Category Archives: Lifestyle

‘Tis The Season To Be…Frugal?

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It’s the age old question we all face at Christmas: What do we do with all the shit gifts? In fact, I think it started with the baby Jesus who woke up on Boxing Day and said “WTF is Myrrh?”

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Despite knowing we’re never going to use the lifetime supply of handcreams given to us by various colleagues and Grandmothers over the years, we all feel a certain sense of obligation to keep them. In every household there is a drawer filled with unwanted mugs, tea cosies, soaps and candles that have never left the wrapper. Every year the pile grows and we’re forced to find more and more places to stash the miscellaneous items we would rather do without.

Unless you’re me. I’m a big fan of the four ‘Rs’: reduce, reuse, recycle, regift- especially at Christmas.

REDUCE- When it comes to Christmas, there are two old sayings to consider; ‘Less is more’ and ‘it’s the thought that counts.’ Wrapping tons and tons of presents in thousands of layers of bubble wrap and tissue paper is fun until you stop to think about how full landfill gets when everyone throws it out on December 26th.
I understand the excitement people get over giving gifts to the people they love, but I’m a huge advocate for gifts like sponsoring a Koala or buying a goat for a family in Africa. Gifts like this make everyone feel good and ensures that we don’t entirely destroy the planet before the next holiday season.

REUSE- Giftbags were a wonderful invention. Aside from being more environmentally friendly, gift bags eliminate the hassle of trying to wrap awkwardly shaped gifts like teapots and tennis racquets. Stick it in a bag and Bob’s your uncle.

RECYCLE- My Gran, bless her, takes half an hour to unwrap a present. She unties the bows, taking care to smooth them out so the satin doesn’t crumple and then moves on to the stickytape which she removes in slow motion to avoid tearing the paper which she then irons, folds up and uses the next year to wrap other people’s gifts in. As a kid I was a huge advocate for the whole ‘ripping into it like a madman’ thing but as a starving, unemployed uni student, I am suddenly a huge fan of saving paper so I don’t have to waste $2.99 on a roll of dancing Santas.

And finally, REGIFTING, an art form with more tactical rules than a game of Dungeons and Dragons.

  1. Keep a list of all the presents you don’t want and who gave them to you. The last thing you want to do is give crazy Aunt Betty the yaks wool socks she gave you the year before in exactly the same gift bag.
  2. Product packaging must be intact. You can’t regift a perfume if you’ve already opened it to take a whiff and decided that perhaps ‘Au de Gasoline’ wasn’t for you.
  3. Sometimes, if you think it’s shit, it probably is. Handcreams from the supermarket and $2 Shop makeup and candles are top of the regifting list. Nobody wants them, but we don’t want to waste them so we’re forced to decide between throwing them in the cupboard with Nan’s hankies or regifting them. My advice? Kris Kringle. I’m fairly sure that was a tradition started by an absolute genius who had a whole lot of shit to get rid of.
  4. Never regift with the original gift-givers’ community. If the ugly yellow teatowels came from a work colleague NEVER regift them to another work friend. The original giver is bound to find out and you will be shunned, Mean Girls style, until you quit your job and move overseas. To avoid an expensive international relocation, make two piles in the regifting cupboard. Label one as work and the other family/other. Each year, give the gifts from your family members to your work mates and the gifts from your colleagues to your Great Auntie Edna and the neighbours. Unless your work life and home life cross over, in which case you’re fucked.
  5. One -of -a -kind items may as well have a house- arrest bracelet on. If that little beacon beeps anywhere but your place, the gift-giver, their family, the Australian Government and possibly the CIA and the ICC will find out and torture you. Handmade/commissioned/specialty items are the hardest to regift. By their very nature, unique items always get noticed and you can’t run the risk of your neighbour’s best friend’s sister’s dog walker commenting on it and sending word back to the person who gave it to you. You’re best to keep the ugly paintings in the garage for someone else to deal with when you sell the place.
  6. Your reaction has to match the gift. Don’t open a shitty present and immediately start a one man melodrama. Gushing about how beautiful a scarf is and thanking someone eighty-five times in sixty-three seconds isn’t subtle. They know you hate it, you know you hate it and everyone else in the room is wondering which one of them you’ll be giving it to in twelve months time. A simple ‘Oh isn’t that interesting’ or ‘Gee, that’s different’ is all you need. Non-committal, semi-honest and reasonably painless. Done. Move on.

