Oh bugger off…

So, I had someone tell me that I should slow down. Why? Because you’re getting older. Why? Because you need to look after yourself more. Why? Because that’s what people do when they get older. Who? What people? Useless people who were wusses in their youth and are likely to be wusses in their old age? People who believe once you pass 40 you’re dead? Think of it as aging gracefully. I’ve never been graceful. Okay, well think of it as your right to take it easy. Bollocks. I'm 49. I'm not dead.

The thing is, I’ve always done everything fast and furious. Is that likely to change? Er…no. As for rights? Do what you know is best for you based on your life experience and the innate knowledge and belief YOU have in yourself. That is your right. Age how YOU want to age and not some preconceived idea from some person who is full of bollocks. Live how YOU want. You want to get older and crotchety? Fine. You want to get older and fabulous like me? Excellent.
Aging. Get over it. It’s only numbers.     

Because...

“A friend is one to whom you can pour out the contents of your heart, chaff and grain alike. Knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”

Bastard...

I’ve been writing about a male character who isn’t really very nice. He has an agenda. He’s rough and ready and he has a history of treating women badly. He’s done bad, bad things in the pursuit of money. He’s beyond a bad boy. He’s someone you’d avoid because he’s too complicated and given the chance you would be hard pushed wanting to try and understand him let alone like him. He has no plans to redeem himself. Why should he? He’s a taker. He’s mean. He’s violent. He had a bad childhood but that's not an excuse. There’s nothing the slightest bit heroic about him. He is who he is and he doesn't give a crap if anyone doesn't like it. 

So, can this man fall in love? What woman would want him? Why would she want him? He has no plans to redeem himself. He’s a taker. He’s mean. He’s violent.  Yet, I really have to help him sort himself out.

Yeah... someone's bound to fall in love with the bastard. 

The man of mystery...

As I was swimming, I was watching this guy who always is in the same place every Sunday at the lagoon on the Cairns Esplanade. He never swims.  He is always bare-chested. He’s extremely muscular. He sits on his haunches and watches people. He rarely moves. He just sits and watches.

As I pass by, to do my swim, I always say hello. He is always silent. But I say it anyway. Maybe it’s perversity on my part. Maybe it’s human nature to acknowledge others.

Today, as I passed by splendid in my lycra togs, I said hello and I saw the faintest smile from him in response. I smiled back. I always wear men down eventually.   

Because I’m an Australian…

 …I can run for exercise and not in fear from war or religious persecution because I am a woman. I can say and do what I like, not expecting people to always agree with it but knowing the spirit of free speech and ‘have a go’ is what Australia was built on. I can dress as I choose, have the friends that I do and live how I want. I can roam the vast land of Australia knowing there is no better place on the planet. I have food, water, shelter and I work for what I have and I’m grateful I have the Aussie spirit that makes me understand hard work brings reward. I can appreciate, respect and even be fond of animals that will kill without thinking because they’re our animals and they’re unique. I don’t have to follow sport but when Australia’s playing I do because we’re the best because we try the hardest. And if we don’t win? That’s okay because we have so many other amazing things in ours lives and the other blokes probably needed the win to make their lives better. 

In a land where we’re so culturally diverse we all speak the same lingo and a mate is a mate and if you get into a fight you know exactly who will be standing at your side taking the blows with you. Give me a lamington, a stubbie, a barbie and beach. Give me the mountains, the creek and the crocodiles. Let me run along the Esplanade in the pouring rain. Let me drink coffee while scanning the sea. Let me speak plainly and succinctly yet knowing as I do so I have had my say and no one can take that from me because I’m an Australian. I have it all and I don’t forget that.   

