Yesterday Mia Freedman wrote a post that upset a lot of my twitter friends. Given my twitter friends are a socially aware bunch and given I consider myself a socially aware person too, I headed over to Mamamia expecting to be outraged.

But I wasn’t.

On a rational level I agreed with everything Mia said.

I didn’t feel Delta Goodrem was being racist in tweeting a photo of four guys dressed as The Voice judges (with the guy dressed as Seal sporting blackface). I too am weary with the Delta bashing that seems to have taken over from AFL as Australia’s national sport. I am also weary with everyone in the online world being outraged at everything all the time.

But for some reason I wasn’t content to leave it there. Too many non-wowserish types were expressing disappointment with Mia’s views.

I was feeling ignorant so I started to read up on blackface trying to find out exactly why any white person dressing up as a black person and painting their face black is considered racist. And honestly, I couldn’t find an article anywhere that could make me understand.

Where I can clearly see that using racially vilifying language on a footy field is disgusting behaviour, I struggle to understand how someone colouring their skin to impersonate a tv personality is any different to a man wearing a dress and a wig to impersonate a woman.

But over the last day I have come to realise that when it comes to racism, it’s not my prerogative to understand. All I need to know is that blackface is racist – end of story.

Like any form of marginalisation – sexism, fatism, classism, whateverism – if someone is offended, it’s not up to those of us doing the offending to say it wasn’t our intent or tell the offended person they are over-reacting. It is up to us to apologise and say we won’t do it again. The end.

So while I agreed with what Mia said on a rational level, on a social level it made me uneasy.

Those of us who write on the internet exert influence of varying degrees. And I believe that influence, big or small, should be handled with care.

So maybe I shouldn’t have written that post about why it’s ok not to breastfeed your baby. Even though I stand by everything I said in that post, perhaps it wasn’t socially responsible.

And maybe Penelope Trunk shouldn’t have written about why it’s ok to stay with your husband when he’s hit you.

And maybe Helen Razer shouldn’t be so openly dismissive of activist group Destroy the Joint as being mere rage-mongerers (as opposed to a strong voice fighting sexism in Australia).

And maybe Mia shouldn’t have empowered her readers to question whether certain individuals have the right to feel marginalised or not.

As a writer it is fun to both write and read alternative views. But sometimes there may be cause to hold back on sharing those alternate views if it is for the greater social good.

Thoughts?

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One of the things I love most about writing on the internet is the speed at which you get feedback about what you’ve written. I always find it interesting to see which parts of an article people really zero in on. And more often than not, the thing zeroed in on is not the point I am trying to make. Rather, it is a single thought or concept, among many, I’ve expressed on the way to making said point.

Thus I’ve been reading all the online commentary surrounding this article by ex-Grazia editor Amy Molloy with interest. Molloy’s article is quite long and more than anything expresses the frustration she has harnessing her drive, as opposed to letting her drive harness her (and rule her life). And because I experience this same frustration, I clearly saw the point she was trying to make; that being highly driven and outwardly ‘successful’ isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

What most people have seized upon however is the part of the article where Molloy says of a friend I envy her failure … I wish I could be mediocre. And that single line has spawned countless online reactions and even an appearance on The Project.

For me, the most interesting reaction has been this one from Eden Riley. Eden applauds Amy for speaking her truth and then goes on to list the ways she (Eden) is not a high achiever.

Eden then signs off with this for Amy:

“Keep telling your truth and being awesome.
But remember … you need people like me to make you look good.”

And I had to laugh. Eden is one of Australia’s most high-profile bloggers. She has won the prestigious Sydney Writers’ Centre ‘Blogger of the Year’ award. She has been invited to morning tea with the Prime Minister and she has even interviewed the Prime Minister. She is widely admired and envied for her extraordinary writing ability. And more than any of this, she is a great person.

Which is why, in the comments of her post, I said Very funny Eden Riley. You are one of the least mediocre people I know.

And then I realised that actually, I don’t know any mediocre people.

Yes, I know a lot of people who are less driven than me. But does this make them mediocre? No.

