Wanker Alert! Em sings to her computer..

In response to the tens of you who have requested this I have made a little singing video.
It's very little.
I feel like an absolute tool doing this.

E x

How to look good semi-naked.

The season is upon us ladies and gents. It's soon time to do something that annually strikes fear into my heart. GO SHOPPING FOR BATHERS, if I believed in emoticons there would be a fecking big sad face right about now.

Back when I was smooth, bendy, tight and fit - bathers shopping was a breeze. I'd pick the smallest  piece of Lycra I could find and get it in 3 different colours. One year I even did A WHITE G-STRING bikini complete with little belt and triangle top. Those days seem like nothing but a hazy coconut scented memory. 

NOW? Things need lifting, tucking, smoothing and flattening. Basically I need someone with an industrial engineering degree to put together a miracle suit for me. I know I'm not alone. I have surveyed both my male and female friends and all of them dread bathers shopping. My best friend has to diet, tan, wax and pluck in preparation for the shopping day.

I thought I'd put together a 4 point plan for the retail outlets who sell these hateful items (bathers) to try and make it a bit easier on those of us who have the odd “problem area” (I am making a large circling motion from my neck down to my knees - just so you get the visual)

Sales Assistants – For me, the ultimate bathers sales assistant is a strapping, handsome, matronly woman. Someone with a kind face, strong calves and a motherly touch. Think Mrs Doubtfire meets Madge from Neighbours meets Edna Turnblad (I AM aware that at least 2 of these women are actually men playing women however they best display the attributes I desire) What I don't want is some 17 year old stick insect not taking the lifting and creating of my cleavage as seriously as she should.

Lighting Lighting Lighting - So many, so VERY MANY get this wrong. NO-ONE looks good underneath fluresent lights, same goes for down lights and up lights. As far as I am concerned change rooms should come with a dimmer switch. No! Even better- lets just change by candle light and if possible smear some Vaseline on the mirror..... 

Mirror – The skinnier the better. 

The change-room - Please avoid hanging a poster of  a Brazilian glamazon wearing the bikini I'm trying on. I don't want to know how I SHOULD look, you'd be better off rounding up a few burley blokes and popping THEM in the bathers I'm trying on. Then I can feel slightly superior to the posters on the walls rather than worrying that my arse cheeks don't look like two ripe melons fighting their way out of a small hibiscus printed tent.

On a side note - I saw a horrifying thing at a jeans shop this week. BUM CAM... Dear sweet baby Jesus in heaven. I BET MY LIFE a man came up with that one. I felt violated when I realised what it all entailed. I already worry about the bits of me I CAN see why do we need to open up the Pandora's box of the parts I can't? 

Women and Men of all shapes and sizes have issues with themselves in bathers. Yes, I am 58kgs and a size 8/10 but I have had 2 children and was once an elite athlete. My shassy 'aint what she once was. If you were all my daughters I'd say – don't worry about how you look, get something that you love and stop thinking about the things you can't control. But you're not, are you. You cannot be dazzled by my sage parenting words.

So to you all I say – get something that covers up just enough that you can leave the house and make sure you find one good thing to highlight.  

To the boys - White boardies never work out well for anyone. Go for a mid thigh boardie if you're proud of your pins and VERY FEW can get away with the european speedo....

Good luck my friends.

E x

How to milk a cow and Brynne Eldelsten nee Gordon.

As my Grandfather once said "I'm so relaxed I could shit my pants".... Obviously that is really disgusting and not something I would entertain doing however I think if you all looked deep within your hearts you would totally understand the sentiment behind that statement.

We're on holidays at my Aunt's property in country NSW so this will not be a long post my friends as I have some serious rural activities to be partaking in. Her property is at the base of Mt Kosciuszko in a small town called Tumbarumba. It's like something out of Anne of Green gables (please note I attribute a lot of my childhood happiness to Anne, Marilla, Matthew, Dianna and Gil)

Usually when school holidays roll around I lock the children outside in our small inner city backyard and tell them to "play nice" but I thought this time around I'd make a bit of an effort so we drove the 6 hours here on Sunday.  Once I'd recovered from the trauma that is being locked in a small confined space with my family for 6 hours I was able to stop and have a really good look around me.

I'll let these shots do the talking:

 

So as you can all see it's pretty idyllic here. It's got the kind of conditions that may inspire a re-enactment of the opening sequence to the Sound of music. Think of me spinning in perfect pirouettes trilling "the hills are alive....."

