The carbon footprint of my travelling pants

About six months ago I purchased a pair of 18th Amendment jeans off eBay. I was living in London, the seller in Sydney. I paid about £20 for them (plus postage) and they were sent via airmail.

Two months ago I moved home to Sydney. My jeans came with me.

And a week ago I listed said-jeans back on eBay. I had yet to wear them – along with a handful of other previously-thought-MUST-have items – so I thought best cut my losses and recoup much needed funds. Bidding on my jeans closed this morning. They sold for $41.50 (plus postage). Their buyer lives in London.

I haven’t yet seen Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (or indeed the film’s sequel), but I immediately had flashes of Blake Lively donning my old Amendments; and then I thought about the greenhouse effect. Suddenly my penchant for impulse spending didn’t seem so funny.

I know that my jeans won’t be the only things boarding a jumbo back to London Heathrow but I do feel slightly guilty about the ease with which I choose to import – and export – items of clothing. Not simply because I should be more conscious about supporting local designers, which is really important, but because every delivery van, every aircraft, every postman’s motorbike leaves a mark – and carbon pollution is so last season.

Blake and I... two peas in varyingly shaped pods

Yep, another mag distorting a girl's notion of 'normal'. Apparently Blake Lively is our new poster girl for "healthy living"... hmmm. I've also heard she makes the Gossip Girl stylists tear out the labels of all clothing bigger than a size 0. For her story and more check out June's Cosmopolitan magazine - or read my review at GWAS!

Seriously?

Yesterday I posted an ad on Gumtree. Freelancing is all well and good, but I need some REAL moola to start feeling a tad more independent (and to buy stuff… I really like buying stuff). So I decided to get back to basics and offer my services as a babysitter once more.

Not long after posting I received an email from Blackunicorn90 asking me to specify how much I ask per hour. Thinking nothing of it I replied: “A flat rate of $15…” and went on to gush how I’d be happy to sit a few nights a week, including both Friday and Saturday nights. I was pumped. Paid work at last!

I waited, but got no reply email came through. Then last night – while at a friend’s place for dinner – my phone rang. It was a blocked number so I thought it was my Boy calling from the depths of Thailand. No. It was David. David was replying to my ad – was it only babysitting work I was after? Hmmm… “What other work were you thinking of, David?”

David was after a companion for the weekends. Gross! Shocked at first, I simply declined the offer, ended the call, and then relayed the conversation to my giggling girlfriend. While I was disturbed, she found the whole thing hilarious.

To add further insult, this morning I received yet another email. This time from Steve9181, a ‘new’ photographer interested in finding ladies to practice on: “in various styles depending on what [I’m] comfortable with.”

Geez, Steve. How nice of you!

What’s wrong with these people? My ad was very clear. I want to babysit not proffer my services to sad-and-lonelies. One more dirty email or phone call and I’m taking the ad down. Obviously the recession hasn’t hit the perves of the world.

Frankie... she's my friend

The great thing about writing for someone elses blog is the opportunity it gives you to think outside your own little box. Reviewing for GWAS I get the chance to read mags that I love and mags that are new - Frankie was one such newbie... now she's a bestie! Read on...

Us and them

Further from the ‘trifecta’ – Job? No. Home? Living with the parentals. Partner? Long distance – than ever before, I’m surprised by my current state of calm. But I am calm, and strangely happy.

In the early hours of Sunday morning I woke, pulled on Saturday night’s clothes and prepared myself to drive Boyfriend to the airport. We’d had an interesting 48 hours.

On Friday a bunch of us drove up to Copacabana Beach on the Central Coast to celebrate a friend’s thirtieth. In a convoy of four cars we embraced the sunshine and freedom that comes with taking a self-imposed long weekend. But at the pit of my stomach was a niggly dread that a night with our mates was the thing I wanted. After all, Boyfriend was flying out at dawn on Sunday, and I knew that however gorgeous our beach surrounds, the last thing we’d be doing would be spending quality time together.

Sure, catching up with friends is great. Chucking meat on the barbeque, tossing together salads, and chatting about life is a very pleasant way to end the working week. But what starts off civilised always turns to debauchery, especially when you get together a bunch of boys who’ve not seen each other in months – even years. So come sunset the plates were stacked and the cards were out. A drinking game was called for, then another and another. After three the girls sat out and the boys continued on their binge. At midnight it seemed the perfect opportunity for them to go check out the memorial lookout (being pitch black and all), so we girls headed off to bed.

