WHERE IS MY- found it.

This blog is fast turning into a collection of drunken-night-out stories. Maybe not necessarily a bad thing?

On Friday night a group of us, including my Brazilian friends Brenda and Daniel, went to a Brazilian party at Number Five Bar. Really fun night. Towards 3am the bar closed, and a big group of revellers gathered out the front, partying with just a guitar and ourselves. After drunken conversations, pictures and loss-of-balance type mishaps, we called it a night and Brenda, Daniel and I started making our way across the river to Flinders Street (maybe stopping to have a pee under the bridge first I DUNNO SHUT UP).

That’s when Brenda realised all her money – a big wad of cash to the tune of $270, the pay check she'd recieved THAT NIGHT – was missing. We backtracked, stumbling back along the bridge, combing the street, retracing our steps, splitting up, checking the gutters, the railings, the water – not a single note was lying anywhere.

Brenda cried all the way home. I felt horrible since the poor thing works like a dog and in one moment a week’s worth of her money was gone. I managed to get us all a cab and arrange for us all to be dropped off. Once we pulled at my house, I rummaged in my bag for my money, secretly planning to pay for the entire fare, even though Daniel had loaned Brenda $50 of his own.

My wallet was gone.

I freaked out right there in the cab. The poor cab driver was probably thinking, “Not only do I have to deal with this crazy girl, she can’t pay me!” Brenda assured me she could pay, than rang Daniel sobbing, because for some fucked up reason she blamed herself for the whole night.

"I am so ashamed of my people!" she cried, "You've never even been to Brazil and all your shit got stolen!"

"Come on, Irmã, it could happen to anyone."

Having my money taken is one thing. Sure, it’s annoying, but cash is cash. I can pretend I spent it. Having my WALLET taken – my wallet has my fucking LIFE in it, my licence, my bankcards, student card, Myki, Priceline card, Myer one, Proof of Age (I always have a back-up ID, the perils of looking 16), Medicare card, ambulance membership…

The next day I got up, boiling with rage and barely having slept. I rang the club to see if the wallet was handed in. Nothing. So, I got ready for work, borrowed coins from Charm 'cos I didn't have a damn thing to enable me to get to work with all my money, bankcards and Myki card gone, and headed to the police station to report the thefts. I didn’t like our chances of anything being resolved, but I had to do something.

The officer was helpful, if a little unsure, and told me that although these things mostly went unsolved it was good to report the activity, and that the police could probably access security footage outside the club. So I was happy to wait fifteen minutes while he painstakingly completed the report. What does your wallet look like? How much cash was taken from your friend? Can you name as many items inside as possible? How much is the wallet itself worth? Between what hours did the thefts occur? Where were you at this time? What are your details? What’s your racial background? That one surprised me, actually.

Then he ducked inside to ring the club.

He came back out with a sort of patiently exasperated look. “Your wallet wasn’t stolen. It’s at the club, it was found on the floor. So you might want to go pick it up.” I didn’t even bother to defend myself by saying I’d already checked with the club and didn’t waste police time on purpose – I ran out of the station and all the way back to Number Five Bar to retrieve it.

“Thank God!” I thought, grinning while imaging the policeman shaking his head. “The cash will be long gone and I don’t give a fuck, I need all my cards!”

So I got to the club, a friendly bartender handed me my wallet back, and I strode out clutching it. Then I thought to myself, “Do I dare to dream?” and checked inside.

All my cash was still there. Every cent.

I have some damn good luck sometimes.

However, I left that last part when retelling the story to Brenda. I told her the wallet was handed in empty, and made up some shit about how they probably took the cash out and threw it on the ground. I feel so terrible about her lost money, I’ll just pretend I got robbed as well – at least she won't feel worse.

Close call, Cat.

Because they actually want to dance, not fuck

Lyk ZOMG can't she tell he's teh GAY????///??/?

I always have an amazing time at the Night Cat - I love me some live salsa/reggae/funk beats. The only thing is, it can get awkward if I only go with one other girl; invariably some guy will jump in and grab one of us as a dance partner, leaving the other vulnerable. Or we’ll be targeted by college boys’ wingman routines.

So Brenda and I were warming up on the back dance floor, testing the salsa waters, when a young guy sidles up to Brenda and in a loud, aggressively Australian accent slurs, “I couldn’t help but notice you girls are pretty good. Would you mind giving us guys some lessons?”

I notice his friend skulking around to where I’m standing, and sigh. The old wingman routine. Guy #1 engages Brenda under the pretence of wanting to learn salsa steps - the urgency of which suddenly disappeared as he picked up her Brazilian accent and started trying to "get to know her" instead. Guy #2 made feeble attempts at small talk with me, which I am immediately bored by. “So what do you do? Yeah I’m doing my engineering degree. Do you study? What do you study? Where are you from? Where do you work? How do you two know each other? Yeah... nah... yeah...”