I am also going to spend a large amount of time trying to keep my 3 year old off the RSPCA watch list, she has taken to the animals with a little TOO much enthusiasm...

Thats all for now as I am being berated by Scott for doing work on our holiday. JUST before I go I wanted to make a quick comment on the Brownlow frocks from last night. Obviously Tanya Wilson was the best dressed by far but I wanted to give special mention and props to the amazing Brynne Eldesten nee Gordon, I love that she has a crack.  A LOT of the girls looked hungry and overdone but she looked HAPPY.

I'm off to milk a cow!

Em x

If you know someone with a Vagina - YOU MUST READ THIS

If you have a vagina, chances are you neglect it. Hey, you there... Man quickly looking for the eject button on this blog STOP RIGHT NOW.  You have a mother, sister, grandmother, friend, girlfriend or wife who also has one, so read on my brave friend.

I write this one because it bloody important, it just is. I got the dreaded letter. You know the one you get every two years from the well-meaning doctor who reminds you that it's time someone stick a cold medical instrument up your bits and get a scraping to make sure you don't have irregular cells or worse. Yes, the pap smear...

Lucky for me I had my last one in WA only 12 months ago - the VIC doctors hadn't caught up. I mentioned it to one of my girlfriends and she announced “I've never had one of those” and I can promise you at 31 she's not the only one.

About 12 months ago I hosted an event for G.A.I.N. which is the gynaecological awareness and information network. It was called “vulva awareness day” and was an information day for young women and their Mothers. It covered cervical cancer, the HPV vaccine and the importance of regular pap smears. 

The event was well organised and the volunteers who work for GAIN did a fantastic job arranging world-class specialists and speakers to inform the hundreds of young women they were anticipating would show up.
Unfortunately only 20 women turned up, we pushed on realising how important the message was to get out there and if these 20 women told twenty women surly we could make a difference.

I saw how disappointed the women who work for GAIN were, they'd organised speakers who had survived cancer , doctors and one woman had even knitted one hundred small vulva keepsakes (I couldn't make that shit up) only to have a really small number of people turn up.

In hind sight I think it was probably the use of the word “vulva” that may have put people off. As piss weak as that sounds, when I was asked to host "vulva awareness day" I was a little taken a back.

I left determined to do what I could to help them and so the “Pap Smear Express” was born. I decided I wanted to take a bus load of women to all get pap smears. I thought it may make it easier for those who had been putting it off to do it with a big group, strength in numbers and all that. 

I first had to sell the idea to the predominately male staffed commercial radio station I worked at not to mention my male co-host (the lovely Sam Mac) who usually turned green at the very mention of “lady issues”.

To all their credit they got on board (I can be pretty persuasive if need be) the only stumbling block was convincing them to allow the word “smear” to be used..

I agree, "smear" is up there with "moist" "panties" and "yeast" for me, however I stood strong on this one. We need to get over our petty issues with certain words and get on with preventing cervical cancer. 

The words VAGINA, VULVA and SMEAR may make some of you uncomfortable but I promise you - CANCER IS WORSE.

Sam and I were overwhelmed with the public's response. I was shocked at just how many of you had been avoiding getting a pap smear, finding out that a great deal of you, like my friend had gone their whole lives and never had one.

One story that particularly stuck with me was from a girl named Amy Fidler, a young cervical cancer survivor whose complacency almost cost her her life. Amy had an irregular smear result and waited 9 months to follow it up, a tumour was found and she found herself fighting cancer at the age of 27.

The day came and the bus left the station with women from all walks of life on board with one common bond -  all had neglected their own well-being for far too long. 

On the day of the “mass smearing” each woman dealt with it differently.  

For some it was quite confronting for others nowhere near as bad as they had anticipated.

For me, I felt like I'd taken back a little control over my health. 

It should be noted that 4 of  the 30 or so we took on the bus came back with irregular cells, 2 of which required pre-cancerous lesions to be burnt off. NONE of these girls showed any real symptoms it was just lucky they decided to get on the bus.

To all the women out there reading this now, be it a pap smear a breast check or anything else that may be worrying you about your health GO AND GET IT CHECKED OUT. You are ALL important, valued individuals who deserve to feel human. 

To all the men out there who made it past the word VULVA in capital letters if you have a lady in your life you care about, remember to have the care to as if she's OK. Make sure she's well oiled and the donk (apparently that's man talk for engine) is running well. Besides caring about their health asking them when their last pap smear was - good for shits and giggles...

