Just a few photographic bits and pieces from the last few days and the weekend…

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If you have super-fine, poker-straight and absolutely zero-body hair like mine, what I'm about to share will change your hair life forever.

I've discovered the miracle that is dry shampoo.

Well, not its existence, but a new use I stumbled upon by accident.

I'd allowed my roots to grow out to a shameful length (like a poor girl's balayage!) and heard that some dry shampoos will temporarily disguise regrowth for blondes.

Little did I know that spraying it on the roots of clean hair also gives it the lift and volume I previously only dreamed about!

I've been using the $20-something-a-can Label M by Toni & Guy.

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I'm so bored of the stereotypical one dimensional "sassy", "feisty", "ballsy" female character, all pumped up on girl power, running around turning tables, kicking ass and managing to save the prince at least once before she's allowed to fall in love.

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It's Day 9 of being the most fully sick I've ever been in my life.

Mr K got it four days after we got back from Thailand, and passed it on to me, so it's probably SARS or something.

So, being the good citizen I am, I haven't left the house for nine days.

This has been my constant companion.

I'd like to take this opportunity to offer appreciation to the genius who thought to put aloe in tissues.

My perfectly intact nose thanks you.

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Have you noticed a certain genre of book that reads just like a movie? There's a type of popular fiction author that writes as though their lifelong dream is not just to get a book deal, but a book and movie deal.

You can just see the publishers rubbing their palms together in anticipation of the print run with movie adapted covers.

Maybe they should be called Mooks. Or Boovies.

Whatever you want to call them, I find them painful.

Before I Go to Sleep is a Mook.

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I've been sick with a horrible cold / maybe flu thing for the past couple of days.

I'm so booooooored. I want to go outside.

I'm feeling a bit better today, so it's very, very tempting to get out and about. But I'm worried that getting active before you're really better often makes you worse in the long run.

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When you see the words "2 Million Copy US Bestseller" on the cover of a book, it tends to raise your expectations somewhat.

2 million people can't be wrong, right?

And then you remember that 62 million voted for George W Bush.

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I had a complete blank out when reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which in retrospect really interfered with my comprehension of the novel, and my appreciation of the story in its entirety.

I totally missed the need to add 12 and 6 together to get Merricat's (the narrator's) age.

In my mind, she was about 15 or 16. Obviously a strange kid, and clearly stunted in her maturity, even in more innocent times when children remained childlike for much longer than they do today.

I put it down to the family's isolation from the community, physically and socially, as well as Mary Katherine's own solitary nature.

So to read that she was 18 in Joyce Carol Oates' essay at the end of the book kind of stunned me, made me feel a lot stupid and caused me to rethink my whole reading of the novel.

***

And all I came up with was a whole bunch of questions that Jackson left completely unanswered. Such as…

- Why exactly do the townspeople hate the Blackwoods? Is it just because they're rich and isolate themselves? The family's friends – in the same social class – don't seem to elicit the same hatred, as far as we know.

- Was there a reason Merricat is so strange? Did something happen to make her what she is, when the rest of the family appeared to be normal?

- Why on earth does Constance mollycoddle and protect her sister, and enter into her fantasies the way she does?

***

When I finished reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle I had that now-faint but familiar feeling of reading a text for school, whether high school or university.

That knowledge that whatever you think the book is about is a superficial understanding, and you need to look deeper for subtexts, imagery, themes, etc. that will really tell you what the author was getting at.

And that's great when your in school or at uni. You just have to turn up for class and the teacher will facilitate discussions that will draw out all of the above.

So, it was quite frustrating to feel the need to go deeper to fully appreciate what Jackson created, and not have anywhere to go to discuss it.

I suppose I could google what others have written about this book and see if I come up with some satisfactory insights into the characters and their actions.

I guess even the fact that I'm motivated to do that is testimony to Shirley Jackson's skill as a writer, and her ability to create a scenario of questions you're not prepared to leave unexamined.

***

I'm going to put that on my to-do list.

xx Kiki

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I think I may be one of only a few women between the ages of 20 and 50 who let the whole Eat, Pray, Love phenomenon sweep past them with barely a glimmer of interest.