That’s because mediocrity is a tool of comparison. If you ask me about my swimming ability, I will tell you it’s ‘mediocre at best’. That’s because I always compare my swimming ability to the elite triathletes I used to race against. If I compared my swimming ability to Average Joe, then I would find it’s not mediocre at all.

That’s why (as my Mum always says) comparisons are odious.

And that’s where Amy Molloy went horribly wrong in her article. She made the mistake of judging a friend by her own lofty standards and declaring her friend mediocre because she didn’t measure up.

No one on this earth is mediocre.

The only times we assess ourselves as thus is when we compare ourselves to others. That’s why I’m going to remember these wise words from Samuel Johnson the next time I find myself playing the comparison game:

“Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.”

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Whenever I see a post online from someone whose inbox contains 3500 unread emails a little piece inside of me dies.

And then when I see a well-meaning person respond with just delete them all, if it’s important that person will email back I am fairly certain a unicorn dies.

No.

Please don’t delete them all. There might be something really important in there. Once in a lifetime important. If someone emails you with a once in a lifetime opportunity and you don’t respond, they might very well decide you’re not at all interested.

Perish the thought.

Instead of missing out on once in a lifetime opportunities why don’t you take it upon yourself to get your inbox under control? Here’s how:

1. Create folders

I don’t understand the people who have one folder in their email program (that being their inbox). Every email program allows you to create folders so it’s time to make use of this important feature!

For work, you should have a folder for every client.

For yourself you should have a folder called ‘Personal’ and there should be sub-folders within that for things like Bills, Correspondence, Tax etc.

Once you have these folders, start filing stuff. It’s not necessary to ever delete an email (unless it’s spam or promotional emails you have no need to ever reference again) – all emails should be filed. I know a lot of people who happily rely on the search function in their email program to find things later, but this doesn’t help the fact that your inbox has 3500 emails in it. Your inbox should not have 3500 items in it!

2. Answer emails straight away if you can

I know all the productivity people are going to howl loudly here but this works whether you answer emails as they drop into your inbox (me) or whether you set aside blocks in your day to do so.

If an email can be answered in five lines or less, then answer it right away.

Then file that sucker.

3. Be brutal with your answers

If someone has sent you an essay don’t feel you need to answer with an essay yourself.  I am sure people sometimes think my email replies are a little brusque but … too bad! If the email is long and I am pressed for time, I skim it and then answer each question with a one liner. This means that pretty much ALL emails can be answered in five lines or less … and thus can be answered immediately.

And then filed!

4. Access your emails on the go

I have my email synced with my iPad and my iPhone. That means I don’t have to fire up my laptop to access my email. I seem to get a lot of spammy/unsolicited type emails overnight so the first thing I do every morning is open my emails on my iPad and quickly delete all the crap. I then scan the emails that aren’t crap and answer anything that can be answered in a few words.

That way, when I do get to my desk ready to start the work day, I know what’s waiting for me in my inbox and am ready to quickly despatch the things that I can.

And then I file them (are you seeing a pattern here?!)

Being able to access your emails on the go means that when you are looking to kill time on the bus or while standing in line at the post office, you can kill time in a useful fashion.

5. Have a separate email address for newsletter signups

I went through a period a while back where I signed up for every free resource, every blog I liked and every email newsletter. And I have been trying to unsubscribe from most of these things ever since.

The thing is, once you’re on a list of any description, it’s really hard to get off of it. Having a separate email for signups means all those emails are going to another inbox – one that you can be very ruthless with when it comes to doing mass deletes.

6. Have standard replies saved somewhere

Are you answering the same question over and over again? Do you personally thank everyone that signs up to your blog or email list? Then have a standard reply saved somewhere that you can easily copy, paste, personalise and send.

7. Combine several emails into one

Has a client sent you 10 emails all related to one action or job? Attach all 10 emails to a single email and send it to yourself. This combines 10 emails into one. Then delete those 10 emails.

8. File away what you can’t answer today or tomorrow

Your inbox should only contain emails that will be answered or actioned today or tomorrow. Set up folders for Monday through Sunday and file the rest of the emails into each day depending on when they will be actioned /answered.

9. Turn off notifications

Do you need to be emailed every time someone mentions you on Twitter or tags you in a photo on Facebook? Short answer is – no, you don’t. Both those platforms tell you who has mentioned or messaged you whenever you login to them. Which I am guessing is several times a day. Ditch the email notifications and your inbox will breathe a big sigh of relief.

