Got the tits for it?

Okay, so I’m looking for a new job. Nothing new in that. I jump job from job to job because essentially I am one of those people who always wants better and more and I’m not into stagnating in crap jobs because life is too damn short and I’m not scared to take a chance. Anyway, I was at work looking at jobs online, no, I don’t feel bad about that. If you give me access to a computer then you bring that upon yourself. This simple job advert interested me –

Bikini Topless. No experience necessary. Good $$$. Backpackers welcome.

So I was thinking to myself what would they do if someone like me turned up and said I wanted the job? Would they hire anyone over 25? Would they be looking for a particular body type? Can you be too fat or thin? Big boobs preferred or a fried eggs okay? Do men want to just see nubile young things with perky breasts? Are men aware that breasts only stay perky for so long? And if they wanted job experience what sort of experience what you have to have? Give me a drink and I’ll flash you experience or do you have it on a resume or a series of photos you hand them? And if you really wanted the topless gig and didn’t get it, could you have them up for discrimination? Would anyone do that?

I wanted the job but they said I was too droopy and that the nipple rash on knees was a turn off.

Right. We’ll have to investigate. Any witnesses?

Only one guy with a black eye.

A black eye?

Yes, I swung around too fast and one of my boobs took him out.

Hmmm…. 

I'm still standing...

Yes, I am still writing. No, I’m not rushing to get anything out there. I’m writing an ongoing series that requires re-checking the last story with the current and making sure story number five ties up elements in the other four stories. It is romantic but it’s not a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am story. There’s nothing wrong with those stories. They’re just not where I’m where mind is focused at the moment and I don’t feel inclined to followed trends. Is it about growing as a writer? Nah, I don’t believe in all that existential, fluffy bullshit reasoning used to explain why you're wasting time contemplating your navel. It’s simply about doing something different. Will it sell? Who knows? As someone who dabbles in writing, I believe you have to be realistic and accept things sell or they don’t and you write as your conscience dictates without worrying about anything else. That’s how I started this gig all those years ago and that’s how I’ll finish it…whenever that may be. Writing. It can be something you do. Life is something you live. Don't confuse the two.

'Not about to pi-R-square it now...

Last night, while watching TV, I wondered if I could still do the splits. I haven’t done them in years. So I tried and I still could. Amazing, Grace. No, correct, it’s not a great or even marketable skill to have unless you’re a gymnast or possibly a working girl catering to particular fetishes. But the thing is I still could do them at 49. I’m 49. I don’t feel it. I’m not sure what 49 is supposed to feel like but I still feel like I do when I was 13 and doing the splits except now I’m smarter, blonder of hair, no acne and living in Cairns and pretty much doing what I like surrounded by chooks, budgies and errant, visiting bandicoots called Neil.

Age - why do you think people get all emotional and twisted up over a number? My personal opinion is that some people are limited in their thinking. They are people I call A to C types. They run the gamut of emotions and experience between the letters of A to C and they don’t stray any further down the alphabetic chain of life because that’s not who they are. Then there’s there are the types of people who have always been dazzlingly beautiful, smart, rich, desirable, yet not able to do the splits despite their heavenly perfection, who fall apart when the first signs of age kick in and from there they age rapidly because they've never been prepared to be less than the beauty they were. Then there’s us – you and me – the ring-ins, the mismatched, the clumsy and the confusing. We’re the ones that people have always wondered about, looked at and shaken their heads over as we did the splits simply because we could. We don’t age like everyone else because we simply don’t have to. As for numbers like 49? Hell, we sucked at math at school so we’re hardly going to worry about numerical values now because life isn't about pi-R-squaring it is it? It’s about being able to do stuff like the splits at 49.   

Note to self...

I was doing my usual Sunday morning run along the Cairns Esplanade, nodding and hello-ing the usual people and I passed this woman. I always make a point of saying hello to her. She never says hello back. She looks straight ahead like she is totally focused on something. She’s painfully, to my mind unhealthily, stick thin. I’m guessing she’s anorexic. I don’t know. As she runs past, she worries me. A lot. When I see her, I think about how we do a lot of crazy, questionable and hurtful stuff to ourselves in the supposed name of beauty and wanting to fit in and how our mind is our best weapon but also our worst enemy. How do you control that? Fix it? Is self belief enough? Do you stop reading about who and what is perceived as supposedly beautiful so you don’t measure yourself by that?  Too fat? Too thin? Seriously, when you think about it, who made up the rules that have been driving women crazily obsessing for centuries?  When will we allow ourselves to make our own rules and stick by them?

As for the woman? I’ll still keep saying hello to her. Maybe one day she’ll say it back. Maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll want to chat to the crazy haired, sweaty woman who drives her mad every Sunday morning by saying hello. I’m always up for a chat about stuff. 

Not a mathematical problem…

If you got fifty corporate, anally retentive men to lie down on the road in a long line so they were head to toe, in their business suits, with or without their briefcases, it would be really hard not to run them over.

Not a mathematical problem…more a solution to people who piss you off at work.  

Is that you Neil?

So, I walked outside at 4:30am this morning to chat to the chooks and leave some leftovers for them. The chooks don’t actually get up until it’s well and truly bright, day light (they’re scared of the dark) and they certainly don’t get out of bed for salad scraps – bananas yes – but not salad. Anyway as I wandered out I looked to my left and I noticed a garden ornament (see pic) had been tossed onto the grass from where it normally sits. It’s not heavy but it’s also not light. I looked around the yard, spotted the broom - aka handy weapon - and went to investigate what was going on. I could hear the rustling of something big arsed in the garden but I could see nothing. This is my theory, Neil the bandicoot is back at my place and he has an aversion to the head and is letting me know this ornament does not fit in with his conceptual design ideas in minimalist landscaping or I have an elephant that hides really, really well.


Would I have used the broom on Neil? No, probably not. He’s sort of like family. As for the elephant? Well, I was thinking of getting a guinea pig and it’s the other extreme to that – and I do enjoy extremes…  

Coffee cup physics...

Did you know if you put an empty coffee mug out in the rain, you can sit and watch it fill up and speculate on the rate it will fill versus the speed of the rain versus the force of the rain drop falling into the cup all while you eat lunch? No, me neither. I think it all depends on the mind of the person you’re having lunch with versus inherited insanity verses the quirkiness quotient factor versus e=mc2 and whether you’re having a good hair day. Fascinating what you learn at lunch.