That's probably because I'd heard/read a number of people describe how annoyed they'd gotten with the author's self indulgent, selfish and whiny navel-gazing.

Around the time that Eat, Pray, Love was released, I'd already read a book in a similar vein called Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown by Lorna Martin.

It was about her year in psychotherapy, and all I wanted to do was slap some sense into the silly woman.

The only person in the book I thought had a problem was her poor therapist who had to listen to her idiocies three times a week.

However, the insights the book gave me into the completely unique – and even bizarre – relationship that only exists between therapist and client sparked my own interest in psychotherapy.

Particularly from the point of view of the therapist.

How do they not want to kill their clients? (or perhaps they do, as at least on person believes that Freud fits the convictable profile of a serial killer, but that's another story)

Or kill themselves?

Or at the very least, not nod off?

***

So when I came across Love's Executioner by Irvin D. Yalom – Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University, and one of New York's most esteemed and accomplished psychotherapists – I was fascinated by the opportunity to see people in therapy from the other side of the couch.

Love's Executioner is divided into eight chapters, and each is Yalom's account of the psychotherapy process of one of his clients.

Unlike Lorna Martin's basic shallowness (for which I believe £10,000 of therapy is not the cure), Yalom's clients all have deeply rooted hangups, fears and beliefs that prevent them from living lives of freedom and happiness.

Some are maddening, some are offensive, some are even laughable to the objective observer.

But what many of the stories share is the amazing ability for people to change.

The kind of people that seem so crippled by their neuroses, either of their own creation or as a result of tragic life circumstances, that they'd be dismissed by most as 'hopeless cases', or 'beyond help'.

I found the motivation Yalom's patients found within themselves to change their lives in such… well, for want of a more apt expression… life changing ways, deeply moving and completely inspiring.

***

However, what I enjoyed most of all about this book was Yalom's honesty about his own feelings and reactions towards his clients. The way he questions himself, and doesn't avoid examining what he himself brings to each client's therapy experience.

The quote printed on the book's cover puts how Yalom's writing makes you feel much more eloquently than I ever could.

If you have even a mild interest in understanding what makes people tick, or ever wondered how on earth psychotherapists help those that come to them, I really feel you will enjoy reading Love's Executioner.

xx Kiki

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Mr K has gone to New Zealand for work today, and won't be back until late Sunday, so I'm feeling a bit lonely and sad tonight.

I never thought I'd be the kind of girl who gets all, "Woe is me… my man's gone away", but I've been feeling a bit fragile lately, so while 6 days apart wouldn't ordinarily faze me, I'm not revelling in the whole "Woo hoo! Got the house to myself" feeling I usually get when he's interstate for one or two nights.

So I'm going to have to find ways to cheer myself up.

Starting with coffee and pistachio macarons from Browns Bakery in Albert Park (though now that I look at that pic, that green scares me a bit).

I'm the absolute last person to jump on the macaron bandwagon, and since I couldn't be bothered researching which Melbourne bakeries are claimed to make the best, I picked these up while having a coffee at Browns this morning.

Unlike many bakeries that can't seem to avoid compromising quality when they open multiple outlets, I think Browns has managed to maintain the yumminess of their breads and sweets, so I have high hopes for these little pretties.

***

Flowers always make me happy, so on my walk earlier I spotted this almost-perfect daisy and I think there are few happier-looking flowers than daisies, don't you agree?

I may go back and pick a few tomorrow. I wish I could find some of my favourite daisies, the ones with a purple/blue centre and purple tinge on the petals.

I may have to grow some of my own.

***

One of the things I like to do when Mr K is away is watch free-to-air TV, since he likes to watch whatever he downloads (although he's been very nice lately and has relinquished ownership of the remote to me quite a bit). So tonight I'm typing this as I watch a debate on banning the burqua on Insight.

I always think the same thing when I watch this show: Jenny Brockie is a saint. I'd end up shouting, "SHUT UP! Stop talking over each other!" and throwing my clipboard at someone's head.

