Hey Lady Chaos - thought this might interest you.
Goldie
http://www.australianpoetryslam07.org
I have a friend who subscribes to a lot of magazines and whenever I see her she always brings a couple for me to read. They are usually of the more trashy variety and I must say I do enjoy having a look through.
One thing I have noticed over the years, is that I never pick up one of these magazines without reading about some starlet or other collapsing.
The list of swooning celebrities is ceaseless; Mischa Barton, Nicole Ritchie, Katie Holmes, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and the Olsen twins, to name but a few, have all been photographed fainting, foundering and flailing.
In days gone by a woman generally collapsed because her corset was too tight, restricting the flow of oxygen to her brain. Nowadays, these girls sink like souffles for no apparent reason (apart from the obvious one, of course; they haven’t eaten anything since they were born).
Britney Spears, who is a consummate collapser, was recently photographed squatting next to a Mercedes Benz (she was assessing the damage she had done to it with her own car, however, starlets and their driving misdemeanors are a whole other post). The photo left very little to the imagination (at least she remembered to put on her undies this time) but there was not a whalebone in sight. So with nothing restricting the flow of oxygen to her brain, I can only attribute her frequent fainting fits to one thing; she does not have a brain.
Poor Britney, barely a day goes by that she doesn’t collapse somewhere; on her way into rehab, on her way out of rehab, in nightclubs - whilst clocking up “frequent rehab points”. In fact she collapses so often that I am convinced she spends more time on her back than her feet. However, Britney’s life does seem enormously complicated and to be fair, if I had to spend any time in Kevin Federline’s company my brain would seize up and I would collapse too.
It isn’t just the youngsters who do it. Angelina, Renee, Jen, even our Nicole have all crumpled like cans in public at one time or other. I think of them as having telescopic legs that retract at the slightest movement. Sickly and weak with flimsy constitutions, they can barely drag themselves from one award ceremony to another (or in Angelina’s case from one adoption agency to another).
And what of their male counterparts, or is this a gender specific affliction? Looking back I cannot remember once seeing Brad Pitt sink, insensible, to the sidewalk. Neither have I ever seen George Clooney recline in the manly arms of his minder and whilst Matthew McConaughey has been photographed in a pair of “budgie smugglers” they could hardly be said to be restricting the flow of oxygen - well, not to his brain at any rate.
Keeling over in public is obviously neither considered masculine nor good for the the image and with the possible exception of Michael Jackson, our boys keep their physical frailties well concealed.
But for the girls it is a worrying trend, for who knows where it may lead? Starlets hate to be outdone by one another in the media and soon passing out may become passe`. What is the next step? Coma for the camera? Or will they simply perish for the paparazzi? If it gets you on the front page of Who Magazine, dying can’t be all bad!
Sadly, I cannot help but feel that Britney, at the forefront of any public vulgarity, would be the first to go.
I hope she remembers her undies that day too!
Hey Lady Chaos - How did you go last night at Poetry Idol?
Hope you had a literary blast!
GRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Why don’t people pick up their dog’s poo in the park.
Well after being frozen for the best part of 24 hours the latest batch of posts have just come through on the Nook.
This has been a repeated complaint from everyone who has used this site; Why does it take so long to release posts and comments?
I know that the nook team operates on a volunteer basis, but if the volunteers are too busy, maybe it is time to recruit some more ( there have been many offers of help from nook contributers). I know there is a lot of spam to sort through, but most people who contribute are logged on and have been contributing long-term. Is there really no mechanism for sorting the posts and comments with recognised addresses from the junk in the way my email account does.
When I first started coming to the Nook it was vibrant and lively but now it seems that all but the most dedicated have left due to this continuing problem. I am seriously considering not bothering anymore because:
A) there are so few people left to read and comment on the work I have put in.
B) it takes so long to appear, that any dialogue or commentary is seriously impeded or downright impossible.
The Nook has been an intrinsic part of my life this year. It has given me a wonderful social network that as a stay at home mother was out of my reach. It has enabled me to start writing and hone my skills. It has improved my spelling and grammar out of sight. It has given me a forum to voice my opinions and to argue my position. It has given me the opportunity to listen to others viewpoints and consider the world from their shoes. It has given me a new ipod but above all it has restored the self esteem and confidence that comes from being a valued member of a community. So it disappoints me greatly that something that has given me so much over the last year appears to be dying a slow and lonely death.
Once again Admin, is there anything that we Nook contributers can do to help restore this site to it’s former vibrance?
Would you care to discuss the problem with us so that we may be able to come up with a solution that you may not have thought of?
Posted Friday 24th August at 11:48am
There are very few women who find shopping for clothes easy. If you have short limbs, you are constantly having to take things up. If you are endowed with ample assets, you must put up with clothes that are tight in one area and baggy and ill-fitting in another. If you have a long body you are forever pulling tops down to protect your frozen kidneys and if you have size 12 feet like me, then may God have mercy on your sole.
At nearly 6ft my problem has always been of the of the “sleeve and pant leg too short” variety, however prior to the birth of my children, my stature was of the “willowy” type and I could usually hide any clothing flaws with a certain eccentric style.
Following two pregnancies in quick succession, my build transformed from “Willow” to “Eucalypt” or even stout “Oak” and here my clothing nightmares really began, for while the Oak is a handsome and shady tree, you’ll agree that finding clothes to fit one would be no easy task.
Shopping for outfits has become a very depressing affair. While recently bemoaning this fact to a friend of a similar build to myself, she regaled me with a story of a recent shopping trip in which she brandished some jeans menacingly at a vacuous sales assistant screaming
“I defy you to show me the woman who can wear these jeans! They were not made for any human form!”