I showered, moisturised and took to our loft bed. Twenty minutes later the boys returned, the music and the lights put back on and our previously cosy loft bed location the last place in the house that a girl could get any sleep. I passed the boys, all drunkenly unaware of my seething form, and headed downstairs. I found a room with two bunks, climbed to the top of one (I figured the top to be the safer option given a boys propensity to throw himself on the first mattress he sees) and tried to resume a state of sleep.

After forty-five minutes of tossing and turning in walked two boys, ready to call it a night. Fifteen minutes later, their symphony of snoring was added to the doof doof pumping from upstairs. I managed to fall into a semi-unconscious state until woken by the crashing thud of someone falling to the floor: 2.54am.

Thanks be to mobiles, I texted Boyfriend the likes of, “Baby, please keep it down,” – to which he replied, “Sorry baby,” and managed to keep his mates quiet for all of five minutes. My next text, “Seriously, turn that shit down” got a little more notice, until at 3.25am Boyfriend texted me to come back upstairs. Thinking they had all decided to end the festivities, I made my pyjama-clad way past a dreary-eyed, somewhat grey-looking boy who was heading to bed, only to find another three still nattering away in the lounge room – right under our loft! I was fuming: my body actually shaking with rage. Innately aware of my anger, Boyfriend moved further across the bed.

I lay there for another half hour until the boys downstairs finished their political debate and finally went off to bed. When the sun rose three hours later, I got up, showered and waited until enough people were up for us to say our goodbyes and head back to Sydney.

I guess the reason I’m calm now is that far from getting angry with his disapproving girlfriend, Boyfriend understood why I was mad and so kept quiet. We managed to get back to his place and finish his packing without one harsh word. After almost five years we’ve found a really nice balance – ‘us’ and the rest of them. Both exhausted we shared an afternoon nap, enjoyed a farewell home cooked meal with his parents and were in bed before 9pm.

It was then that we cuddled, reminisced, laughed – and I cried. It would be our last night together for at least seven months. But then what’s seven months out of a whole lifetime? Nothing.

We have all the time in the world.

Note: Above pic taken last atop the Eiffel Tower, October 2008

SHOP... your path to health and wellbeing

ACP Magazines attempts to take the focus away from finances and back onto fitness with their 30 Days of Health & Wellbeing promotion. And SHOP editor, Justine Cullen stands up to the challenge: find just what you need to keep fit, lose weight or just look hot when you're sweaty in the June issue, out now.

Or you can read my little review at Girl With A Satchel...

Slice of budget anyone?

With the news out that the ‘winners’ of the Federal Budget 2009 are homebuyers, pensioners, students and parents-to-be, I got to thinking: how can I get a slice of the profitable pie?

I just missed out on K. Rudd’s $900 stimulus payout (2007-08 being the first and only complete financial year in which I didn’t pay taxes in Australia), and since it’s being argued that the government’s knee-jerk, spend big response to the GFC is likely to put Australia into financial ruin for generations to come, I’m especially eager to score something now. Be buggered if my kids end up paying for a present I didn’t even receive!

What to do? Age prematurely? Go back to school? I certainly don’t have any money to go out and buy a place… that leaves babies. Yep, I could use my unemployed time wisely, get up the duff and pop out some more little Australian mouths for the government/tax payers to feed.

Perfect. If Boyfriend and I hurry – he flies out Sunday – we can get pregnant in 2009, I squeeze out the kid in 2010 (earning us a healthy $5,000 per child) and by 2011, when things start looking up recession-wise and the government’s new paid parental leave kicks in, I can get a job, fall preggers again and be eligible for 18 weeks paid leave – all thanks to K. Rudd and his team of Merry Gentlemen.

The old proverb, "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime,” rings in my ear. Would it not have been better for the government to put more money into businesses and business development than just hand out lump sums to individuals? I know most of my friends spent their stimulus money on shoes – good shoes, lovely shoes, but shoes nonetheless – and jeez, what we wouldn’t all give for jobs right now.

Gen-Y and wondering

It's May and the sun's still shining. By all accounts, I should be having a ball. I have time on my hands to run, walk, skip or jump (at mantrayoga.com.au I can even get cheap classes, being unemployed); I can laze about the Parental's abode reading mags and watching daytime television and I'm free to catch up with friends - for lunch, for dinner, whenever. Yep, one day I'll look back on this time and want to slap the sorry, whinging version of myself sitting here now. But that's what hindsight is for...