I am not a saint.

Quite enjoyed the eye candy in the gorgeous form of Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford.

And after that I'll watch How Many People Can Live On Planet Earth? narrated by David Attenborough, and soak up that wonderful voice, while doing some more quilting.

Then I'll round off my erudite evening's viewing with the intellectually challenging Kardashians.

I know what you're thinking: Why not turn off the TV and read a book?

I would, except I don't have a single book of fiction I want to read, and I'm really, really not in the mood for the piles of non-fiction I have around at the moment.

All I've been reading lately is non-fiction, and I'm hankering for a good story I can really sink my teeth into.

I've heard good things about Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and see that Penguin has included it in their orange classics. So I may swing by Borders tomorrow, since none of the libraries near me have it.

For such an old book (I think it was published in 1982) I'm really surprised the libraries don't carry it. I could put in a request but I'm too impatient.

Plus, I'm a bit scared to find out how much I've been fined for returning my last library book about two months late…

xx Kiki

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A few months ago I mentioned I was reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

Well, I finished it ages ago but only now remembered that I said I'd review it.

Overall, I was sadly disappointed.

I really, really wanted to like this book because it held so much promise.

Stop press! Disclaimer ahead…

Okay, I know some people get very passionate about the books (and authors) they love, and very defensive when they're criticised, so I'm just going to preface this post by saying that whatever I thought of the book, Sara Gruen is obviously a successful, bestselling novelist beloved by millions worldwide, and I'm not trying to take that away from her.

However, if I'm not going to sugarcoat what I think of a brand of mascara, I can't really refrain from giving an honest account of my feelings about a novel, can I?

But I'll try not to be unnecessarily brutal.

Okay. So if the setting for Water for Elephants – a travelling circus in America during the Great Depression, during Prohibition, when ordinary Americans were actually dying of starvation, when the concept of 'political correctness' was beyond comprehension, and so on – isn't simply bristling with fodder for the most colourful, fascinating, grotesque, comical, diabolical, heart wrenching and compelling characters, and equally seductive and absorbing plot lines and scenarios, I honestly can't think of one that is.

The richness of Jacob's story should have tumbled off the pages, sweeping the reader up in a cacophany of sensory experiences… the gaudy array of costumes and blinding stage lights, the smell of greasepaint and animal dung, the hammering of workmen. The endless, monotonous clatter of train wheels on tracks.

I wanted to be transported, to lose myself in Jacob's world and deeply engage with the characters and their unfolding stories.

Instead I found my imagination having to work, actively required to imagine the scenery and conjure up mental images to pad out and fill the gaps the author left gaping.

As a result, I quickly tired of doing the work the author should have, and the effort of trying to find anything about any of the two-dimensional characters to engage with quickly gave way to irritation, and indifference.

Water for Elephants, however, is saved from being a total disappointment by Gruen's shifts to Jacob's narration as a 93 year old.

Now this was a character I could feel empathy for and whose account of his circumstances deeply moved me.

If only Gruen's handling of Jacob's recounting of his youth was as skillful as the voice she gives him to express his experiences as a geriatric patient.

Contrary to my expectations of gaining insight into the fascinating life of travelling circuses, this novel instead gave me a better understanding of what it would feel like to be at the very end of your life, looking backward.

It also challenged my belief that, at 93, life is just about waiting for death, and that moving forward is only an option for people with a few decades – rather than a few months, or years – up their sleeves.

***

Sara Gruen being hugged by an elephant on the Water for Elephants movie set

It's interesting. At the start of this post, I was quite disillusioned about Water for Elephants, and wondered how I could review it and keep my desire to pan it in check.

But it writing it, I'm surprised to find that the elderly Jacob's story touched me and changed my perceptions much more than I had realised. And isn't that one of the reasons why we choose to read books about subjects we're interested in learning more about – to change our perceptions?

It reminds me of that saying I heard many, many years ago, and that has always resonated with me – "How do I know what I think until I see what I write?"

So, overall I would give Water for Elephants 3 stars out of 5.

If you have read it, what would you give?

xx Kiki

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