Today I tracked down two Erma Bombeck books I'd not read before in a Newtown bookshop, and my squeals of delight were such that DF insisited on purchasing both for me.

I've read and enjoyed Bombeck before, but read her work with a special poignancy now I'm about to be married and start a family myself. It's a different era now. Ms Bombeck was born the year after my grandmothers, her children are the same age as my parents, so how come so much of what she writes hits home to this feminist in 2009? Bombeck has been attacked by feminists before. A supporter said "Did these women think, come the revolution, that husbands would stop watching football, or that socks would stop getting lost in the machine?"

It's Ms Bombeck's - Erma's (I want to call her that, she feels like a friend) - ability to poke fun at all this that points to why she is still relevant. It can be hard to laugh sometimes. Around our place, DF pays the bills and I run the place. "Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop-offs at tedium and counter-productivity." In our house it's mostly my treadmill. Not because I'm a woman and he's a man, but it's just the way things are.

Growing up, I'd hear of women despairing how little housework their husbands did and I thought "Not me, I'll marry a man who takes on things as an equal". But then...I left home very young, so I had years to get the empty-pizza-boxes and sink-full-of-cups urges out of my system before I realised I like a clean house. When DF came to join the Xander and Nico crew, he'd never really run a house before. He's a bit messy as well. Nothing too bad.

But his mind just doesn't work like that. The man is a health professional, with a degree and all, which is more than I have. He devises instant systems to solve any puzzle or game. He's a tremendous wit. But if I'm going out and he's following later, I have to remind him three or four times to lock the windows. It's dicey as to whether it gets done or not. He gets worried he won't do the laundry "right". It's not an excuse - he will do it, but asks me for a quick refresher on washing machine settings each time.

So yeah...it is easier, much of the time, to just do it myself. Should I complain? DF works full time so I can study what I love. He budgets, because I cannot face it. But sometimes it all gets a bit much, and I turn to St Erma for wisdom.

There's plenty to be found. Erma said it's okay to not be perfect. She said of motherhood: "I've always felt uncomfortable about the articles that eulogised me as a nurse, chauffer, cook, housekeeper, financier, counsellor, philosopher, mistress, teacher, and hostess. It seemed like I always read an article like this on the day when my kid was in the school play and I ironed only the leg of the pants that faced the audience, knitted all morning, napped all afternoon, bought a pizza for dinner and had a headache by 10:30." As I hang DF's shirts in the shower so the steam means I don't have to iron them, I laugh in recognition.

Yep, she was two generations removed and had some views I really don't agree with. So what? She also devoted herself to fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment. And none of it alters the warmth, love and humour of her writing. Please go enjoy some of her quotes. I'm off to cook dinner. DF can wash up - I'll talk him through it.

According to the "Things You Should Know By Now" column in today's Sunday Life magazine, "you'll never catch a husband" if, as a young lady, you cannot hem a skirt.

I asked my husband-to-be-in-two-months if he loved me any less because I can't hem a skirt. (I don't even iron). The answer was no, he couldn't possibly love me any less. Seriously though, the question was demeaning to both of us. Where the hell did this new conservatism and desire to return to traditional gender roles come from?

There's been a creepy anti-feminism backlash going on for a few years now. Lady Gaga shared this gem withv the world: "There's a stigma around feminism that's a little bit man-hating. And I don't promote hatred, ever". She doesn't want to be known as a feminist, you see. She's all about the empowerment, in this case by writhing around half naked, singing about taking a ride on a disco stick.

Seems today you can iron your man's shirt or you can pose for FHM but the one thing you can't do is claim your rights as an equal member of society, independent of male approval. It seems not to occur to Lady Gaga that she could in any way reclaim feminism. Feminism = bad. Where did it all go wrong? My guess is with the idea that women already have everything they need and the women still bleating about feminism just want to get rid of men all together. It's not true...everything in this post is as current today as when I wrote/copy and pasted it nearly six years ago. We still need feminism and we still need to say what that feminism really means.

