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So that was Christmas.

Bows are unwrapped. Turkey’s unstuffed. Now what? 

Well, for me I gotta reflect on the last 24 hours because it’s so easy to get caught up in this season’s lust for perfection and high expectations. It’s also my antidote to the cloying desperation for making everything just-so this time of year. 

Was the grazing platter big enough? Did we take 1,000 photos flaunting the endless lunchtime spreads? How many grins did we share online to prove how loved up, happy or gifted we are at grilling that octopus? 

And was the most important mouth – the social feed – fed? 

Competing with performative Christmases is a fool’s errand. Where are the bickering in-laws and simmering grudges? Give me more cured ham than curated happy snaps, please.

My little family and I had a fantastically imperfect day yesterday. A booking mix-up had us enjoying a buffet in a venue that time forgot complete with patrons in festive fashion that ranged from loose activewear to jumpers that read: Ho, Ho, Holy Sh** I Need A Beer.

But we laughed until we cried when our conversations were drowned out by distorted Christmas music blaring from dusty speakers. And watched in wonder as my 95-year-old mother scored a kiss from the Greek club manager – she’d only just met. 

Just like Santa’s huge appetite for stale cookies and curdled milk, there is no such thing as perfection, but ‘pockets of perfect’? ‘Tis the season for sleighfuls of those.  

Merry Everything to you, friend. 

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

The festive stuff…

…is out in force this week. Bells, baubles, tinsel and… stress.

This week my beloved sunburnt country reels from a shredding of innocence we sometimes take for granted in our ‘…land of sweeping plains’. I mourn the souls – young and old – but choose not to give any more oxygen to intolerance and terror, here.

Instead, I want to continue embracing whatever semblance of innocence I can find. And if life’s slings and arrows mean ‘a simpler time’, pure and unsullied is harder to come by, then I’ll seek it out in the most obscure places. 

The other night I sat alone in my living room watching Wham’s Last Christmas video – with the volume turned up to, ‘soothe-my-soul-please-80s-scenes’. Not that cute people frolicking in the snow is a salve for sadness – but, for four minutes and 27 seconds, the innocence of that time, 40 years ago, was mine.

I look through countless old photos and linger on the younger faces, scenes and celebrations moments frozen in time. It’s hard not to wish for the joy that’s past. But I guess staying stuck in what once was means missing the beauty of ‘new’.

I’ve often heard that the magic of Christmas is only reserved for children and their belief in flying reindeers and fat dudes who fit in skinny chimneys. But us bigger kids deserve some of that fairy dust too.

So, dear friends … I wish you all the miracles of the season the biggest one being love.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

‘Tis the season…

…to deck the halls and ban under-16s from social media. 

Yep. I’m doing a full-bodied leap onto the bandwagon that is a world-first for Australia’s meme-hungry teens.

Unless you’ve been living in a candle-lit cave furnished with plush velvet wingbacks and a library of first editions (lucky you), perhaps you missed the news that, as of December 10, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok et al are now in charge of keeping your young’uns off their apps – in Terra Australis, at least.

Anything that slows the rapid demise of growing brains is alright by me. And sure, the government’s very well-intentioned ban will have positive outcomes. But the whole affair stinks of nanny state and, something even more on the nose…

It appears that, in 2025, society has decreed that parents should outsource the tricky, sticky business of saying no and setting boundaries for their scroll-happy offspring.

Tech bros and politicians should do the grunt work of teen rearing instead.

Apparently, parents are far too busy navigating the cost of living and mourning the loss of that famous village it takes to raise children to worry about um, raising their children.

…because while polls showed 67% of Aussies supported the social media ban this week, one in three parents confessed they’re ‘likely’ to help their children circumvent it.

So, please. Let’s cut the tech titans some slack.

When it comes to the number of dumb parents enabling screen-drunk teens, it’s truly an embarrassment of riches for Zuck and his bros.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

Maybe it’s an age thing...

…or the fact that my copywriter brain has spent millions of hours crafting different combos of ways to describe stuff over the years but – when you’ve written the same-ish sentences for decades you can get what I call, scribe fatigue.

Add the oily word salad of AI mediocrity to the world’s writing and I wanna eat my lashes just to try something new, ease the apathy perhaps.

Where are the dangerous words? The reckless descriptions of lust, political discourse, a roiling, angry ocean even on a polite summer’s day?

I wanna read and write words that arrest the norm, ya know? Collect powder-keg-laced verbs that detonate the droll and crucify cliches. See what I’m doing here? It’s not perfect. Probably even a little try hard too. No problem.

