The electrician has been in my office for a while now.  He’s been changing out the ballast on my overhead light so that all four bulbs will work instead of only two – like it has been for all the years I’ve rented this studio.  Problem is - this little old redneck has a serious mouth on him.

Here are some of the tidbits of “wisdom” imitating from this electrician:

Poor people have food given to them by the government that they don’t even want.  They hide it under their beds until they can find someone to sell it to.  And they grow fat while there are people out there who really need the food who can’t get it.

If Mexicans live in America, (Mexico is in North America) they should speak “American.”  (The Spanish language IS as American as English.)  They should not even bother teaching Spanish in school.  And the Mexicans all just come here so they can have a baby and that baby will be a citizen and grow up to get welfare and a free college education while our own children don’t even get that.

The government gives away the best cheese, you can’t get it anywhere but the government.  They don’t give it away anymore though, it’s shipped to China or Africa somewhere.

There should be a law against people having children if they can’t afford them.  Some people would be allowed to have children and others just wouldn’t get any.  But white people don’t have many children, it’s only the Mexicans who have seven or eight.

AND (as if that were not enough) he went on to inform me that if I were to adopt a child in this country that I would be able to force the biological parent to pay child support!  (This is NOT how it works!  Believe me!) 

WHAT THE HELL?!  I get it, life is unfair, the government is run by idiots!  But HOW did he manage to cover racism against Spanish speaking people, horrible misinformation about adoption and all the rest in MY studio to ME?!  (I’m in the process of adopting from Colombia)  I redirected the conversation away from these topics a number of times but he was like a bulldog.  He wouldn’t let go!  He just sat on my floor telling me all this for a while until I got up and started to thank him for his work and how glad I was to have my light fixed, and these tools are yours?  Let me help you get these out of here.  I basically shooed him out.  GOOD GRIEF!  I thought that motor mouth would never leave.  Honestly, do I have a tatoo or something on my body that says "I want to hear all about your racism toward the children I'm adopting?!" 

Too bad HE’ll never read my blog and find out how I really feel about his thoughts.  Gaaahhhh!  I don't believe in Karma (my grandmother-in-law thinks my name is Karma and we don't bother to correct her.)  But if there is such a thing, then I'm getting this because of the offensive comments on my blog about the parenting class teachers - that they ACTUALLY READ!  (Double Gaaaahhhh!)

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I know this girl who has quite major issues with her body, which I can't really criticise her for, given that my relationship with my body hasn't always been a walk in the park. But this girl is probably an Aus 10. So really quite small. She used to be a bit bigger, but nothing approaching overweight, and she has always been pretty active. She's been known to refuse grapes on the grounds that she'd had her calorie allocation for the afternoon in the form of a handful of almonds.

What gets me is how she acts like there is a 'curvy girl' comraderie between her, me and our other overweight friends. Like it is us vs the skinny girls. And fine, she's not a model, she's got hips and shoulders and a waist. But until you are actually plus size, you can't know what it is like to be plus size. Having trouble buying pants because you don't have the same hip to waist ratio as Sportsgirl's idea of the average woman does not mean you understand being overweight.

Thinner women who think of themselves as 'curvy' and therefore somehow plus size don't understand that being plus size is about more than good clothes being hard to find. It is about:

• being stereotyped as lazy or a slob
• being called 'fat' by total strangers
• people being surprised when you talk about your most recent trip to the gym
• people assuming that you're trying to lose weight, rather than trying to be healthy
• doctors and other medical professionals assuming that you eat badly and don't do any physical activity 
• being treated badly by shop assistants because you couldn't possibly fit into anything in their shop
• strangers and friends thinking 'she shouldn't be eating that'
• people telling you that you have a really pretty face or a great personality
• people telling you you've lost weight because they think it's encouraging, even when it's not true

But perhaps my most hated "side effect" of being overweight is the fact that your good friends pretend that you aren't. I am open and honest about my body, particularly with friends and family. I hate it when people act like I'm not overweight - you know, because I don't have eyes and haven't noticed for myself! I also hate it when people act like if I acknowledge my size, I must hate myself or my body.  

