A Luce Affiliation

Our good friends Tara and Nico were recently approached by the Herald-Sun to appear in a weekend feature on 'stressful kitchens'.  That is, kitchens that are stressful to cook in due to size, design or some such. Tara and Nico have a really great house, and in truth their kitchen is quite big.  It has a six-seater kitchen table.  But it's old and doesn't have much bench space, so I suppose that's why they were chosen. On the day they called, Tara was working and Nico was at home with their baby.  The photographer insisted on arranging a different day, so they could photograph Tara in the kitchen with her daughter. I can't even covey how much this infuriates me. Get back in the kitchen, Tara.

It has finally happened.  I am sick of reading novels set in New York. I am half-way through 'Triburbia' and I just can't be bothered.  No more lofts, no more wealthy artists, no more stoops.  Grrr!! This is worthy of note because my love of contemporary American fiction was overwhelming.  Overwhelming.  My book club friends could only look on and laugh as I earnestly spoke of my love of Jonathon Safran Foer, Siri Hustvedt et al.  And to be sure, I still love them.  At best, their intelligence and imagination sparkle off the page. My admiration of these writers was tempered when I read 'The Tin Drum'.   My favourite 'New York' authors have an enormous stylistic debt to Gunter Grass. So, here are my favourite books set in New York, which I whole-heartedly recommend. 1. Let the Great world Spin by Colum McCann 2. What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt 3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer 4. My Misspent Youth (essays) Me...

So here is my secret: I am *surprisingly* good at physical skills.  Throwing and catching, playing table tennis, kicking a footy. To be clear, I am not good at these things.  However, I am nowhere near as bad as anyone expects. Whenever anyone sees me throw a ball, they remark, "Lucy, you weren't as bad at that as I thought you would be." Or, "Wow!  I was certain you'd be terrible at that but...".  And not just once: the same people frequently comment  each time I do anything requiring hand-eye coordination. It used to frustrate me but now I revel in the advantage to being unexpectedly  good at something. My secret weapon: acting like a total klutz whilst actually having at least average hand-eye coordination and agility.

Based on the Lemon Lime and Bitters test (sens. 98%, spec 85%), another of our good friends is pregnant.  This takes the current count of pregnant friends or new parents to approximately 73.   Every time I hear about another pregnancy, I have an urge to move somewhere exotic, immediately, and return when all the baby-making is done. Of course I am excited and happy for my friends.  But I think my dream last night nicely illustrates my current attitude to pregnancy: I was 12 weeks pregnant.  I did not want to be pregnant.  I was walking across a huge, windswept desert plain.  Actually in hindsight it looked like the scene from The Master where they take turns riding the motorbike.   I saw a beautiful blanket fly past in the strong wind.  I wanted to get the blanket but it got caught in a very tall tree.  At the end of my walk I arrived at a building with no windows.  I was scared of the building, but I could hear my friends i...

Collingwood is so hip it had to been subdivided.  I live in a little corner called Ghetto Collingwood.  It's near the flats, the Tote and more empty shops than you can poke a stick at. It is not without its charms. We have the Keith Haring mural, and the awesome Collingwood Technical school.  If I were rich I would buy 'D Block': The flats are surrounded by big gum trees, so we have plenty of birds and wildlife.  Our friend Keith, who has his home and studio across the alley from us, has a theory that Ghetto Collingwood is quite safe from theft because thieves don't shop in their own neighbourhoods.  So far this has proved correct.  I once left the key to our car sticking out of the boot lock, with the car parked in the street, for nearly 48 hours.  Whoops.  But no one took it. But it's also quite ghetto.  A few weeks ago someone pooed all over the fence near our carport, and left a pile of dirty toilet paper.  The ju...

I think I used to be quite reckless. I often hear my injured patients' stories and think, "Yeah, I can see why you did that."  But the years are taking their toll and I'm more cautious than I used to be. Here's some advice from the front-line: 1. Turn off the lawn mower first. 2. Hold the beer bottle OR ride the skateboard. 3. Wear shoes. 4. When you want to stand up to get some air, don't.  Lie on the ground. 5. Turn off the blender first. 6. Knives go in the dishwasher pointy-end down. 7. Wax now, pay later. 8. Stop. Chew. Swallow. 9. Don't punch the wall. 10. Climbing a pool fence is a one-way ticket to impalement. If the gate doesn't open, give up.

It's the season for 'best-of' lists.  But I am not a Professional Consumer of Culture.  Far from it. If I were to list the top 5 films of 2012, it would be a list of the 5 films I saw in 2012.  I am the person best-of lists are made for. (Actually, I did watch some great movies last year.  It's just that they are movies everyone else saw 20 or 30 years ago: Apocalypse Now, the Die Hard quadrilogy, Running on Empty, Footloose.  No wonder Jason assumes I have never seen any movies, ever.) Nonetheless, here are my top five favourite books of the year . I really did read a lot of books last year, so a top 5 list seems fair.  When I remember my favourites, I remember not only the stories, but the act of reading them.  Where I was, what I was doing, drinking, smelling.  It is a strangely dual memory, the story and the reading of it intertwined.   So perhaps they were good books, perhaps I was just in a receptive mood at the time.  T...