Swabbing and sweeping

I'm making an effort to organize my life to some degree, rather hoping to welcome a new thing into it before frightfully wrong (we want a Dragon baby, like most of China), and am finally getting around to looking for a local gynaecologist, which means I'm finally getting around to being astounded and disgusted that there are no lady gynaecologists in L----. What the fuck. You want me to let a man, who by definition doesn't even have one, tell me about my pussy after annoying it with cotton swabs and whatever else? No, sir. There are a lot of good things about women's liberation and one of them is that more chicks went to medical school, and now I get to find one to be my gynaecologist.

The F-word, who himself I think quite reasonably insists on the male equivalent - what's the proper name for a balls doctor? - has volunteered to drive me anywhere I need to go so all that's fine, just bleedingly inconvenient. Fuck, sometimes I hate living in a country town. When I decided a couple of years back that it was going to be a good idea, I was wildly rose-tinted in my outlook about what sort of services would be available. That was silly. I have a vague memory of there being no female gynaecologists in Pinerolo, either, which is the closest thing to a country town I've lived in since North Bay, which I'm not sure has lady gynaecologists either.

We've also created a housecleaning schedual. It's come to this. We're both filthy people and our filthinesses are getting incompatible, not through any maturation of our characters but because of home ownership. If it was just an apartment, we could go on not giving much of a shit and just get housecleaners in on our way out. But it is our house, so we can't, because one day we want to sell it and fuck off and that day will be years away. The other problem is that it's the tropics. And the tropics comes with a wealth of fucking disgusting bugs. It's not a question of leaving food out, which we generally don't; it's that if we leave things lying around bugs and spiders move into them. I don't mind bugs and spiders, but I do mind having lots of them.

And then there's the great Addition, of course. If we don't get into a rhythm of not being filthy now, our lives and home will go to hell when or if it comes. Especially as the F-word is about to start a full time vocational course in pottery. When I say "go to hell" I mean hiring professionals to do all our stuff for us, and having to pay through the nose for that, because this is Australia and there aren't enough immigrants.

Massages and malcontent

Had a lovely massage yesterday, possibly the loveliest I've ever got. The therapist is a friend of ours. All of the delicacy of a declawed kitten with the healing force of a, oh I don't know, of a butch Jesus or something like that. Certainly right up there with an hour-long shiatsu treatment in Toronto, at the Danforth Shiatsu Clinic (Carrot Common).

Romola asked at some point during the New Zealand trip, where we talked, incessantly, about everything (I miss girlfriends without babies; one day I'll miss myself without babies) if it isn't odd to get a massage from a man who you're friends with. And you know what, it is sort of odd from my perspective, but it's considerably better than getting a massage from a stranger, especially considering my left inner adductor muscle plays up a lot. From our therapist's perspective - well, he's a professional, and just to be safe I see him when I'm really due for a wax to ensure that I'm as unappealing as possible; being a friend of his I know he really doesn't like hairy girls.

I suppose I could get a lady massage therapist - I'm sure they must exist somewhere in town - but I haven't met any yet. And frankly I have tough strong muscles that need wrestling back into shape, especially since I turned into some sort of fucking jock. And unless the lady is a ninja, by which I mean a shiatsu therapist, or unless she's one of the enormous women who work in the hammam I used to go to, or unless she's a sports medicine physio, I find they're just not forceful enough. I realize the three categories cover a broad spectrum of women massage therapists, but as far as I can see they're not broad enough to cover the town of L----. Anyways, our therapist buddy is just too good to stop using.

Like everybody I'm subject to the odd ache and pain but in that sense yesterday's awesome massage was basically wasted on me. All the fun activities in New Zealand and the sleeping on the self-inflating mattresses made me feel great.  I booked the appointment just before leaving when I was labouring under this dreadful upper back fuckery whose lingering remnants where snapped out of me by the rock-climbing experience and whose memory, even, disappeared during the day of kayaking later that week, which at one point got quite row-for-your-lifeish when a strong wind came out of nowhere in a shallow bay.

Now I'm desperately searching for a rock-climbing wall here, or at least within an hour's radius, and it seems there are two, but one isn't open to the public who aren't paying to use some craptastic fucking resort and the other may have gone bankrupt. I'll be sad if so. Discovering rock climbing was a little like discovering sex - it's awesome right away but you know you could get a lot better at it - and I am deathly scared of heights so continuing to rock climb would be such a great way to face down a phobia. I tell you the lack of facilities is making me hate this place, despite the terrific massages. I was so kindly disposed towards L---- and Australia on getting back from India and not seeing malnourished kids anymore, but the Christmas vacation ruined those friendly feelings toward this place, and now the lovely week in New Zealand has made me even more convinced that the grass is greener in lots of other places. 

Impeccable asses and geographic regrets

The trip to New Zealand was, well, compensatory for Christmas and more. Except now I'm starting to suspect we should have moved to New Zealand instead of Australia. I did actually push for it back when we were still in Belgium, but it's too cold for the F-word's thin Australian blood, and I suspect he also subscribed to some ideas about New Zealand probably being even more backwards than Australia, as it's more isolated, and smaller.

Well, maybe it is, for all I know. But staying in Christchurch and then camping and kayaking in some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life, I saw the country from a terrific angle. And that angle communicated to me that people in New Zealand are much better than people in Australia at living at the end of the world. Despite a great deal of Christchurch having fallen down or threatening to (we missed Saturday's 4.9 earthquake camping) it has a richer cultural life than Sydney, even though it has only 300,000 people in it. And the food, sweet Jeebus. In town and out of it. They eat a lot better than we do here.

But something of even more primary interest to me was how people lived with their country in New Zealand, which seemed a great deal less oppositional than how Australians live with Australia. The weather there is crappier in the sense that it's colder and wetter, but that permits New Zealand people, I think, to spend more time outside than living in a 40 degree desert does, or else there's a difference in the national character pushing them outdoors. I haven't seen so many fit, active old people since I was in the Netherlands.

And the young people - shit. I spent a lot of time in a mild state of excitation. Men there were fucking gorgeous. I don't know if it's the rugby or the constant physical activity or what, but I didn't see a single pair of chicken legs there, despite their propensity to wear short shorts in whatever weather. I mean, fuck. They were really nice looking.

Anyways, I'm off for a run now so I can lure some kiwi into my tender trap someday if the F-word ever dumps me. Because the women there are fucking machines of awesome muscle and health too. We went to a rock climbing gym my second night there, which was a minor achievement for me, since I'm generally deathly scared of heights, but found when I was puzzling out holds and being competently belayed by Romola and her old man that actually it was just really, REALLY fucking fun to climb really high up. My arms sort of gave up toward the top of my fourth climb but I was hooked. I think I've found a gym near here I'm going to start going to as much as possible.

But that's not my point. My point is that women in New Zealand were fit as all hell and in this rock climbing gym I got a real testament to what being fit as all hell and rock climbing gyms can do for your ass, which is fundamentally to make it look impeccable.