Thunder only happens when it’s raining. Players only love you when they’re playing. So sang Stevie Niks in her (epic) ballad, ‘Dreams’.
As a person who dreams every night – and remembers at least one dream 9 out of 10 mornings - I’d like to know if there’s any truth to Niks’ assertion that one thing points to another, deeper thing.
Some of my dreams are immediately interpretable, and about as subtle as a meat axe. Dreaming, for instance, about having to finish my PhD, in three days, on a vintage typewriter with no paper, pretty clearly points to a subconscious that is wigging out about the impending submission of my thesis (could also indicate a warning about hipsters, hence the vintage typewriter). Other things I dream about are completely mundane: going grocery shopping, working out at the gym, catching buses, cleaning my apartment. Yawn.
But then sometimes - actually, more than sometimes, about once every couple of weeks - my subconscious throws me a curve ball, and I can’t make top nor tail of my dream.
The dreams which feature celebrities, in particular, often leave me particularly befuddled upon waking.
And so, unlike Niks, who, according to the song, keeps her visions to herself, I’m sharing my most memorable, and befuddling, celebrity dreams. For your interpretational pleasure.
Dream #1. St Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian started a grassroots program teaching underprivileged and differently abled children to read using Kindles. She was assassinated for her efforts by being sliced in half. Her body was displayed in a glass cabinet and toured around the world. A campaign was started to have Kim Kardashian canonised. Kim Kardashian was made a saint, and high schools were named in her honour. St Kim Academy, Kardashian High, etc.
Dream #2. Leonardo Di Caprio’s BFF
Leonardo Di Caprio and I were BFFs. We did everything together. It was the 50s, I was rocking an impossibly chic wardrobe. Leonardo Di Caprio wanted to experiment with a quiff. I advised against.
Dream #3. The Wilson Brothers
Owen Wilson. Luke Wilson. Tom Wilson. Yes.
Dream #4. Turning down Alexander Skarsgard
Alexander Skarsgard and I were totally into each other. I get naked. Alexander Skarsgard gets naked. I regretfully inform him that we can no longer go ahead as planned because he has no chest hair. Alexander Sharsgard is disappointed. We hug and become BFFs.
Dream #5. Julia Gillard and the ALP do The Hunger Games
Julia Gillard requested my presence on an elite tiger team to workshop youth policy. Julia Gillard and senior ALP faceless men are super nice. Julia Gillard and I have a chat about hair colour (natural vs artificial – I’m natural, she’s artificial) in the kitchenette. The tiger team take a field trip to Italy, to offices located in the base of the Coliseum. I take a wrong turn trying to get back to our meeting rooms after a loo break (NB: this element of the dream is entirely realistic and happens to me all the time in waking life). Stumble upon a secret room with profiles of youth leaders that the ALP has forced to fight to the death, hunger games style. Realise the tiger team is a front to obscure the true nature of the ALP’s youth policy (fight to the death). Return to the meeting room to confront Julia Gillard and the faceless men. Open the door to realise they know my secret.
Wake up before a satisfactory resolution is achieved.
Showing posts with label Befuddlement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Befuddlement. Show all posts
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Onesie (with apologies to Hamlet)
This weekend, in amongst autumn cleaning my apartment (spring cleaning: so passé), entertaining friends, getting back to the gym after injury, and catching a film with MamaK, I’ve been battling a great dilemma:
To Onesie, or not to Onesie?
That is the question.
I am not referring, dear readers, to one piece cossie. Nor am I referring to jumpsuits. There’s no dilemma in my mind when it comes to cozzies and jumpsuits: I like cozzies and jumpsuits. I have time for cozzies and jumpsuits. I’ve very successfully owned multiples of both (believe).
What I am questioning, with the existential seriousness of Shakespeare’s Danish Prince, is the one piece loungewear suit, comprising of a hooded top attached to a pair of legs, made of polar fleece, with a zip fastening.
As a typical Type A personality, I’m working my way through my onesie dilemma not via a dramatic monologue, but by a list of points for, and against, the onesie.
(If Hamlet had been a Type A, he could have written a handy list too. It might have made all the difference).