So the message this week is to look after yourself, you are the sunshine in the life of your family and as you know if there's no sun nothing works. (That sounded way more poetic in my head)

VIVA LA VULVA!

Em x

Having sex with a watermelon is tough. So is love.

Relationships are tough. I don't care if you're married, de-facto, gay, straight or into fruit (seriously, there are people who get intimate with watermelons, I've read about them) 

My husband and I celebrated 10 years together this week, I use the term “celebrated” loosely as it involved seeing Scott Pilgrim vs the world and a visit to the veggie bar for lunch. Yep we really let the bell ring this year.

No presents, he didn't even manage a card. I did.

That's he and I in a nutshell (I always think of that scene from Austin Powers when he 's acting out being in a nutshell saying: “this is me in a nutshell - how did I get into this nutshell”?... I digress) 

I'm the card giver, sometimes even maker. He's the “every occasion has been made into a commercial money making exercise” non card giver.

I'm not saying he's NEVER given me a card however more often than not said card has been purchased the day before under duress. 

I once had ideals on how I felt a man and woman should behave towards one another in a relationship. They were killed and destroyed by my husband. Burnt, mutilated, murdered twisted and spat out into un-recognisable forms of their original selves... Laughed at, humiliated, forgotten...Ok I'll stop now.

That was lesson one in keeping my relationship alive. Expectations will inevitably lead to disappointment. I had to rapidly adjust my need and want for romance, it just isn't Scotty's schtick. 

A friend of ours, Cameron Schwab who happens to be the CEO of the Melbourne Footy Club and a good friend (I hope I didn't hit anyone with that name I just dropped) is convinced we should have our own reality TV show such are our differences. Cam knows us both pretty well.

My husband is a surfer, struggles with most commercial things and is a non-conformist at heart. He knows every Radiohead song, would leave me for Bjork/PJ Harvey and knows that Beck releases a “commercial” album one year and a personal album the next.  He refuses to wear anything with a label on it (in fact ignores fashion all together), avoids night clubs like the plague and thinks musicals are an unfortunate waste of time. Unintentionally; he's the coolest person I know. 

I fear sharks, feel suicidal at the mere thought of a Thom York penned song, was on reality tv and hosted breakfast radio for commercial  radio giant Austereo. I think Bjork is more mental than I am, love fashion (one of the highlights of my life being a trip to Paris to buy a Coco Chanel bag I'd been saving for my whole adult life). I'm a pop music enthusiast, sing at night clubs and had learnt the entire Disney musical back catalogue by the age of 10.

Yep, we're very different. Spare me the “opposites attract” bullshit because it is just that – bullshit.

I saw Scott and thought he was a hot piece of ass. He had a hard body, husky voice and was ridiculously smart. That's why I went after him initially, not because he had the character traits and qualities that I lacked. That was just bad luck! 

I fell pregnant with my first daughter only 5 moths into our relationship. We had just moved into a one bedroom unit in St Kilda and I was training at a very high level with Olympic aspirations - he had just started work for the Carlton Football club. Our relationship had a baptism of fire, our honeymoon period got blown to shit and all of a sudden we were faced with becoming parents. I don't know how we made it but we did.

I am proud of my relationship but it's been ridiculously tough. Scotty and I fight ALL THE TIME ABOUT ALMOST EVERYTHING. It's been ten LONG years and I love him more now than ever.

For those of you who are asking “why the hell are you in this relationship Em” I'll tell you. My husband is an excellent Father, a really good bloke, smart, trustworthy, has a nice bottom and is kind to animals. 

If you're in a relationship and are finding it tough then what I want to say to you is stop trying to make it perfect. It NEVER will be. Re-assess your expectations. Has he/she EVER behaved in the  way you are pining for? If not, what the fuck are you doing to yourself?! Why are you expecting behaviours that have never displayed themselves before? Re-adjust, re-assess and ask yourself -can you accept it? I did, and I could. 

I didn't buy him a gift this year, first time ever. He didn't really care, I did however make it easy for him to get out of the house at 6am and go for a ride with his cycling nerd buddies for 6 hours. That means far more to him than a pair of Calvin Klein undies. I've learned that when I want to do something nice for him I should to do what he wants not what I want him to want. 

Happy Anniversary Husband, I love you just the way you are!

To you lot, have a fabulous week.

E x