around the house. The comedian was sharp and friendly and interesting. He also said he was very grateful for the chance to put on his best face at our interview, because it gave him great material for his next comedy act. I wondered if having a second writer in the house might cramp my style.

The chief/soccer guy was blonde and good looking, but in a baby-faced wrong-side-of-25 kind of way. It isn’t that living with young people makes you feel old, it’s just that they have different priorities. “My friend is picking me up”, he giggled has he was leaving. “It’s so cool that my friends are grown up enough to drive these days!”

Finally, there was the passionate asylum-seeker worker. Unlike most left-wingers, he was rich. He had just taken the Department of Immigration to court over malpractice in detention centres, and he had won big time. In fact, legal action was his side job as it was the second time he had won through suing employers.

The internet dating approach to housemates has its perks, but it hadn’t worked out like we had hoped. The contestants seemed a little too random to let into our lives. Then, at the last minute, a friend of a friend arrived. We hadn’t met before, but she felt like a match. Like she would fit right in to our Carlton North home. While there is a time and a place in life for random, sometimes it makes sense to just go with the known.

Going to Jail

2014-01-19T19:14:00.001+11:00

“We have to get there before 10:30 because that’s when they let the kids in and there are big queues.”

Getting into jail takes a long time when there are queues. Security checks are obsessive-compulsive, complete with policemen shining torches into corners of coin purses, and gun checks on pedestals. Before seeing our friend, we had to lock all belongings away other than a note which we sealed into a plastic ziplock to spend at the tuckshop.

We registered our drivers’ licences, passed through a twice-locked bullet proof cage, and then we had made it to the inside. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

Jeremy came to greet us with a beaming smile. He looked different to when I had seen him in Melbourne last. His eyes were clear, and his limbs had grown lean and toned like an athlete, basked in the jail gym. He walked slowly and confidently – no jitters – he walked like a man.

We collected a small mountain of junk food, and sat down at a table near an unkempt playground to engulf the feast. Jeremy wolfed down sausage rolls as if he were Jesus emerging from a 40 night fast. We quietly sipped our diet cokes.

The vibe of jail was all smiles and handshakes. Beside us, fifteen blokes – a blend of inmates and visitors - were gossiping loudly, and one of them had pure gold teeth. Jeremy whispered that they were all from a bikie gang. Then he introduced us to a real life Walter White, except this Walt told us that cooking meth is overrated and that it is not worth the fuss.

10:30 came around and children floated through the playground like butterflies. A face-painter emerged, and she was brightening them up to their full potential. Everyone was enjoying the simple pleasure of uniting with family and friends.

It seemed so friendly that I asked Jeremy about job opportunities. Perhaps the inmates wanted to learn to meditate? Jeremy put down his chocolate bar and looked me straight in the eye.

“Don’t come here. This place is evil. Not a place to choose for fun.”

It took a while to understand. Jeremy was more balanced and grounded than I had seen him in years. He was reading books again, and making witty comments that shone with intellect and strength. But only he knows what it is like when the visitors go home.

In Norway, prisoners are denied their freedom but they are nurtured back to health. Jails there are like greeneries for fragile plants. When released, their delicate recovery is reinforced not reversed - because any new plant in a forest can sometimes go astray. In Australia, we still have a bit to learn, but Jeremy says that he is up for the challenge of life on the outside.

As we left, I had one last question – what was with the children rule?

“Oh that’s for the paedophiles. No kids in the morning cause they are out and about before 10:30.”

It was a reminder that jail is more complicated than the friendly party that I saw.

Moving In

2013-12-16T15:22:00.002+11:00

It all started with Mr. B making gentle complaints about his Carlton North bachelor pad. The bathroom door handle had broken. He was worried about the lack of a dish washer. And, the issue that trumped all issues: The laundry situation.

His pad had a slender slither reserved for a type of inner-city sized washing machine that Mr. B did not own, because he comes from Canberra where bigger is better. His family-sized washer was offloaded to a friend who lives in sensible Newport, and he was left with the laundrette. Laundrettes are novel in your early twenties, when you can drink beer and check out your hot neighbours while your clothes spin around, but it all becomes tiresome after a while. Eventually, Mr. B declared that he was moving out.

He facebooked me ideas on where we could live together, alongside his family sized washer and two cats. But places large enough to accommodate oversized appliances and multiple mammals are rare in Carlton North. Those in our moderate price range were crumbling apart like gluten free Christmas cake. With every new Domain facebook message from Mr. B, my heart would sink. I would put on my private school princess voice, and point out the problems with his plan.

Then Brad, my marketing housemate, landed a star job in Sydney leaving a room up for grabs in my house. It wasn’t just any old room, but the lavish master with double walk in robes and an ensuite. The physicals were perfect, but still, I was not so sure.