Are you one of those people with a perpetually bloated inbox? How does an inbox like that make you feel? (genuine question!)

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“What a big 3 months you guys have had. Bought a block, sold your house, had a baby and moved house. Are you still married?”

I had to laugh at this text our real estate agent sent me yesterday. Because yes, it has been a rather crazy three months and yes, Ant and I did have our moments during the whole ‘moving house’ caper last week.

Urgh. Moving house. I can see why it is right near the top of the charts of ‘life’s biggest stressors’. There I was feeling all smug because I had already de-cluttered our place when we were getting ready for sale. To my mind this made things easy because it meant that everything in the house had to be packed. Sweet.

By the time last weekend was over and we had moved to my father-in-law’s place I was ready to take a torch to everything we owned.

So. Much. Stuff.

I am a compulsive de-clutterer/purger. Why have I got so much stuff? Who needs all this stuff?! Right then I vowed to do the whole ‘buy nothing new for a year’ thing ala Multiple Mum.

Dealing with all the STUFF has easily been the hardest part of the last three months!

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Dealing with a newborn has been easy by comparison.

Little Mia is a delight and I have spent a great deal of time over the last month staring at her perfect little face and just marvelling. Marvelling at how lucky we are to have her. Marvelling at how much love my heart can hold.

Two months of broken/non-existent pregnant sleep followed by a month of broken newborn sleep means I am walking that fine emotional line with regard to sleep deprivation though.

Since I have already received a gorgeous Mother’s Day gift from the wonderful Kate of uberkate that means Ant is off the hook. All I am asking for now is a one full night of sleep (should be easy for him to deliver right?!)

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When Jaden was born I hadn’t yet fallen prey to the humble charms of the iPhone and consequently feeding times were very boring. This time round I am reading the whole internet. Which isn’t all that good because I have become a little obsessed with being across every current issue and every conversation. Thank god for Karen’s words of wisdom to remind me that this is all kinds of unnecessary.

That said, if I wasn’t reading the whole internet I wouldn’t have come across this fantastic post from Craig at yTravel blog. It is for everyone who has looked at someone else’s success and assumed it came easy to them. I can’t think of a single successful person I know who didn’t fight many a battle and experience many a ‘failure’ on the way to their success.

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Speaking of ‘success’ I am experiencing my own two steps forward, one step back situation at the moment.

Two steps forward is the fact that Ant and I have worked really hard over the last two years to ensure that when I became a mum for the second time, I would be able to step away from the business and enjoy my newborn. And we achieved that.

One step back is the fact that while I am loving the stress-free time I am getting to spend with Mia (time I just did not have with Jaden), my brain is full of ideas and things I can do and pursue. And I am frustrated because I am the mum of a newborn and can’t pursue them right now.

But one step forward is that I have given myself a slap and reminded myself that those ideas will always be there … but Mia’s newborn months will not.

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It’s probably a bit un-PC to admit this, but the way I look is important to me. I need to be a very certain weight/size to look in the mirror and be happy with what I see.

(Feel free to roll your eyes here and talk about how sad it is that I feel the need to conform to societal norms, but honestly, I don’t care. Being happy with what I see in the mirror makes me feel good and quite frankly, I like feeling good.)

Being my ideal weight/size has a natural enemy however, and that would be my love of food. For most of my life a pitched battle has raged between those two things.

Eventually that battle got so bad that, for roughly 20 of my 35 years on this earth, I spent every minute of Every Single Day obsessing about food. I’d go for a ride in the morning and spend the whole time thinking about what muffin I would eat at the coffee shop afterwards. The second I sat down at my desk at work I’d be wondering what I might have for morning tea. I’d be chowing down on said morning tea and already casting my mind towards lunch. Most days it would be rare for me to go for more than an hour without putting food in my mouth.

Was I even enjoying all this eating I was doing? Nope, because I was also weighing myself every morning (as soon as I woke up, but after a wee of course) and living and dying by what I saw. If the numbers were ‘good’, I’d carry on my merry way. If the numbers were bad I’d get depressed and angrily tell myself to exert some self-control dammit! And by morning tea that self-control would have been tested and found to be wanting. And I loathed myself for that lack of self-control.