Unless there’s a croc chasing me…

When I was 13, I was standing in a school gym being told by a Phys Ed Teacher (sports Nazi) that I had to climb the rope (from floor to ceiling) because it would be ‘good for me’ and ‘everyone else is doing it’. At 13, dressed in a skimpy sports skirt, I looked from the floor to the ceiling, and thought there is no way in hell even if I can by some wild stretch of the imagination even get to the top that I want to slide down and get rope burn or will that even be the remotest bit good for me in any way, shape or form. And that everyone else was doing it? If I followed that logic I would have been smoking, drinking and pregnant or at least have a sexually transmitted disease at 13. So, I declined her direction. This had her sending me in the direction of the school Principal, whom I got along with very well, as he had an affinity with army brats, and I sat chatting with him and his secretary until the Phys Ed class was over. Funnily enough, I never got directed to do anything of a rope-like nature after that. Could have a lot to do with the fact that my mother directed the teacher to politely bugger off.

Anyway, today, at boot camp I had to climb a rope net. I personally believe that unless you are in the defence forces or under 10 years of age or stoned or drunk or have a crocodile chasing you, you shouldn’t climb anything made of rope. It’s a personal philosophy I have. Added to that the Jones women are genetically disinclined to do anything with rope.

Ropes – tie people up or down or lasso a horse or join the Navy and do knots. Climb them? Is there a croc chasing me?  

Arse showing...

Weird thing. I spoke to someone in a position of power today and asked what his deal was and did he have a problem with me because he was pissing me off. Yes. Correct. It’s the old Jones Family go-for-the-jugular-move. Life is short. Don’t piss us around. We rarely stand by and say nothing. Anyway, so I asked the question and the answer came back that he was ‘unsure’ and often ‘needed to ask several times to reassure himself’ what he was doing was right. Huh. Fancy getting paid a shite-load of money and need to be reassured? Ever noticed how the plebs like you and me, getting paid the basic wage, need no reassurance? Is it because the higher you climb up the corporate ladder the more your arse hangs out and the more you have to fear? Or is it, as I suspect, that the real people like you and me have lives outside of work and if our arse shows then hell, you were damn lucky to see it.   

Tom Cruise versus a lamb roast...sorry Tom...

I saw this advert again today. It's from Aussie TV in the late 80's. It's also before Naomi Watts went to Hollywood. 

Funnily enough, I think even today Tom Cruise might just miss the odd date still when a lamb roast is on offer...

Simple...

I have this photo that my father gave me when I was last visiting. I’ve been looking at it a lot of late. Why? Because it’s family and it interests me. It’s late 1961 and my father was due to go to Vietnam shortly after and my mother is the dark haired lady in the middle of photo between to the two larger ladies – my maternal Grandmother Elsie (left) and my paternal Grandmother Alice right.  One of the reasons this photo appeals to me is Elsie and Alice are chalk and cheese. One is the quiet country mouse Elsie who always, as the family will tell you, waited for her prince to come and some would tell you she should have waited longer. And then there’s Alice. A rough diamond, drinker and brawler who raised 13 kids in the slums and wasn’t always a good woman. And my mother. So young and completely unaware what was headed her way but clearly happy. The rest are aunts I believe.

Look at these people. In 1961 they weren’t fancy dressers. They didn’t expect much and made do with what they had without complaining. They are plain simple folk. Look at us at now. Would we go back to a time that was so simple? No. Of course we wouldn’t because we’re spoiled. Yeah. You are. I am. We all are  in the western world.

And no, I look nothing like my mother or father which, as a child, had me happily believing I was adopted until my mother, always the realist told me to snap out of it. See? Simple folk. Simple realities.        

I wish...

“I wish they would only take me as I am.” Vincent Van Gogh

Kissing...

A kiss is just a kiss. Is it? Just a kiss? I was thinking about kissing today and how the best kisses are like chocolate. Sweet, smooth, sensual and you just can’t get enough. 

Now I want chocolate…hmmm…

Welcome..not...