Image first appeared here

The New York Times says that moving in with a partner can be dangerous because it makes things real. You meet the grimy realities of a relationship, like house chores and shopping for toilet roll. I thought the whole point of having a lover was to escape the harsh realities of life, so I didn’t understand why we would sign up to collide in a grimy bourgeois mess.

But then again, something in my heart sparkled at the idea. In my early twenties I had backpacked South America, meditated in the Sri Lankan jungle, run marathons and tried drugs but something was missing in these pursuits because they were all about me.

In love, ego is worn away a little, and it becomes all about us. An opening of the heart takes place, and in true love it doesn’t just stop at your partner. As you practice riding in sync with another, through good times and through bad, you can then share that heart-quality everywhere. At work, with family, with enemies and with friends.

So rather than keeping at Mr. B at arm’s length, which is the perfect distance to grab flowers and candlelight and regular doses of sensual bliss, he is moving in. It may be a rocky road, but rocky-road is delicious, and who could say no to that?

Hypnotised at Sexpo

2013-12-05T12:54:00.001+11:00

“I don’t believe in hypnotism” the muscular man beside me in the volunteer tent said.

I was sceptical too. Earlier in the day, we had both seen a group of strange ‘hypnotised’ people on stage, sprawling around like scrambled eggs. They looked like hired stunt men, not friendly volunteers who were slopping about on purpose. Something didn’t feel right, so I hung around the sexpo stalls for hours, watching penis puppets, pricasso (a man who paints portraits with his willie), and sustaining myself on ice-cream topped with flavoured lube until the next call for volunteers.

The hypnotist lived in a small and rare corner of the exhibition centre where the people wore clothes. Specifically, this man wore a cheap suit, a northern English accent and salesman smile to match. He had two lines of empty chairs to accommodate ‘volunteers’ (presumably actors), and a handmade poster for quit smoking CDs. He cleared his throat on the microphone and sung out like Pied Piper looking for prey.

The herds trickled in. We filled the chairs. Then people kept arriving like a factory assembly line, squeezing into spaces on the floor. More and more people piled in, like moths to the flame.

Repetition was the flavour of the day. Our host welcomed us to relax, relax, relax, relax, relax. We were told to close our eyes and squeeze our hands tightly in prayer position. Then everything was glued together, so that we were stuck and still. The hypnotist’s voice was friendly and soothing. If I just followed his words, everything would be OK.

Next thing I knew I was a pianist. Bouncy jazz was pumping, and I was the star of the show. My hands swirled across the keys. Then I played the saxophone, the violin, rowed a boat and milked some cows. Everything was friendly and nice. Then we opened our eyes.

The skeptic beside me was still there, but the crowds of people on the floor had evaporated. Our friendly host said that our neighbour’s foot was an important phone call, to be answered in a flash. Skeptic neighbour's eyes were flushed with urgency as he reached down to hoist up my leg. I was as sober as a saint. I calmly waited for my friend to relinquish my leg, then I packed my bag, and said my goodbyes to the hypnotist, saying sorry but I was not hypnotised anymore.

“Come here, I just want to check something” he said. I made my way up to him and he placed his hand on my forehead as he said “Go to sleep!” I fell like a floppy carcass to the floor.

Original image found at Zimbio

Soon after, he queued us up in a neat line like good little children, and we climbed up onto the sexpo stage.

“You are watching an interactive porn movie” Our host said, pointing out into the sea of audience before us. “Now play with the characters.” With this, skeptic neighbour assumed the spanking position, whipping an imaginary backside vigorously like a horse. My portrail was child-friendly. I reached out to stroke a pornstar's broad shoulders, and affectionately patted his head. Later, I heard that Mr. B's heart had sank at that point, because he presumed that he wasn't getting much from me that night.

Later in the show, I erupted into laughter after puffing on a potent fake joint, and then for the finale I was down on my hands and knees as a midwife, helping spanking neighbour give birth to his first son. He was no longer spaking at that point though, instead his face was scrunched up in sharp labour pains. My meditation trainining came in handy because I instructed him to calm down and breathe.

At the end of the show, my neighbour had faith in hypnotism and so did I. On stage, we had creaked open a corner of the mind that is susecptable to influence, feeling protected by the warm embrace of the hypnotists' leadership. Swap hypnotist for informertial saucepan saleswoman, indie rock star, or Hitler and you have the recipe for how one human influences another.

Training Primal

2013-11-23T12:53:00.003+11:00

“Take your regime length and quarter it!” My trainer Jackson at Lean for Life demanded. I was horrified. I had just spent months on Melbourne running tracks training for a marathon, and now I was being told to tone it back? I thought gyms were supposed to encourage lengthy regimes. Me and this Jackson fellow were not talking the same tongue.

