Year: 2011

your bike-buying questions answered

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I’m constantly asked for tips for buying bikes. If you’re buying your first since you sported spokey dokes on your Repco, it can be daunting. For this sponsored review I asked Jenny Fay from Australia’s first women’s bike shop at Clarence St Cyclery in Sydney to share her advice.

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And can I just say, it is actually a very cool thing that there’s a chick-specific store out there…I get freaked dealing with blokes in Lycra in bike shops who don’t really understand I have longer legs than men and boobs that get in the way, that I need to carry loads of stuff wherever I go and, quite frankly, want to put style before a fancy derailer sometimes. I don’t want to explain all this (and cop attitude); I want it assumed! Over to you Jenny…

Q: I want a… how can I put it…purely pretty bike! I’m a bit of a princessy type, but I want to start riding to work. I don’t know how to put this, but I don’t want one of those lean-forward, fast styles; I want to sit upright and ride in my frocks’n’heels. Oh, and to be able to touch the ground at traffic lights! And I want to be able to carry my bits and pieces in a pretty basket. Does this make sense? – Rachel

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this is how I write…

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I read this wonderful interview with author James Salter in The Paris Review. If you’re not a writer, or you’re not working on a long, big, scary project (an essay, a thesis, a report, a house) I still think you’ll find some good life lessons in it. And will enjoy his considered, dignified answers. It continues the theme I’ve been exploring of late: taking the time it takes to do something. Doing things steadily. Finding your own kooky rhythm and finding solace in the kooky, twisted rhythms of successful people.

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He writes in longhand first! As do I.

I write in longhand. I am accustomed to that proximity, that feel of writing. Then I sit down and type. And then I retype, correct, retype, and keep going until it’s finished. It’s been demonstrated to me many times that there is some inefficiency in this, but I find that the ease of moving a paragraph is not really what I need. I need the opportunity to write this sentence again, to say it to myself again, to look at the paragraph once more, and actually to go through the whole text, line by line, very carefully, writing it out. There may be even some kind of mimetic impulse here where I am trying to write like myself, so to speak.

He tweaks and frets!

I hate the first inexact, inadequate expression of things. The whole joy of writing comes from the opportunity to go over it and make it good, one way or another…I write big sections and then let them sit.

It’s dangerous not to let things age…

and if something is really good, you should put it away for a month.

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“Good, raw, kind, hilarious people make my soul creative”

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I’ve decided to start a new occasional series. From time to time I come across humans who just astound me with their whimsy. They do something a bit off-beat. A bit you’re-not-meant-to-do-that. I’ve noticed there’s usually One Thing that prompted them, or motivates them, or keeps them happy and therefore whimsical. I’m always busting to tap them on the shoulder and ask, “What’s your One Thing”. Now I do here. To kick off…


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how to live longer? be somewhat obsessive!

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If you’re a sober, highly strung, fretty type you might find this cheering…a much-talked-about new book The Longevity Project, reveals cheery types die younger than the more sober, serious humanoid.

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Howard Friedman and Leslie Martin, two psychologists, draw on a study  of school kids by Stanford University that started in the 1920s to find what makes us live longer. It tracked these kids to their deaths.

The answer? Conscientiousness

Which is to say, “the often complex pattern of persistence, prudence, hard work, close involvement with friends and communities” which produces a well-organized person who is “somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree.”

Obsessive and not at all carefree?!! As an obsessive, rarely carefree individual this makes my day. It effectively confirms that my trying so hard at EVERYTHING actually pays off. It’s not uncool. Nor unnecessary. It has purpose. Even if it does mean I’ll be obsessive and rarely carefree for longer!

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the elegance of paring back

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This week I pare back

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Last Saturday I ate almost half a jar of anchovies in one sitting. It was a purposeful binge; I was emptying the jar so that I could use it as a vase for the dinner party I was hosting. I had four guests that night because I only have five plates. And we ate cheese after from off a piece of firewood I found out back.

Such are the details of my life since I started living out of a tin shed and a suitcase.

You see, eleven weeks ago I set off to live in a small corrugated iron cottage in the bush – partly to try something new, partly by way of writing sabbatical. I reduced everything I needed – clothes, swim goggles, favourite teapot, stick blender, Le Crueset pot – to one case (plus my computer, bike and ergonomic swivel chair). I could’ve packed more – I had a whole car to fill. But once I started asking myself whether I really needed a fourth pair of undies or oregano flakes or house slippers my list of life essentials shrank. And shrank.