So before you rush out to do all your last-minute Christmas shopping this December, have a look through your cupboards and see what you’ve got stashed away from last year and go from there.  Remind yourself that regifting is not heartless or inconsiderate, it’s sensible, economical and environmentally friendly to boot!

– by Blaire Gillies

Women’s Woes

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Being a woman is hard. We can parade around in overalls and headscarves chanting anti-testosterone bullshit all we want but the reality is that we are biologically hardwired to struggle more than men.

Germaine Greer, if you’re reading this, please let me explain before you start throwing things at me. I agree that women can be physically stronger, taller, fitter and smarter than men. We can run our own businesses, buy cars without a man’s help and fix the dripping tap in the bathroom without having to call a plumber but in the end, the oestrogen is our major downfall.
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I haven’t done the research, but I’m pretty sure the only reason women fought so hard to join the workforce was because staying at home watching daytime television left us in constant danger of drowning in our own tears every time an advertisement with a talking puppy tried to convince us to buy a different brand of washing powder.

Unfortunately, while women have evolved to be arguably the more superior sex, we still haven’t quite worked out how to turn off the hormones and get stuck facing challenges like these on an everyday basis:

Tearing apart your wardrobe in a hormone driven rage because you can’t find anything to wear that doesn’t make you look too fat/thin/tall/short/smart/dumb/etc. Guys don’t get it. You just throw on jeans and the closest t-shirt that doesn’t smell like feet and you’re good to go. Shoes and underwear are apparently optional. Our underwear have to match, fit perfectly, give support and sit invisibly under out clothing or risk looking like one of those old women who have given up hope of ever looking good again.

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Apparently Kim Kardashian has evolved past this and threw on the nearest couch cover instead…

 The genuine fear that every stitch or bout of the hiccoughs is potentially fatal. Hypochondria is not a joke. It’s an illness as real as the aneurysm we diagnose ourselves with every time we get a headache. Panadol doesn’t cut it in times like those- we need brain surgery and we need Doctor McDreamy to do it. Stat!

Crying while watching life insurance advertisements on several occasions and not just because of the terrible acting. That old couple enjoys playing tennis and walking on the beach at sunset? Holy shit. I enjoy playing tennis and walking on the beach at sunset! I might as well be old and old is nearly dead and BAM! Cue waterworks.

Ads where the toddlers talk. I don’t even like using fabric softener but that little ginger-haired kid with a lisp was so damned cute I bought a bottle of it even though it just sits in my cupboard. Well played, Cuddly Soft… well played.

Brooke and Ridge just had another fight. Seriously, you know they’re perfect for each other, every woman in the world knows they’re perfect for each other and yet they still leave you heartbroken after 26 years. We wish we didn’t care, but secretly we all do.

You honestly feel that every attractive woman you walk past is out to get you- because you are the most important person in the world obviously, and everybody’s life revolves around you.

All we want is chocolate, but chocolate makes us fat. So does the bread we really want to eat, the cheese we love, the beer we drink but fuck it, we’re going to eat it anyway and then blame the closest man for letting us do it. Why? Why the hell not.

Disney films. Women don’t grow out of Disney films. Ever. We’re all searching for a Prince of our own and even if we find him, we’re searching for a talking fish or a pet unicorn.

Every other film. Since we’re on the topic of cinema I should probably admit that women will cry during just about anything. I cried watching Die Hard because just for a minute there it looked like Bruce Willis wasn’t going to save his wife at the end. And also a little bit because Bruce Willis is amazing and women are constantly forming irrational emotional connections to celebrities.

Sobbing uncontrollably when you see small animals. Don’t judge. Just bring tissues and appreciate how cute this duck is with me.

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So men can laugh and roll their eyes when the nostalgia-induced tears from a Backstreet Boys song interrupt our train of thought,  but they should consider themselves lucky. They have been blessed with testosterone and can thus enjoy a stable, emotional-breakdown free existence while we, the unfortunately fairer sex, are busily typing symptoms of our stubbed toe into Google to prove we have gout.