But he looked so muscular and fit. Things just didn’t add up. Either he said one thing to gym members, and then practiced another, or else Jackson had a too-good-to-be-true strategy for gaining strength and fitness express. As part of my plan, he had scheduled in the Thursday morning group class. It was just half an hour long. With a marathon behind me, I was feeling pretty smug. But things weren’t quite as they seemed.

First, I was allocated to kettlebell lifts. The kettlebell originates in 18^th century Russia, where they were used by royalty and Strongmen in training. As I heaved the weight up and over my body, though, I didn’t feel Russian. I felt elongated like fierce Canadian brown-bear ready to strike. I was mastering my pose, but then my heart sank because I realized I was only in warm-up. Jackson upped the ante, demanding bursts of mountain climbs, leap frogs, dynamic squats and spinning on the fan-bike, leaving my training buddy and I feeling dripping and spent. This was no ordinary workout. Things were getting primal.

Back in caveman days, movement was short and sharp. Think sprinting from a predator at cardio capacity, or aggressively hunting a gazelle. Back then, life was at the frontiers. And the frontiers of physicality may well be where the magic happens. Ten one-minute bursts of activity with recovery thrice weekly works as well as many hours of jogging, Canadian research shows. And through hormones, these bursts leave people feeling up to 32% less hungry throughout the day compared to old-school exercise.

During cool-down, the group exchanged triumphant high-fives. Though we had all worked at our own pace – the sexy muscle-made men and the corporate newbies side by side - in our own way we had each toyed with our physical frontiers. In physicality, as with intellect and with life, it is at these limits that we meet something new. The mind is stretched with the body, and we look out at the vast open space of the unknown that lies before us. This is the point where creativity and focus unite.

As we wiped the sweat from our brows during cool down, we exchanged hipster notes about a local carpark-cheese festival and a community clothing collection to support the Phillipeans post Typhoon. Then it struck me that this was about more than just fitness. It was about connection and community. An antidote to the virtual, in this modern Melbourne world.

Lean For Life’s group 30 minute training sessions cost just $5 for casual non-members. As an opening special, full membership to the gym (with all shiny new equipment) starts at $8 a week. Thanks to Lean for Life for sponsoring this post. I look forward to many bad-ass training seshs in the months to come.

Tupperware Wars

2013-11-07T21:43:00.000+11:00

The problem began one morning when Mr. B was scooping leftover Japanese curry into my shiny red Tupperware container to take with him for lunch. It is not that I don’t like sharing, but my heart clenched up as I watched my red plastic friend prepare for departure. I felt like a mother sending my son off to war. I wasn’t quite sure if the container would return swiftly, or at all, or in one piece.

I scuttled through the cupboard to see how I could abort the mission. I hunted for a takeaway container that could be sacrificed in its place, but I came back empty handed just as Mr. B was securing the lid definitively on my red friend.

It is not that men are careless with property, and nine out of ten times they will bring it back, but most just don’t understand the spiritual significance of Tupperware. It is a detail that gets lost as men focus on the forest of domestic life.

Buddhists say that attaching to material goods will only lead to strife. But I was beginning to wonder if it may be worth that strife to secure the safety of my box. I gently reminded Mr. B to bring it safely and promptly home. I said it was for my house-mates sake. Said that it wasn’t really mine to loan. He dutifully agreed, but I worried that he did not detect the serious quiver to my voice.

Girls' interest in Tupperware dates back to Mr. Tupper himself, and the marketing mastermind that brought him to fame with the idea of the Tupperware party in the early 1950s. This mastermind was named Mrs. Brownie Wise. In 1958, when Mr. Tupper was streamlining the business for a high profile sale, he sacked Mrs. Wise because he thought that having a female executive would look uncool. But little did he know that Mrs.Wise left her mark. Because women still burn for Tupperware. It is women's business. Men just don't understand.

Sexy to be Strong

2013-10-29T12:30:00.002+11:00

For the last few decades, feminine beauty has been fragile. Magazines have been pumped full of skinned skeletons dolled up in pretty gowns and pink blush. Almost all the girls I know have strived for skinny at one time or another. They deprive themselves to the point that they feel nothing but a light head and a grumpy mood. But now things are beginning to change. Strong is the new skinny, and it is hitting Carlton North like a storm.

The trend first touched me when Kate’s arms collapsed under the weight of the dumplings she was passing me at a Sunday yum-cha. She had enlisted in a strength-training boot camp and her virgin skinny arms were defeated and quivering at lunch a day later. Not for long she reassured me. Our bodies boast sculpt and strength in just a couple of weeks of training.

