A Shit Covered Guilt Trip for Katie

This blog is late, and for that I blame Tom.  Tom, who yesterday had me knee deep in dirt and covered in manure on the farm, desperately trying to be of service in his mission to set up the veggie patch to rival all veggie patches.  I should have been writing.  But Tom wielded a powerful weapon, a weapon used and abused for eons by conniving mothers, needy friends and petulant partners.  Guilt.  The bastard guilted me into it.  Allow me to digress. 

For the first time in weeks, I was able to join my boyfriend for the journey up to Wangaratta, our days off having finally coincided.  I was on the ass end of five weekend shifts on the trot, and was immersed in a mixture of self-satisfaction, exhaustion and anticipation for my days off.  But mostly exhaustion.  In the car, I planned the next three days in my mind.  I would write, rest, then write, then rest.  Excellent.  Tom as usual was heading up to tend the pigs and work on the garden.  All was right in the world.  

We got there and I put my plan straight into action.  Especially the sleeping and Facebooking part.  Tom looked very sexy shoveling great mounds of dirt for his veggie patch, and when I told him as much he gave me a rather weak smile.  Must be tired, I concluded, what a hard worker he is, and went back inside to resume resting.  On the second night I realized I had only succeeded in one part of my plan, and proceeded to say fuck a bunch of times before deciding I had better do my blog.

‘Tom,’ I announced to my beer drinking boyfriend, ‘I can’t drink and talk with you because I’ve got to write my blog.’

‘But it’s late!’  He protested.  ‘Can’t you do it in the morning?’  

Well, I didn’t want to deny Tom my company!  Of course, I said, I would do it in the morning. 

At 9.30 the next day Tom began shoving me and saying ‘Get up and stop feeding those computers to the monkeys!’  Or words to that effect, I was still emerging from dreamland. 

‘Fine, ok!’  I slurred, wiping the drool off my face.  I wrapped the doona round me and fell out of bed to clomp the six paces to the computer.  

‘What are you doing?’  Pestered Tom rudely.    

‘My blog!’  I reminded him, wiping sleep from my eyes. 

‘But you said you’d help me today!’

I had forgotten about that.  Still, I needed to write.  ‘But you said I should do my blog this morning.’       

‘Yeah, early this morning, not after-another-sleep-in-this-morning!’

I paused.  There had been no mention of this foreign early concept.     

That’s when Tom decided to switch on the guilt machine.  ‘You know what,’ he mused, ‘just do your bloody blog.  I’ll do all the work on my own like I have been every other day!’

What the what?  I hadn’t known I was meant to be helping!  I thought the garden was his hobby.  I pointed this out.  

‘So I’m supposed to tell you?’  

‘Um, YES!’  It seemed that once again, I was being punished for failing to read my boyfriend’s mind.  Great.             

    

‘I guess you were too busy lazing around doing nothing to notice that I needed help.  You should have had your writing done by now anyway!  But that’s fine, you do your blog.’

I slammed the computer shut.  ‘WELL I’M OBVIOUSLY NOT GOING TO DO IT NOW!  WHERE’S THE FUCKING MANURE?’

And then, the icing on the guilt trip cake.  ‘Nup.’  Tom looked as sulky as ever.  ‘I don’t want you to help.  I’ll slave away on my own.’

Don’t you hate that?  Don’t you really just FUCKING HATE THAT?  Not only are you made to feel guilty for failing to do something that was never asked of you in the first place, you’re then denied the opportunity to rectify your supposed wrong!

Well I wasn’t letting that slide for a second.  I marched outside, grabbed a bag of manure, and delved into it with gusto, collecting great chunks with my bare hands and smooshing them into the topsoil.  Tom emerged, and after eyeing me off for several minutes, yelled in obvious delight, ‘You’re doing it wrong!’ 

Dumpster Diving for Dummies

One of the things I love about Tom is he’s always trying to be better.  At any given time he’ll have several projects on the go- raising pigs, organic farming, DIY car servicing- all of them aimed at being that tiny bit kinder to, you know, the universe. 

Not all of Tom’s schemes are for the faint hearted.  If you prefer to steer clear of filth, offensive odours, and pissed off supermarket employees, then dumpster diving probably isn’t your thing.  If you, like Tom, can laugh listed perils off in pursuit of free food for your pigs, you’ve found yourself a very rewarding pastime!  Tom’s been foraging through bins for months now.  A good loot might include dried fruit, pasta, donuts, expensive-brand facial wash, strawberry deodorant and an umbrella.  Seriously- it’s a nice umbrella! 

He does it to feed his endlessly starving children.  Sorry, I mean pigs.  But he has grander rationales, also.  Like most dumpster divers, who are usually middle class lefties, he doesn’t see the point in feeding our waist culture and buying new stock when there is perfectly good stuff getting thrown out.  It’s about doing that tiny little bit to reduce your environmental footprint.  And contrary to most people’s disgust, the bins are exclusively full of packaged stuff- no actual ‘rubbish’, he only takes stuff that’s in date, and where the packaging is totally intact.  If picky me can eat it, so can you. 

