February 2015

You will rarely hear me talking about products designed to make me prettier, mainly because it’s a boring topic. However, maybe I can make it un-boring today? For my loyal male readership, feel free to switch off right now, then again, this is potentially good knowledge to help you become better partners/spouses/brothers/fathers/etc…? My recent purchases… Here’s the thing. I’m 45. Based on this, I have approximately 30 years’ experience in the purchasing and wearing of lipstick. From the cheap offerings at Target as a teenager, all the way through to now; I’ve tried ‘em all, and no longer drop everything to try the latest shiny ‘thing’ because I know exactly what I want. My lipstick choice has been refined down to two. Number one is MAC, and 2ndis Bobbi Brown – a recent entrant, when, once again, MAC let me down. What do I look for in a lipstick? Very simple. It must be a moisturising matt. I have three colours: red for night; plus two day tones – a reddy brown and a purply brown. These three selections match my clothes and the simplicity of choice suits me. Once I worked out my brand and colours, life has been pretty simple on the lipstick front. I have one place to go and it’s done and dusted – important as I do not enjoy shopping. As Singapore is quite a travel oriented place, all of my make-up buys are at Changi Airport. I don’t know if it’s any cheaper duty free, and I don’t care, I just like the convenience and it fills in the time waiting for flights. However MAChas been very disappointing of late, never having the colours I need. They told me the high street shops definitely have them (which has not been the case), so about 12 months ago, after yet another disappointment at MAC, I wandered over to Bobbi and bought my first lipstick there. It’s good enough – a bit “wet” – but it’s had reliable stocks and that’s important. Until January 2015. Not only did MAC have absolutely no stock of my lipstick – recently it had no stock at all – neither did Bobbi! Oh my god, #firstworldproblems. But here’s where it gets annoying. I find the lovely ladies selling cosmetics sweet but generally useless when it comes to giving advice on what lipstick does meet my very clear requirements – i.e. moisturising matt. I mean, how silly of me to expect a sales person to understand their products! Equally, they represent one brand, not all brands, so even though they’re not all that good on their own brand, it gets a whole lot worse when asking about other brands. Mix this in with being at an airport, with a short timeframe to work within (so no time to explore all of the different options) and you’re pretty stumped. Buying at airports means sales advice is critical because you’re inevitably in a rush! Unfortunately, good advice is not happening and I recently got very annoyed by the whole thing. I don’t get annoyed very often really. In cases like this it’s because it’s just not important in the big scheme of things. It’s not life and death right? It’s bloody lipstick. BUT it is an inconvenience I’ve been dealing with for more than a year. A not happy Jan moment. Because I couldn’t get help, I now have a selection (about a $300-400 investment that is completely useless to me – Mum should be happy when I hand them over) but at least I can offer a critique for others seeking new options in the lipstick game of life: NARS – the new lipstick on the block and the cause of much excitement with the make-up ladies. They sold it to me so well, I bought two, even though the colours were completely wrong! But hey, excitement is excitement right? The verdict, it feels like you’re walking around with sandpaper on your lips all day, and by the end of the business day, it’s  all patchy and revolting after a few touch ups NARS reminded me of my Versace experience with lipstick a few years back. Beautiful packaging, but my word, almost ripped my lips off it was so dry! Burberry – who knew they did lipstick? And guess what, it’s pretty good. Like Bobbi, a bit wet, but it does the job MAC – the ladies convinced me to try the Materialize Rich Lipstick and from a stay-on-one’s-lips-all-day capacity – my only real requirement when puckering up – it is completely USELESS Chanel – this is a good evening lipstick, so I like it. But my real need is daytime work choices and by the end of the day after a few top ups, it tends to leave chunks of dry lipstick on your mouth – annoying! So there you go, a little lipstick story and I would LOVE guidance on potential lipstick choices that do meet my requirements???? Anyone??? One caveat. It needs to be an international brand, as that is the world I live in.   As a final point. Has anyone else noticed the wonderful things they are doing with magnets in lipsticks these days? It’s quite an art form. No idea what I’m talking about? Go and waste $300-400 on lipstick and you’ll see. Yours, without the bollocks Andrea