Image first appeared here

I wanted to be strong, but I was in two minds about joining Carlton North’s new gym. On the one hand, it could be a great way to keep up to date with the latest tattoo art, given people are somewhat exposed in session, but is it acceptable for an aspiring hipster to exercise? Perhaps grain feeding courtyard chickens and the famous soy-latte-to-face biceps curl is sufficient to keep a hipster’s exercise needs in check. And besides, if hipsters did exercise at Lean for Life, what about the man-buns? Would there be regulation hygienic hair nets to keep stray hairs in check?

Kate reassured me that it was worth the risk, and that she had not noticed any ugly hairs at her gym. She said that lean muscle on a girl is sexy because it is functional. A tight, high ass thanks to Body Pump classes helps peddle her up the hill to work. And a Pilates strong core builds a Buddha-like posture to endure long hours at the desk. Unlike a skinny girl, a strong girl’s body glows from the inside like a Deva, metabolizing all daylong, and the good vibes are known to spill to mental strength as well.

And so with this in mind Mr. B and I have signed up for our first free trial at gym. It is open all night, to accommodate the unusual lifestyle of some Carlton North residents, but we have opted for a sensible Thursday morning group training sesh.

I am not sure how I will stack up at the hipster gym, but I am relieved at the cultural shift away from the skinny ideal toward the strong. Marveling at a girlfriend's push-up feat in preparation for Tough Mudder seems healther than enviously gawking at a dress size. And unlike starvation, strength training is achievable. At least it should be achievable. Lets see how I go in the morning.

The Man Bun

2013-10-21T21:40:00.002+11:00

On an abandoned building site behind Readings bookstore in Carlton last week I saw some hipsters scratching around in the dust playing croquet. They looked glamorous as usual, with their tight jeans and thick rimmed sunglasses, but this time I spotted a difference. Most of the men had man-buns.

Image first appeared on Buzzfeed

It is a trend that has crept up on me. First, I saw my barista at St Ali’s who had his hair spun up like Tinkebell, except unlike Tinkerbell, he also had a beard. Next, it was my yoga teacher. He was like a sword free samurai up on stage, stretching his lean muscles in salutes to the sun.

I was impressed by these men. And I am now primed to spot the man-bun everywhere, on Carlton-North streets and trams, and now on Tumblr too. The man-bun infuses its owner with spirituality. The owner is shifted along a scale toward a hygienic version of Jesus.

Sumo wrestlers have man-buns because they are signs of status. The low levellers are not allowed the privilege of any bun, and then a knot appears, and eventually it rises up to the tip of the head as the sumo gains rank. I am pleased to see that my Carlton North boys are now gaining their rank too.

Bradley Cooper has an especially sexy man-bun, making him look a little bit like Buddha. Buddhists refer to Buddha’s bun as Ushnisa, and it is actually a sign of deep wisdom rather than real hair.

Metaphorical or not, the man-bun is a wonder that I marvel when I can. As a man embraces his inner feminine in a man-bun, things ripen. And he grows into being a true man.

On Becoming a Man

2013-09-16T22:33:00.003+10:00

It first hit me in the flesh when I was out for dinner with Mr. B at our local pub. Typically, our meals reflect the gender divide, green salads and tofu on my side, and something rich and tangy on his. But that night everything was twisted up. Below me was a sprawling chicken parmagana, so overgrown it was hanging over the plate like a carcass. It glistened with a topsoil of gooey cheese, and wisps of ham peeped up around the edges, inching towards the light. There was a side bowl of fat chips, piled up in a mound like defeated soldiers. And a big pint of golden larger. Next to Mr. B’s neatly tucked bean burrito and Shiraz, it seemed excessive. But I finished the feast, and even had the inspiration to gobble up his leftovers. In our relationship, I have become the eating king because I need it. Because I am in training for a marathon.

Image of Ryan from here

The mental transition to manhood started months ago, with some seemingly innocent web browsing. I was trailing through virtual zoos of pristine male specimens not in lust, but in aspiration. According to my marathon guidebook, I needed to adopt their exclusive man business of lifting and peanut butter and protein. I found a bargain at $80 for 4 kg of whey. I signed up to the venom protein newsletter (promising future bargains) and locked in the purchase, not quite knowing what I was getting myself in for.

Mr. B has been very helpful in initiating me to manhood. He fitted out my first dumbbells, and now on Wednesday and Friday mornings, we lift the heavy stuff together. Granted, his is somewhat heavier than mine, but I was beginning to feel more like a ‘bro’ than a girlfriend. He has also taught me about the cheapest and most efficient ways to buy energy at the supermarket. And now even Facebook knows about my quest, pumping out body building and fitness puff like carbon under Abbott.

I don’t wear heels anymore because they hurt my blisters. Mr. B offered to trim my eyelashes so they would better fit into my streamlined running glasses. I am now part of a predominantly male secret society of long distance runners, who single me out to say hello on busy hipster cycle tracks (they spot me by my hydration belt).

