Just Looking

Two things observed in the last two weeks....

A pilllar on the street that would normally have a grey cover on, with its outside off and its inside showing. A thousand red phone lines, all coming out of the earth and joined to this central column. Noone around, no service van, on a street with plenty of pedestrians. It looked like R2 D2 in the nude. A swift slice of a stanley kife would surely have rendered the whole block phone-less.

A man who stood on to the train platform at 8.30 am. About 6 ft tall, wearing red, fringed loafers, brown vinyl three-quarter leggings with criss cross seams, a blue chesty bonds tee, a red bead necklace, lipstick, and a mid-sized red handbag. Ordinary short haircut. Broad across the shoulders with a masculine build. Head held high, and strangely attractive for it. He sat in the sun waiting for the train in the other direction.

Sometimes I like this city.

Nice

.. to see the ladies having transatlantic discourse. I dig it.

Another thing I dig is postcards in the mail. They are like getting lollies for a girl without a sweet tooth. So many thanks for that too. Oh yeh, and panties. (That will make sense to a select few). Not much else to report today. Did some home decor. Got overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material things. Again.

Read this and tell everyone you know to read it too. Quote:

Paying people to have babies is a cack-handed, retrograde, imperialist policy. How different is it from eugenics or the white Australia policy of the 1960s? What is it if not another way of saying, "We want more people like us, not people like you?"

The Christian thinks that Toy Story 2 is a parable for a fundamentalist submission to God.

Recycling: The NANNAFESTO

I knew I kept this gem for a reason. Have been cleaning out work emails from the cache recently.... enjoy.

Young Nanna-ism is about finding the Nanna within and nuturing her. It is about recognising the benefits to mental and physical health of the occaisional nanna-like activity. Young Nannas cherish their inner nanna and thereby find the way to enlightenment

How do I know if I'm a Young Nanna?
If you have ever done any of the following, you have already made contact with your inner nanna:

Put on a nice warm singlet or spencer on a cold day

Bought a pair of shoes because they had a nice sturdy strap, firm rubber soles, a medium heel and looked like they'd wear well

Stayed at home on a saturday night with a cup of tea and The Bill

Knitted, crocheted, or indulged in other handicrafts

Rustled up a batch of scones or a cake on a sunday afternoon

Got up early and pottered about cleaning cupboards

Reminded your flatmate to take a jumper as they leave the house

Glared at ill-mannered school children on the bus

Used any of the following phrases: "I don't know how they walk in those shoes"; "When I was a girl we never/always..."; "her ___ was so tight you could see her ___"; "Oh dear, I don't have my glasses"

Experienced deep satisfaction at the sight of a clean kitchen

Gone to bed early with a good book and the cat

What do I do with my Inner Nanna?
When you have made contact with you inner nanna, it is your duty to let her express herself. At first you may find it hard, and even embarrassing to accept your inner nanna. Start slowly in a place where you feel comfortable and safe. You may need to coax your inner nanna out with some eucalyptus oil, a lavendar bag, or perhaps a butter menthol. Now carry out one inner nanna-ism. Don't rush yourself, and stop if you feel uncomfortable. Do this every day, and you will soon find your inner nanna more forthcoming.

Soon your inner nanna will express herself spontaneously. You will find your inner nanna pops up at the times when you need nurturing. It's important not to fight your inner nanna, she knows better than you do when you are in need of a nap, a warm jumper, or a nice cup of tea. Your inner nanna is always looking out for you.

What if my Inner Nanna begins taking over my life?
Some people find that their inner nanna gets a bit out of control. You may suddenly be overcome with an urge to visit a bingo hall; or find yourself scolding your boss for not wearing a singlet. At times like these, it is helpful to have a quick nanna-repressent handy. You could carry around a walkman with some heavy metal music; or try eating some of those nasty foreign foods or drinking a can of coke in the street with your shirt untucked. These will send your inner nanna burrowing for cover, and you can resume normal adult behaviour, hopefully without too much embarrasment.

If you follow these instructions, you should be able to develop a warm and caring relationship with your Inner Nanna, and become a true and proud Young Nanna. Young Nanna-ism is all about balance. Treat your Inner Nanna well, and you will find she brings just enough sensible shoes, early nights and nourishing soup to your life. Remember, it's not about age, it's about your state of, ummm, oh dear, my memory's not what it used to be, love.

Created by Betty-Sue, 20 September 2001.

I guess I really should explain.

As some may know, your Aunty Bee doesn't mind a bit of rock and roll and a whisky sour. So on this occasion she accompanied some gentlemen to a venue that shall remain nameless, at a time when she really should have been in bed. On waiting patiently to enter said venue with quite a group of frankly undernourished but well dressed youngsters, a large contigent of Sydney's finest approached from across the road. I mean at least 10, if not 15 without uneccessary exaggeration. Now on seeing this, as a good law abiding Aunty, I thought "Goodness! what a lot of police, but I suppose Oxford Street can be a fairly violent place at this time of night, maybe there's been a bit of gang trouble or poofter-bashing, its good that my taxes are protecting our more fringe citizens". (Or something of that nature) But then I noticed they had quite a cute, bright eyed labrador in tow. And oh look - they are inspecting all of the skinny indie kids. Now, in not the bightest of moves, my friend who has spent most of his adult life in Adelaide, allegedly had some of the weed canabis sativa on his person.

