The ultimate chick-lit makeover

I recently read the memoirs of a fellow Melbourne chick just a few years older than myself - Kate Holden - called In My Skin. The book details her transition from dreamy uni student, to heroin user, to addict and finally, perhaps inevitably, to sex worker. What differentiates this story are a couple of notable things. One is that her upbringing was not the classic tragedy you might expect (absent father, depressed/alcoholic mother, abusive step-relatives), but a pretty normal, loving, suburban one - in fact, one not so terribly different from my own. The other thing that sets this memoir apart is Kate's refusal to portray herself as a victim, and that, incredibly, she managed to find some pride in her work as a prostitute despite the hardships she endured. Speaking of which, if you are thinking of reading In My Skin, be prepared for some eye-watering descriptive passages.

The emotional strength she relied on to do her job well eventually bolstered her enough that she was able to kick her habit and move on.

I do find it kind of infuriating that the book publishers here in the UK have decided that the original cover (the one I own) wasn't "glamorous" enough:

I actually remember thinking as I read the book, that if anything it was a bit too glam. It features a photo of the back of a classy-looking woman taking off her bra in a car, through the rain splattered window. In the novel, Kate is at her lowest, sickliest, most pitiful point when she resorts to getting into strange men's cars on the streets of St Kilda.

However, this cover obviously didn't attract enough readers, so in order to lure the Bridget-Jones-reading, yummy-mummy crowd, the publishers have gone for a lighter touch - a whimsical illustration in soft pastels of a woman removing her stockings, with a typeface borrowed directly fromSex and the City:

When I first saw the new cover it made my blood boil at the sheer inappropriateness - the unthinking arrogance - of making a shockingly honest memoir of a woman barely surviving on society's edges, look like a light-hearted bedroom romp.

Now I just smile when I think of all those smug, snobbish, middle-class mums who are in for the shock of their lives.

Cursing my lack of moon boots, toboggan and understanding clients

More snow in London, if you didn't hear already... loads this time! Proper snow, like. It was about 4 inches deep, enough for your feet to sink into with a satisfying crunch, leaving perfect platform-boot style footprints behind. After feverishly tossing up whether I could get away with pulling a "snow day", I decided I had no real excuse for not showing up to work, besides getting all tourist-y at the sight of the white stuff.

My street:

However, The Boyfriend and I took our time walking the long way to the tube station, via the woods...

...where the groundskeeper and his family live in this ridiculously cute house. And where Peter Rabbit frequents the vegetable patch and Enid Blyton comes calling for tea.

It's been a long weekend

The only thing for it is a mound of chocolate and a stiff (yet smooth) drink.

Chocolate Weekend-end Comisseration Slice

3x mars bars, chopped
90gm butter
2 cups rice bubbles
1/3 cup dessicated coconut
1/3 cup sultanas
1/3 cup chopped mixed nuts (I used hazels, brazils and pecans)
125gm dark chocolate, melted

Melt the butter and chopped mars bars in a saucepan over a low heat until you have a gooey mess. Stir in the rice bubbles, coconut, sultanas and nuts, and mix till everything is coated nicely. Press firmly into a flat container (anything rectangular will do) lined with aluminium foil. Pour melted chocolate over the top and spread around as evenly as possible. Leave in the fridge as long as you can stand it and then remove from the container and cut into lots of small, dainty pieces. At this point, it is your privilege, nay, responsibility as the "cook" to eat the corner bits, as well as any broken or imperfect pieces.

Serve with large helpings of Frangelico, poured into an innappropriate glass (not shown).

Enjoy responsibly.

Snow glorious snow

It *snowed* last night! I didn't notice when I blearily cracked open the curtain a fraction in the bedroom, but when I pulled up the blinds in the kitchen, I was greeted with the most magnificent sight since Lucy went snooping around the back of the wardrobe and stumbled across Narnia.

Click on the images to see them a bit bigger.

I used to believe...

The internet is a strange place. It sometimes seems like it is a high-contrast version of reality - it is such a brilliant tool to have access to, but it is also capable of harbouring evil.

I love it when I come across something innocent and life-affirming on the web. There is too much badness in the world as it is. And no, it ain't kittenwar.com, I can't stand that sappy sh*t - I will leave that particular site to the novelty-jumpered, tea-set-collecting "lay-dees" of the world.

iusedtobelieve.com is a really cute idea, where people write in with the crazy things they used to believe when they were little and didn't know better. My own contribution was about how I used to think that, to learn a new language, you just had to get access to a "code-breaker", where A would equal (something), B would equal (something else), and that you could literally decode foreign languages letter by letter.

If only! Some of the stories are really cute, some are silly and some are plain crazy. There are some gems, though:

"I used to think that since the movie screens in theatres were so big, that there was a huge video player behind the screen and several people had to lift the gigantic tape into the player and then someone had to be shot out of a canon to hit the play button."