Though I don’t have any supply chain, I can sympathise with Essendon because I now know what it feels like to jangle around a limping body that is screaming for some calf blood or peptides to repair. But for now, I just resort to breakfast up and goes in the office, and rocky-road protein powder at night.

It has been fun wolfing down chocolate like an ape, but I am beginning to crave the day when a tofu salad will be enough for lunch. I am looking forward to wearing heels, and to hosting normal female feet that the pedicurist won’t raise an eyebrow to during the clipping and scraping phases. I am having a holiday in man-land, but I am looking forward to coming home.

Judging Love

2013-09-01T14:23:00.000+10:00

Original picture found here

Let’s face it, most people say “I love you” to more than one lover over the course of a life. This is an unfortunate truth, best swept into a dusty corner to be forgotten about when you are curled up in the arms of your man. But after while, sweeping gets tiring and the question persists. Does he love me more than he loved his ex-girlfriends when they were going out?

Yes. This line of questioning is evidence of the feminine neurosis. A man is more practical, and he doesn’t normally bother with such nuances. If you asked the question, he might secretly wonder if you are being needy and emotional because it is ‘that time of the month’, but he would also probably provide you with the hopeful answer of ‘yes, I love you most of all’.

The trouble is, a psychological phenomena known as the OptimismBias may be driving his agreeable response. This is the universal and well-researched finding that people tend to view their future as being much more favourable than their past. Assuming no unfortunate hiccough, the ex’s are like weeds pulled out of the garden of his life for the compost, but there is a chance that you might continue to flower on like a rose in his world. So he will say he loves you the most, he may even believe it, though it might not be a scientifically pure response. Just plain old biased optimism.

But another way of viewing it is that we humans are hardwired for hope. New research from high-tech functional imaging experiments indicates that it is the anterior cingulate, a part of the frontal cortex, which is responsible for rose-tinting the future. And the effect has real-world power. Optimists live longer, are healthier, and they are better at learning from their mistakes. Like learning from lost loves, and letting them go, and growing as a result.

For more on research into the optimism bias, visit a Guardian article here

The Dentist

2013-08-26T20:07:00.003+10:00

I have never minded going to the dentist because I have always been commended for my healthy teeth. It had become a biannual habit. The dentist would polish my teeth, fluoride me up, and send me on my way with a comradic* smile. The knowing smile said it all. We were the A Team, the dentist and I. We gleaned pristine teeth because we took our oral hygiene seriously. But then came last week’s appointment, when everything changed.

It started off as usual, with the gentle scratch of the tooth-hook and the sucking tube of saliva.

“A fisher seal is long gone” the dentist remarked to her assistant. “Put it on the treatment plan to replace it.”

My heart buzzed a little faster. It had been over a year since my last appointment. All my life I had been a natural at wooing the dentist, but recently I had become a little lax. I was beginning to wonder if 6 month appointments might only be necessary for old people and meth addicts. But with the dentist's remark, and my mouth still locked open like a plastic clown at the fairground, I began mentally scheduling my February 2014 appointment.

Amidst the polishing and the grainy toothpaste, the dentist asked if I would like an X-Ray to check for hidden tooth decay. Honestly, it felt like a waste of money, akin to drilling for oil in my Carlton-North courtyard. But in friendliness, I agreed.

As my gums bathed in a coconut fluoride bath, she reported the results. She pointed to a murky region toward the peak of a back molar. “Here is some light decay. It will require a filling.”

With those words our comradery shattered terminally. No longer was I the A student with the pure mouth. It was like the first argument in a relationship. Things were becoming tainted.

The dentist tried to patch things up. Tried to blame it on the worn-out fisher seal that should have been replaced. But indirectly, the only one to really blame was me.

For a decay in a relationship, you buy flowers and if that fails you buy counselling. A decay in a tooth, it turns out, requires a more military approach.

I arrived back the next week for my ‘restoration’ appointment, feeling like an op-shop piece of furniture in need of revival. The dentist said she would try without a needle because it was just a shallow nest of decay. Unless I would prefer a needle, she asked, but I said no. She said we could always revert to the needle, if need be. I wondered what ‘need be’ would feel like, but then I pushed that thought, un-Buddhistly, into the shadows.

The dentist, who had always been so friendly, minty and complimentary, got out the drill. It started as a squeak, but it fired up into a roar, blasting out diseased tooth tissue that was presumably sucked up by the saliva-sucker-tube. There were speckles of high-profile pain, but transient and ungraspable. Psychologically scary, but unworthy of ‘the needle.’

And somehow I survived. And I am back on the 6-month-dental-checkup-bandwagon to ward off the inevitable decline.

