Date: Moonlight Cinema

As I've mentioned, summer is my favourite time of year. One of the joys of summer is outdoor cinema. Across most of the Australian capital cities, Ford hosts the Moonlight Cinema. I don't think I need to explain what Moonlight Cinema is...

A trip to the Moonlight Cinema is always enhanced just that little bit more by taking someone along who you can smooch with in the dark. Right?! So dating is on the agenda for me at the moment, and for a change I'm not finding it overly tedious. I'm dating just one person. I've shut off all the usual options b, c, d, e and so on that I usually have in reserve. This is unusual. After much reflection, I have discovered I have become for various reasons a back-up plan girl. As in, my mind says "well, Rachel, if you don't pull this one off, never fear because you have also been preparing for several other options". It's almost like ensuring I never fail, because I can always say "well... I didn't want it anyway. Plan B seems so much more enticing - and feasible - now anyway. So suck on that Plan A!". Dunno what that's all about. But at this moment, in the realm of dating, I have stopped with the back-up plans. It is at once confusing and destabilising - there is a huge fear of the unknown here: if it doesn't work out, have I just invested way too much time on something? As I approach my 30s, I do worry about time wasting a little. Strange, considering much of my 20s have to date been spent with men (at least the ones who I date - the male friends I have are a totally different story) who waste my time almost 100%. I think it's the safe zone - you can pull the pin for a variety of reasons whenever you want, and it wasn't your fault it was theirs and their litany of faults. But when you like someone... Things change. Suddenly you could be the one at fault and it is freaky!

But obviously we put those crazy fears aside and enjoy the moment, don't we? So I am taking him to the Moonlight Cinema for Where the Wild Things Are. Why is it that so many boys never read this book in their childhood? I have been thinking, though, of what food to take. I like themes - dress up parties, themed dinner nights (stay tuned for our 70s themed dinner party - microwave food, upside down tea cakes etc) and so on. So the natural progression is themed food. I am gobsmacked by the Wild Things theming that is out there.

One restaurant has been offering this menu suggestion: freshly pulled made to order warm mozzarella with pickled wild mushrooms, roasted pearl onions, smoked paprika vinaigrette; a second course of penne with wild boar ragout and warm wild huckleberry clafoutis with lemon verbena sorbet in a wild rice tuile for dessert. Um. Yum! But a little bit of a con in that they just add "wild" as an adjective before the noun. Cheats!

Check out the cupcakes:

Woah! I could attempt that though.

This, on the other hand... The uber bento box from Anna the Red.

Um. Wow. That is love. I'm not quite there yet. Wild rice it is!

Nightmare on Park Avenue

I couldn't wait until April Fools Day to post this one...

The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun

While we're on the theme of Happy New Year and making positive changes in our lives, I thought you might all get a kick out of the eight principles of fun.

Which one resonates most with you right now? If you'd asked me this last year, it would have been a tie between the first and second - stop hiding who you really are, and be intensely selfish. This year, scaring myself, stopping taking things so seriously and not being so busy are the ones that make my ears prick up. It is always so easy to move in a zone of comfort, and it really is sometimes a real push to make yourself do new things, or just things that you hate doing but know are good for you (such as run club tonight..!).

Happy Friday: Looking Forward

Happy Friday peops! Sorry for not writing this week... I'm in a new job so... You know.

What are you looking forward to for 2010? Apart from looking forward to Poh's Kitchen to screen on my beloved Australian TV station, the ABC, I am looking forward to:

* All the career nonsense that is swirling around progressing and finally making sense - only I can do that for myself though, right? Fingers crossed for New York.

* Travel. Who knows where, but South America is on the cards, and Las Vegas for late December/NYE is looking almost definite for a girlfriend's 30th birthday (aaagh! are we getting that old?)

* The Year of Adoration. While I love being single, I realise that I love being loved. We've all been burnt in the past... I have finally risen from those stupid ouch-my-heart-hurts ashes and I'm ready to embrace a real, grown up relationship. But only if he loves me. And only if I love him. So that's this year. It's not a single-minded goal, and if it doesn't happen... Sad but not life-ending. But I would like to be adored please!

* The Year of the Pedicure. I am obsessed since my trip to New York.

* Revamping my look. I'm thinking clean, cool, chic blonde. Like a resplendent American woman. Eco, clean, tan, fit (my NY resolution is to run a 10km run - Phuong, you constantly inspire me!), and effortlessly chic. Nothing naff or old-school. Should be interesting considering my penchant for dead people's clothing.

What are you guys looking forward to?

Sibling Rivalry

The latest Burberry campaign featuring the lovely Emma Watson also features her little brother! Cuteness...


There is also some minor furore over her allegedly "missing" (/photoshopped out) leg. I would never have noticed...

Distress Call

Distressed denim from Balmain, D&G, Dsquared2 and Just Cavalli.

Aaaah denim. It's the fashion item that consistently maintains its foothold in the wardrobe of everyone from fashionista princesses to 4 year olds to normal-sized human beings. The beauty of denim is its versatility and changeability - one minute you can be an all-American clean cut beauty, the next a 60s girl-next-door with bell bottoms and high waists, and the next you can look practically homeless - strangely the homeless look generally costing far more than the conventional denim which is neither ripped, had acid thrown across them or "distressed".