No one needs five pairs of undies. When you think about it.

Almost three months on, I have two observations to share.

First, I’ve not missed a thing. Sure, I’ve had to make a few compromises, like eating a small school of hairy fish, and my soup with a dessertspoon. But they’ve been small.

Second, the experiment has made me inordinately and surprisingly happy.

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could you live on $2 a day?

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This is so hard to fathom. The extreme poverty line in this country is defined as living on less than $2 a day. It makes my heart just sink. Yours too?

You might be interested in the Live Below the Line campaign designed to draw attention and raise money for the over one billion people worldwide going to bed hungry every night.

Picture 6Via pinterest.com

The tirelessly passionate Julie Cowdroy, activist and academic, took up the challenge for five days and I got her to share how she did it. I’m going to give it a crack in a week or two….

I took my $10 to the supermarket and stocked up on

  • rolled oats
  • lentils
  • potatoes
  • a bag of carrots
  • an onion
  • two pears
  • one mandarin
  • a tin of tomatoes
  • green tea

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being great takes time…so take it!

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I’ve had a realisation this week. It’s simple – extend the time I think things take to get done. Chill. Then continue.

photo by Ann Le
photo by Ann Le

Much of my anxiety I realise comes from thinking things should go faster – the call to Bigpond, typing an email, this book I’m writing. My friend Gio who lives a languid life and is one of the most successful people I know (in the whole sense of the word) suggested this. He TRIPLES project times when he gets anxious. He’s a jeweller, a surfer, a bon vivant, a spiritualist, a wonderful partner, a fantasy property creator and he gets it all done…in the fullness of time. I’ve never seen him rushed.

Hofstadters’s Law states everything takes longer than you think (he also has some zany theories on consciousness). I read a study that said the biggest cause of procrastinating among successful people is underestimating how long things take. When they realise how long it will really take, they balk.

And lately I’ve noticed so many instances where things that are rushed through turn out so bodgy. Politics feels like this at the moment (pink batts etc). And I’ve read articles and books lately that feel this way, too. It’s deflating.

Anyway, I came across this. The cerebraly rich Ira Glass, host of radio show This American Life, offers this: excellence doesn’t come automatically, he says. “Being great takes time”…

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how to have a better morning routine

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This week I hone a morning routine

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Photo by Aquabumps

Most mornings I wake up (no alarm; between 6 -7 am) and drink a dromedary’s hump worth of hot water. While doing this I check emails and read my feeds. Then I exercise (20-60 minutes). Then I meditate, shower and eat breakfast. It’s the best bit of my day.

Granted, that was all a touch over-sharey (although I did spare you the ablutative bits). But I’m gambling on something I’ve observed over the course of my career interviewing hundreds of philosophers, writers, politicians, scientists and celebrities: everyone – successful or otherwise – likes to share and learn how others do their morning routine. Another observation: successful folk always have discernible, nay rigid, morning routines.

Warren Buffet wakes at 4.30am. Winston Churchill worked in bed until 11am, dictating to his secretaries and taking a whisky and soda before rising. P.G. Wodehouse had to eat coffee cake and read a “breakfast book” – a mystery novel. It is fascinating stuff. How someone starts their day seems to provide the perviest of insights into a person’s acumen. Nay, their soul. We take note, to see if we can launch our days as successfully as they clearly do.

Which is exactly what I did this week.

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now for some camera whimsy apps

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It’s really not enough any more to just point and shoot? It’s a bit, “is that ALL you know about iphone apps?” If this IS all you know, then this little rundown of apptastic iphone appendages will delight you. Play with them over the weekend.

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I came across this great post on THE BEST CAMERA APPS from one of my favourite NYT writers David Pogue. Here’s the bits you want:

  • Try TiltShift(from $1). It’s a photographic trick that, by using selective angles and blurring, makes the real world seem to be made of tiny toys.
  • Picture 1Time Lapse ($1) lets you create a high-definition time-lapse movie automatically while you’re away. Watch a building go up, watch a flower bloom or just see what’s been going on at home while you’re away.

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