So, I got home from work and I glanced over at the door mat outside the front door. It was still there. I bought it yesterday and it’s still there. Huh. If I had been living in Brisbane still, it wouldn’t be. I don’t know why but door mats are a big collector’s item in Brisbane but not in Cairns. This tells me that, as I always knew, Brisbane is only for people with no lives other than to steal door mats possibly to make them feel less like a door mat. And Cairns? “It’s the tropics man. We have way too much going on up here…and what mat?”

Life...throw the dice...

One of the few really good decisions I made in my life was to quit my job in Brisbane and hit the road to Cairns two and a bit years ago. I had no job in Cairns to go to, no home and I only knew a couple of people.

This morning, as I ran along the Cairns Esplanade, I stopped in my tracks and took a picture of the sunrise. No decision could have been any better.

Life – throw the dice. Take a risk. I bet it’ll be worth it.  

Neville Nerd...

So, I rang Neville Nerd – the head high poo-pah doo-dah manager type person who lurks in the big smoke of Sydney. Now, Neville is always too busy and important to speak to me over the phone or via email so when he answers he cuts me short due to his magnificence before I can say anything. This time I cut him off before he could indicate his god-like status to me.  I told Neville there was a problem in the making and explained what. He said ‘I see no problem.’ I said, okay, no worries then. He was quiet for a moment before asking what the problem was. I told him ending with ‘a bullet can be dodged or it can be slammed into someone’s arse.’  That wouldn’t be my arse because I’m just a lowly Office Manager. It would be his – which I would enjoy seeing.

So, Neville said ‘send an email to everyone.’ Now, Neville is particularly anal and needs to see all emails that go out ‘to everyone.’ I said I would write it and send it on to him to do his anal checking. He said ‘I’m too busy to read it.’ Okay, I said in that way that indicates I could write anything in that email while running with scissors. He decided then to dictate an email over the phone. ‘Send that off.’ I did.  Two minutes later he rang and said ‘Why did you send that? It could be misconstrued.’ I pointed out they were his words.   He was quiet and then said ‘do you think people will read it the wrong way?’ I said, I couldn’t say. I nearly said Fucking hell nitwit, it’s nearly knock off time. People could read it upside down while swallowing a knife and patting a croc and I wouldn’t care right now.

He then dicktated…er dictated another one and he said ‘what do you think of that?'I said I would send it. ‘But what to you think?' My response, if you’re happy with it then that’s all that’s required. There was a lot of silence then because I freaked him out, as I wanted to, due to non-committal I’m-just-a-dumb-woman stuff. I may be a nobody in the company but I’m an expert at playing with people’s minds especially in upper management.  Did it get sent? Yep. He ended the call with ‘I’m very busy please don’t ring again.’ Fair enough. I understand that. I had to stop writing at my desk to deal with a boring work problem. We all have crosses to bear.     

Dolores Diva-Knorktwipple Author…

Dolores Diva-Knorktwipple Author.  I just liked your author page. Please return the favor and like mine at www.facebook.com/ Dolores Diva-KnorktwippleAuthor.

I don’t get the need to have an author page let alone insist that friendship must be returned and like for like given because if one does it all must do it. Seriously? Is it high school or what?

Facebook is great. Friend me. Unfriend me. Whatever. But insist people must like you on a reciprocal basis? Yeah, that’s really friendly. Authors are the worst at it with a seemingly whomever has the most ‘likes’ wins attitude. 

To the Dolores Diva-Knorktwipple Authors out there – I promise I will never ask you to like me so don’t ask me. I prefer people I can talk to on Facebook as opposed to 'like' counters.  

Dunno...

So, I am in the middle of writing a story that is unlike any I have written before. Huh. Where did it come from? Dunno. Will it sell? Dunno. Does a story need to have rampant, dick spraining sex in it to make it sell? Dunno. Can really nasty-arsed heroes be allowed to redeem themselves? Dunno. Will someone at work – any of the jobs I’ve worked at – finally twig that I write mostly at work? Dunno. 