I thought because I wasn’t anorexic or bulimic that I didn’t have a problem with food.

I was wrong.

If you’re thinking about food all day every day, then you have a problem with it.

It took me an awfully long time to realise this, but once I did, it gave me the kick in the butt I needed to do something about it. And so started the long and slow process of re-training the way my brain looked at food.

Here’s what I did to break the rather unhealthy cycle I was in. The below isn’t intended to be prescriptive, nor it is based on anything but a sample size of one (me). But since it worked for me maybe it will help others struggling with the relationship they have with food too.

STEP 1: I stopped looking at food as a reward for exercise

“I’ve gone for a three hour bike ride today so when I get home I can eat whatever I like.”

“I did a two hour run this morning so that totally justifies eating this entire pizza.”

While I do appreciate the health benefits (mental and physical) of exercise, for most of my life exercise has been a license to eat without fear of gaining weight. I know exactly how many calories I expend for any given exercise activity and for a long time I replaced those calories almost exactly with the food I was eating. If I had a day where I didn’t exercise (rare) I would get hugely anxious about what I put in my mouth and try to restrict my calorie intake. If I was successful in restricting my intake I felt deprived, and if I was unsuccessful I would hate myself for having no self-control. It was exhausting.

In the end it was just easier to make sure I exercised every day as it beat feeling deprived or hating myself.

That made the first step in re-training my brain pretty obvious: I needed to break up the relationship between exercising and eating.

I did this simply by consuming the same amount of calories every day (the baseline amount my body needed), regardless of whether I exercised or not.

Doing the above stopped me looking at food as a reward for doing exercise and killed my obsession with calories in vs calories out. It took a while but finally exercise became all about health and well-being for me and nothing to do with food.

STEP 2: I stopped having crap in the house

Human beings are funny. We don’t just eat to fuel our bodies to get through the day. No, we also eat out of boredom and when we’re emotional.I am no different to other humans in this regard so part of re-training my brain with regard to food meant I had to stop heading for the fridge whenever I got emotional or bored. This became particularly important when I started to work from home because it was a pretty short walk from my desk to the kitchen.

So what did I do?

I stopped having crap in the fridge or pantry. It took about 100 unsuccessful forays into the kitchen looking for a (now non-existent) sweet treat, but eventually my brain realised there was no point going there anymore. Now when I am upset I go for a walk and if I am bored I go on twitter

(I know people with kids will say but it’s a bit hard not to have crap in the pantry when you have kids. With all respect, if you shouldn’t be eating something because it’s crap, maybe your kids shouldn’t be eating that thing either?)

In short, if it’s not in your house, then you can’t eat it. Try it for a month and take note of how often you go foraging in the kitchen out of boredom.  Trust me, you will find alternate cures for boredom and emotion when you can’t sate them with food!

STEP 3: I quit sugar

I am not keen to get into an argument here about whether sugar is evil or not (it is). But I will assert with confidence that most of the Western world eats too much sugar because frankly, it’s hard to avoid it. I know that I was certainly eating way too much of the stuff and I was keen to come off it for a while and see what it did for me. So I did Sarah Wilson’s I Quit Sugar program and here’s what I found:

1. My digestive system, which had always been terrible, started to work much, much better (better poo, less popping off).
2. The stomach bloating that used to plague me in the afternoons disappeared.
3. I seemed to be carrying less fluid all over. This meant the muscles in my arms and legs looked more defined and I looked fitter than I actually was.
4. I was eating more fat yet not gaining weight.
5. My skin looked better.
6. I found it much, MUCH easier to keep my weight stable.
7. I stopped craving a sweet fix after every meal and in the evenings.

When I say ‘I quit sugar’ I mean I did Sarah’s program (which I found quite gentle and easy to do) and then once I was finished I stuck to the basic principles of it without being obsessive. I knew I really had sugar beat when I ate tomato sauce one day and it tasted grossly sweet to me. Up till that point I’d have tomato sauce on everything.

So I have stuck with the whole quitting sugar thing. For me it is a healthier way of eating … and one that doesn’t make me feel deprived.

