Let's Talk About Sex, 7th Heaven.

Dear Camden Family,

This goes out to the entire family of 7th Heaven - the Reverand Camden, wife Annie, children Matt, Mary, Lucy, Simon and Ruthie and the twins, Sam and David who may not yet know what sex is, but are a product of sex and therefore, this is still relevant to you.

I've been watching your obnoxious family every day at 10 o'clock for the last few weeks. I can't help that the television show which follows the ins-and-outs of your dramatic lives plays every week day at the exact time I like to have my second cup of morning coffee. This is not my fault. It's either you or The View. And as I still harbor a bitter resentment towards Whoopie Goldberg for never making a sequel to Jumping Jack Flash, looks like I have no choice but to be a witness to your sorry lives.

For a christian family, you certainly have a lot of drama. Not that christian families should have any less drama than non-christian families. I mean, if they made the plight of Job into a blockbuster, I'm pretty sure Brad Pitt or George Clooney or Robbie Redford or whichever over-the-hill hottie they chose to play God's humble servant would put in the kind of Oscar-winning performance which made people reconsider the difficulties of being Godly in the face of grief. But you are not Job and Satan has not smited your family and covered you in boils to try and prove a point.

Instead, big-brother Matt is off marrying women on a whim, Mary is behaving like the bad seed, Lucy is a drama-queen, Simon has started an escort service and Ruthie is an A-grade gossip. I can't help but notice that your drama seems a little self-inflicted. Not to mention, the majority of you don't exactly exercise christian values on an hourly basis. For the most part, you're all pretty selfish and self-involved.

And you're all obssessed with relationships. But that's not exactly an uncharacteristic trait of christians, is it?

Except maybe for Mother Theresa, the one woman who's biological clock screamed, "Help the sick" instead of "Have a big white wedding and procreate".

I get it, Camden offspring. Believe me, I know what it's like. I get what you're trying to achieve here. All you want is to find a nice parter, put a ring on each other's fingers, get hitched and get God's gold star for 'waiting'.

To have sex.

To have sex sex sex.

Sex.

The word itself is not hard to say. It's one syllable. We all know what it means and what it involves. We've had the awkward health class conversations and most people have done the deed itself. So, I don't understand why you can't just say the word 'sex' instead of referring to it the way you do - with a knowing nod of the head or shrug of the shoulders or awkward, pointless exchange. For example, 

"Mary and whatever-his-name-is are going to... you know" (wide eyes, blank stare)

or

"When she said 'let's go upstairs' I thought she meant to brush our teeth (turn head slightly and look sheepish)

You're really putting one over us with that ambiguity. I feel positively hoodwinked.

I understand the standard audience who watch your family feud are not typically 24-year old unemployed creative writers with unhealthy coffee habits and a tendency to critique. They're more like PG13 sponges ready to soak up anything that will help them get through their pubescent lives with a bit of dignity. But do you honestly think not saying 'sex' outloud is going to help them achieve that? If anything, it's only further encouraging the sex stigma, a topic made all the more taboo by the awkward eyes you make at each other to get your point across.

What exactly are you encouraging by hiding behind a head nod? That sex is not something they should talk about? That the word shouldn't even be mentioned let alone the act discussed?

As a christian family with christian morals, there's no nookie-nookie for any offspring until your Facebook status officially says 'married'. However, that doesn't mean you have to treat the word like it's the forbidden fruit. Reverand Camden, I understand you're trying to teach your children good values and godliness. But even God says the word 'sex'. He probably sniggers afterwards because I like to think God has a sense of boyish humour about him. But he says it all the same.

So say the word, you prudie protestants or I'm going to start watching The View.

And I doubt Whoopie Goldberg's sex life is as gripping as yours.

In sexual sincerity,

KH.

Trash Talk

I am not an active environmentalist. I don't picket or rally. I don't float in the middle of the ocean protesting against whale slaughtering. I sit in the comfort of my own home and obtusely watch people who are braver than me get credited for acts of environmental initiative on the evening news.

But I do what I can to protect the dolphins and the birds and the lady beetles. I have short showers. I decline the option of plastic shopping bags when possible and I put my rubbish in the bin.

So imagine my surprise, while walking down Forveaux St this morning having just finished off a coffee from Bourke St Bakery, that I got reprimanded for putting my take-away cup in a resident's council wheelie bin.

Granted, I could have held on to the cup for another five minutes before I got up to my own apartment complex, but the bin was on the side of the street so I popped it in and kept walking.

