Serendipitous, soft, squishy bits of goodness...

There's a serendipity to the blogosphere that I'm starting to appreciate. Reading a favourite blog, someone will post something, and it'll get me thinking, and then I'll read someone else's and they've posed a similar theme, and it'll get me thinking again.

Even more serendipitous is when I've been having conversations in RL and then suddenly there will be a group of people having conversations on a similar topic in the blogosphere... sometimes the universe tries various ways to make itself heard...

And I love my site meter... it's cool.. I can not only see how many people are reading, but where in the world they are, how long they stay, how many pages they read, and how they've found me. #

Best of all, I can see where people have found me via a search engine like google - for instance, this search "go braless" "first time" on blog search found this link.

Hit number 20... must have been keen to keep going... it's my understanding that people usually stop looking after the first page... I bet he was disappointed. I know, I'm making assumptions but just feels like maybe Singapore, 4.32am, who stayed for less than a second, was a he...

And there's that serendipity again... have read a couple of blog posts about breasticles and bras recently, and Eileen in a post over the weekend listed the things she'd never do, including sending pictures of her boobage to blogging friends. I agreed with her and told her mostly cause my boobage is slowly becoming my waistage!

So it's seems that boobage is a bit of an underlying theme at present, so Frou Frou's random thoughts on boobage (sorry, I love that word... boobage, boobage, boobage).

In Succulent Wild Women, SARK talks about the size of a woman's boobage - you know when you have an overabundance of boobage when you can hold a pencil under there...

She also suggests that cleavage is the best place to warm the butter in a restaurant, which always makes me laugh when I'm sitting there looking at curls of frozen butter... I think she meant the foil wrapped packets.

It's not just straight men who have a fascination with breasticles, a completely out there gay colleague used to regularly reach out and play... either undoing buttons so he could look down my shirt, or actually coping a feel...and couldn't understand why I wasn't comfortable with his behaviour...

In discussions with girlfriends, most of us are never really happy with our lot... if we're small, we'd like 'em bigger, and if we're bigger, we wish they were smaller.

Most guys will do the visual inspection, just that the majority of them will look quickly and then look elsewhere. Making a big deal of it, usually has a negative effect... and honestly, I think most of the time, they don't even know they're doing it...

The bra, is often one of the first items of clothing removed when we come home at night, or the item of clothing least likely to be put on if we know no-one is going to see us. Guys, imagine wearing a jock strap/ or cup all day, and you might get a bit of an inkling of what a full underwire bra can sometimes feel like... and most of us will need to wear one out in public every day from the age of about 13-16 ... unless we want to be able to tuck our boobage into our underpants by age 40!

There is nothing quite as embarrassing as looking down and seeing that the underwire in your bra has broken through the fabric and you've got this pointy bump in your boobage. Well, there is something more embarrassing, go back and read the link that started this post in the first place if you don't believe me...

Tattoos on breasticles can look wonderful, but gravity and saggage can make that lovely design look slightly strange... a friend had to get new ink on her starfish tattoo as 10 years down the track someone wanted to know why she had a snail on her boobie...

And sometimes we are just cold!


# I have aubirdwoman and rhian/crowwoman to thank for most of my traffic, which is lovely, an old friend from RL and a new friend from the blogosphere. I met aubirdwoman about 6 years ago when she came along to a axe murderers quilters get together I organised on an online quilt group we both belonged to. I love my Mum, but if I was going to pick another one, Sheila would be a good choice.

And Rhian feels so much like a friend already, and we're going to dance together when the end is nigh... and help it along a little, we'll probably dance right off the end of the world, or I'll trip and take her over the side with me...

Songs to Remember By...

On Wednesday night, following a recommendation from Jappa, 3 friends and I went to see the gala launch of the Choir of Hard Knocks at the Melbourne Town Hall, which was truly inspirational. They sang like angels, and we all found ourselves moved to tears and I'd heartily recommend you try to catch them if they come to your area.