To Onesie
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Onesies are warm, and they are cozy. It is possible to layer up against the Canberra chill, but there will always be little bits of you – ankles, the juncture of skivvies and leggings – vulnerable to sneaky chills (just quietly, I have a suspicion Hamlet would have found this aspect of a onesie appealing. That castle must have been some sort of draughty).
• Grown adults wearing - essentially - a babygro is hilarious, something which the lovely Miranda Hart has exploited (google Miranda Hart + Onesie Direction if you need proof). I have sufficient self awareness of my hipster tendencies to ironically enjoy this.
• You can get them in tiger print. And leopard print. And the union jack, and…
Not to Onesie
• Slippery slope: I already go more places than I should in gym leggings and baggy tee shirts. Crop top bras (comfy) have become a mainstay of my working wardrobe, even though I promised myself, at point of purchase, they were For Home Use Only (or FHUO, hollah at my APS BroDudes and SoulSistas down with document classifications). I wear slippers to the local shops to buy milk. If I get a onesie, it’s only a matter of time before I’m wearing it to the office on casual Friday – and then I’ll be Onesie Girl. Basically, my relationship with comfortable clothing is like Pandora’s Box: once opened, there's no going back.
• Onesies are sexless. I suspect that being a onesie girl means that I’d condemn myself to a lifetime of being a onesie girl in relation to other sorts of onesies. If you take my meaning.
• Everyone’s doing the onesie thing. Onesies are huge. Onesies are massive. I have sufficient self awareness of my hipster tendencies to sneer at this.
• I’m already tall, with a long body, and ample frontage. Which makes buying one piece anythings (swimmers, leotards, wonder woman outfits etc) tricky. A onesie would magnify this problem, and would, no doubt, result in wedgies. Back, and front.
I don’t yet know whether it is nobler, stylistically, to suffer the slings and arrows of Canberra’s outrageous weather. Or, to onesie – to warm, and, perchance, to cozy on through winter.
Aye, there’s the rub, alright.
To Onesie, or not to Onesie?
That is the question.
I am not referring, dear readers, to one piece cossie. Nor am I referring to jumpsuits. There’s no dilemma in my mind when it comes to cozzies and jumpsuits: I like cozzies and jumpsuits. I have time for cozzies and jumpsuits. I’ve very successfully owned multiples of both (believe).
What I am questioning, with the existential seriousness of Shakespeare’s Danish Prince, is the one piece loungewear suit, comprising of a hooded top attached to a pair of legs, made of polar fleece, with a zip fastening.
As a typical Type A personality, I’m working my way through my onesie dilemma not via a dramatic monologue, but by a list of points for, and against, the onesie.
(If Hamlet had been a Type A, he could have written a handy list too. It might have made all the difference).
To Onesie
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Warm.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Cozy.
• Onesies are warm, and they are cozy. It is possible to layer up against the Canberra chill, but there will always be little bits of you – ankles, the juncture of skivvies and leggings – vulnerable to sneaky chills (just quietly, I have a suspicion Hamlet would have found this aspect of a onesie appealing. That castle must have been some sort of draughty).
• Grown adults wearing - essentially - a babygro is hilarious, something which the lovely Miranda Hart has exploited (google Miranda Hart + Onesie Direction if you need proof). I have sufficient self awareness of my hipster tendencies to ironically enjoy this.
• You can get them in tiger print. And leopard print. And the union jack, and…
Not to Onesie
• Slippery slope: I already go more places than I should in gym leggings and baggy tee shirts. Crop top bras (comfy) have become a mainstay of my working wardrobe, even though I promised myself, at point of purchase, they were For Home Use Only (or FHUO, hollah at my APS BroDudes and SoulSistas down with document classifications). I wear slippers to the local shops to buy milk. If I get a onesie, it’s only a matter of time before I’m wearing it to the office on casual Friday – and then I’ll be Onesie Girl. Basically, my relationship with comfortable clothing is like Pandora’s Box: once opened, there's no going back.
• Onesies are sexless. I suspect that being a onesie girl means that I’d condemn myself to a lifetime of being a onesie girl in relation to other sorts of onesies. If you take my meaning.
• Everyone’s doing the onesie thing. Onesies are huge. Onesies are massive. I have sufficient self awareness of my hipster tendencies to sneer at this.
• I’m already tall, with a long body, and ample frontage. Which makes buying one piece anythings (swimmers, leotards, wonder woman outfits etc) tricky. A onesie would magnify this problem, and would, no doubt, result in wedgies. Back, and front.