STEP 4: I stopped eating low fat food

In line with the above, I stopped eating anything that was ‘low fat’ because ‘low fat’ simply translates to ‘we’ve replaced the fat with sugar’.

STEP 5: I changed the way I looked at fat

For years fat has been public enemy #1 and I, like everyone else, have avoided it like the plague. But fat has an awful lot of good points – the major ones being its satiety factor and the fact that our brains need fat to function. These days, instead of snacking on lollies I snack on nuts. I seem to be able to eat a LOT of nuts and avocado without gaining weight. Eating more fat also means I don’t feel hungry all the time.

STEP 6: I started eating before I got hungry

This one is pretty simple – I eat three regular meals at the same time each day. I don’t wait till I am starving before I eat because I make pretty terrible food decisions when I am starving. In between my three regular meals I snack on stuff like nuts, or avocado on toast. (I find it hard to over-eat either of those two things, but it’s super-easy to over-eat lollies.)

STEP 7: I stopped baking

If I bake it is generally something out of a packet and thus full of crap. Going by the photos I see on Instagram though, a LOT of what people bake is full of crap (sugar mainly), even when cooked from scratch. When I bake, two adults and one toddler polishes off whatever I bake in half a day. This isn’t healthy for anyone in my house so I decided to stop baking. Going back to #2 above, it seems that no-one in this house has self-control if there is crappy food at hand. Yet when the crap isn’t in the house, we don’t really miss it. So in the end there is no real hardship not having it there.

If you loooooove baking however and can’t bear the thought of stopping – then make it good stuff. Alexx Stuart has a blog full of real food/lox tox recipes. For instance check out her Anzac biscuit recipe here.

STEP 8: I started focusing on what I could eat rather than what I shouldn’t

Now I know what you’re thinking: Gee, what a deprived life you lead Kelly if you never get to eat yummy things any more. Here are two reasons why I don’t feel deprived:

1. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what I can’t eat. I focus instead on what I can. And believe me there is plenty of yummy stuff that I can eat that is healthy. As I mentioned above, I don’t miss the crap food when it’s not in my house. But if it is there and I try not to eat it, then I will  feel deprived.
2. Since I am not eating crap every day, when I am at a restaurant or a party and something yummy presents itself to me, I eat it AND enjoy it. Revolutionary! I can’t tell you how lovely it is to tuck into a piece of pavlova without thinking to myself gawd, I am going to have to run for an hour tomorrow to work this off.

So there you have it. On conservative estimate it took about two years for me to fully work through the above and break my obsession with food but now that I have, maintaining the weight I like to be has never been easier.

And honestly, life is a lot more fun when you’re not thinking about food every minute of the day.

What’s your relationship with food like?

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Hugh Howey – Wool and Shift   

Now I am struggling to remember how I came across Hugh Howey – I am assuming twitter is responsible. I have vague memories of people raving about this guy who was a self-published phenomenon and whose books had just been picked up by Random House for a tidy sum. I had no idea what Wool was about before I started reading it and once I started was pleasantly surprised to find it had a bit of a sci-fi bent. I used to read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy back in the day but for some reason hadn’t  read those genres for a while.

Well I made up for it with Wool. It was originally written as a series of five novellas and thank god all five were written before I started reading them. I tore through them with unseemly haste so can only imagine the torture of having had to wait for them to be written one by one.

Once finished with Wool I discovered there was a follow up trilogy–Shift. So I attacked that with the same vigour only to have my heart broken when I found out I had to wait for the third book to come out. Well you will be happy to know that the trilogy is now complete so you guys don’t have to wait.

Now I realise I haven’t spoken at all about what these books are about … and that’s because I myself hate being told what a book is about before I read it. But if you love sci-fi/speculative fiction then all you need to know is that this post-apocalyptic tale fits neatly into that genre, and the books are compelling page turners.

Graeme Simsion – The Rosie Project

My friend Anna reviewed this book on Goodreads and said she fell head over heels in love with it. Well Anna’s recommendation was spot on. I fell head over heels in love with The Rosie Project too. I heard Graeme Simsion speak at the Perth Writers’ Festival and he suggested the reason for his book’s amazing success (recently translated into eleventy billion languages) is the strength of the main character. And he would have to be right.