I’ll wear the criticism like a vintage McQueen and strut my stuff down that catwalk. Because in my own wordy way I’m fu**ing with the bots who make it their business to rot your neural pathways and mine.

Hand on my heart, all rhythm and some blues, this Phylosophy has been written in the spirit of scribe-y abandon. To write on the edge of what’s expected, to view expression like teetering on a tightrope, way, way up high, screw the altitude, look down, get scared. Embarrassed. Coy about my questionable turns of phrase.

Dance like no one’s watching. Write like no one’s judging.

Switch on the grey that matters and pluck something surprising outta your arsenal. Yes.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

Every week I host Love Soul –

…a radio show I launched four years ago.

The show is an enormous labour of love that I share with the world’s greatest producer, Ohio born and bred, Joe Johnson.

Our playlist? A cornucopia of vintage grooves from soul titans including Luther, Prince, Stevie, Chaka, Maxwell, Earth, Wind and Fire.

It’s not that the new stuff doesn’t thrill. There’s just not much of it. But then I heard, Won’t You Decide – a full-fat funk track by Melbourne band, Mondo Freaks. So, I surrendered to the algorithm and up came, JusteFunk, all honey-soaked vocals, rhythm and blues. Who was this slice of soulful perfection?! 

Hm. All credits belonged to someone, or thing, called ia –  ‘discovered’ in a hot hardrive somewhere stuffed with (increasingly stale) chips. 

And the online chatter fires up, 

“If you like it, what’s the difference?”
“This is the future. Music has been revived.”

And this abomination… 

“It’s just as creative as practicing the guitar for thousands of hours and you get results a lot faster.”

Remember Milli Vanilli? This dreadlocked pop duo dominated in the late 80s with their moves, tunes and bike shorts. But when their fake vocals were revealed, out came the pitchforks.

But I guess gorging on bogus artists in 2025 is cool. 

Well, I’d listen to lip synching humans in spandex over derivative, lazy, pre-programmed slop masquerading as soul – any day. 

In the wise words of one Prince Rogers Nelson, “I like my funk concentrated”… not computer generated. 

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

Driving to an appointment the other day…

…and I flicked on the radio to a station where a couple of *Strine-flavoured moron hosts were espousing the benefits, nay, the joys of hate-watching TV shows. He was love-hating the live Big Brother stream. She was lapping up some Hollywood bile called, All’s Fair – a divorce drama that the Guardian has described as… fascinatingly, existentially terrible – without a hint of irony.

It is now de rigueur to consume trash TV so you can rubbish it in a bitch session with your pals. Misery loves company, really?

The idea that you would happily incinerate hours watching crap so you can connect with your fellow humans and feel united in your loathing, baffles me no end. 

At the risk of getting all Pollyanna on your ass with Kumbaya playing softly in the background, why is it more exciting to bond with folks over ‘ugly’?

And no, seeking out anyone who might join me to seethe over the energy and water guzzling art cannibal that is AI… we meet to ‘double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble’ and set effigies of hard drives alight deep into the night… is not the same thing.

I wanna love-watch. I wanna love-listen. I wanna connect with people who celebrate shows, music, anything that makes you feel good, not dirty and desperate for a shower when the credits roll.

* Strine is the English spoken, or somewhat decimated, by Australians, with very thick accents.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

Been thinking about the scenes that…

…make up our lives, some more memorable than others. Most mundane, maybe tear-stained, stuffed with love, serendipity, joy. 

When there’s no topic (or person) I wanna set alight with words, I love describing my life’s scenes with an almost savant-like scrutiny. 

My 16-year-old flirts with the first bars of Human Nature on new keys and catapults me back to my teens too. Complex hip hop rhymes thrill from my firstborn, the DNA strong! 

I meet a student from Mongolia who sells me her red tux blazer. ‘I got too fat for it,’ she smiles and pockets my $50 bill. 

Sipping a ‘sacred’ latte with my mentor, her words feel like a classy collision of logic and divinity.

Shameless clickbait about a comedy icon pal I adore, prompts me to call her. 

I drop five bucks on an ice block, a shard of lime shocks me, mid-suck. Organic to its core. Clearly. 

I’m buoyed by Helen Garner winning the UK’s top nonfiction prize for How to End a Story, her 800-page diary collection.

She warned loved ones if they were in it but, “…other people I didn’t consult…I thought they had it coming.” LOVE.​ Details like, “…careful about wiping his lips while eating.” pepper the entries. I find such minutiae endlessly fascinating. Maybe because our idiosyncrasies, when wrenched into print, make us less opaque? 