I don’t yet know whether it is nobler, stylistically, to suffer the slings and arrows of Canberra’s outrageous weather. Or, to onesie – to warm, and, perchance, to cozy on through winter.
Aye, there’s the rub, alright.
Friday, June 15, 2012
In the interests of transparency…
Sartorial experimentation is a wonderful thing. At best, you discover new and different ways of dressing, and therefore being, that you very much like.
At worst, you look like an idiot. Which, incidentally, also has a transformative effect on your way of being – humility is hard to come by any other way.
Of late, my sartorial experiments have involved a headlong dive into what I like to term High Casual. High Casual involves jeans, looser tee shirts and jumpers, and cardigans, but with understated jewellery, a subtle colour palette, and classically shaped bags and shoes.
High Casual is a little early 80s Slone Ranger - a look for which I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot – and a whole lot of it’s-the-weekend-and-I-refuse-to-think-about-anything-more-serious-than-my-next-e-purchase-of-american-apparel-tights.
In short, it’s a highly enjoyable way of being.
But, I’m one of those restless types, which means I stride, some would say fecklessly, toward further experimental modifications.
My forays into High Casual are no exception to further experimentation. Keeping everything else Slone-y and respectable, I’ve lately taken to flashing a bit of bra, and not via the usual accidental flashpoints of low necklines and flimsy shouldering.
No, my bra flashing has been of the intentional variety. I have been deliberately pairing a coloured bra under a light, semi-transparent tee or jumper. For example: royal blue lace Marks and Spencers bra/white linen blend Country Road tee shirt.
I readily confess mixed feelings about this increasing transparency (see above statement C/F risking idiocy).
On the one hand, I like the fact that there’s subversion here. An otherwise respectable outfit is roughed up a little, and I do love a bit of ruggedness to keep things interesting. There’s also something aesthetically and ideologically pleasing about the practice of exposing layers, an implicit acknowledgement that clothing, and life, is complicated. Less esoterically, peaches are best enjoyed when they are ripe, and I’m only going to be 25 once. These are The Years where, rightly or wrongly, I can Get Away With It.
On the other hand, I wonder if exposed underwear, in any context, is ever OK. How is intentional exposure through a flimsy tee or jumper any less exhibitionistic, obvious and déclassé, than exposure via a plunging neckline, a practice which I outgrew a long time ago? More worryingly, could my sartorial transparency cause offense to the general population?
I’ve spent the best part of this evening turning these questions over in my mind, seeing how they look in different lights. I’m still no closer to a definitive set of findings from my experimental research. But, transparency, and all the issues it brings to light, can wait for some other time. It’s Friday, the weekend is just beginning, and it’s time for all of us to enter a state of being where we think upon nothing more serious than our next e-purchases of American Apparel tights (or events that give you equivalent enjoyment).
At worst, you look like an idiot. Which, incidentally, also has a transformative effect on your way of being – humility is hard to come by any other way.
Of late, my sartorial experiments have involved a headlong dive into what I like to term High Casual. High Casual involves jeans, looser tee shirts and jumpers, and cardigans, but with understated jewellery, a subtle colour palette, and classically shaped bags and shoes.
High Casual is a little early 80s Slone Ranger - a look for which I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot – and a whole lot of it’s-the-weekend-and-I-refuse-to-think-about-anything-more-serious-than-my-next-e-purchase-of-american-apparel-tights.
In short, it’s a highly enjoyable way of being.
But, I’m one of those restless types, which means I stride, some would say fecklessly, toward further experimental modifications.
My forays into High Casual are no exception to further experimentation. Keeping everything else Slone-y and respectable, I’ve lately taken to flashing a bit of bra, and not via the usual accidental flashpoints of low necklines and flimsy shouldering.
No, my bra flashing has been of the intentional variety. I have been deliberately pairing a coloured bra under a light, semi-transparent tee or jumper. For example: royal blue lace Marks and Spencers bra/white linen blend Country Road tee shirt.
I readily confess mixed feelings about this increasing transparency (see above statement C/F risking idiocy).