So what follows is about half an hour of searching, humiliation and general dicking around, with the rest of us kind of struck dumb. I for one was rendered near speechless by the pant-tucked-into-jackboot fashion choice of our premier law enforcment agency. Are they in some kind of aesthetic competition with the ubiquitous property guards you see in the CBD?

I digress. Some onlookers in the immediate vicinty commented "Oh they're looking for drugs.. wow lucky we just put all of ours up noses a minute ago". So myself and my companions proceeded to the venue, sans weed, consumed some whisky sours (or simliar) and jumped around to aggressive music.

Some time later we all felt like having a kebab. In the crowded kebab shop some large young men were have a heated argument complete with shoulder shoving. The tone of which was along the lines of "Why would you say that mate, you're racist that's what, c'mon mate, you're just a racist..". Turns out one of the gentlemen has called the other one Arabic, and perhaps spoken or mocked Arabic to him. The subject of the comments was, in fact, Portugese and he was a little riled. There were about 20 big blokes in that hot venue, all I assumme at the end of a big night out. Not a police person to be seen. Meanwhile a man in a well populated suburb has been breaking into single women's home at night. I wonder, has he been arrested yet?

Get it right people

Sydney. Cops. Dogs. Arse. Guys ... have you caught any rapists today?

Just some links..

Celebrity Boyfriend Corral
"Hugh is the over-developed, studly Clydesdale that every Corral worth it's oats needs"

Super, floaty word map thing
Sadly, you need Java or flash or something to view it. And it used to be free but now there's only a trial. But give it a shot.

All due credit to Miss A for those.

Town Bike.
Its a bit nasty. Good nasty. "Teen checks text message during fellatio".

(That one was mine)

Post script.

I have realised since a previous post that I had, without noticing, blithley used a term like "human rights abuses" in a public medium. For this I am truly sorry.

Don Watson, George Orwell, you said it would happen and now yours truly, Aunty B, has succumbed to mealy-mouthed, pasty, weedy words to describe the horrors of the world. I meant "torture of guys who're involved in the latest war". I don't even know if they were soldiers or not, so I can't draw on a decent noun. I meant "subjugation and general shittiness". I can't even pretend though that it surprised me, as its pretty hard not to notice the constant repeating mandlebrot pattern of this kind of behviour in our species. And image and reality has gotten so mixed up these days.. I am struck by how much that particular front page photo with its mix of Jesus Christ pose, uK Kl_x Kl_n* and 1950's horror film.. looked kind of like a still from a Nine Inch Nails video. Maybe its wrong to write that. I dunno.

What to say about our lives, so far from that place ... not sure about that either. Spread the love I guess. (Man). And to a certain semi-vegetarian aussie bloke - keep it up on the road, looking forward to seeing your big old grin again.

* don't want any nasty google searches ending up here.

I just resigned from my job and I feel...
Umm, not much at all actually. I think I'd mentally resigned a long time ago.

Some of the future careers that I've daydreamed over the past few months:

• record company mogul (Aunty B, I need you as a partner and talent spotter)
• fashion designer
• consultant
• writer
• owner of website to rival Crikey.com
• political advisor to amazing environmental company
• director of non-profit group
• etc etc etc

I have $10k between me and the dole, but in the mean time, buzzers, keep you ears to the ground for me

Friday wrap-up
And another thing Betty-sue .. will Athens be ready for the Olympics? I seem to remember many people casting nasturtiums on whether Sydney could pull it off, and we had the .. well, you all know how good it was here. Juan Antonio said so. I'm just looking forward to Roy and HG's show. They'll be there for 3 weeks during the games.

Actually, for the Sydney-siders, HG Nelson is doing a show at the Enmore theatre that looks pretty interesting. Also Kiss have announced a second show, following their Entertainment Centre extravaganza, also at the Enmore, for a more "intimate" experience. Ooh there's a scary thought - being intimate with Gene Simmons.

So here are some things I learnt this week:

If you can't think of anything smart to say... just say the first thing that comes into your head (no-one will know the difference)

Pay attention to the announcements at the train station. They make them for a reason. Otherwise you end up on an express. To Ashfield.

Melbourne is definitely groovier than Sydney. Hands down.

Well thanks for reading, I've got to go and catch "That's Dancing" on the ABC. Oh the glamour.

Miss Betty

Has her finger on the pulse. I think you made that last post before the stories hit the paper about the recent human rights abuses. I figure you've seen the photos all the way over there in Greece too. Its a murky bloody world. And I'm probably the last person to point it out, but Mike Moore is trying to get a doco released called Farenheit 9/11. Disney isn't too keen. Or Miramax , or someone. Anyway, here's his website.