Unbeknown to me, the home owner was standing with some friends right infront of it and didn't smile upon my own small act of environmental initiative. Instead, he yelled out after me, "Um, this isn't a council bin!"
Except that it was. Because it had a red lid. And while residing on someone's stoop is still the property of the council, not the home owner.

The company I was with turned around and politely yelled back, "Um, why don't you chill out?" while I continued walking, slightly bemused as to how I'd received a slap across the wrist for initiating a good deed.

It's not like I'd walked into his house and helped myself to his kitchen trash can. It was on the stoop of his terrace, seperated from the street by a waist-high iron fence. It was a matter of flipping open the red lid and putting the cup inside. Granted, people probably put their trash in his bin all the time. It probably bothers him no end. Everytime he goes to put his trash out, his bins are overflowing with Bourke St Bakery takeaway cups and he waves a fist at God, crying "Why?! Why, God?! Why!?"

But what if he hadn't caught me red-handed? Would he have even noticed my small addition to his weekly waste? My coffee cup would just be another piece of trash in a bin that's contents are going to the same place as my own rubbish bin. No matter who's bin the cup ended up in, mine or his, it was still destined for the same landfill. So does it really matter? Isn't the point that it was put in a bin in the first place?

If I wanted to be a dolphin-killing, lady-beetle blitzing, luting, polluting anti-environmentalist I would have dropped the cardboard cup on the side of the street and never thought of it again. But I grew up watching Captain Planet. I took the vow of the Planeteer long ago and therefore, put my rubbish in the bin just like Kwame, Wheeler, Linka, Gi and Ma-Ti told me too. Otherwise Captain Planet will disown me and Gaia will smite me with lightening.

Apparently, the power isn't yours. The power belongs to the analy-retentive resident on Forveaux St who dishes out a side of guilt with his trashbags and leftover takeaway containers.

Maybe this guy is Looten Plunder in disguise? Better get my Planeteer ring out of retirement...

KH.

(Past Your) Prime Real Estate

I haven't officially moved back to Sydney yet, but that doesn't stop me from planning what my perfect life is going to look like when I do.

And the perfect life requires the perfect apartment.

For awhile there, I had this delusional idea that I could live by myself in a studio. After watching too many episodes of Sex And The City and developing an unrealistic idea of the world, I thought I could be single and fabulous ala Carrie Bradshaw in a art-deco apartment in Darlinghurst. I could have a gigantuous walk-in closet, I could sit on the kitchen counter to eat take out and could walk around the apartment naked. It was all going to be so perfect.

But once again, I am faced with the sad realisation that Sex And The City is girl-porn but nothing like real life.

As I  was trawling through the online property listings, it started to become clear. If you're a struggling 20-something on a base salary on $40,000, you're only accommodation option is to live in a share house (or at home, but really? Really?) Even if you were to find a studio which was under $300 a week, add on top of that your utilities and an addiction to expensive cheese and you're looking at a large chunk of your weekly pay disappearing to living expenses.

Plus, I have picky requirements regarding studios. I don't like the idea of cooking curry in the same room as my bed. That smell travels. And clings.

And it's not that I have any issues living in a sharehouse. As long as you can stomach my sarcasm, unashamed addiction to trashy television and lazy habit of leaving used teabags in the sink, I'm everybody's dream roomie.

But when you've spent the last 15 months either living in a camp bunk with 14 teenagers, in a share-room with three other girls or a hostel room with God-knows who and what, personal space becomes a relished term.

Hence, the desire to flat with me, myself and I.

However, the Sydney real estate market is stubborn and unwilling. A clean, fairly fashionable studio apartment with a seperate bedroom/living space and a kitchen with a stove-top is in the range of $400 to $500 a week. Can a struggling 20-something on a base salary of $40,000 afford that?

Yes, if I never eat, shop or get my nails done ever again. And I walk every where. And I join a nudist colony on the weekends. That way I'll never need to buy clothes or a bikini. Or get a spray-tan.

This discovery made me realise that the only time I am ever going to be able to live by myself in an art-deco apartment in Darlinghurst is when I am making upwards of $60,000 a year. And for a creative-type, the only time I'm going to be making that kind of money is when I've been in the industry for a few decades and they have to pay me on experience. So, when I'm 40.

Which made me realise, the only time I can ever live by myself in my dream studio apartment in Darlinghust is when I am 40. And still single.

Gulp.

This seems somehow unfair (not to mention, terrifying) . Just because I am young and single, the real estate market is forcing me to slum it in a share house? And when (IF! I mean IF!) I am 40 and still single, only then I can have my own walk-in closet?

