A stationery conversation

Oh, hello. It's you.

I'm so sorry, I can't talk to you right now. I'm very busy.

Very, very busy.

Doing what, you ask? Er, research. Yes, that's it, research. Very busy with reserach.

Oh, you want to know what I'm researching? Always with the questions. Sigh. Well, if you must know, I'm investigating stationery. Yes, stationery. Stationery needs investigating.

What's that? Well, yes, I did do that feature a couple of years ago about how we crave beautiful stationery even though nobody seems to hand write anything anymore. What of it? Didn't you read to the end of that story. Don't you remember how important that small piece of tactile luxury is in a world that's increasingly online and untouchable?

Of course you do. Which is why I know you won't mind if I just leave you right here and go back to salivating over beautiful paper products. If you'd like to join me, you can start here:

Upon A Fold

or here: Little Branch

or here: Paddock Press

And if you are a fellow stationery addict, please share your favourite online shopping haunts.  I'm in the mood for paper.

[image: Christmas cards from LeafJournals/Etsy]

How (not) to lose weight

My gym campaign continues with, if not enthusiasm, then regularity. There's just one problem. I am approximately the same size - height, weight, circumference - as I was when I began. I cannot blame the exercise. I'm doing it. Gym stuff twice a week, walks two or three times a week, incidental out the wazoo. No, if losing weight is all about burning up more than you're putting in, the burning up section should be on track. So, sigh, it comes down to what's going in.

I remember once talking to a super-fit work colleague of mine about fitness and weight loss. At that stage, I was at the (real) gym four or five days a week. He knew I did this. Which is why he was surprised when I ordered cheesecake for dessert at a work lunch one day. "You're not one of those women who think you can eat what you like just because you exercise?" he asked me, horrified and genuinely perplexed.

Why, yes, I am. And it worked okay for me. Then. When I was in my twenties and deciding to lose weight meant dropping alcohol and chocolate for a week and watching the grams melt away. Not now, when I'm, er, older and I can drop chocolate for six weeks with no apparent effect. It goes on easier, it comes off harder. Mum told me it would be so. I didn't want to believe her.

But I can ignore it no longer. Which means, sigh, watching what I eat. Which is why I found myself out striding the streets of Fibrotown on the coldest afternoon of the year. Call it penance. In an insane fit of logic (which I can only put down to brain-freeze), I had decided that the only thing that would warm me up as I wrote in my empty house today was potato chips. Crispy, greasy, salty, yummy... where was I? Oh yes.

I ate them. Then felt the immense guilt that can only come after such pleasure. I emailed The Builder: "I ate potato chips in an attempt to keep warm. The layer of fat should help next week." He emailed me back: "I think a heater would be more effective than a potato chip."

By the time he came home, I had convinced myself that the only way to offset the problem was to walk to town, in the freezing cold (shivering for additional kilojoule-burning effect), to get ingredients for a dinner that I probably could have made out of my pantry supplies. He shook his head and waved me off.

Which is how I found myself dodging the autumn leaves swirling on the half-empty streets, wrapping my scarf around my head, walking close to shop doorways in an attempt to extract any vestige of heat that might blow out. All for the sake of a few potato chips.

Seriously, why do we do it to ourselves?

[image: Clearly the thing I really need to make a food diary work is new stationery, like these from greenchairpress/etsy]

I'm in training for something big

They say that self-awareness is a gift visited upon those whose time has past. Actually, I just made that up, but it suits how I’m feeling right now. I made a discovery last night. Not so much a discovery as an awful realisation.

I am a Letter Writer. You’re probably wondering how this important point escaped me for 41 years, but clearly Denial is a land I visit often.

But, first, to set the scene (or introduce the backstory as writerly types like to put it).

I was driving up my street yesterday morning when I came upon the very corner where Mr3 and I kicked off the Emergency Services party a few weeks back. Imagine my horror when I found two cars in almost exactly the same position as my (now gone-to-God) Camry and the other big white thing. Another accident. Same place, almost exactly the same time.