On this day last year I posted a blog – One More Year – in honour of my little man’s 6th b’day. So yes, you can safely conclude that today Jax is a very big boy of seven. He also seems to have woken up with the attitude to match – crikey! Even though Jax is the pain in the arse child who never puts his shoes away, drops his clothes where he takes them off, loses toys, dumps his school bag where I trip over it, leaves his scooter blocking the door, etc, etc, etc, I have to say, I bloody love this kid. I also admire him. He’s got balls. However for me the journey of motherhood has largely been a whole lot of tediousness. I definitely adore them and wouldn’t be without them, plus we have had a LOT of fun as a family, but my word, the grinding days of emotional outbursts, chaos, mess, dangers, and arguments has been nothing short of fucking hard! “When, exactly, does this get fun Steve?” has been a common question in our house, one which never has an answer. In the early years, when the chaos emerged full force, I finally decided to be brave and ask other parents who might appreciate where I was coming from. However, the challenge in speaking about kids in anything but a bright and shiny way tends to put yourself at risk of a lecture – “it goes so fast” or “you’ll regret these days if you don’t enjoy them now.” I didn’t need to hear that, because I KNOW it. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with screaming at the world sometimes too – because parenting is not always bright and shiny! So I braved the question – with people who had the potential to be like-minded – and the good news (and consistent answer) was seven. Seven is the magic year. Seven is when the kids start pulling themselves together emotionally, get more mature generally, seek more independence, and just don’t rely on you so much anymore. I know it will hurt when they pull away (it’s already started), but at the same time I’m super cool about more space being there between us. It’s time. When people told me seven, it seemed like an eternity and I had absolutely no idea how I’d get through the years until we hit thatmagic number, but today, we’ve done it. However Jax is already changing. Sure he can still argue with the best of them (which I expect will be a lifelong skill), but he’s now maturing and emerging into the little man he is destined to become. My greatest concern for Jax is that as he gets older, his incredible self-confidence will be challenged, and he will need to learn to soften it, or be accused of being arrogant. He’s definitely not arrogant, and that big loving heart of his will always shine through, but I can see this potentially coming up in his future – Steve and I are ready. The other good thing he has on his side is a bloody wicked sense of humour. People who make people laugh always seem to get on better in this world and he is an absolute cack! His faces and accents are superb. I know he’s going to be better than great and I can’t wait to see what he does in this life. It’ll be different to his brother (I can see Lex being a war photographer or something adventurous) and I wouldn’t be surprised if Jax is a super successful businessman (marketing or sales) or an academic that wants to know everything he can about a topic he’s passionate about. The only thing I hope is passion is the driving force for his life. That’s all that matters. So there you go, we did it. We made it through both of their first seven years and I hope this is it – fun, fun, fun all the way from now on, with a few emotional needs in the mix, because life is like that. Steve and I are just hoping on a bit more calmness now. It’s been super intense these last few years – mainly with Lex – so we’re ready to be those jolly parents that hang out in the background, cheering our kids on, but loving our own lives too. Let’s see what happens. Jax happy birthday my darling boy. You are an amazing little dude and I couldn’t love you more, even if you are a huge pain in my arse more often than not. Yours, without the bollocks Andrea PS: if you feel inclined to share with me the fact that the real chaos is only beginning, I politely request for you to put a sock in it. For today at least. Steve and I are feeling pretty good about this milestone….