I guess this must be the perk of being 40 and unattached. One gets to sit on the kitchen counter, naked, eating take out in their swanky, art-deco apartment in Darlinghurst.

Well, if it's good enough for Carrie Bradshaw....

KH.

Over The Hills

A terrible thing happened this week.

The last episode of The Hills aired on Australian television.

I am in mourning.

In my post-travel, umemployed lifestyle, I had taken to watching The Hills on Go! every afternoon at 4:30 while running on the treadmill in my living room.

Not only did watching The Hills feel indulgently pathetic, but watching it while working out in the kind of sad saggy sweats one is too embarrassed to wear outside of the house, made it also comfortable.

 But mostly pathetic.

I found a sick enjoyment about working out while watching the superficial lifestyles of The Hills'  transpire in front of me. Plus, imagining myself with abs as flat as Audrina's always helped get me through those last asthma-inducing kilometres.

I have an unashamed, minor obsession with The Hills. I realise the show is completely fabricated. No one's hair is that blonde, no one's teeth are that white and no one has that much money to spend on spray tans as well as Hollywood rent. Most importantly however, no one's life is that affected by drama on a daily basis.

Except, maybe Lara Bingle.

Oh, but isn't this what is so satisfying about The Hills? The drama. The drama that has absolutely nothing to do with you, but you can be a non-involved by-stander passing opinion while all those trivial tall tales are spun like a silk web?

And doing all that while pounding it out on a treadmill in the early afternoon heat? Oh heaven.

But the more I watch, the more I start to feel like I am actually involved with these people, that they're actually my friends. I have lamented every failed relationship of LC's, wished Kristen wasn't doing such an injustice to the collective of our Given Name, yelled at the television screen everytime Audrina got sweet-talked by Justin Bobby and withheld my rage every time Spencer opened his insidious mouth.

Until I realise I know more about these 'characters' than I do my own friends. Then I think maybe The Hills reaching a sixth and final season is a good thing and a prime opportunity to ditch my saggy sweats and pound the pavement outside.

Maybe I'll run to JB Hi-Fi and buy The City of DVD?

KH.

You can grow the mo, but can you raise the dough?

November is coming up which is exciting because that means my birthday is a few weeks away and that means I get to be spoilt and claim the limelight for 24 hours (plus the birthday sub-clause of additional birthday limelight three days prior and three days after actual birthday, which is general birthday celebration etiquette.)

And with November comes other things - the last month of Spring, the Melbourne Cup and Movember.

Ah, Movember. An annual tradition that must be endured for the good cause that is furthering research for prostate cancer.

I have a small issue with Movember, although nothing to do with the actual meaning behind it. It's not that even that I dislike facial hair. I appreciate a good after-5 shadow, a handlebar moustache makes my loins tingle and there's something about a man with a full wirey beard that makes me feel naughty. I swear, it has something to do with Ned Kelly, who in my bushranger dreams is a bad boy and therefore, a debaucherous lover.

Anyhoo...

My issue with Movember is men sporting beards, whether they be side burns, Mexican mo's or a Chopper Reid-styled 'stash simply for the sake of Movember. Not because they are registered with the Movember organisation and actively raising funds for prostate cancer research.

It's walking the walk, but not talking the talk. Growing the mo, but not raising the dough. I understand and appreciate the activity of creating awareness, but it bothers me when people say they're 'doing Movember' and all that involves is not shaving their lip hair for a few weeks.

I want to see true dedication. I want your donation tin rattled under my nose. I want to invest in your facial fuzz and feel like I too, am supporting something important. Because when you're officially doing it for the cause, other people get to enjoy your mo too, not just you.

So gents (and ladies, I guess. I mean, you never know what kind of imbalanced hormones some people have. I don't want to exclude those with their fair share of testosterone), please go and register! Do it for your mo. It'll help it grow. And you can be a bearded beauty knowing that your 'stash is raising some cash. 

KH.

Guess who's back, back again...

After a 16 month hiatus from The KH Chronicles, I bet you thought I would never come back.

I bet some of you even hoped that I wouldn't. Shame on you.

But here I am again, back in the editor's seat of the most opinionated publication in cyberspace.

Returning from my 15 month jaunt in the USA and Canada, I can confidently say I am not the same girl who sat in front of this blog little over a year ago.