*Comradic smile: the kind of smug smile you would give to an ally, when you know you are on the winning team.

Four Seasons with a Man

2013-07-20T14:59:00.004+10:00

They say you should spend four seasons with a man before judge him. Should they exist, creepy habits will spill to the surface within a year. You will also have a chance to assess his childhood photo albums for the quality of love he received from his parents within a year. The three month flowers have died, and the six-month sex-fest is over. At your one year anniversary, it is time to inspect the remains.

To be frank, I wasn’t too sure about Mr. B when I first met him. It was at a speed-date event organized by my friend. One of the first things he said to me during our five minute meeting was his plan to bake cupcakes with a prostitute the following weekend. Though I thought the plan was somewhat inappropriate, I couldn’t help admire his daring rebellion against social norms. If I later learned that cupcakes had a ‘happy ending’ then I would pull the plug immediately, but for the time being I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Coffees turned into lunches, lunches turned into dinners, and dinners turned into lazy weekends away. We killed our muscles together scrambling up to lonely alpine huts in New Zealand and when we came home, he cooked dinner for my friends.

Last Friday, we officially completed the four seasons and Mr. B. took me out to a fine Italian restaurant (Florentinos) to celebrate. Over Truffles and lamb, octopus, mock-tails and chocolate soufflé, we reflected on the year that has past.

Like Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concerto, we had witnessed movements. We started with the lace and blossom of spring, in all its sensual glory. As days stretched out into summer, we eased to a more leisurely, carefree pace. I dared to use his bathroom, and he may have caught me dribbling on his pillow one summer night, for the first time. Leaves fell to a blanket of gold.. We rugged up in our cashmere scarves and flew to Canberra to meet his parents. I felt at home immediately with his Sri Lankan mum and his quietly spoken, thoughtful dad. Fortunately, they past my photo album test. Love and determination radiated from the pages of Mr. B's youth. He walked at nine months, and completed multiday hikes up mountains from age three. His mum had baked him impressive birthday cakes. I recognized the serious yet quirky expression in his eyes beaming out from behind his cakes. I hadn't met him yet, but he was my friend.

Finally we reached the frosty mornings of winter. Mr. B. started work on designing an unmanned rescue drone with his friends, and I began sneaking out of bed at dawn for marathon training. Though cake decorating is my hobby, this winter he stole the glory for his superior sugar-flower and stencilling skills. I swallowed my bitter pride, and embraced his natural talent. Together, we made a fabulous white and gold two-tired cake.

And this is how we weaved through the seasons - playing and planning and growing together. Now, like ageing red wine maturing and deepening, we will cycle the seasons again to elaborate the themes.

Marathon Running

2013-07-12T10:56:00.000+10:00

It is so easy to buy things on the internet. Especially after a long and uneventful day of research. If you have nothing to show for yourself by 8pm, you simply pull up a website, click the paypal button, and finally something happens. The universe creaks into action to respond to your flippant request.

The other day I was on the Melbourne Marathon website, staring at the course. It curled its way around Melbourne parklands, sprawled up and down Port Philip bay, and then built to a crescendo finish – a lap of the MCG. The $120 price tag seemed reasonable for a high profile event, so I clicked to lock in my compulsive buy.

Long distance running is a lot like life. There is a clean, pristine beauty to it but there is also a harsh side. Why endure pain, exhaustion and the possibility of killing your toenails in marathon training when life has enough suffering as it is?

My answer is that I believe in paradox. Step head first into pain, and you might just step head first into life. When you run, the misty webbed dreams of the past and future come crashing down. They dissolve. They make way for the sweaty heap of the present moment.

Marathons have a strong overlap with spiritual practice. When I was living in a Sri Lankan forest monastery, my meditation teacher would instruct me to welcome pain with a friendly heart. I would sit for hours in half-lotus, watching sharp twangs screw through my joints like voodoo pins, and then emotional pain would rise up through subconscious vaults as well. In meditation it all rises up and you watch, like a loving unjudging god. In running, same deal goes.

Picture from Streetly Road Runner blog

Tom Holland, the world acclaimed running coach who I have adopted as my guru, discusses the barriers of ego to a runner. Just like in meditation, ego gets in the way when you are trying to train for a marathon. Egos tell you to run too far too soon, egos tell you to zoom off the starting blocks at an impressive pace. Egos push through dangerous pains, and they can leave you in a crippled, injured mess. Believe me, I have heard scary stories of this first-hand.

A truly skilled marathon runner, according to Tom, has a strict but loving attitude to the body. You feed it good fuel (and lots of it!), rest it well, and stretch it out when it feels sore. In training you push it, but you never take the piss because the minute you think you own it, it will rebel. Just like in meditation, a true runner diffuses into the body’s intuition.