The balance Simsion strikes with said character – Professor Don Tillman – is just perfect. It would have been easy to tip over into caricature territory with the Professor, but Simsion doesn’t. Tillman’s inability to fall in with societal norms, and the way he is simultaneously uncaring about and frustrated with this inability makes for a fascinating read.

The Rosie Project is a worldwide phenomenon currently and that is because it is just a lovely read. It will particularly delight anyone who is a little ‘different’ themselves, or has someone in their family who is a little ‘different’ to societal norms.

Sheryl Sandberg – Lean In

Heading over into the world of non-fiction now and here is a book that really surprised me. I wasn’t even going to go there as it attracted a slew of negative reviews before it was even released. Ironically these reviews were largely written by people who hadn’t even read the book! Weird.

Sheryl Sandberg is the COO of Facebook and Lean In was written as a follow up to a memorable TED Talk she gave about why we have too few women leaders.

Given all the reviews pre-release were scathing about Sandberg giving career and life advice to women from a position of unparalleled privilege I thought well I am not even going to go there. But then Caroline Overington started sharing snippets from the book on twitter as she was reading it and those snippets were both fascinating and sensible. Plus if Caroline thinks something is worth a look, then I am going to go there.

I am glad I did and found myself compulsively highlighting passages left, right and centre on my iPad. Sandberg acknowledges early in the book that she is writing from a position of privilege, but her underlying message is simple – Don’t leave before you leave. And she is right. When it comes to their careers, the second women start thinking about having children, they tend to take a backward step with regard to advancing their career, even when those children might be years away from arriving on the scene. Sandberg urges women to lean in and put their hands up for advancement regardless. She makes the excellent point that in leaning back, women are less likely to want to go back to work after having kids because the position waiting for them does not excite them.

In addition to the wonderful advice Sandberg gives, she also shares many of her own experiences with advancing up the ladder to where she is now. These insights and anecdotes are utterly fascinating (and for me, the best part of her book).

Who should read this book? Well women AND men for starters. Because men who are interested in keeping their best female talent around need to understand what goes through women’s minds when they start thinking about kids. And women do need to take a bit of responsibility for advancing themselves instead of waiting to be picked.

Torre de Roche – Love with a chance of drowning

I ‘met’ Torre online last year during NaNoWriMo and not long after that spent an entire night reading her blog and then wishing I wrote just like her. One of my favourite posts on her blog is this one about the mind blowing progression she made from launching her self-published book to being offered film options on her book to her book being picked up by publishers all over the world. It is the stuff a writer’s dreams are made of!

In January this year Torre’s book was officially released here in Australia and I pre-ordered that baby so fast its head spun. And once it arrived here at home I quickly devoured it. I love memoirs and particularly love memoirs written by people I know or sort of know. Torre’s story of meeting her Latin lover in a bar … and then being swept off with him on a mad quest to cross the Pacific in a tiny sail boat is both extraordinary and simple good fun.

This book is for those who dream of adventure and the ability to act on impulse … and for those who (like me) like to experience such craziness vicariously through others.

And if this book sounds like it is for you, well as luck would have it, I have a copy to give away! To be in the running simply tell me in the comments below what is the most adventurous or impulsive thing you have ever done. The best answer (as judged by me) by midnight Sunday 28^th April (Australian WST) will win the book

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On Tuesday I woke up to the dreadful news that two bombs had gone off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. I flicked on ABC News 24 and immediately following their report on Boston was a report about a bombing in Baghdad. Two dead (at the time) in Boston, 10 dead in Baghdad.

Immediately I felt shame at the contrast between my reactions to the two different bombings. And I felt shame when I saw people tweeting about all the bombs that went off all over the world on Monday. Bombs all over Iraq (55 dead). A bombing in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu (29 dead).

I felt embarrassed for Kochie on Sunrise when he stumbled to answer the question “why are you guys reporting specially on the Boston bombing when LOTS of bombs went off all round the world yesterday?”

In the end Kochie didn’t manage to answer the question but here is what he could have answered (paraphrased from here):

Monday was not a uniquely violent day in the city of Baghdad, in the country of  Iraq. 