Much as I appreciate that screaming at someone would make me feel better in the short-term, it really does not solve the long term problem of clothing a figure ravaged by the birth of my two darling little acorns. With this in mind I have been putting off looking for a wedding dress for the best part of a year, in the vague hope that I would wake up one morning to find that some of the excess “foliage” I had “sprouted” would have been miraculously pruned while I slept.
On my recent trip to Perth I decided it was time to finalise all my wedding plans and this included buying a wedding dress; for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, for fatter or for thinner!
I put together a list of some ten designers to visit and enlisted the help of my sister (whom I trust to not let me look dreadful at my own wedding) and set out with little confidence, but the the dim hope that I would find something that looked less awful than everything else.
We decided to go to the most distant shop first as a matter of travel logistics and on a glorious Perth morning found ourself parking on High Street in Fremantle. A short walk brought us to our first destination; Love In Tokyo, a boutique that stocks several Australian designers, one of whom worked on the premises.
As we walked through the front door, I noticed a dress in the window, the top of which was covered by a jacket so I was unable to get a good look at it but the colour was a joyful Tangerine. I found an assistant, to whom I explained that I was looking for something to wear to my wedding.
“It probably needs to be quite large….” I said in a self-deprecating tone.
My sister made a noise in the back of her throat and waved her hand dismissively at me.
“It needs to look fabulous!” she said firmly to the assistant who began to collect a pile of outfits for me to try.
I wandered back to the window.
“This dress…..” I trailed off.
“Oh unfortunately we only have that in a 14 the girl said, but try it if you want to.”
In the change room I thought I would try the seriously gorgeous Tangerine dress on first, to get it out of the way before getting down to the business of trying on the circus tents.
There were no mirrors in the change room but after putting the dress on I had to admit it felt pretty good.
“How are you going in there” my sister called out.
“Well… it’s not ghastly” I returned, hopefully.
On exiting the fitting room there was a collective intake of breath from around the shop.
“Now that is fabulous!” said my sister.
In the mirror I could see that I did indeed look fabulous; classy and sexy with bosoms ’til tuesday.
“That’s the one” I said and purchased it on the spot.
So it came to pass that in the first shop I went into, on the first day of looking, I bought the first thing I tried on; a Grecian style, Tangerine Gown that would not have looked nearly as good if I had managed to loose any weight.
Now if that is not an example of divine guidance I don’t know what is!
Hey folks I’m back from the wild west, feeling moderately pleased with myself for managing two 4 hr flights on my own with a 2 1/2 and a 1 1/2 year old ( Al stayed home to hold the fort).
We all had a great time, and have left Nanna and Grampa astonished at how quiet their house has become.
I can see there is a lot of nooking I have to catch up on and have a few posts up my sleeve to boot!
It is wonderful that Melbourne has turned on such a glorious day for our return.
Hooray!
See you in a few weeks folks. Happy Nooking!
PS
Have a great exhibition - I look forward to hearing all about it when I get back.
I went to a catholic girls school and in year eleven, as part of our religious instruction, we were required to attend something called “Marriage Encounters”. This involved going to the house of a married catholic couple, along with a group of boys from our catholic brother school, and encountering their marriage. It sounds kind of mad now, but at the time we catholic girls were being groomed first and foremost as wives and mothers, so I guess it was not a terrible idea in the scheme of things. I suppose too, that encountering a good example of a marriage, catholic or otherwise, is never a bad thing.
However, at 16 most of us were far more interested in encountering the opposite sex and given our fairly sheltered schooling, such encounters were few and far between.
The sessions were held once a week in the evenings and we girls made the most of this social opportunity. We took the utmost care in our appearance and tried our very best to make a good impression on the boys, for these fellows were our best chance at getting a partner for the school Ball later in the year.
The first session (and ultimately the most important, for first impressions are everything) I remember vividly. I wore a red polo neck jumper, a grey, wool, knee-length, pleated skirt, black tights with black court shoes and I recall thinking that I cut a very stylish figure.
We were seated in a circle for the business part of the evening, girls one half, boys the other and I remember desperately adhering to lessons learned in grooming and deportment. Hands demurely in lap, legs modestly crossed one over the other, a slight but intelligent inclination of the head. Surely one could be forgiven a little nervous jiggling of a black court shoe.
I soon realised that I had become the object of some attention from the opposite side of the circle; repeated glances, a smile here and there, a whisper and a nod. I sat a little straighter, clearly my dynamite outfit and my aura of demure charm was paying off.
Some time later supper was served, it was a chance to mingle freely and socialise a little. I stood to one side, trying to look, beautiful, attentive, intelligent, desirable and above all, available to potential Ball partners.
I did not have long to wait as one of the more attractive chaps approached. I couldn’t believe my luck, I was going to be the first girl in my year to secure a date for the Ball.
“Hi” he said, grinning at me.
“Hi” I returned with a flutter and a charming girlish giggle.
“Ummmm” he said
“Yes?” I replied
“There’s something written on your shoes” he said.
“What?”
“Your shoes. There is something written on the bottom of them” he said, smothering a laugh.
Confused, I removed a shoe and turned it over. There was indeed something written on the bottom of them - in thick, black artline pen and my brother’s handwriting.
“SATAN’S SHOES”.
I had committed the ultimate catholic faux pas; wearing shoes belonging to the Prince Of Darkness.
Thanks to my brother I never did secure a partner for the Ball and have carried the social scar ever since. I have also lived in a moderate amount of fear that Satan is going to show up one of these days - demanding his shoes back.
What’s your “grumpy old man/woman” grumble?
I have two.
The first is how annoying it is that about 8 out 10 shops don’t have their street number written on the front.
The second is people driving into an intersection that isn’t clear, preventing traffic in the opposite lane from turning right!
GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