Being honest about my body is not the same as having 'issues' with my body. I've worked hard to become okay with whom I am, and part of that is about being honest when I look in the mirror. I don't hate what I see there, but I acknowledge it, and I am realistic about the consequences of my weight on my health and my life generally.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to eat my lunch for morning tea. All this talking about weight is making me hungry.    

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Went to BodyPump last night for the first time in about 4 weeks. I had to reduce the weights from what I was using before the long break, which was frustrating. Exercise to me always feels like trying to go up a downwards escalator - pointless, awkward and ultimately fruitless. But hey ho, I keep persisting anyway.

So today I'm really really sore. Not as sore as the last time I 'started' pump, but sore enough to make going up and down the stairs at work tricky. Upshot of this is that I'm not going to Balance tonight... I'll go for a walk at the beach instead.

I'm stressed already and it's only 9.30am... LegalBoss has gone and arranged a meeting without looking at the meeting schedule or considering anyone else, and consequently I have to move a community meeting for the second time. LegalBoss's solution involves having certain staff members drive about 6 hours overnight. Yeah, cos that's feasible and safe. AAAARGH.

Meanwhile, someone in this building appears to be eating a toasted cheese sandwich. It is making me hungry... I can always smell cheese within a 200m radius. I think I must be part mouse.

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From the first episode of 30 Rock, this is how Jack Donaghy sums up Liz Lemon:

"Sure... I gotcha. New York, third-wave feminist, college-educated, single and pretending to be happy about it, over-scheduled, undersexed, you buy any magazine that says 'healthy body image' on the cover, and every two years you take up knitting for ... a week."

Barring the New York thing, and replace knitting for cross-stitching... it's so me. Scaaary.

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Kenneth the page

Over the weekend I bought more DVDs (naughty) including Season 1 of 30 Rock, which I had never seen before. Why buy it?

Well, it had gotten such good reviews, and it was never going to get a decent screening on Aussie free to air, because pretty much anything that's good never does well on commercial TV here. I have GOT to curb my DVD purchasing addiction, but that's a battle for another day.

I love 30 Rock! It is totally my new Arrested Development... Kenneth the Page is my favouritest character on the show; he's so wholesome and adorable. The scene with Tracey Morgan walking down the middle of a highway in his undies under the delusion that he is a Jedi makes me laugh hysterically every time I watch it... which is like 4 times now!

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Today is RSPCA Cupcake Day! I have made about 30 cupcakes and brought them into work and am selling them for a whole $2.50 each... hopefully people decide that they are worth that much! I suspect I won't sell that many of them because pretty much everyone is away today. Boooo.

I brought them to work in my shiny new Cupcake Courier:

Snuggly wuggly

(Ignore the seriously ugly kitchen tiles on the splashback - stupid rental tiles).

It works so well - I luff it! I made 4 types of cupcakes: chocolate with peppermint icing, chocolate with chocolate icing, vanilla with vanilla icing, and vanilla with coconut icing. I tried to take good photos of them, but the bad lighting plus the dentedness of my camera combined for baaaad photos. Sad face.

Anywhooser, if you are a regular cupcake maker for parties and stuff, I recommend the cupcake courier. It makes transporting them without icing going everywhere a total snap. Plus, you can take the layers out and then use it to transport large cakes.  

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Luc Besson collection. Nikita, Atlantis, Subway, Le Dernier Combat (A lot of people reckon this guy is more ‘style over substance’ but I like his stuff.)
Harry potter and the prisoner of Azkaban (Never seen a HP movie before so why not.)
Pret a Porter (The money spent on ‘talent’ must have given the Producer heartburn.)
Excalibur (I thought this was a terribly sexy movie when I was a kid. Guy’s in decked out in full suits of armour hip deep in lakes fighting each other, and shagging princesses. (Jean Luc Picard makes an appearance))
Once upon a time in Mexico (Rob Rodriguez is a bit of a hero of mine.)
Who killed the electric car (Nothing like a good doco.)
The Piano (One of my fav’s of all time.)

Video two in the series...

Sydney Story Home Life: Video two

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