– by Blaire Gillies

Confessions of a Sex Assault Victim

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NOTE: The names in this article have been changed for privacy reasons.

Daphne was only 15-years-old when she was sexually assaulted by a man nearly double her age. She had already been going through a lot for a teenager to deal with but this crime nearly pushed her over the edge.

Three words could save someone's life.

Three words could save someone’s life.


As a teenager, Daphne had a low self-esteem; all her friends were getting boyfriends and were living the “dream life” while the only boy that Daphne ever loved had denied her, requesting that they only “stay friends”. Desperate for that connection with a male, she turned to seedy online sites in an attempt to find that romance. After many failed attempts at finding love – including men who sent her indecent pictures of themselves – she met Dean. A tall, lean and handsome man at 29-years-old, he offered Daphne everything she ever wanted in a boyfriend and more.

“It was comforting to know I had someone to turn to,” she said.

At first, everything was so sweet that it was surreal. He admitted his deep feelings for her after a short period of time and Daphne, being naive and young, felt that she loved him as well. She couldn’t wait to move out with him and start her “dream life”.

It wasn’t long after, however, that Dean became more perverted and obsessive over his much younger girlfriend. He began requesting nude pictures of the girl who obliged to satiate her man. His requests to meet her grew more urgent and her overwhelming need to keep Dean happy ultimately took over and she agreed to meet him.

One night, he picked her up in his car and the couple drove off to a nearby park. Daphne knew something was going on but she was too scared to say anything. Dean began to pressure Daphne into engaging in sexual activities and Daphne didn’t feel comfortable. She told him no several times but he insisted that it was the right thing to do.

“I had told him that I was down for whatever, but really, I was talking myself up. I knew I wasn’t going to do anything,” she said.

Dean grew tired of Daphne turning him down, so he took matters into his own hands. He pulled his pants down and climbed on top of her and pleaded her to have sex with him, all the while giving her no say in the matter. She screamed. As much as she pushed him, Dean was relentless in his advances on the girl. Finally, after seeing a break, Daphne managed to kick him in the face and escaped the car, a complete emotional wreck.

“Lucky I was near home, otherwise I wouldn’t have known where to go.”

Dean hurled abuse at her through his car window as Daphne ran home. She disappeared into her bedroom without telling her family or friends what had happened.

Having her heart broken, her trust destroyed and her mental stability demolished, Daphne thought of “an easy way out”. The following night, Daphne tried to hang herself, but as fate would have it, she was not successful.

“It was the lowest point in my life,” she said.

Daphne’s family had discovered her pictures and conversations on her computer and confronted her, which led to her confessing to her family what had happened with Dean. However, he disappeared off the radar and Daphne was unable to report him to the police as it was found that he had given her a fake name.

Now 20-years-old, Daphne thinks of the situation as a “terrible but important learning experience”.

“It toughened me up and has made me the woman I am today,” she said. “Looking back at it, I wish I would have spoken to my friends or my parents about it.”

It’s for this reason that Daphne is a big advocate of R U Ok? – a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging conversations to prevent suicide. She feels as if someone would’ve asked her this simple question, her choices may have been different.

Daphne also remembers a time where she saw Dean briefly at a shopping centre when she was 18-years-old where he was with another young woman, probably around her age.

“I froze,” she said, “I didn’t know what to do, so I just froze. He walked past me and didn’t look at me, and it was one of the biggest reliefs of my life.”

5 years on and the experience still haunts Daphne, although to a much lesser extent. She believes that she has anxiety due to the bad memory, as she suffers from panic attacks occasionally. I admired how brave she was to calmly talk about this to me and how confident she was.

If you see a friend that looks unhappy, a simple three word phrase like “R u ok?” can do so much for that person.

Another three word phrase to keep in mind: “No means no.”

– by The Black Widow

Men Get PMS Too!

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We’ve all heard of, and many of you have probably fallen victim to, the dreaded Man Flu; a disease so feminist it was probably invented by Germaine Greer herself as it only attacks the male species. But while many of you attempt to ward off the misandric virus, you are dangerously ignorant of a more grievous condition – Paused Masculinity Syndrome or PMS.

That moment when Noah and Allie break up...