I've realised that music is something that I can measure my life by, important and not so important moments, both good and bad times... there is usually some song that reflects that time or feelings, with songs capable of bringing back a time and place so vividly...

I love music, and love singing, though was told as a young girl in the school choir to sing 'quietly' i.e. mime, so was very self-conscious of singing for most of my life... and equally as self-conscious of dancing until I hit my 30s (would only dance when I was drunk before then and then I would dance on the tables!).

That doesn't stop music from being as vital as breathing to me... so here then are some of the songs that reflect me and my life...

Someday, One Day - The Seekers (people say your a dreamer, what do they know of what your thinking, if you believe in what your doing, then believe in what I say)- this creates the most vivid memory of first year at primary school, and being dropped off at a family friends house before school. I have never been much of a morning person, even as a little girl, so being bundled out of the house to go to a strangers home at the start of each day was a stress for me... but this song, which must have been in the charts at the time always seemed to be on the radio, and we got warm porridge and honey for breakfast ...yum...

Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime - Dean Martin - we had a turquoise VW beetle with a radio that didn't work, so car trips usually involved us kids sitting in the back singing songs to entertain my Dad. Invariably, he would warble this to us - but changing the lyrics to 'something in your kiss just told me, I've just kissed a cow!

Lullaby of Broadway - goodnight baby, goodnight, the milkman's on his way, sleep tight baby, sleep tight, let's call it a day - my first dance lessons, in a local hall with the daughter of a neighbour, we did a dance routine to this song, a sort of tap/ ballet fusion... I was probably 6 and already completely uncoordinated and had such a miserable time of it that I didn't dance on stage again until I was 38!

Lipstick on Your Collar - Connie Francis - this is one for Miss La De Da - her and my sister age about 10, learning the lyrics and putting on a show for the family. For some reason this song also has the visual memory of MLDD masticating a banana sandwich with her mouth open... yuk!

Slipstream -Sherbet, Living in the 70's - Skyhooks, High Voltage - AC/DC, Hard Road - Stevie Wright - the soundtrack of my teens, the first 4 albums I bought when I got a part-time job in a lotto/record/gift store. My first concert, Festival Hall, Buster Brown with Angry Anderson on vocals, Skyhooks just as their first album was released and Sherbet!

Turn the Beat Around - Vicki Sue Robinson - 17 years old, Collingwood Districts Football Club Disco - at a hall in Carlton North every Saturday night, $3 for chicks, $8 for blokes, as most of the chicks brought their Asti Spumante, and they had a keg of beer for the boys. I drank beer with the usual result of being totally rat-assed by the end of the night. A gorgeous (think young Robert Redford) boy used to pounce on me most Saturdays, put my hand in the back pocket of his jeans, and dance close, telling all and sundry I was his wife... and then completely blank me if he saw me on the street during the week, only to repeat the whole routine the following Saturday... talk about being confused... He gave me my first (and probably only) illicit drug, telling me it would make me feel better, and then had to spend the night wrapped around me in the backseat of a car while I screamed and howled my way down from the trip from hell. He spread the word that anyone giving me anything stronger than beer was going to answer to him, and then blackened his mate's eye when mate shoved a bottle under my nose, saying sniff this!

Counting the Beat - The Swingers - my semi-punk days, short peroxide blonde hair, with jet black wispy bits stuck to my cheek, a multi-coloured bomber jacket, tight black skirt, one aqua stocking, one red, covered by fishnets... thought I was really cool, but never wore the outfit again after we walked into the pub one night to hear 'OK, we can start now, the circus has arrived'

Walking on the Moon - The Police - giant steps are what you take, walking on the moon, I hope my legs don't break, walking on the moon - first full-time job, living away from home for the first time in a share house with 2 chicks and a bloke in Richmond. The band stayed at the motel I worked at their first tour out, and we saw them play at Festival Hall...