I think jeans are pretty excellent - they are flattering to many figures, warm and comfortable (provided they are not skin tight and low-slung). They also strangely have an ability to make mens nether regions disappear - I still find myself going through the options of where the "parts" have gone when I see boy emos slinking around shops wearing black Bardot* jeans in size 4. Disturbing.

Distressed denim appears to be here to stay - this northern and southern summer we were beseiged with cut off denim shorts with exposed, low-hanging pockets. Having shopped in New York at the height of summer this year gone, I succumbed to the trend and bought a pair. Indeed, they are super comfy but as my mother has commented with disgust on several occasions "you look as though you have fallen out of a trash can". Delightful.

Luckily for mama, it's unlikely I will ever find a pair of jeans to do the distressed denim job as I have hideous difficulty finding pants to fit (does anyone else have this problem? I mean it's fine by me because I love skirts and dresses, but sometimes it would be nice to go to the movies dressed like everyone else...) however there may be a place in my heart for a distressed denim jacket. Which actually sends a shiver of revulsion up my spine... Denim jacket. Dire?

*Note: Bardot is a most definitely female clothing range in Australia. It is the fashion range of a fallen all-girl pop group (along the lines of the Spice Girls except distinctly less successful). Very popular with its on-trendiness and low prices. I quite like it for occasions where you need a fashion forward item but know you'll probably only wear it once.

Thoughts Please

I am being very eff-ing lazy right now. I have once again installed a "guest editor" without asking their permission. NY mag, of which I am a happy chuffed little-piglet subscriber (I got it during the GFC - poor NYC got hit bad... I swooped!) so I feel a minor degree of entitlement to do this. This month, as generally happens here in Oz, we face the post-Christmas detox season head on: after all, we still have a few more months of bikini wearing, so the misbehaviour and gorging over the Christmas period are far more obvious to the naked eye, and make us cringe as our shorty-shorts require several minutes of heaving to get into. It's the perfect opportunity, so the magazines pounce, telling us both to love our bodies and ourselves, and on the next page extolling the latest Lara Bingle/Jen Hawkins/insert other hottie super-diet. I actually have no problem with this. I love reading the weird shit people will (or will not) eat - remember Gwyneth's insane detox which involved a handful of almonds and some water? - and I also love reading about how important it is to love yourself. A very important concept, and one I've only really just learnt to come to terms with. Wouldn't have minded liking myself a little more in my early 20s!

One of the trends in mag-land is of course to show "real women" without airbrushing or supermodels without make up and so on, so that we continue to love ourselves to the max. The pictures are designed to show up flaws, so that we feel less guilty about our own physical imperfections. I mean whatevs people! Can we start talking about personality flaws for a change? I would love for a celebrity or supermodel or Prime Minister or Kofi Annan etc to sit down and say they as human beings are deeply imperfect - like all of us - but they have learnt how to deal with that, and they have also learned to love themselves and achieve great things despite imperfections which required work to surmount. And work that doesn't involve a bloody stairmaster! Y'know? I mean how much time do you spend obsessing over your thighs vs where your career is going? Bing bing bing to career!

Maybe I should be reading other magazines...

But the mag in question here, and which has come to the attention (strangely, I believe because this happens in Oz all the bloody time!) of the good folk at NY mag, is Marie Claire! The fashionable yet thinking woman's digest! Please can we talk about character flaws and insecurity etc? I am bored with thigh talk.

Ummm... anyway. That was a huge divergence. As always. Here is what NY has to say about the cover.


The campaign against photo retouching continues in Australia this decade, where Marie Claire has put supermodel Jennifer Hawkins naked and unretouched (groundbreaking!) on the cover of the February issue. The issue supports the Butterfly Foundation, an organization that provides support to Australians struggling with eating disorders and body-image issues. You may be thinking, Since when do eating-disorder groups use essentially fatless 26-year-old supermodels to help average women feel better about their own bodies? But the foundation's general manager, Julie Parker, notes that the photo shows Hawkins's flaws, such as a crease in her waist and dimples on her thighs. (Squint if you can't see them.)

When asked why the foundation did not put forward a more average Australian woman, Ms Parker said magazines had tried that tactic in the past, to no avail.

"The thing is unfortunately it doesn't make the same point, because Jennifer sells magazines and she creates awareness. If Marie Claire had chosen to put on their cover an ordinary women, say myself or a friend of yours, it would not have created the awareness it does."

Parker added that the cover is intended to bring awareness to the issue of photo retouching, "one small part of the much wider spectrum of body image, self esteem and eating disorder issues." So the magazine intentionally sidesteps those other factors contributing to the pandemic of body-image issues in young women around the world, such as the obsession with super-skinny supermodel figures. We appreciate the efforts here, but when we look at this cover we don't think, Hey! She MIGHT have cellulite! I feel so much better about myself! We think, Damn, she's got a flat stomach. Why did I drink so much over the holidays?

***

Do you guys agree? Are we really that dumbass that we aren't aware that models in magazines aren't airbrushed? Why must this be pointed out to us? And to what level do you believe magazines contribute to eating disorders. A very touch subject, I am well aware... I have another great article I want to share with you about the rise of the 30-something eating disorder - sparked by supposed allergies or stomach ulcers etc which really just justify a woman's eating neuroses.... Stay tuned!