Oh, YAWN. I’m here to dance, not die of boredom reliving all my first-year-of-uni conversations.

The band starts up and we make an excuse to lose them, itching as we are to actually dance, as opposed to standing around nodding politely while being chatted up. Later as Brenda and I are in the bathroom she says, "The guy who liked you was cute, didn’t you like him?" I was hard-pressed to explain the whole “turned off by the obnoxious Aussie college boy vibe” to someone with English as a second language, and simply said, “Um, too young.”

Later on in the evening as Brenda is cutting up the floor with a bona fide salsa dancer I found myself flanked by the same two guys again, joined by a third who plonks himself down in the chair opposite to stare from a respectable distance at his mate’s attempted conquest. I grin to myself as I realise the trio are like a Melbourne version of JJ, Freddie and Cook from Skins – "Cook" the bold first guy who used salsa as a way to weedle a conversation out of us, "JJ" the shy but curious outsider, and "Freddie" the dark-haired one hitting on me.

Brenda is dancing with a campy (and holy FUCK he could salsa) guy wearing a beret and scarf with a tank top, and Freddie decides the best way to engage me in conversation is by being a homophobe and assigning me as the sole representative of all womankind everywhere and thus obligated to answer his stupid questions.

“Can I ask you a question?" he begins. "Do girls honestly find that-” pointing disdainfully at beret guy as he swayed against Brenda, “attractive? I mean, how is that attractive? What do you think, the hat, the scarf…” the offending guy broke away from Brenda and performed a spinning spot turn, “I mean, look at that!”

And he got up and performed his own spot turn, waving his arms in an exaggeratedly feminine manner as his mates laughed. “Isn’t that just gay?” Cook and Freddie continue to mock Brenda's partner, complete with hoots and shoulder wiggles as JJ spins his chair around and perches on the opposite side, legs straddling the back like twelve-year-olds do when they think it's cool.

I know this game. This is the part where I giggle insipidly at the boys' incomparable wit, join in making fun of gay guys, and roll my eyes over how stupid the girls who like them are (duh, can't their silly ladybrains recognise boys who wear berets as unsuitable breeding partners?), while also assuring some insecure kid of his superiority and thus encourage his advances. Hell no, Freddie, you’re not tricking me into reassuring you of your manhood. Times like this I wish I'd just pretended I didn’t speak English.

Suddenly, an equally “metrosexual” guy cut into our circle (I like to think he saw my frustration), complete with his own beret and a vest over his t-shirt. He held out a hand for me. “Want to dance?”

I grabbed him straight away with a relieved, “YES.”

And off we sambaed, leaving Freddie, JJ and Cook behind to ponder further why all the gay guys were getting the girls.

(Psst, here's a clue: sometimes, when women go places, the things they want to do actually DON'T somehow revolve around your cock!)

FFS Cat, just stop reading the comments already

So there I was, reading Sarah Mckenzie's article about those pathetic "Spot and Share" ads for Brut deodorant. I thought, yes, right on, yes, this is true. Hardly news to me; I think I wrote an angry swear-word filled entry in my journal about women being portrayed as vacant means of transportation for tits and arses in men's deodorant ads when I was like, nineteen. So I'm reading and thinking, yes, I am right behind you Ms McKenzie.

I KNOW that right at the end of this article, there will be reader comments. I say to myself, "They will not be pretty! I won't read them! Ok, maybe I'll scroll down a little and read the very first one only..."

And the very first comment went to the tune of:

Sarah, when a women gets away with slapping a guys bum saying 'find other ways to be naughty' as a way to advertise cream cheese, all your arguaments collapse. You can not have it both ways. - Bill, ACT.

OH FOR SHIT'S SAKE. Where in that article did McKenzie assert, "I want to have it both ways" you wanker? She said - and I'm paraphrasing - stop reducing women to tits and arse and glorifying sexual harassment to sell some shitty deodorant to college boys, you hacks. And I'm pretty sure she does not work in marketing for any cream cheese companies on top of her freelance writing, so it's not like she's responsible for whatever ad you're talking about. Oh, why do I bother, the dude can't even SPELL "argument".

I just cannot stand this shit. A woman says, "That is sexist." A man responds, "NO IT'S NOT YOU'RE SEXIST, SO SHUT UP AND STOP BEING SEXIST AGAINST MEN." Yeah, that’s logical.