Instead we have girls decking themselves out in Playboy merchandise, and brides still being given away by their fathers, completing the transfer of ownership from one man to another while decked out in faux-virginal finery. Feminism isn't about the middle ground here - it's about forging a new path entirely. But how do we get it back?

So, the Rudd government looks set to veto the ACT same sex civil union legislation passed in the ACT parliament yesterday because it is contravenes Australia's heterosexist Marriage Act. Still, not quite as bad as the Governor of Rhode Island, U.S., who has vetoed the right of gay couples to be buried together.

It's just what we've come to expect from the Rudd Government. Over the last year or so, I've had numerous people say to me "You must be really disappointed by how Rudd has gone in government". Not really. I've lost the innocence and optimism I had at 20 when I believed every word Michael Moore said. I no longer expect that politicians will try to change public opinion rather than respond to it. Especially not a media tart (let's not deny it) like Rudd - who's always keen to take the most populist, knee jerk position he can manage. No, Kevin, Bill Henson is a bit creepy, not absolutely revolting. And as has been pointed out, Moses and Oskar Schindler were people smugglers, those "scum of the Earth" as you labelled them. At first he wanted to look tough about the passengers on the Oceanic Viking, now that some people are voicing concerns, Rudd is offering them a resettlement deal. God help us if there's ever a jihadist terrorist attack in Australia - everyone who's ever eaten a felafel will be boiled alive if talkback radio callers like the idea.

~~~~~

Meanwhile, good to see the guy who attacked a parking ranger in Sydney has been refused bail. Let him not turn into a folk hero. Parking violations are crimes, not brave acts of sticking it to bureaucratic councils - witness all the idiots who park across driveways, or on the corner, or in a bus stop with their hazard lights on so they can go into the 7 Eleven for a bottle of coke (I saw this last week). Me I'd love to be a parking ranger - I love rules and hate cars. So why have I never done it? Fear of attack.

It's ridiculous. It's heartbreaking. It's a joke. After weeks of extremely careful, no-fat, 1000 calorie a day dieting and an hour's exercise five times a week, I had lost 2Kg. Over the weekend, I ate two hamburgers and a big plate of spaghetti and gained a kilo.

It's karma.

There's a photo of me when I was twenty five. You could hang fine art on my stomach. A strong breeze would have swept me to Victoria. I had no discernable bosoms to speak of. All this required no effort whatsoever; in fact, I didn't like it and tried to eat more to gain weight.

Okay, since then I've turned thirty, quit smoking and quit treating my body like a receptacle for hazardous chemicals. But how did I end up being nearly twice the woman I used to be, by weight? Oh, I love my food. But I always did, and it never turned on me like this before.

So what with getting married in a minute, I decided to lose some weight so I don't need to pay a surplus on my wedding dress for excess fabric. But it's not going so well. I already knew what's been proven - moderate levels of exercise do little for weight gain. I could walk for hours in comfort before I started dieting - apart from my thighs rubbing together of course - and I was still fat. It was going to take tougher measures. No bread, no fat, no red meat, no pasta, no chocolate, no lollies, no chips, no reason for living and no way you haven't gotten the point by now. The first few days are okay. You feel sort of good, even. Then you find yourself sending your dinner guests out on a post-meal walk so you can eat their pizza crusts in secret*.

None of it has worked. I'm starting to wonder what to do now. Meal replacements? They are expensive, but no more so than anything else these days (if you've ever wondered how you pay for a wedding, it's easy; just drain your bank account each fortnight on payday and walk down the street handing gobs of money to every person you pass. You'll never see anything for it, but the wedding feels the same way). I can't wait till I'm actually married, and I can let myself go, and also make the long awaited switch to "married hair" - the famous phenomenon where off come the long locks and wash and wear is the word of the day. Don't tell me about keeping the spice in my marriage. Lord knows there's little enough spice in my diet right now.

* I really did this.

Now that we've all made it to Friday, I think we deserve a trip to Centennial Park.