And over time, you begin to learn an important lesson, that suffering won’t kill you. When you make peace with the suffering on the track, your heart fathoms the possibility of embracing other kinds of sufferings as well. You start to settle into the equanimous centre of it all.

Dalai Lama Blessing

2013-06-27T15:46:00.002+10:00

Just like a tree can’t grow without earth, compassion is impossible without pain. Why would the Dalai Lama delve into such a messy business through becoming the Saint of Compassion? If he had transcended his ego, he could have just chilled out in bliss...But instead he manifested on earth, to embrace all the pain of the world in his big heart.

Remarkably, my mum, sister and I had the shaky possibility of meeting him.

I say shaky, because everything is uncertain in a Buddhist world. And when it comes to the Dalai Lama, Buddhist ideas rip open into a radiant fire of truth. We could expect uncertainty on steroids. Sure, we had a scheduled appointment to meet him, but the organizing committee warned us that things can abruptly change.

But in an act of faith, we zoomed across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand to see what would unfold.

The night before the meeting, I dreamt I was hovering in a large hotel room and there was a bustle of action because His Holiness was about to arrive. In the dream, I was stressing over whether or not to take off my shoes as an act of respect and then he entered. Unexpectedly, I broke open into unredeemable tears. I cried and cried over the sadness of life....

Step forward to the next morning on the Dalai Lama’s actual Auckland hotel floor, and I was rather concerned my fear of breaking down would actualize. We waited expectantly, alongside a Tibetan woman and a rather mysterious couple who were visiting New Zealand from China. They all insisted on no photos for fear of political persecution of their families in Asia.

This was Tibetan politics first hand. It seemed incomprehensible that His Holiness, an advocate for peace and healing in this world, is loathed by Chinese authorities to the point that people are fearful of meeting him. But in a strange way, it also seemed to match the Dalai Lama’s mission of loving the world in difficult times. He was exiled from his country, but through this sad loss he became a deeply honoured citizen of the world, transforming pain into compassion wherever he went.

My eyes were glued to the elevator. Would the Dalai Lama actually arrive?

There were false starts. A pretty business woman emerged from the magic doors, holding a white blessing scarf which she offered to us. Generously, my mum and sister elected me to hold it, being the representative Buddhist of the family. It could have just been the white, silky fabric, but it seemed to glow in my hands.

Finally in a gentle moment, his Holiness arrived, accompanied by a minimal cloud of his closest protectors.

The Tibetan woman broke into tears as she handed him a card. As he read her words, she continued to cry from a very deep well inside of her. They felt like universal tears. Tears for the hardship of exile, tears for the persecution of her race, tears for all those misunderstandings in life that lead people to feel lost and stranded and small.

And in his presence, there was alchemy. We witnessed a transformation of her pain into a golden release. It was simple and natural and magic. It was compassion manifest in life.

Next his Holiness approached us with a brimming smile. The event organizer showed him a picture of his younger self blessing the pregnant belly that was my sister, inside my mum’s tummy. With this he opened into a deep and welcoming laugh. He shook our hands, and wrapped in close to us like a brother as we posed for photos to be printed in a magazine.

As he embraced my family something happened. It wasn’t a transmission that I felt, but it was a reminder. A reminder that his compassion was no different from our own. His Holiness was saintly and simple all at once.

We didn’t exchange words, but what I learnt from the encounter is this:

Compassion isn’t rocket science, in the face of hardship it’s just the natural thing to do*.

*The only thing that stops us is the stiffness in our heart-mind, it just requires a bit of flexibility training the Buddhists say

Sex Toys

2013-05-30T19:10:00.002+10:00

Since 50 Shades of Grey, sex toys have been all the rage in inner city Melbourne. They come in various flavours to cater for a full rainbow of sexual possibilities.

The mechanical vibrator was first designed in the 1880s, in order to massage woman free of their mental distress. The invention was a relief for womankind, who previously endured the hardship of being masturbated by creepy physicians in a doctor’s surgery for treatment of hysteria.

Since the creation of the vibrator, women from across the world have had access to magic the button to unlock a secret garden of release… But the men missed out. They felt like sagging failures compared to their smooth, eternally erect, sky-scraper tall competitors. So a decade later they Frank E. Young invented the butt plug.

Some people don’t like talking about butts and sex in the same heated breath. But pure, hard biology dictates that it is a jewly pleasure, that swirls consciousness in unexpected and heady directions. Frank named his bullet shaped device the Rectal Dilator, it was respected by medicos, and it spanned a proud 4.5 inches in height.

These days, the technology is endless. Vibrators can be laced with pearls and ripples, and they dance in dimensions that an ordinary penis just can’t hack. The problem, though, is that the vibrator use can feel a little bit dead. Like using a tamagotchi, when what you really wanted was the bursting-with-life cat.