That moment when Noah and Allie break up…

Paused Masculinity Syndrome is to men what Pre-Menstrual Syndrome is to women; an excuse to eat unlimited chocolate, complain about fat, cry and do nothing for five days straight. Granted, males don’t experience the soul-destroying pain their female counterparts do, they still suffer through the mood swings and hectic hormones that make life a living hell.

As crazy as it may seem, PMS has actually been scientifically proven. It’s called something more boring and clinical than Paused Masculinity Syndrome (which I just made up to prove a point) but is classified as an acute state of hypersensitivity, anxiety, frustration, and anger that occurs in males and is associated with biochemical changes, hormonal fluctuations, stress, and loss of male identity.

It occurs in a regular cycle as the male body attempts to cope with fatigue and physical over-exertion which causes testosterone to be released and burned at an accelerated rate. When this occurs, the body goes through a brief period of being testosterone deficient. While most prescribe rest and a healthy diet, Doctor Blaire prescribes a metric tonne of rocky road icecream, multiple viewings of The Notebook and a hot water bottle or heat pack.

I also recommend building your wife/girlfriend/female housemate a Jodie Foster style panic room to live in seven days a month because everyone knows that when two or more women cohabitate for any length of time, their cycles tend to link up. If both of you are busy crying over Finding Nemo and feeling fat, who’s going to be there to open pickle jars, heroically tackle spiders or move heavy furniture around the room when the feng-shui isn’t healing your cramps because there’s too much tension between the lamp and the ottoman?

I’m sure that most guys tuned out of, or actively repressed most of their high-school health ed. classes out of sheer embarrassment so the poor little dears had to learn the terrors of pre-menstrual syndrome by being tortured by hormonal sisters and girlfriends (one behalf of all women, I’m sorry!). Nobody thought to teach them about the challenges of Paused Masculinity, so I feel that it is my responsibility to help you boys get through your time of the month.

Identifying and treating the symptoms of PMS:
Insomnia: occurring shortly after the horrible nightmare about your totally metrosexual favourite pink paisley shirt not fitting right.  Insomnia is one of the first identifiable symptoms of what is, in your case, ‘manstruation.’

Dehydration: suddenly finding yourself overcome with the need to drink a billion litres of water is not uncommon curing PMS but if the thought of sitting with your equally irritable and thirsty girlfriend makes you feel even more girly, a nice cold beer is a good way to remind yourself that deep down inside you’re as manly as Elton John when he married Renata Blauel.

Inexplicable waterworks: crying over nappy ads, RSPCA commercials or that ad with all the talking red-headed toddlers is completely acceptable. It’s just like The Big Lebowski says, “strong men cry too.”

Headaches: often linked to dehydration, headaches can be cured by drinking plenty of water throughout the day, however keep in mind that with the fluctuation in chemical and hormone levels, your body might be craving sugar. This is your cue to eat raw cookie dough and drink unlimited hot chocolate!

Backaches and cramps: Suckers! You still suffer this part as much as those of us with the XX chromosome. A heat pack helps to reduce soul-destroying pain in the lower back, while staying in bed curled in the foetal position also has a delightfully calming effect. This is the perfect opportunity for you to play endless hours of CoD without your girlfriend making you feel guilty – she’s probably in the next room watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians in exactly the same position.

And finally…
The dreaded mood swings: zero to bitch in .01 seconds. It in these moments when you can go from being absolutely in love with the women in your life to hating everything about them from the way they flip their hair and pick their nails to the way they constantly wear your clothes and leave them in some floral reek they like to call perfume. Invest in a stress ball and a teddy bear. The first is to carry around in your pocket for the sudden burst of aggression and the latter is to keep in your bedroom to cry to at night when you remember that Dawson and Joey never got back together in season 6.

Paused Masculinity Syndrome is equally as debilitating as Man Flu, and it is important to remember that while you may feel that you’re dying or that you look too fat in your favourite jeans to be seen in public, you will get through it. You will live to see another AFL season, eat more pies, ogle more boobs and drink more beer while discussing manly things like cars, fishing and proper chainsaw maintenance.

– by Blaire Gillies

P.S If you’re sick of The Notebook, apparently there’s a love story hidden in the plot of Die Hard…