Psy-chick

Fortune tellers gaze pointedly at their crystal balls. Looking for what, our secrets? our lies? We want to know, even the cynical, if they're honest.

We don't so much want to know about our pasts - we already know what lay in that retrospective journey. We want to know the future. Will he be handsome? Will he be rich? Will he make me happy? Doh Doris!

Tea leaves room for creativity and imagination, even more creative genius is required if a teabag has been used.

Our palm can peer into the direction of our souls. Not sure what the fortune teller would make of my latest line from a careless episode at pumpkin peeling with a new knife. The novelty of which quickly wore off as the skin parted and blood seeped. I've worried over my lifeline for many years now, since the time I thought 13 was old.

There's also the iris which can be gazed into and the contents of the soul packed into a small green, blue, brown or hazel bag. All very mystical, if not very believable.

And then there are the joys of the horoscope. I'm a sucker for a good, optimistic horoscope which promises love and good choices. I ignore the horrorscopes and put it down to the writer having PMT or something similar. Being the optimist, I find the horoscope of my choice when trawling through a range of online psychic portals, scoping the good ones which are probably regurgitated on some sort of cosmic rotor.

Anyway today, my timing is exquisite (which is brilliant because cleaning the loo needs exquisite [WT...] timing ...). A disciplined, regular routine will lead to more energy (well cleaning the loo is by its very nature, in a hygenic household, routine). I wonder if the spirits stick around when you're liberalig annointing the bathroom with bleach?

Well that must be proof in the pudding, with exquisite timing I executed an energetic going over the loo. 

Life ... life ... where are you?

A prince of no clothes

Once a long time ago, as I was leaving school for the day through the gate, as you do, with my school bag swinging ... although it may not have been, because I'm not sure if satchels swung ... I heard someone shout out to me. I turned to see Busby.

Busby, a kid a couple of years older than me, was yelling, "Hey, your sister was in the nude with Nigel behind the swimming pool, eh?"

I nodded and rolled my eyes. I nodded because I didn't have a clue what nude meant and I didn't want to appear dumb to a kid in standard 4. And I rolled my eyes because I always roll my eyes.

When I got home, I told Mum. It's fair to say her interest, and perhaps ire, was piqued. And I found out what the word nude meant and had a sudden feeling of panic that I'd just confirmed that my 10 year old sister was nude behind the swimming pool ... with Nigel ... ooops. I couldn't help but wonder if Nigel was nuded as well. And to this day, I still don't know, because I never fronted up to my sister when I realised the full implication of being nude at school. Let's face it, what kid didn't have nightmares about going to school in their pyjamas. What must be so much, much, much worse was popping along to school in the Emperor's new clothes!

And now when many have merely bandaged their nudity, we have the worldwide frenzy where a young, over-privileged man-boy was caught in the dreaded throes of nudity. He happens to be a prince which makes you think he should be able to afford to buy some clothes. But as it came to pass, the sun shone, the drink was downed and suddenly the frock was dropped, and the prince was suddenly sporting the Emperor's wardrobe in it's full glory. Nek minute, it's riding on the tsunami of online media as the cyber sea is swamped in the sheer horror that a prince was found to be frolicing without a further thread to shed.

Oh dear! I can think of nothing more to say but why are the jesters now wearing the crowns, or in some cases exposing them.

Mystery should not be underestimated.

[Historical note: The gates of Rutherford Primary are still there. My old primary school is nestled in Tat North, now more salubriously known as Te Atatu Peninsula (although was delighted when the Council had somehow lost the second 'n' in one of its signs).]

Pairing up

A night fairly long ago, this old broad and fellow single team mate (you know who you are!) decided to venture out into the sea of singledoom. We'd purchased, with our hard earned, tickets to a singles' night - it should be fun, fun, fun! The tickets certainly said 'fun' and the email enticement suggested a lot more than fun. And who were we to argue?

So the eternal optimists ... ventured forth.