The one thing I do know is there are a lot of ‘dunno’ moments when you dabble in the writing lark. If you actually think you know stuff when you write then maybe you need to wonder why, as a writer, you’re not making more money. But what do I know? 

The moment...

I was talking to a friend over lunch and they asked, “Where do you belong?” Now both of us individually have a history of moving around quite a bit since we were kids and then as adults. I can’t name a physical place I belong. I think the best you can do is belong in the moment and take from it what you will until the next moment comes along. To me, belonging isn't physical. It’s a reality and a state of being. Life is always changing. It’s fluid, forceful and dynamic.  To name one place as where you belong seems short-sighted to me.  If you have to belong anywhere, belong to yourself. There is no waiting list to join that club.     

Adapt or die...

...ain't that just like life...

Too secret for you...

I got an email today at work –

From: Neville Nerd
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:29 PM
To: Amarinda Jones
Subject: Confidential


Hi Amarinda

About the thing that‘s about to happen. Please don’t tell anyone.


From: Amarinda Jones
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:31PM
To: Neville Nerd
Subject: FW: Confidential

What thing?


From: Neville Nerd
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:35 PM
To: Amarinda Jones
Subject: FW: Confidential

The spreadsheet.


From: Amarinda Jones
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:39 PM
To: Neville Nerd
Subject: FW: Confidential

I didn’t get it so it’s unlikely I could tell anyone.


From: Neville Nerd
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:42 PM
To: Amarinda Jones
Subject: FW: Confidential

Okay – just so you know not to say anything about it.


From: Amarinda Jones
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:47 PM
To: Neville Nerd
Subject: FW: Confidential

About it?


From: Neville Nerd
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:52 PM
To: Amarinda Jones
Subject: FW: Confidential

Yes.



From: Amarinda Jones
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:54 PM
To: Neville Nerd
Subject: FW: Confidential

So essentially I’m not to tell anyone about a spreadsheet I did not get because like me they're not supposed to know that I don't have it.

From: Neville Nerd
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 13:01 PM
To: Amarinda Jones
Subject: FW: Confidential

That would be appreciated.


From: Amarinda Jones
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 13:06 PM
To: Neville Nerd
Subject: FW: Confidential

But if someone asks about the thing I don’t know about who would I put them through to who would know about the thing? 



From: Neville Nerd
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 13:08 PM
To: Amarinda Jones
Subject: FW: Confidential

Take a message.

From: Amarinda Jones
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 13:09 PM
To: Neville Nerd
Subject: FW: Confidential

About the thing?



From: Neville Nerd
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 13:11 PM
To: Amarinda Jones
Subject: FW: Confidential

Yes.

From: Amarinda Jones
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 13:13 PM
To: Neville Nerd
Subject: FW: Confidential

And send it to who?

From: Neville Nerd
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 13:16 PM
To: Amarinda Jones
Subject: FW: Confidential

It's a need to know. Thank you for your assistance in this. 

Biff...

So, I always enjoy it at work, like today, when a male says to me ‘do you think you can do that by yourself or shall we get Biff to help you?’ The inference is that as a woman I am too dumb to be able to do something that a male – I’m conveniently calling him Biff – can do. My answer to this is ‘Oh, golly gee no. Let Biff do it.’ Could I have done what they asked of me? Yep. Absolutely. No problem at all. Why didn’t I? I didn’t want to waste my time doing some menial, boring task a ‘Biff’ can do. See? That’s female logic for you. Let the Biffs of the world do the tedious stuff. I’m going to get paid either way so it works better for me to do what suits me. I’m sure most sensible women would agree.   

I think that's fair...