Okay, so I might have the same face, the same caffeine addiction and the same lack of social etiquette, but the rest of me is different. Kind of like a sweat-stained dress you put in for dry-cleaning that comes back looking all sparkly and new again. I feel all sparkly and new.

I won't bore you with slides and stories that begin with, "Oh, that's just like that time I was in New York City..." or (cue abnoxious laugh) "You remind me so much of this great friend I met snowboarding the Canadian alps..." because I was once a non-traveller too and I know how that talk is like an ice-pick to the brain.

Plus, you should have read Where In The World is KH anyway and need nothing explained to you.

As you can see, The KH Chronicles has had a bit of a makeover. I thought it was about time the header had a facelift. If The Daily Telegraph can re-design so can I, but don't fret. I'm not going tabloid just yet.

The KH Chronicles is still going to have your daily dose of wit and satire. I'm just making the place look a little more stream-lined. Plus, the Blogspot designer is so fancy these days I feel like a female Steve Jobs.

... too soon?

If I can draw your attention to the right-hand side of the screen, we have some newly published pages about Yours Truly. This may be of particular interest to those readers who have been re-directed here courtesy of a recent job application that may have landed in your inbox. There's a couple of You Tube clips in there too, if you're tired of reading.

But if you're tired of reading... what are you doing here? This is a blog.

Have a look around. Get a little reacquainted. Feel free to hire me if you like what you see.



KH.

Dear KH Chroniclers,

It is my great pleasure to annouce that after months of drama, pitches, planning and unemployment, I am finally departing on my whirlwind adventure overseas.

I would like to thank you all for your support, comments and encouragement over the last 10 months The KH Chronicles has been in operation. This makes for my 100th post and seems a fitting way to end what has been a life-changing 'way to waste time'.

While The KH Chronicles may be going on standby while I am away, I am proud to offer you an alternative fix...

Where In The World Is KH? will be chronicling every hostel, happy camper and horror story as I make my way from Summer Camp to snow-capped mountains. I'm making no promises that it will be every day (we all know the internet is entirely to unreliable for such a declaration) but regular(ish) posts are a promise.

Cheers once again, and for the last time...

Ciao for now. xo

Real

Tomorrow, I am flying to New York City.


I have been telling myself this all day, trying to make it sink in. But it still feels surreal, a fantasy, like at any moment I am going to be wrenched awake and faced with the sad reality of my boring life.

But this is real.

The backpack sitting on my bed, stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey and the zippers straining to prove it, is real. My crisp passport with all but one international stamp, lying snug inside my travel wallet, is real. The ticket waiting for me at Brisbane International Airport, is real. My seat on the plane to New York City, is real. All. Oh. So. Real.

I still feel a little lost – like I should be feeling more. Like I should be scared shitless or so excited I can’t sleep. But despite the ‘real’ I am faced with as I pack up my life and kiss everyone goodbye, I still feel strangely empty inside. There are no overwhelming nerves tempting me to chew off all my nails. No buzz of excitement pulsing through my veins. Tonight- my last night in Australia, my last night with my family, my last night eating a home-cooked meal and sleeping in my warm little bed – feels like any other ordinary night.

It’s as if I am somehow at peace with all the excitement and the nerves. I have spent 10 long months coming to grips with the fact that I am going that in my own head, I think I am already gone. I think I left a long time ago, the moment I first saw the website for Appel Farm Summer Camp.

But I can’t deny that the excitement still gets to me. It creeps up on me every now and again and gives me a nudge, a reminder that even though I might feel calm, this is still the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. This is still the bravest, the biggest, the ballsiest leap of faith I’ve ever made. You can’t fool yourself out of that kind of excitement.

Tomorrow, I am flying to New York City. Tomorrow I am gone.

Ciao for now. xo

It's About Time

Tick tock - here that? The countdown is officially on. Not only have we entered the home stretch, we are approaching the finish line with surprising speed.

I can't believe that six months ago I didn't think the clock could tick any slower. Now it feels like the minute hand is spinning around at warp speed. And the realisation is most profound - not only have the last two weeks of my time in Queensland sped past like a V8, but the last six months, not to mention the last five years.

That's right. I've been out of highschool for five years. Where exactly did that time go?

Oh that's right... into a HECS bill.

Time has always been an enemy of mine. Every corner of my life is ruled by time. Deadlines. From my profession right down to boiling the kettle to make a cup of tea. Everything is a matter of how long it will take to do something, how long I have to complete a task, how long I have to wait. I am a walking expiry date, terrified of going mouldy.