Firstly going to a singles night, is portentious. Single in, single out. Not that I usually enter such a deal with unadulterated blinkered optimism, I mean I was there but it felt more than a little forced, many would say contrived. Of course, it has to be, it's a singles' night and let's face it, coupled folk our age, anytime after 8 of an evening, should be found as a curled up couplet under the duvet with their respective teeth in matching glasses on the bedside table. And they say romance is dead ... but I fast forward too soon.

The entrance to the 'venue' had been singlefied. Hope was draped sniggeringly over the entrance as fairy lights twinkled in feigned delight. It teased that it was offering all the fun of the fair ... sort of. Fun, although touted and exclamation marked on the ticket,  proved to be elusive. The fair analogy was a complete flight of fancy.

Walking into the bar, I immediately felt like I was the audience of one to a huge, but not very well sung, Welsh choir. As my head turned to survey the crowd, I was aware I was one of the tallest in the room. The crowns laid bare before me, proved that shallow-ness was not the sole domain of men. 

Then fear gripped me, as the first person to catch my eye, looked like a kindly soul but was also probably older than my dad. As I sipped on my 'free' flute of champagne, my eyes darted around the room trying not to meet anyone's gaze, which I agree is not probably a good strategy at a singles' night.

Hope ebbed faster than the champagne left the flute.

Devising an exit strategy, I found my wing-man and we waddled out, the curtain of hope long gone as we wandered back into the valley of singledoom.

We found a taxi in the crisp clear night, and zoomed off along the motorway, and homeward bound. 

And there it was, a singles' night. To be fair, I suspect that many of the singles were having a whale of a time, but as a fellow whale, on that particular night, my preference was beached.

Bedroom Olympics

Well, I've just finished E L James Fifty Shades of Grey, I'd like to add that it was just after I'd finished Hare with the Amber Eyes and a fantastic biography on Margaret Mahy, both literary tombes.

My expectations were as high as those of me of winning gold in any Olympic event in these, or any, past or present, Olympic games. Which might lead you to ask, why read it at all? Well, the beast of curiosity was lapping at my feet, and I wanted to find out what all the fuss was about. I'd heard about it firstly as mummy porn.

Interestingly we don't hear much about daddy porn, and the term irks me as it's somehow trying to downgrade and ridicule women, and this is of course another story. Preceding something parental to something supposedly raunchy word is akin to brewer's droop. Goodness, there's a huge industry spawned for men, straight and gay. Why not porn for women? And if it's making mega bucks why is it smirked at?  Suspect this is a bigger discussion, and I have little to contribute at this stage.

Anyway, so there was the explosion of this book, an e-book doing wonders having been written by an ordinary woman. Well, I'd say now that E L James is no ordinary woman. She's a very, very wealthy ordinary woman. I watched an interview with her and I thought, "good on you girl". What I find most extraordinary, is that she wrote the book and her sons know she wrote it. My two were horrified when they knew I was reading it, but once I'd told them of its success, they were quick to think of appropriate titles I could rename my children's books for a bigger and wider audience.  

Roll up a few months later, and in a small suburb in Auckland, a group of six women are gathered around a table, and the conversation finds its way to James's book. Surprisingly, all of my bright, beautiful friends were reading it, ordered it or were about to read it. At that stage, I was the only one not in its thralls. I'd have to borrow one of their's, and I did.

So it's Sundary morning and I've just finished it. I enjoyed it, it's an easy, entertaining, and titallating read. I think if there were Olympics for describing orgasms, then James would most definitely be a contender whether or not you're taken in by the fantasy. And rightfully so. If you have a spare minute, you could use this as a writing exercise. Might be fun or excrutiating, it's certainly not easy.

And no it's not a literary tombe and won't be put on the 'show off' bookshelf' (you know the ones where Dickens, Freud and Wilde fight with each other on the shelves). And yes, I'll be reading the next one but I have an Austen and Dickens' waiting in the wings at the moment.