On the one hand, I like the fact that there’s subversion here. An otherwise respectable outfit is roughed up a little, and I do love a bit of ruggedness to keep things interesting. There’s also something aesthetically and ideologically pleasing about the practice of exposing layers, an implicit acknowledgement that clothing, and life, is complicated. Less esoterically, peaches are best enjoyed when they are ripe, and I’m only going to be 25 once. These are The Years where, rightly or wrongly, I can Get Away With It.
On the other hand, I wonder if exposed underwear, in any context, is ever OK. How is intentional exposure through a flimsy tee or jumper any less exhibitionistic, obvious and déclassé, than exposure via a plunging neckline, a practice which I outgrew a long time ago? More worryingly, could my sartorial transparency cause offense to the general population?
I’ve spent the best part of this evening turning these questions over in my mind, seeing how they look in different lights. I’m still no closer to a definitive set of findings from my experimental research. But, transparency, and all the issues it brings to light, can wait for some other time. It’s Friday, the weekend is just beginning, and it’s time for all of us to enter a state of being where we think upon nothing more serious than our next e-purchases of American Apparel tights (or events that give you equivalent enjoyment).
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Listing
I write lists. Shopping lists. Wish lists. To-Do-Today lists. To-Do-This-Month lists. Just-Do-It lists. Lists that masquerade as other things. Lists drawn as ideas maps. Lists in the round. If I do it, want to do it, or have done it, it’s on a list somewhere.
At the moment, there are six lists on my office wall. Looking at them is like looking at a portion of my brain, splattered onto A4, although slightly less gory. There’s an ideas map for a course I’ll be convening this summer. A list of my responsibilities for another summer course I’ll be involved with. Tutorials times, rooms, and essay due dates for the first year course that I’m teaching semester. A list of seminars I’m going to be running for a masters course, to prompt me to find some relevant readings. ANU principal dates. And, last but not least, a list of monthly targets I’ve set for my PhD thesis.
I never meant to have this many lists occupying wall space in my office. After all, isn’t the purpose of a list to collate information into the one place, efficiently, economically, putting all the pieces of the puzzle into their correct places? Theoretically, yes. But in reality, my lists seem to breed, one list begetting another, until suddenly my office is decorated with blu-tacked pieces of scribbled-on and crossed-out pieces of paper.
I looked at this disorder this morning, and, after momentary frustration, laughed. Because this tendency to write lists is one half of a symbiotic relationship with another tendency of mine: I love to cross things off. Is there a better feeling than running a thick, heavy pencil line through that particularly bothersome task that is now, in the words of a certain opposition leader, dead, buried, cremated? Or doodeling loopy biro circles over a list-task you did and enjoyed?
I write so many lists so that I can give myself that little moment of satisfaction, that feeling of a job, if not well, at least competently, done, and the restoration of some sense where there was previously befuddlement. And all triumphs of sense over befuddlement, in my humble opinion, ought to be celebrated.
At the moment, there are six lists on my office wall. Looking at them is like looking at a portion of my brain, splattered onto A4, although slightly less gory. There’s an ideas map for a course I’ll be convening this summer. A list of my responsibilities for another summer course I’ll be involved with. Tutorials times, rooms, and essay due dates for the first year course that I’m teaching semester. A list of seminars I’m going to be running for a masters course, to prompt me to find some relevant readings. ANU principal dates. And, last but not least, a list of monthly targets I’ve set for my PhD thesis.
I never meant to have this many lists occupying wall space in my office. After all, isn’t the purpose of a list to collate information into the one place, efficiently, economically, putting all the pieces of the puzzle into their correct places? Theoretically, yes. But in reality, my lists seem to breed, one list begetting another, until suddenly my office is decorated with blu-tacked pieces of scribbled-on and crossed-out pieces of paper.
I looked at this disorder this morning, and, after momentary frustration, laughed. Because this tendency to write lists is one half of a symbiotic relationship with another tendency of mine: I love to cross things off. Is there a better feeling than running a thick, heavy pencil line through that particularly bothersome task that is now, in the words of a certain opposition leader, dead, buried, cremated? Or doodeling loopy biro circles over a list-task you did and enjoyed?
I write so many lists so that I can give myself that little moment of satisfaction, that feeling of a job, if not well, at least competently, done, and the restoration of some sense where there was previously befuddlement. And all triumphs of sense over befuddlement, in my humble opinion, ought to be celebrated.
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