Monday was not a uniquely violent day in the city of Mogadishu, in the country of Somalia.

Monday WAS a uniquely violent day in the city of Boston.

It is not that we care any less for those who have lost their lives in Baghdad – it is just when a bomb goes off in a war-torn country we think oh no, not another one. We have developed a degree of numb despair at the large number of lives being lost in countries like Iraq and Syria and Somalia and Afghanisation. But our feeling don’t tend to go beyond despair because those countries’ realities are not our own.

Australia is unique in that our shores have never been touched by war. Violence in the form of terrorism and bombings are completely foreign to us. In Perth (where I live) there are mass participation events held just about every weekend. We have marathons and bike rides and triathlons and surf club and open water swims. I participate in these events. My friends participate in these events. Our family members come and watch us in these events.

So when lives are lost in a peaceful city, in a peaceful country, at a mass sporting event that celebrates the human spirit – that’s when we go beyond despair. That’s when our minds travel to these places:

That could have been me

That could have been my family

That could be my friends

And it is this feeling of personal vulnerability that makes events like Boston (rightly or wrongly) dominate our news. That horrible feeling of if it could happen there, it could happen here.

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And also chilled to the bone.

I have run three marathons myself and at each of those finish lines I have had loved ones standing there in the crush waiting for me. I don’t have the words to summarise all the emotions running through my head in the wake of yesterday, but my lovely friend Emma wrote something last night that is pretty much spot on. Here’s Em:

My husband spends most of his time standing at The Finish Line. He’s a Sports Timer. “A Sports Timer?” I hear you ask. Well, he times sports. Triathlons. Ocean swims. Mountain bike racing. Marathons. Any event that needs an electronic time stamp, he can do it. Those race bibs you pin to your chest or the ankle chips you’re given on race day? He does that. The mats you cross for a split time, the electronic clocks, the results live to web, the results sent by SMS, the results for presentation, the time you clock at The Finish Line. That’s what he does. Every weekend, every week, year in, year out.

I’ve spent my fair share of time at The Finish Line as well. That what happens when you’re a Sports Timer’s wife. I’ve been to countless races, seen hundreds of thousands of competitors, some athletes, some not athletes, finish races. And the atmosphere is always the same.

Electric.

Competitors and spectators enjoying a sense of true accomplishment. Simple pleasure taken from simple joy. People participating in life.

Going to so many races, at home and overseas, means that you meet a lot of people integral to the world of sports events. Event organisers, technical officials, photographers, journalists, commentators, water safety, traffic control, coffee makers, sponsors, product sellers and volunteers. All sharing in the early hours before dawn and the long days. These people are a community. They become your friends and part of your family.

Our heart is breaking to see the images and hear the news of what happened at the 117th Boston Marathon on Monday 15th April 2013. A senseless act, as yet unexplained, at a place where people gather to celebrate sport and human accomplishment. An evil act to raise awareness of what issue? What grievance? An act to maim and to take the lives of people participating in what should be a joyous sport event. Lives that could easily have been those of our friends and family standing at The Finish Line.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased, the injured and all those who were witness to such a terrible event.

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Last night I was pretty excited to sit down and watch the first ever all-female panel on Q&A.

Why wouldn’t I be? It was a rare opportunity to listen to five smart and articulate women share their thoughts on topics that (quite naturally – it being an all-female panel and all) had a feminist slant.

I really enjoyed the show.

It was nice not to have people speaking over the top of each other. It was nice to see differing opinions expressed in a largely respectful manner. And I thought Tony Jones did a really good job of allowing all panellists to have a voice. (I have seen quite a few Q&A episodes where the women are constantly interrupted by the men on the panel or where certain panellists are called on very little for their thoughts.)

While I enjoyed the show however, I was really disappointed with what was showing up in my twitter feed as it aired.

• The panel should have had a man on there.
• The panel was made up only of white, privileged females.
• All the questions were crap.
• There wasn’t a good enough spread of ages on the panel.
• There weren’t any questions on finance/education/squirrels.

