Hey man, now you're really living

I wasn't allowed a Girl's World. SO unfair.

THE smell of hair mousse still takes me back to being 13 years old, so I keep a can in the bathroom cabinet to occasionally sputter some into my hand and reminisce.

My first stabs at makeup at that age were with an entirely red palette. Red eye shadow (provoking the inevitable “You look ill” from Mum), red-orange lipstick and red blush. Well… It might have been that eye shadow again.

A year later, I bleached my hair and went for red lips with liquid eyeliner and mascara… and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Behind the times or what? I’ve never so much as dusted on a bronzer or plucked stray hairs out of my pastel lip gloss on a windswept day.

Today I find a makeover site called www.taaz.com, and for anyone who ever had a Girls World styling head, you’re going to find this waaaaay cool. You upload a clear picture of your visage and then drag dots to fit the points of your features. Done. Now it’s time to colour in.

Before.

I decide to go for a Pamela Anderson look, to go the whole hog. At each step of choosing a colour from a spectrum wheel, I’m told which cosmetics company provides the shade (Cover Girl, Clinique, all the biggies), and for how much. You can even click to order. Or you can ignore and just turn yourself into a drag queen.

You can plump lips, whiten teeth and wig up, but let’s not be silly. I go for pecan foundation, lashings of bronzer, and line my lips with a darker hue. Dated, I know. But at least only one decade too late.

Add gloss. Add more gloss.  Now bronze. Now go out and find a footballer.

After.

Keeper? If only to marvel at how I suddenly look like I’m great at gobbies.

I HAVEN’T given anyone my undivided attention since 1989. I got away with it in my teens because I was troubled, in my twenties because I was a writ-err, and in my thirties because Gen Y 2.0 came along, with handsets for hands. It certainly won’t be tolerated by a child, though; hence my avoidance of them.

I’ve agreed to take Tiger-Jane, aged three, to the Melbourne Museum while her mum gads about doing her job… but anxiety sets in as I take the train down. What if I need to write things down/get out my computer/obsess quietly over some issue? And the irritation that trots beside me every day like a devoted spaniel… can it be outrun by a three year old on a sugar high?

We’re meeting in the café, so I scoff down a piece of cake before TJ sees it and then watch Nicole like a hawk to see what parent-y tactics she is employing. When Nicole leaves, TJ sets up a wail, with real tears, I’m impressed to note. Proper mothers look on as I pat the child beseechingly on the arm and promise her that we’ll see as many dinosaurs as she likes; not having the slightest idea if there are any.

Fortunately, the first specimen we come across is the skeleton of Phar Lap, which looks a bit like a dinosaur to the untrained eye. (How gruesome: “Phar Lap reunion: see his skeleton on display next to his hide”.) After perusing this spectacle, we set off at a cracking pace – no time to take in exhibits on 19^th century working class Melbourne, Koori voices, or textile designers, apparently, but we do press some buttons. The one thing that does slow up my young charge is a tableau of policemen taking an Aboriginal child away from its mother. I’m terrified TJ’ll make a connection and start wailing for her own mother again, but instead she asks sombre questions about the scenario.

Eventually, the lure of the spotty biscuit, which I promised her on completion, reaches mystical, holy grail proportions, and we can put it off no longer. I have no idea how to buckle TJ into this unfathomable pushchair, seemingly designed specifically to get its wheels caught in toilet doors, so she gamely agrees just to balance as we head out in the rain. “Hey, lady,” she snaps, whenever we hit a bump.

A misty reunion with Mum (hers) and an explosion of chocolate follows, but I’ll stop writing now if that’s okay; I’m starting to sound like columnist for a Sunday magazine.

Thank you for a lovely day, lady.

Keeper? Her mum wanted her back.

ADMITTEDLY, this is a doona cover threaded through a curtain rod, but I thought of that myself.

How did that one get in there?

 

Keeper? Not if someone else can do it.

Goodbye, old friend.

THE Clothing Exchange promotes sustainable fashion, encouraging recycling, donating and buying clothing that are ethically produced. At their Federation Square clothes swap, ladies bring up to six garments and accessories, which are sorted and hung on rails. You’re given the same number of buttons in return as currency.

Esther calls me at the last minute with a spare ticket, so all I have to offer is my Deniliquin Ute Muster singlet. It’s blue with a comical bull’s face ironed on it. It’s tops.

When I hand it over to one of the volunteers she looks at me like she just knows I’m going to hone in on some Gucci suit, then holds it with outstretched arm to show a colleague. It’s eventually accepted after a certain amount of discussion, but really, I’ve never been so insulted in all my life.

The organisers are piping soothing music into the hall, so when it’s time to get foraging I’m expecting a squall. As it turns out, it’s all pretty civilised – although the rise in cortisol levels is palpable. And is that someone grunting? A current affairs program is filming proceedings, bullishly running over their allotted time as the gimlet-eyed host leads her burly bovver boys through the throng. I zero in on a Stussy v-neck. Outta the way, moll.

As the minutes tick by, I keep casting an anxious eye over at the Deni singlet. Nobody’s taken it yet. “You must be emotionally detached,” the Clothing Exchange website warned us of our donations, but seeing it neglected on the shelf, I feel the same way I did at school fetes when Mum’s wholemeal walnut loaf would be the only baked goods left standing at five o’clock; probably because the povo mums just sent along packets of Jammy Dodgers, which is unfair.

Finally, I run over and grab it, to a loud tut from Esther. But this was always going to happen – I can never emotionally detach from the misunderstood and maligned. And they just follow me around anyway.

Keeper? On a matey scale, I reckon.