I’ve got to admit I’m not hardcore enough to join the fun.  I went once, admittedly on a very tame ‘open bin’ dive- the dumpsters in progressive Brunswick are unlocked for your convenience- and with no fence scaling required.  Still, I hovered at the edge of the dumpster, occasionally peering in at Tom and trying to convince myself to jump- C’mon Katie, don’t be a pussy- to no avail.  I felt like the typical precious girlfriend, standing there ‘encouraging’ Tom and doing the car runs so I would feel included.  The fumes were just too much.  As stated, not for the faint hearted!

Most of the time people politely turn a blind eye.  The diving itself actually isn’t illegal, but the trespassing is, so occasionally there’ll be some wowser bureaucrat who insists on making life hard.  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’  Yelled a Coles employee at Tom last time.  He explained what he was doing, and proceeded to get started, to the adamant disapproval of angry shop woman.  She was more of an annoyance then anything, stamping her feet and crying for her manager the whole time Tom was hunting.  As he had pointed out, she had no right to actually stop him; he wasn’t trespassing and the dumpster was open.  I can’t fathom why anyone would care, but each to their own. 

The best bit about dumpster diving is the look on the pigs’ faces when they get their haul.  They bolt up to the car at top speed as we pull into the farm, grunting in ecstasy.  Tom jumps out, grabs them for a hug, then mixes up some delicacy; donuts, milk and bananas last time.  It’s pure pleasure watching them dig into the mush, happy as pigs in bin-recovered bounty.  Of course, as usual, it all comes down to the bloody pigs. J    

Confessions of a Skinny Bitch: My Rant about being a Rake

I am skinny.  I wasn’t always; I went through a period of chubbiness as a teenager; but for most of my life, this has been my body.  I eat what I want.  Some people think I’m lying about that, probably because I had anorexia, but it’s the awkward truth.  I asked the doctor why I don’t put on weight easily and he said that a history of anorexia can actually contribute to the body struggling to keep weight on later in life.  So maybe that’s why.  Or maybe everyone else is eating more than me.  You be the judge- this is what I ate yesterday:

-Two lattes
-A bbq pork roll from the Vietnamese bakery down the road
-A tuna, egg and potato salad
-Bread and butter
-Two Mountain Goat amber ales
-A KFC Gaytime Krushie with extra bits
-Chocolate caramel mousse, also from KFC (I love dessert) 

My eating is a tad random, but that's pretty much an average day.  Now that everything's on the table (pardon the pun) I'll commence my rant.  

Because I am thin, people seem to think it is entirely acceptable to interrogate and belittle me over my weight.  It is the opposite of a taboo subject, open for discussion by anyone and at any opportunity.  I'm regularly asked if I eat, the answer to which is apparently irrelevant, because if it's not 'no', ensuing eye rolling will clearly indicate there was never any doubt in the first place.  A girl at the Brunswick Hotel walked up to me a few months ago and asked if I had anorexia.  Someone from work called me a 'skinny bitch' the other day.  

In saying this makes me uncomfortable, I am not simply beating my chest and claiming my due.  It's pretty weird having the focus placed squarely on your body, especially when that focus derives from complete strangers.  I understand that I'm supposed to take it as a 'compliment', but isn't it a lot to ask of me to mentally unpick people's insults to reveal their inherent complimentary meaning?  Maybe they really do just think I'm a skinny bitch?    

When this does happen, I inevitably feel pressured to 'defend' myself, by providing the person with an explanation as to why I'm skinny but not an obsessive freak.  Otherwise, of course, I'll assume they believe the latter.  If any of this stuff was directed at a non skinny person, there would be marches in the streets.  

Which is not to say I take my body for granted.  I am immensely grateful that I’m not subject to the worries and fears with which so many women struggle every day.  The anorexia was a long time ago, and after so much therapy I'd like to think I have a fairly healthy attitude toward my weight.  I am grateful, but I'd still prefer if my body weren’t considered fair game for public analysis.              
            
I’ve got a bunch of perceived imperfections like anyone.  My nose is big and points up in an odd direction.  One of my boobs is heaps bigger than the other.  My teeth are just crazy- huge with a front gap so spacious I can easily fit a straw through it.  Just because I’m not stressing about my weight, doesn’t mean I’m free of image-related concern.  As if.  I have every right to wallow in self indulgent pity from time to time about the way I look.  Everyone does.  But I refrain from complaining for the inevitable raised eyebrow directed my way- How dare you complain about your body?  I even feel weird talking about it now.  

I guess what I’m trying to say is, just because I’m skinny, doesn’t mean I’m immune to the obvious discomfort that arrises when someone makes negative comments about my body.