Then came the We-Vibe, which is the vibrator for two. It is like a futuristic robot, enabling sex that is a blend of human and machine. The We-Vibe has 9 dances, and my favourite is the throb. Your lover inserts it, and then he spoons the device with his own Lower Friend. Then the crowded war begins. There are two entities fighting for your attention, like territorial cats.

The evil side of me enjoyed holding the buzzing battlefield, but ultimately I would say that three is a crowd. True sex toys enhance the magic, but they just can’t compete with the real thing.

Take a second to click on an add if you feel so inclined ;)

Carlton Love Story

2013-05-15T21:48:00.002+10:00

A girl has started seeing a new man called George. Initially he was a friend, but things turned sexy one night at a house party over mulled wine and cheese.

They kissed, and then passion subsumed their bodies into a mingled mist. This is called sex, and it is very fun, but it isn’t the true way to a woman’s heart. It is what happens the next morning that counts.

With sunrise, the veil of alcohol lifted to reveal frumpy realities of spicy-wine breath and sweat. At this point, some men run away like little foxes who are blinded by the light but not George.

When he awakened he curled his strong arms around his friend and settled into the patchy afterglow of the night before. Her mascara had dribbled down her cheeks a little, and the ringlets in her hair had spiralled into a mess, but George didn’t worry. He just rested his mind on her feminine curves and he felt grateful she had entered his life.

True Love is the morning after

Then the girl woke. On some cosmic level she recognised the gratitude glowing from George as an extension of her own. It was gratitude that she had him there beside her, so she hugged him back.

In bed, they spoke about travel and where to find the best coffee in Carlton North. She teased him for ordering lattes which she said were girly. He slapped her bottom playfully as a comeback. And that is where the true romance began.

They went out for their first of many French pastry and latte breakfasts. The girl had a rosy smile on her face that whole morning. Not because of the sex (which was fun, and much needed after a long drought) but because she knew this George character had a kind heart. In fact, she suspected that her feelings might just grow into a strong tree of love.

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Stalking Tom Hanks

2013-05-07T19:59:00.001+10:00

He isn’t a sexy man, but Hank has balls. He first stole my heart on screen as Forest Gump. Recently, he stole my heart in the flesh at his Broadway debut.

After a penetrating night at Birdland Jazz bar, mum and I were walking back to our hotel via the theatre district of New York. Above a particular theatre, there was a towering composition of Tom Hanks advertising a play called “Lucky Guy.” Down below at street level, swarms of people were beginning to buzz. Four elegant police horses clopped along, and an understated black 4WD was parked decisively outside the actors’ door. Clearly, Hanks was in the hood. I could practically smell his presence, but I was dead set on something more.

I threaded my camera around my neck, and ground my heels into the icy spring night air. The police began hording us like cattle. The horses formed a shimmering chain of strength, squeezing us onto the sidewalk and off the road. They shouted at us to keep back, but in some heat of craze I darted across the road with some other hardcores to establish contact with my famous lover. Me and the hardcores were like sperm drawn to the egg. It was all improbable chances and instinct, but there was no option but to bow to the force.

After all, I wasn’t asking the universe for much. I didn’t want to sleep with Hanks, or to have his children. I just wanted his eyes. A moment of unity with the flame.

There were false starts. The door of expectation would open just to spew out an anonymous back stager all dressed in black. These accidents would scuttle away like little cockroaches into the dark night.

The crowd was radiating like a PowerStation. I felt like a successful sperm because I had wiggled my way to the curb side near the car. But the mission wasn’t complete.

Finally, there were screams. The crowds near the door were going wild for a middle aged man. He diligently signed posters and programmes and he took his time. My heart throbbed like ocean crashing on the shore in a storm. Camera was up, lens cap off, I breathed and awaited my turn.

Eventually, the praised figure glided toward the black car. I assumed he was going to mount, but remarkably he veered an unexpected right and headed straight toward me. Delusions of grandeur penetrated my being. Against all odds, he locked eyes with me. For a brief second, all my struggles with the world vanished and all my dreams came true.

Except in our intimate exchange I realized that it wasn’t Tom Hanks. It was a sidekick feigning the Real McCoy.

Sometimes we can fall in love with a grand illusion of someone and it is larger than life. It is that kind of love that we might have for a movie star, or even an unrequited love for an unknowing acquaintance. My love for Hanks is free from all the grime of gritty life (there are no arguments over dishes), but ultimately it is unreal because Hanks never showed.*

Personally, I would prefer the real eye-gaze with the real sidekick any day.

*He probably would have appeared at some point, but mum and I were too freezing cold to wait and find out.

Despite not capturing his gaze that icy night, mum and I did later go and see the show. It was breathtaking. Stay tuned for a recap of the event.