At a jazz club

Electro jazz played too loudly to talk about anything that needed soft voices. So with no soft voices, lovers were silent. Too much can happen in this silence of bass and keys and dirty saxophone alto. An intoxicating sensation of presence envelopes the room of people who are here to be seen. It was not too early, not too late. There was too much red and wet wine lists.

She felt the fire and ice rip through her in the way that made her laugh too loud and her gestures too animated. He was there. Across the way.
The lighting wasn’t dim enough here.

And he knew.

He knew about the way she showered every night religiously before bed. He knew about the dark mole she had on her left butt cheek. He knew she liked her eggs poached. He knew about the soft down between her breasts and he knew she arched her back. He knew her aunts and uncles by name. He knew her scent and taste when she hadn’t showered.

For happy hour they were perfect strangers. Flawless at it. Each with new prizes the other had never seen.

She noticed he didn’t laugh too loudly or gesture gregariously. He moved her soft hair away from her neck to whisper something in her ear.

She flinched. A little. The pain wasn’t so much a slap but a growing gnawing.

She was silent.

How impressionable are kids?

From the age of five until I was eight, I seriously believed that Creedance Clearwater Revival’s Down on the Street was the Australian National Anthem. I also used to think Captain Planet was based on true stories and that one day I would meet Nancy Drew.
Parents, I think often take advantage of how impressionable kids are. My parents had me convinced that a toasted cheese sandwich was a very special treat only available when I had demonstrated some extraordinary act of pleasing child behaviour. (Meanwhile back at the ranch, I learnt all too well as a struggling, time poor, finance poor student exactly what this toasted cheese sandwich business was about.)
I also used to think that catch’n’kiss was a dangerous way to catch a deadly disease and that the boogieman (who was also, conveniently for my parents, our neighbour) would really come and get me if I didn’t eat my broccoli.
All this came flooding back to me when I read an article that girls as young as 6 years old are putting themselves on calories controlled diets in a bid to “get skinny”. How impressionable are kids. I was 6 years old twenty years ago, and there was no way I knew what a calories was, nor cared enough to control my consumption of them. I feel like I sound like that bitter man who sits outside the butcher at my local shopping centre, but really – are kids these days growing up too fast?
Or is it not growing up at all, but just a response to environmental stimuli. We are part of that stimuli people, we owe the kids.
And bring back Captain Planet.

Hey Fat B!tch :)

Goddamn Atkins, low-carb, low-fat, portion distortion, blood type, skin type, nationality type – for heaven’s sake how many diets are there?
Fact:
1. We are all fat b!tches who work in office and barely have time to remember who our friends and family are, let alone go to the gym.
2. We are always ready, willing and able to consume our body weight in chocolate.
3. Who gives a f*ck about an Oxford Comma?

The point is – who the hell can count calories, remember what is low-carb, hi-GI, mono-unsaturated, insoluble, protein rich with Vitamin A and selium? It would be a full time job just eating healthily! And I have far more numerous and riveting things to occupy my thoughts than how many riboflavins I’m getting in a day.
Here are the three easiest diets you will ever hear of:

1. Weight loss
Things you can eat: the colour green and anything protein.
Things you can’t eat: anything white.
Two rules. That’s it. No fancy-shmansy whiz bang low fat pretend carbs, taste like cardboard. If it is the colour green (apples, zucchini, spinach) or protein (steak, eggs, chicken) eat it.
If it is the colour white (bread, cake, biscuits, rice) don’t eat it.
Continue until desired weight loss is achieved.

2. Flat stomach
The rules of this diet are very easy – no solids after 10am.
That’s it. Eat what you like, drink what you like, but NO solids after 10am.

3. Detox
Eat foods that are only one food.
Steak is made of steak. A banana is made of banana. A carrot is made of carrot. A cracker is made of rice, potato, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, vegetable powders, flavour enhancers, dextrose, food acids, yadda yadda.
It is possible to combine your one foods as long as they stay one food. For example, a salad is lettuce, tomato, cucumber on the same plate. A stir-fry is capsicum, broccoli, chicken on the same plate. A cake may be made of banana, sugar, milk, eggs and wheat – but the banana is no longer a banana and the milk is no longer milk.
Promise you will feel the world of difference after just three days.

So throw the calorie counter away, screw the pre-packaged meals (they are miserable). Eating should be easy and fun, not taxing and stressful.

So go green and protein, liquids or one food. Easy to remember, easy to follow.

Love Ede xx