Right now my glass is looking decidedly half empty. And I hate that.

I've just come back from a long brunch with a girlfriend (she ordered eggs, I sat on a pot of peppermint tea for two hours), who at all of twenty-two is still cocky and confident and certain the world is her oyster while I'm trying to weigh up the pros and cons of a career change. Said-girlfriend has known me for almost a decade - since I briefly dated her older brother in high school - and always saw me as such a go-getter; a girl who would take on the world. I guess that's why I find my current unemployment so devastating. I feel like I've let her, and others, down. In her youthful (Christ, she's only three years younger!) exuberance she sat there dishing out loads of advice, "Try X... Could you maybe do Y?", while I smiled, nodded and ultimately poo-pooed each idea.

I'm not negative by nature and I know my personal slump has more to do with the economy than my own drive, but I just wish there was something else I loved to do. Then thinking up pros for a career plan-B wouldn't be so depressing.

GWAS posted a (what I should have found) very inspiring piece on Tuesday about ambitious Gen-Y women turning lemons into lemonade and seeing their new found redundancies as opportunities to fulfill their 'other' ambition. Be it going back to uni, penning their first novel or starting a business, these chicks are positive and positively driven.

Back in December the BBC business channel interviewed Tamara Mellon - Founder and President of fashion label Jimmy Choo - on how she brought her dream to fruition and I thought, "Hell, yeah. I could do that!" But now that I have the time and the luxury of no rent, no mortgage, no real job, I also have no idea.

I suppose I should get back out into the sunshine and go for a walk. Maybe one will come to me?

Local government… why would you do it?

Saturday was a very long day. After two weeks of pre-polling (where my Mum stood from 9 to 5 daily awaiting the chance to talk to pre-election day voters), hours of letterbox dropping and many a constituent phone call, Saturday was the day when our family took to the polling booths to barrack for Mumma.

Before the sun had risen we were hanging up posters and figuring out the best place to stand to capture the market. We weren’t alone. With six candidates vying for one position, there were volunteers (although how ‘free’ their services were appeared dubious at times) from all camps setting up stands. Most wore professionally printed t-shirts; we had Mumma’s handmade lilac bibs (because Spotlight had a dollar-a-metre deal on lilac cotton).

Two of the candidates had hired campaign managers with experience running state elections and had even organised a postal mail out to the electorate the Thursday before, at a cost of more than $10,000. Two more had had their campaigns paid for (in large part) by another candidate, and all, except Mumma, had teamed up with others for first and second preferences.

If you calculate the cost of printing posters, pamphlets, how-to-votes, t-shirts, graphic designers and campaign managers it’s likely this little by-election cost at least two of the candidates upwards of $20,000. Mum spent two. Printing her flyers. We (the fam) did it for love.

On the day it seemed Mum was fairing well. Nothing quite trumps, “Vote for my mum,” and having already spent 12 years as a councillor, many people knew her already and were happy she’d decided to run again. Unfortunately with local government, most people don’t give a toss until they or their neighbour want to develop their house or want Council to enforce parking restrictions in their street. And with a by-election, many are peeved that they need to vote at all. After all, the last election was only in September. Ironically, if people took more time to get to know their candidates, perhaps they wouldn’t have voted in such an unsavoury character as they guy who got booted, thus sparking the by-election.

After eleven hours in the elements – both sunshine and rain – we packed up our booths and headed for home. Exhausted, but happy. We’d done all we could. It would have been a miracle for Mum to triumph over the other campaign machines; in the end she came third. With a normal election – where three candidates are chosen – Mumma would have got in, and looking at the primary votes her tally of 1,520 was just shy of the winner, but with preferences from knock-outs being awarded, it seems money won over.

Just when did local government get so slick?

ELLE... and an old friend

I got super excited this month when reviewing the US May edition of ELLE for GWAS... not only is Drew Barrymore simply fabulous, but James Kaplan - who wrote the profile piece - was a professor of mine when I attended The New School in NYC!

As a teacher, Kaplan was inspiring and encouraging in equal measure. As a writer, he is vivid and captivating. For those not scared of the overseas pricetag (although at $12.95 US mags are only a few bucks more than their Aussie counterparts) check out his take on Ms. Barrymore, "Drewly, Madly, Deeply."