When I published ‘What a Great Start to the Year, Not’ it opened up some really interesting discussions with friends in Asia, as well as one person I’ve never met who believed the victims of Charlie Hebdo deserved to die. While horrifying to me that anyone could think this, in our online discussion, I came to appreciate their perspective – even if it is a perspective I could never agree with. We all have a right to free speech yes? For me, no one deserves to die for cracking a joke. Others don’t agree. But this is where I had an epiphany. I had the great privilege to grow up in Australia when the golden age of expressing one’s opinions became OK. So taking the piss out of god, religion, each other, etc… well it was completely acceptable. Sure we could offend each other – ask my Mum and the Nuns at school about that – but there was more humour and irreverence to it than anything else. It was part of life and being Aussie remains all about having opinions, with the green light to argue yours vociferously. It’s gotten me into trouble around the world sometimes…. Nothing is off limits in Australia (we do talk politics, sex and religion), and if you know an Aussie, you know this is true. But generally, people were not hateful in expressing their views, that wasn’t part of the culture I grew up in. You do hear more hatred today, but overall, Aussies still remain opinionated, but generally most are kind. However not every country is like this, not even fellow Caucasian nations – especially the US. My American friends found me a bit weird on this front. Well probably on quite a few fronts. However, after publishing my blog, when I spoke to my Asian friends – some Muslim, some Hindu, some Buddhist, some Christian, and some agnostic o aetheist – they said to me that Charlie Hebdo publishing the cartoons was not OK, not OK at all. They also completely disagreed with my take on it – even though we came to appreciate where each other was coming from. But they couldn’t ever agree with my perspective even if they could see why I thought the way I did. While none of my friends would ever go into a magazine HQ and murder people, they were all consistent on one thing – respecting another’s faith is something that cannot be played with. Never. In their view, the cartoonists went too far, and with a very large percentage of the world’s population living in Asia (62% last time I checked, and the Muslim population is around 32% of the world’s Muslim population) it appears that many fundamentally disagree with Charlie Hebdo. Obviously I am not declaring that I speak for everyone in Asia, however my decade of great discussions about all sorts of stuff – but especially religion – leads me to believe this view is probably fairly consistent. Do tell me if I’m wrong please? If I was telling someone my impression of Asia, I’d say the people have a quiet dignity here. A fundamental respect embedded in cultures. Of course, many outside believe the region is not vocal due to totalitarian regimes or communist governments, but it’s actually not that at all. People here just don’t think they’ve got the same God-given right to say whatever the hell they want like we do and they keep those sorts of conversations closer to home – if they have them at all. Hey elders are still respected around here. Not bad that. This fundamental respect can be misplaced (i.e. respecting a dickhead boss because they’re your boss because hierarchy still matters), and it is annoying to be around this sometimes, but let me be clear – it certainly doesn’t mean people won’t fight for their rights. They do. However it’s this other hard-to-define-thing I’m talking about, something I’ve come to admire and be conscious of living and working in this region. With my colleagues, I want them to speak up, disagree, and argue with me, but it takes effort gaining the trust to get them there. It’s been a valuable learning ground for me. Don’t get me wrong, we see horrific violence between faiths and races in Asia, as well as racism that is mind-bogglingly appalling and entrenched, however it is the other side I’ve come to love living in the region, the qualities that come forth during peace time. I appreciate it’s hard to get your head around this if you’ve only ever visited or never been here, but it’s a very different place in our world, a place I adore. So what do we do about this constant problem we’re facing? Do we silence ourselves? No I’ll never do that, but then I work hard not to say anything that crosses lines, or at least, I never intend to. On this blog I’m always trying to discuss ideas with kindness at the core. I might not always get it right, but I try hard, because I believe humour, kindness and love must be at the core of all I do. Do we silence our media? Of course not. But then, do you trust the media anyway? I’m pretty ambivalent about the majority of the world’s media that’s for sure. Thank god for social media I say – we all have access to so many more viewpoints. That’s the game changer. Or can the world’s governments’ solve it? I’m definitely not confident that’s ever going to happen. Too much vested interest and all I see is a lot of dick wagging and chest pumping. No we, the common people, have to solve this one. So what is it we can do? Well…. We’ve got to acknowledge that we live in a truly global world and anything created digitally reaches any corner of the globe instantly. Those distributing viewpoints therefore, have a responsibility to all of mankind for what they