As the image gelled in my mind, I remembered a conversation I’d had with my friend L who lives right near that corner. I told her I’d had my accident, she said ‘you’re the second one this week’. Three accidents in three weeks. Outrage!

So I went home and did what any outraged individual would do in the circumstances. I wrote a Letter to the Council. And even as I was doing it – using words such as ‘innocent toddler’ and ‘upset seniors’ (contributions of The Builder, I might add) – I realised that I was peaking early.

In the 18 months I’ve been in Fibrotown, I’ve written four letters. Two to Council, two to the local paper. Four.

Then I thought back a bit. Even in my years in the Big Smoke I had a tendency to whip out the prose at the slightest hint of trouble. I can think of at least three separate occasions where I shot off lengthy tirades to that local Council.

It was then that I realised. I need to stop poking gentle fun at the letters pages of the local paper – in 20 years time there is a very good chance that I will be its single biggest contributor.

Heck. Twenty years? With four in 18 months, I’m clearly in training at elite level already.

If only they gave gold medals for skills like that.

PS: I know that is a huge picture of pencils. But I just love them. They're by Kylie Johnson at Paper Boat Press, available from local gal Lisa Madigan's e-store.

{image: Lisa Madigan}

Conversations from the Fibro #6

I’m packing for the Big Smoke. Heading off to meetings. Alone. Getting out my Work Handbag – only to discover it contains: one Hot Wheels car, one pair of Wiggles underpants (size 3), one packet of tissues, 35 cents and a squashed muesli bar. May need to do some work on the Work Handbag. I’ll be back on Monday with another scintillating episode of ‘Life In A Pink Fibro’, but in the meantime, here’s what I talked about this week:

Online dating, telephone lines, small houses, country houses, rose gardens, stationery, Lisa Madigan (see pic), Madeleine Peyroux, Tony Abbott, Julie Guillard, No Waste Lunch Day, swimming lessons, compost, vegetables, shopping lists, ceiling fans, green glass, asbestos, old friends, new friends, custard, yoga, dehydration, odd and even numbers, reading, guitar practice, Famous Five, Zac Power, whether there are fire motorbikes and if they might have ladders, hopping, scooter tricks, home security.

{image: Lisa Madigan]

Almost Famous

The other day, I googled my name (as you do when you write online and often find your work appropriated without permission on inappropriate websites – not vanity, not really) and found myself on eBay. Not selling my virginity or anything (which is possibly a very good thing), but in the second-hand book area.

Yep, my credit card book is in what we artistic folk like to refer to as the secondary market already.

I have to confess this gave me a little thrill. Not the unfashionable nature of my work (clearly I will be like Keats and given my due in 100 years time or thereabouts), but rather its position on eBay.

I love eBay. I don’t know a single person who lives outside a capital city who doesn’t love eBay (come to think of it, many of my city friends could also claim Number One Fan status, but we’re not talking about them). I am out and proud as an eBay Groupie.

My last three purchases have all been brilliant. The first was a Lego minifigure of Obi-Wan Kenobi, complete with cape. An absolute bargain at $7.50, plus $2 postage, if Mr6’s reaction was anything to go by.

The second was a stack of Moleskine cahiers – six sets of three notebooks each, A5 size, divine. I made half of them into Christmas presents by sticking pages from my Dad’s 1950s French textbook on the front (see, told you I was artistic folk) and have stored the rest until the day comes when nothing but a clean, fresh, crisp notebook will do.

(As an aside, I love notebooks. The endless possibilities they contain. Mine usually end up containing lots of shopping lists and scribbled phone numbers, but there’s always the possibility that one day… well, anything could happen.)

The last purchase was the biggest and best. Inspired by my friend K’s house – which I wrote up for this month’s South Coast Style, on sale now (see pic) – I found myself trawling for vintage school maps. And I found one. At the right price, in Victoria – now in my home, awaiting The Builder’s application of a nail on the wall on which to hang it. I just love it. It’s even got Papua New Guinea as an Australian Territory, just as it was when I was born there all those millions of years ago.

Imagine life without eBay. Just doesn’t bear thinking about, now does it?

{image: Nicky Gordon}