And look, while I can certainly appreciate the thinking behind all these complaints, you have to be realistic. Q&A is a one hour program and can only cover so many topics given that five panellists need to have a decent crack at them. And those five panellists all need to be able to speak very coherently off-the-cuff else they’ll get slayed on social media. So Q&A need to choose their panellists very carefully.

Ultimately though, what irked me a little was the expectation of perfection. Instead of being applauded for putting together the excellent show it did, there was a sense that Q&A could have and should have done a lot better with it all.

And I am coming across more and more of this thinking every day.

Like on the weekend when North Melbourne Football Club coach Brad Scott slammed the groundskeeper at Etihad Stadium for not closing the roof (which meant the players had to play through a big downpour in the latter stages of the game).

Yep, I get that the players want to play and coaches want to coach in the most optimal conditions available to them. I get that spectators don’t want to sit in the rain, and don’t want the spectacle they’ve paid for ruined by players grappling with wet conditions. I get that the broadcaster would rather the roof was closed rain, hail or shine because it makes their job easier. But footy is an outdoor, winter sport. It often rains outdoors in winter. If rain during the footy is your biggest problem right now, then by my estimations, you must be doing ok?

They say you can tell the state of a country by what its citizens complain about.

Given what I hear most Australians complaining about right now is how things that are already pretty good can be even more perfect, I think we must all be leading amazingly blessed lives.

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The very first time she saw those two lines she cried. She didn’t know why she was crying – they’d been trying to achieve that very outcome for the last seven months after all. But hey, chicks are a bit strange sometimes.

What followed was what you would call a ‘textbook pregnancy’. No over-the-top morning sickness, no funny business of any description – just 40 weeks of completely super-smooth baby growing. The birth wasn’t exactly textbook stuff but the end result sure was: a beautiful baby boy who was just perfect in every way.

Eight months later, a shock. Those two lines appeared again. The doctor looked really concerned as she asked between sobs whether the test could be wrong.

‘Why is it so bad to be pregnant right now?’ he asked.

‘It’s not part of the plan’ she said.

One week later it was like the two lines had heard how unwanted they were and as fast as they came into her life, so too did they disappear.

Three more times she would see those lines evaporate into thin air, accompanied by a sad voice saying ‘I’m sorry, there is no heartbeat’. Those words get old after hearing them once, much less three times.

After the fourth loss in a row she makes a resolution. She would get healthy in mind and body and then they would try again. One more time. She only had the capacity to hear ‘I’m sorry, there is no heartbeat’ one more time.

So when they appeared again – those two little lines – she didn’t laugh or cry, she just steeled herself for battle. Battle with her mind and battle with her body.

The first 12 weeks were spent waiting for the miscarriage she was sure was coming. ‘C’mon, hurry up and happen’ she thought ‘I just want to get on with the rest of my life’.

But it didn’t happen.

And they made it to the 12 week mark for the first time in five goes. That was amazing in itself but more so was the scan. Unqualified: ‘Your baby looks great. Everything is perfect.’

For the first time there was a tiny little flicker of hope. Could this pregnancy go the distance. Did she dare to dream?

An agonising seven week wait for the next scan – the ‘big one’. And once again – everything is perfect. She finds out their baby girl (Yes! It’s a girl!) has long supermodel legs just like her dad (well he has long basketball legs).

That tiny flicker of hope blooms into something resembling … not confidence … but rather something a little more than ‘hope’.

The months pass. Every scan and blood test is ‘perfect’. She can feel baby girl moving around inside her every single day. She knows where baby girl’s knees and elbows are that’s for sure! There is no reason to doubt, yet …

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Dear Baby Girl

Friday is the day. There is no rational reason to believe that by the end of that day I will be doing anything but holding your precious little self in my arms. That I will be doing anything but staring at you with wonder, joy and devotion.

Yet my mind is not quite on board. I have kept the overwhelming anxiety at bay over the past weeks the only way I know how – by not thinking about your birth at all. By banishing any negative thoughts into a box in my mind and locking them away. God only knows there is little that can go wrong. I live in Australia after all – at the first sign of trouble they’ll have you out in five minutes flat.

But anxiety is a bitch and she doesn’t listen to common sense.

So I will do the best I can but the honest truth is, until the moment arrives where I am actually holding you in my arms, I don’t dare believe …

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