Or more human. And that’s enough – just like the most mundane scenes from your life – when you are present for them.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

Not to be confused with a playa…

…although if that’s also you then, do you, and others. 

The quote I’m paraphrasing is by that rock star bard, Shakespeare.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” As You Like It. 

Will’s works were also the birthplace for countless terms we use every day. From blushing to dwindle, obscene to elbow and even moonbeam, zany and yelping, Shakespeare coined some legendary terms but I doubt he could’ve predicted the arguable misuse of his stage n’ player line (which refers to the ageing process).

And how does this medieval scribe relate to modern day madness? Well. 

As a mother of phone-toting teens, I oscillate between measured rage or quiet encouragement to get the f**k off your phone. I advise. Cajole. Occasionally wag a finger at the thumb-numbing pointless nature of it all. And sure, sometimes it feels like I’m pushing poo up Everest with a toothpick.

So, when I spot some stats on the stupidity of mindless scrolling, I rush to spit the facts for my offspring. And they love neither the spitting nor the facts, bro. 

Still, persistence is my superpower.

I showed my youngest a video from a recent festivity called, Delete Day where Gen Z types were deleting their social apps with glee. But my teen was unmoved, choosing to ‘yeah, whatever’ the demonstration.

Why?! 

“…because they’ll download the apps again in a week.”

“So, it’s just performative?”  

My son nodded, slipped on his headphones and left me to fume over the blurred line between authenticity and putting on a show about everything from ghosting the Gram, to leaking your new love all over my feed. 

Is it all for the social preen?

Lights! Camera! Look how plastic-conscious, trans-respectful, tree-hugging, feminist-forward, vegan-loving, politically-wise, paper-straw-striving, pro-left-right-mid, eco-aware I am!

It feels like some of us live on an invisible red carpet. Posing. Expectant. On.

But what if we stepped off the stage and made living – and winning – in the wings, away from algorithms, the real flex?  

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

I was heading to work in the rain…

…feeling deflated by life’s routine.

Arriving at my stop, thoughts buzzing around my head taking up too much promise, I took a few steps and then…

A star crossed my path.

Well, it was really a bright red, star-shaped balloon that had tumbled to earth because of… the rain? The wind?

Once upon a time it was buoyant. But the clouds set in and it fell from grace. Hit the ground. And now commuters rushed by, ignoring the stellar miracle in their midst. I could’ve followed suit. But when the world’s chaos threatens to squeeze every ounce of joy out of life, the dreamers, the balloon catchers, must dream, must catch, harder.

And so, I did.

While umbrella-toting folks pushed past me on their way to nowhere, I scooped up the balloon and took it to work with me. I imagined Stellar would spend the day on my desk, drying off. But when I wiped the raindrops and grit from her shiny face, she started to float up. Free. No longer weighed down by the rain or grime.

Stellar spent the day high (and dry) and tethered to a green ribbon stuck to my desk. She travelled home with me on another crowded tram. And for the last couple of days she’s bobbed about in my bedroom – a quiet, bright reminder that on a gloomy Wednesday in October, life’s random magic showed up for me in the shape of a shiny star.   

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

Did your toes curl in ecstasy…

…at the inaugural pucker up or – like me – was the spittle shared a gross anti-climax?

This week my youngest boy hit the Big 1-6. It’s the age that resuscitates the saccharine expression – Sweet 16 and Never Been Kissed. Talk about adding insult to awkward. 

Traditionally – and yes, I looked it up – the phrase is a mash-up of childhood innocence and the coming of age. But for me it felt like an open invitation for a mocking.

So, have you been kissed? Have you? HAVE YOU?

I kept all flapping lips at bay until the tender age of 20. Who, me a late bloomer? I invented the movement.

We were on a family summer holiday at some cheesy resort on the Gold Coast. Our balcony overlooked a skinny strip of pool and every morning I’d watch a rather hirsute young man with a phenomenal physique do laps – up and down, up and down. Perfect, strong, smooth strokes. His freestyle was effortless, mesmerising and an unexpected turn on for the restless ingenue in me.

Turns out he was also on vacation with his family. Also, Greek, also 20. And somehow, I decided that giving this hairy Adonis my number was a prudent idea.

One week later I squirmed in the front seat of his car while he went on an archaeological dig of my mouth with an abundance of tongue and crooked teeth.

Yes. Dude kissed like he swam – fishy. But.

Plenty more in the sea… 

© Phyllis Foundis 2025