So, I – again - sent off forms to the IRS – Internal Revenue Service – in the USA to prove to those dumb arsed, pillock heads that I am indeed an Aussie and foreign to their extremely foreign government of people who I would trust as far as I could throw them that I have no intention of paying tax that will go to loser welfare people in the US when we have our own losers in Australia who I can support. I say pay for your own losers based on nationality. I don’t want some 16 year old American baby making machine, with her 17 year old unemployed, not in school boyfriend and her two other snotty nosed kids by two separate fathers of differing ethnicity using my hard earned $$ to buy McDonalds, Red Bull, whatever the hell Kim Kardashian is now flogging and Justin Beiber records. I think that’s fair.

Oh, and IRS? You can come visit me in Cairns if you still don’t believe I’m foreign. I would just love to talk to you in person and share my thoughts.  

Fancy Nancy…

So, I received an email from someone telling me that she and her book club were reading Prince Vampire and discussing it each week. Huh. Fancy Nancy. It never occurred to me that readers would discuss any book I had written in a group. Why didn’t it? I don’t know. It could be because I generally write what I like, think and believe and if someone takes a punt on my work and spends a couple of bucks to buy it, then that’s good and appreciated. I’ve never thought about groups reading and discussing together the subtext of one of my stories. And while it was nice feedback, crap feedback is also okay to get. What you say? You want to hear bad stuff? Sure. I’m a big girl. I appreciate all different points of view and I don’t expect everyone to love or like what I write. I’d be a pretty damn shallow writer if I couldn’t take negative feedback.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/131719
https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-princevampire-600230-139.html

But - even more gobsmacking - one of the chooks laid an egg! Huzzah! 

Pee Wee...

So, I was bored shiteless at work once again today. I had done all my personal things and was contemplating doing some writing when I thought I’d scope out a few people I used to work with in Brisbane.  I googled some names and wasted time checking where people were today in their lives. When I typed in one name in particular and his smiling face came up and listed his job as less than the job he had when I was working for the company, I smiled. Why? Pee Wee, not his real name but one we bestowed upon him, had been a charmingly slimy rodent of a man who had no concept of what real people in call centres went through. Oh, the battles I had with him. Needless to say I wasn’t one of his favourite people – oh boo hoo – because I was neither charmed by him nor was I scared of him.

I did peer support in the call centre. I used to be a union delegate until I realized the Union was a bunch of wankers who did nothing but take your fees. To do something for yourself you have to be prepared to stand up for yourself and often alone. When you couldn’t you called in help. With peer support, I was called into meetings to support fellow call centre workers who were deemed to be in trouble. Never ever argue the toss with me. I will always win. I can argue with the devil and make him cry. Pee Wee learned that time and time again. Probably one of the best meetings I ever had with him was the day after he had slept with one the call centre staff and it ended real badly and she told everyone in the call centre, predominantly women, he had a very, very, very small penis. As we sat across from one another at the table, I said nothing about his penis. That was not my business, interest and neither is penis size a relevant issue ever. I just looked at him and smiled because all of that was to him. I won that day and not because his penis is reportedly small. I won because he never understood the people who he was supposed to manage and never ever sleep with a female co-worker and then not follow through. It’s doomed to failure. Okay, yeah, maybe the penis thing helped as he was off his game.   

The story ‘Because I Can’ is based on that moment in my life. Write what you know I say. If you haven’t lived it, don’t write it. http://www.excessica.com/books/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=475

As for Pee Wee, I hope he’s learned that the little people can roar like lions when cornered and they deserve to be treated with respect lest you get eaten or your penis size is called into question. It’s the size of your heart and how far you will go for justice that beats size, money and power.  

Nemesis…

  

I’ve been thinking about men and how many of them I know have a female nemesis. I started this train of thought while writing a new story. I thought about the men I know and the women who have or are driving them crazy. It’s not just through marriage or sex. It could be work or anything. Sometimes it’s to do with sexual chemistry and other times its pure hatred of each other – an acid like relationship that burns intensely. I have to admit I find these relationships interesting to watch as the combatants face each other pissed as hell and ready to react to the smallest slight. Why is there this intenseness in their relationship? Past mistakes? Past life experience? Weird, oh-god-I-don’t-ever-want-to-want-them-kill-me-before-I-ask-for-that attraction? Or are some people so negatively charged to another’s positivity that nothing but sparks and shocks can come out of it?

