Not so permanent permafrost

Have you heard? About the permafrost melting? The UN has reported today that with the thawing of frozen soil in the arctic, we are all in deep, deep trouble. Environmentally speaking, that is.

Now I don’t know about you, but this just made me panic with a capital ‘P’. Apparently we’ll start to see the effects of significant global warming as early as 2100. What! 2100? This is worse than the time my grade 2 teacher explained that one day, billions of years from now, the sun is going to explode and then the human race is going to be wiped out. Forever.

I don’t want it to get any hotter than it already is. Tomorrow’s forecast has predicted 38 degrees. 38 degrees in November, in Melbourne is not usual. Or fun. Especially when there’s so much asphalt and bluestone around. I don’t want the sea levels to rise. I like the coastline just as it is, thank you very much. I don’t want our earth to choke in greenhouse gasses. I don’t want people to suffer.

I’ve gotta go and plant some trees now. Right now.

Rabbit sisters

Once upon a time there were two sisters. One was, let’s say, nine and the other was seven. One day they went to a festival where they went on big trampolines. Because they were strapped into harnesses they were able to jump higher than they’d ever jumped before. It was like they were flying. Now and again, the girls would jump and spin around, upside down, squealing and shrieking. They were so excited that it was hard to tell if they were having fun or if they were terrified.

After their turns on the trampolines were over, the two sisters ran quickly towards each other.

‘Oh my god, that was the best fun I have ever had in my life! I loved it so much!’ said the older sister, breathlessly.

The younger sister spat out her words, ‘That was awful, I hated it. I don’t even know why you liked it so much.’

Without hesitation, the nine year old told her sister, ‘The reason I loved it so much was that I was doing it with you, and I love doing things with you. I thought maybe we could go and do it together again?’

‘I’m never doing it again, you can do it yourself.’ The younger sister was adamant.

So the sisters walked off together, away from the trampolines. Soon enough they were distracted by a ride down the big slide, which the older sister found boring and a turn on the dodgem cars which the younger sister thought was too noisy and jarring. Neither sister could agree on an activity.

When they found the baby farm animals, they went into the enclosure and each sat and held a lovely quiet rabbit.

‘I love this.’ The seven year old was beaming.

‘I love this too,’ said her sister.

They giggled, together.

Hair

Ok, here’s the thing. I’m vain about my hair. Which wouldn’t seem obvious really because I only get my hair cut about two or three times a year. It not like I look in the mirror constantly. It’s just that I like to know that my haircut is OK, then I don’t think about it. I don’t check it, I just leave it be. That’s why when I find a hairdresser I trust, I stick with them.

I’ve always been this way. As a very young girl, I remember taking over my ponytail duties because my mum just didn’t quite get it right. As an eight year old, I curled my long straight hair for a special event and my aunt was surprised that I felt the need to do it. When I was ten, my mum took me to her avant-garde hairdresser who gave me a cool asymmetrical style which I grew to hate as soon as the girls at school said it looked like a mistake.

In my early teens, I had a perm and was so distraught at the frizzy result that I ran shrieking down the hallway at home. When washing it several times didn’t dull the unwanted curls, I had it cut as short as I could. In my late teens, I shunned haircuts, growing my hair as long as I could, dyeing it a glossy black and adding coloured streaks to the front, just to be different, like everyone else.

By the time I was at uni, I was sick of my hair vanity and one late night at a friend’s house, with great drama, I chopped my long ponytail clean off at the hair band. The result was a surprisingly slick concave bob. After this I cut my own hair for a while. You can get away with it at art school. Then came dreadlocks, then the dreadlocks were cut off into a pixie cut, then years of various short hair styles, long again then short again…

Phew, it feels good to admit my hair vanity. And I know there are more important things in life to worry about. I don’t know how everyone else feels, but I suspect that we all have our funny little ways with our hair. Whether our hair is long, short, spiky, smooth, coloured, natural, curly, frizzy or shaved, I guess it’s all about having hair that makes us feel like us.

Living on Paradise Street

Well, the house was on stilts. Small green frogs lived beside the steps leading up to the house and he would often pick them up and say a friendly hello as he came home. A freight train chugged by at regular intervals, shipping sugar cane with a rhythm you could dance to. When it rained, the hockey fields behind the house flooded making a shallow and slick silver lake. After hockey games, he would go and collect used bottles to refund, until one day he was able to buy himself a shiny new dinky toy car. His mum accidently drove the car too far under the house once, crashing into the stilts. It was very lucky that the house didn't fall and that she wasn't hurt. He also had his very own pile of dirt which he would stand on top of, viewing Paradise Street and feeling that he owned it all.