Cock

We are watching the swimming on TV and smoking a joint.

"Would you wear your cock like that?" he asks and I cough out smoke in surprise.

"What?"

He repeats the question, pointing out a male swimmer on the screen wearing one of those fantastically tight swim suits and whose cock is mostly definitely pointing skywards.

"Can I wear a cock?" I ask, immediately getting to the heart of the issue.

"You know what I mean".

Actually, I don't know very much about cocks. Especially not what it feels like to have a cock. Would I need to fiddle with it all the time? Is all that rearranging completely necessary? See, I know nothing.

My own genitalia is conveniently and tidily tucked away, never threatening to break lose or do embarrassing things.

"I don't know" I murmur, continuing to think about the swimmer's cock.

The NAB Cup Final

Carlton made the final of the NAB Cup and last night we went to The Telstra Dome and watched them slaughter* The Brisbane Lions. It was my first Australian Rules game and my first Carlton game. It was so exciting. I screamed and shouted and cheered and clapped like a loon. I bought a Carlton scarf (this is like entering into a contract - once you buy a scarf there is no changing your mind about what team to support). I fell in love with Brendan Fevola. I sang the two lines from the club song that I know ("we are the navy blues, we are the old dark navy blues"). I asked stupid questions like "why has that player only got one glove?". I opened my bag of lollies a tad too forcefully and they all exploded into the air and everyone was very nice about picking them up and giving them back to me.

I took crappy photos:



That's "Fev" if you couldn't already tell.


I don't think it was a great game, but being there gave me a better understanding of this crazy-ass sport which only Australians play. It's too difficult to get an idea of the size of the field and how hard the players work when watching a game on TV at home.


It was a fun evening.




CARN THE BLUES!








*the biased perception of a true footy fan.

The Birth of Betty the Blue

I grew up in a country where Australian Rules Football means nothing, and had never seen a game before I moved to Australia and watched the 2005 Grand Final. It seemed quite an exciting game, but I had no idea about the rules. Were there any rules? It was certainly a very physical game. I liked how pushing and shoving seemed to be encouraged. It was a game played by Proper Men, not pussies. Also, the shorts were longer than I thought they would be. And I wasn't sure what a 'mark' was but I understood they were very important.

Last year, we were in Sydney visiting family and watched The Grand Final with them. I still didn't really know what was going on but I started to ask questions. Stupid questions like "Is there four quarters?", which definitely amused a certain person. I started thinking about supporting a team. But what team?

I spent another six months thinking about this.


Well, not just about this. But it's not that easy when you only have a very sketchy idea of the rules, the clubs and...er...everything about the game. I considered supporting The Sydney Swans as they were in both the finals I watched, but supporting a Sydney team seemed wrong. Then I was going to support Collingwood because I liked their nickname - The Pies - before discovering this was actually an abbreviation of 'magpies'. Then I toyed with supporting a team...I forget who...because their colours were black and red.

What was a girl to do?

Then I decided to support Carlton, because a certain person supported them and it meant we could go to games together and that would mean we were Doing Stuff and not just sitting at home, smoking dope. So I went to my first game and saw Carlton win the final of The Nab Cup. Lordy! Aussie Rules was a crazy feckin' game. It was so unlike any sport I had seen before.

I was hooked.