How Life Is

Today was the first time this Autumn that I’ve felt the slightest nip of cold in the air. It was more of a challenge than ever to stick to the four minute shower regimen.

I’ve discovered that it takes approximately 2 litres worth of water streaming from the shower head before a temperature suitable for my ablutions is reached. I know this because I’ve been collecting said water in an especially purchased bucket and tipping it into my water filter for drinking and cooking purposes.

It was cool enough this morning so that I withdrew my light pink robe and matching ugg boots from their storage space in the cupboard and donned them while I drank coffee and marked the last in a pile of first year assignments.

I read that ‘99% of Australians occupy one television’.

For the past week or so, I have been trying to fight off an imminent cold. The first sign of being run down arrived in the form of a tingling in my eye, which heralded the beginning of a sty. As I became aware of the proto-sty, I realised my throat was sore.

I bought a new vitamin supplement called Immunodefence. Its active ingredient is Lactoferrin-Bovine (Dairy). I have also been drinking Immune juice which contains guava, pineapple and an Echinacea supplement. I have further supplemented my Echinacea intake with Echinacea + C lozenges.

Yesterday, I slept until 11.30am.

Late last week I warded off the effects of a disappointment by treating myself to a new cookbook, Growers’ Market: Cooking with Seasonal Produce by Leanne Kitchen. It's an Australian book. It’s nice not to have to translate everything from Northern Hemisphere climes in order to make sense of it here in the Antipodes.

It’s the season for eggplant.


These were transformed into an eggplant jam that I’m eating on scoops of pita bread.

You know your life is not worth living if you don’t know what I’m eating.


This is a home-made tomato soup. The recipe came from the hand-held blender-processor manual. It’s nothing you couldn’t find in any recipe book. The soup’s smooth consistency was achieved using the hand-held blender-processor, which boasts it is also capable of crushing ice.


I’ve been experimenting with cooking kangaroo. It’s higher in iron and protein than beef. I’m finding it difficult to get good results. It has practically no fat. It’s the kind of meat that I think you have to wrap in layers of proscuitto, a bit like rabbit. I’ve made meatballs and bolognaise with the mince, but they seem a bit dry for my taste. The best meals have required the least preparation: a fillet brushed with olive oil and seasoned, then char grilled to medium rare.

Big Brother has started. Painting Australia has finished. Medium returns this week.

I have been buying TV Week for a month or so now.

Every now and then I am consumed with fury when I replay the comments from my last Sarsaparilla post in my head.

I try to concentrate on the fact that a senior colleague read my post and the ensuing comments and said that he considered me an equal; he didn’t need to defend me or look out for me—I knew how to conduct myself.

I have over forty unwatched programmes on the hard disk of my DVR. Many of them are films.

David Stratton has an entire double page spread to highlight which movies are worth watching on free to air TV.

TV Week doesn’t provide the schedule for ABC2.

Some of my students have started watching Autopsy:Life and Death on SBS at my recommendation. We talk about how queasy we feel when we watch it. I watched Top Gear because my students said it was good—beautifully shot—even if you weren’t into cars. They were right.

I’ve loaned my copy of twenty-six lies/one truth by Ben Peek to a friend who teaches a popular culture course because I think it’s the kind of thing the kids of today should be reading. If she sets it she will get complaints from Christians and education students. When I was in undergraduate they complained about 1988 by Andrew McGahan. In Toowoomba they complain about Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas.

I am secretly reading Middlemarch because people I respect say it’s the best book ever written. Other people I respect disagree.

This Friday is Audrey Hepburn’s birthday. That means it is my birthday too. Therein all similarity ends.