Basically, this could have been avoided if I had just not scrolled down to peek at the comments in the first place. Like, Bill was pretty mild compared to some of the paranoid, violent shit some commenters spout at the slightest whiff of the word, "sexist". Why are you people so easily threatened by other people's opinions?

He likes wrecking things

This is what happens when I take my eyes off my pet cockatiel for two seconds...

Flawless victory.

No wonder my Running Man was particularly smooth

So there I was, busting a move on the dancefloor during a clubbing rampage over the weekend, drunkenly thinking, "Man, I'm dancing so well tonight, it's like I'm gliding across the floor!"

Then I looked down and realised I was slipping and sliding around in somebody's spilled drink. At least... I hope it was drink.

But I hope I don't get killed by a giant boulder

I’ve decided I want to be Lara Croft when I grow up.

Sure, I’d need millions of dollars to fund all the travel, equipment and training. Don’t own hiking boots. I’ve never handled a gun before. Not to mention the inevitable back problems associated with having boobs the size of cantaloupes.

BUT travelling the world discovering ancient relics and breathtaking new landscapes, exploring civilisations and ruins, climbing mountains, rappelling down gigantic mausoleums, fighting mythological creatures, burning across the desert in a quad bike, diving in search of Atlantis, collecting priceless artefacts, solving puzzles, adventure, action… WHERE DO I SIGN UP?

What’s a girl supposed to do when instead of studying, all she can think of is doing silly dangerous crap like this:


Heh, I love that. “I don’t need climbing equipment or safety gear because I’m BADASS.”

But it’s not all scaling waterfalls in a push-up bra. Lara Croft can be a hardcore jerk sometimes. She pretty much barges into these wonderful heritage sites and steals stuff and kills endangered or mythological or general minding-their-own-business animals. Most disturbing is the nonchalant way in which she executes lethal force against every human being she encounters – including the native inhabitants of the remote Pacific Islands villages she is invading. Smells a bit like Imperialism.

And more often than not, the priceless artefacts she so fiercely pursues fit into some sort of personal vendetta. She will do anything (including murdering copious amounts of people) to get a hold of items that COULD-I DUNNO-MAYBE hold clues to the mysterious and tragic disappearance of her mother.

And the gratuity? Oh, boy. If I’m ever a millionaire adventurer archaeologist trudging through tropical rainforests and deserts and the like I’m going to forgo showing off my cleavage/bellybutton for the sake of basic protection from the environment.

But for all the shady morality and being reduced to a series of sexy body parts, I can’t help being filled with childish glee every time I see pictures of Lara Croft doing something awesome. As a teen the Tomb Raider series ignited a brief interest in archaeology – although I realise now that real archaeologists must get sick of young people brought up on the likes of Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones entering the field and getting puzzled by dusty digging and time-consuming bone-collecting. What the games and the character really ignited in me was that longing for action and adventure – a longing to explore the world in my own way. The kind of recklessness I can only safely indulge in using a Playstation.

So I guess my implausible adventures will have to stay safely tucked away in my imagination as I return to the reality of essay deadlines and waiting tables on Friday nights. But who knows – maybe if I invest in some khaki hot pants, a motorcycle, and a membership at that indoor climbing place on Swanston Street, maybe I’ll at least feel a little closer to being Lara.

Off on my next adventure.

Widow's Bite

So there I was, calmly watching Ironman 2 with my sister, when Scarlett Johansson appears in her Black Widow costume and proceeds to KICK INDESCRIBABLE ASS!


"Did someone order an ass-kicking?"

I'm disappointed that she wasn't more Black Widow-y until that scene (she was "undercover" posing as a PA for most of the film, so not a whole lot to work with but I still think there could've been more of a Romanova edge). In fact I'm disappointed that halfway through the film it didn't just turn into a whole lot of action scenes starring the Black Widow kicking each and every single person in sight's arse and using her stinger bracelets and performing amazing stunts until the end. SHE WAS USING THE STINGER BRACELETS! Though you do have to wonder if carrying kilos of artillery on your wrists gets old.

Watcing female action heros on film for me is like what Skye over at Heroine Content says: "When I walk out of a movie theater after seeing a film where the heroine kicks ass, I have to admit I walk differently. I feel stronger. I feel energized."

I got that feeling after seeing the Tomb Raider films as a teen. I got it after watching Mortal Kombat (I used to jump around pretending to be Kitana when I was 13ish), Domino, the X-Men trilogy, and the prison break scene in Watchmen. Even before the films ended I'd be sitting up straighter, with a secret smile on my face like somebody had just unlocked a new world for me where I had power.

I wish I had that feeling more often. The fact that I can count the amount of times I've been noticeably affected by female power fantasies in films on one hand, compared to the shitloads of male power fantasies that drip out of every cinema, makes me sigh.