It's always been this way. When I was in Year 12, I knew the end of the year held this monstrous rite-of-passage where I would finally move out of Gympie and to the big smoke in Brisbane. Nothing and no one was going to prevent me from doing so. I didn't want any excuse to stay in Gympie. So in those final months I stayed well away from boys and any ties they might bring.

It was the same when I moved to Sydney. Once I made that decision, I didn't want to have to leave anyone behind. Finding myself a boyfriend so close to moving away would only further complicate my ambition, so I denied myself and moved into my new digs in New South Wales as a single gal.

And literally like clockwork, I'm now back in the same place. Leaving again and not wanting any further reason to make it hard on myself. The deadline of going away is difficult enough without the addition of a broken heart.

So I'm a walking expiry date. Always have been. And maybe that means I haven't had as much (well, let's be honest Mr. Abbott) any experience when it comes to working in the romance department. Maybe that means I am an emotional cripple, a commitment-phobe, and the poor boy who eventually decides to love me is going to have an interesting time dealing with my fear of settling down, but whatever. At least I am not mouldy. My plan had cause. I am free to do whatever I like, with who ever I like, where ever I like without anyone or any boy to tell me otherwise.

But the plan isn't flawless. I may not have a boy to leave behind, but there's always someone. Or somebodies. And being back in Brisbane for these last few days has reminded me of that. It may be easier not growing mouldy and always being the one who leaves, but you can never escape the sting of leaving somebody behind.

I guess I thought I didn't have that much to lose by going overseas. Brisbane seemed like an eternity ago, I had a small circle of friends in Sydney and had spent the last year busting my butt in job which was a daily struggle for survival. All the stars seemed aligned for ditching it all to go overseas. But being back in Brisvegas with my friends has totally thrown me. I am reminded of everyone I love and who loves me and who have continued loving me despite all my galivanting around. And who will love me when I leave. And who will love me when I get back. And who will love me when I eventually leave again. Friends like that are hard to find and mine must be awfully forgiving, for all the whiplash I put them through.

So this post is dedicated to those people - Brisbane and Sydney alike - friends who have welcomed me into their lives even though I so frequently leave. Friends who keep up with me as I run ahead of my deadlines and who I know will never, ever let me grow mouldy.

Ciao for now. xo

The Sound of Silence

After 15 hours of driving, three too many cups of McDonald’s coffee and one horrifying experience with a pit toilet just outside of Grafton, my mother, my self and all my stuff finally made it safely home. I have officially left Sydney. And in 17 days, I officially leave the country.
Despite all the hoopla that led up to my going overseas, leaving Sydney feels like the first step of many. For the last six months, I’ve felt like a sitting duck. I’ve been counting down the days till I leave like an excited child counts down to Christmas. This trip has been the bright, shining beacon of hope that has guided me through life’s putrid swamp. And now, it’s a mere 17 days away.
It’s strange being home. For the last 18 months, I’ve been living in a city which literally never sleeps. I can’t remember a night which hasn’t been interrupted with the screams of a siren speeding down ANZAC Parade or the grumbles of the gutter cleaners as they sweep the leaves and litter and cigarette butts out of Sydney’s streets. At first, those sounds kept me awake for hours. Now, my nights are empty without them.

My parents’ place may as well be in a different world, let alone a different state. Garbage trucks and the loud whir of air-conditioning fans have been replaced by bird calls and the stop-start sound of a postman’s motorbike. You can actually hear the wind.
And nighttime is worse. There is nothing but silence. A silence so deafening, it keeps me awake. There are no gutter cleaners or wailing sirens or the faint conversation of the tenants who live upstairs. Just silence – thick, empty silence.

Lying awake last night listening for the sound of anything – cars, dogs, an axe-wielding murderer coming to slice me in my insomnia – I realized this was what I had been craving for the last six months, to be free of all the loud, stressful sound in my life. The sound of every minute ticking by in which I wasn’t making money, the sound of people telling me ‘No’ or worse, the empty sound of people telling me nothing at all. The sound of my computer loading my email account and the sound of the sigh which escaped me when I saw the inbox was still empty.
Finally, after months and months of sound, there is nothing but silence.
As I lay in bed, I realised my moving out of Sydney and my making the first step towards my trip, means I no longer have to be defined by those sounds. Instead, they have been replaced with silence. A silence which means I have nothing and no one to answer to, no responsibilities, no stress to be preoccupied over. A silence which can only be filled with one thing – my thoughts.
And they are unwaveringly, unabashedly, 100 percent obsessed with what will happen in 17 days.

Ciao for now. xo