Am I a nemesis to some man? Lord, I hope so….

Your basic Houdini move…

So, it was suggested to us when we hit Green Island – 45 mins by catamaran from Cairns - to use a stinger suit. See picture. This covers your head to your toes. Why the suit? It’s stinger season in FNQ (Far North Queensland) and being in severe pain or dead isn’t a good look unless you’re a vampire – I say this as I’ve started reading the Anita Blake series on Vampires and I have a thing for Jean Claude at the moment…read the series – you’ll know what I mean…anyway back to not wanting to be dead….so I got the suit and put it on. It’s not flattering. It’s like wearing a big condom. Now, not having penis, I’ve not actually worn a condom but it looks to be as non comfortable as that. 

The thing was a stinger suit it’s an absolute bugger to get off from your shoulders. I kid you not. I could not get the damn thing off my shoulders. I have good set of girl shoulders on me. Peeling tight lycra off those?  Hard. Difficult. A total embuggerance. I unzipped down the front and for the life of me I could not get the same fabric off my shoulders. I pulled and wiggled and swore. No good. I swore some wore. I ripped at the fabric. I whirled around aimlessly in a circle swearing as I tried to pull it off my arms. I sweated a lot, red faced with my boobs sticking out from the unzipped front. Waaay too much information for onlookers. And then I remembered that Houdini movie with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh where he dislocated his shoulders to free himself from a straight jacket. I composed myself. I crossed my arms in front of me and thought as Houdini would. I took a deep breath and pulled at the lycra. Nothing. Fucking Houdini. What did he know? After a lot more swearing and weird body contortions that I am sure will turn up on an episode of that Neanderthal show ‘Funniest Home Videos', I pulled the stinger suit off and threw it across the beach. I swore then, in my best Scarlett O’Hara voice “As god is my witness, I will never wear a stinger suit again.”

So, I snorkelled without one. Did I get stung? Nope. What bloody stinger in its right mind is going to latch on to me? The picture below is of lovely driftwood on Green Island. I really wanted to take it home with me... 

Up and away....

For the next couple of days I am here on Green Island – http://www.greenislandresort.com.au/                                               

Some navel contemplating and communing with nature is required as I decide which course to take in 2013. New Year. New beginnings. Same woman. Same attitude. Some things never change.

Stupid Cow...

So, last night, New Years Eve, when I met up with some people I knew, there was this one woman who looked at what I was wearing with such, undisguised distaste that I came very close to verbally snotting her. Snotting = smacking her down. Anyway, she looked from my sparkly sandalled feet up to my bare legs and over the dress I was wearing with such obvious, undisguised distaste that I was quite repulsed by her. I find her difficult to deal with at the best of times but I do in deference to a friend. In essence, she’s a stupid cow. Not a bitch. She’s too obvious to be a bitch. There’s no subtly about her. So I shut up and said nothing as I didn’t want to upset the apple cart and cause problems for my friend. But oh, it was damn hard and letting her get away with this. Beyond hard especially when I’m pretty damn sure she does this to other woman.  

I have to wonder when women like this will realize that a look of unbridled disgust, such as she gave me, can be as wounding as a slap. If I was a less confident person I probably would have burst into tears and hidden. But I’m not and the likes of this woman is not worth my time.

I know of no woman who is so beautiful or perfect that she can draw attention to her obvious ignorance by trying to take down or demean another. This stupid cow? I’ve never really looked at her physically, her words, spirit and actions annoy me too much to focus on her outside appearance. 

I do know one thing, if she does it again, the kid gloves will come off and it will be on. And yeah, I plan to stay away from her for a while.  Friendship with another is too important to risk on a stupid cow.