Gonna Fly Now - The Theme from Rocky - aah, liniment, smelly socks and boys... football club rooms and the big difference between juniors and seniors is that seniors like to walk around naked... oh my... I don't like football... I like footballers!

Rhiannon - Fleetwood Mac - My First Love sang this to me the night we met... both slightly intoxicated, sleepily sitting on Gossy's mum's couch close to midnight after he'd played in the winning grand final for his local team. He sang this quietly into my ear while he stroked my hair and then he kissed me... **

No Lies - Noiseworks - one of my groupie stages++ (no sex though drats!)... sent the guys a bunch of balloons while they were recording their first album in Melbourne and came home to a gorgeous message on the machine from Jon Stevens. Meet them after a gig at the then Bell Street Rock one Easter, and they put my name on the door for every Melbourne gig for the next few years. Even got an invite up to Sydney for the filming of an MTV special when the album was released.

How Do I Live Without You - Trisha Yearwood, Easy - Faith No More, Throwing Cooper - Live - sitting on the swings at Fairfield Park at 3.00am talking to Angus Folly Boy on our first date, and his relief after about half an hour of debate in discovering yes, we did like some of the same music - he was a metal head, and I'm a musical theatre girl! I sprinkled these songs through mix tapes that I played at ten pin bowling and we'd make eye contact across a crowded bowling alley and smile at each other.

Big Spender - Sweet Charity - so let me get right to the point, I don't pop my cork for every guy I see - finally putting the past and self-consciousness behind me and belting this out at karaoke at a work Christmas Party without worrying about what I sounded like... the fact that I was 12 kinds of pissed probably helped... but singing the love song duet with my boss at midnight was probably a bad move...

Would you...? - Touch and Go -I've noticed you around, I find you very attractive, would you, um, um, would you go to bed with me? - I laughed out loud (it was either that or cry) when this was playing on the radio after leaving Angus Folly Boy's house the ill-fated night he planned the big seduction scene. I arrived to find him almost crippled with back pain, which was bad enough, and then his brother deliberately came home to check me out, when he'd been told to stay away - add a malamute that went for the crotch snuggle every time she came into the room and his bedroom walls covered with photo's of naked women in poses only their gyno should see and is it any wonder I said there was no way I was going to get naaaaked!

The Healer - John Lee Hooker - first time I got my feet and brain to work in sync at Miss Lou Lou's Tap Dancing Academy, age 38! Heah ma, I can dance!%% Went on to dance at the National Theatre to The MilkShake - The Village People dressed as a cow, Tijuana Taxi by Herb Albert in sombrero and poncho and a fake moustache that kept falling off, as a gold tinselly sausage, I mean, showgirl to Madonna's Hanky Panky, and my swan-song - Singing in the Rain by Gene Kelly dressed as a duck!

** MFL is still the kisser against whom all other kissers are judged...

++ Wrote to bass player of MiSex once, and we started a telephone/ letter exchange for awhile - he'd ring when the band were down and we'd chat about music and stuff, and again, my name on the door at gigs, but I never actually met him...


%% Well, actually I can't really... why a girl who spends most of her time dancing from the waist up, lots of hand gestures, not a lot of foot work, ever took up tap is beyond me. The first time I ever persevered with something I suck at big time! It was fun, but after 5 years you were actually expected to be pretty good!!!

Fashion...turn to the left... Fashion... turn to the right... We are the goon squad and we're coming to town...beep, beep

I have a confession to make... I'm an uncoordinated, fashion tragic... I shouldn't be let out of the house without a keeper... sigh...

Yesterday I was on an interview panel. Have only been at my job for 5 months, so still finding my way, and getting to know people and them getting to know me. I was the token chick on a 4 person panel, and was joking around prior to the first interview...contradicted one of the guys when he introduced me as the OH&S guru, and said no, I'm the OH&S Diva!**

Things going swimmingly until we stopped for a loo break after the 2nd interview. Washing my hands and looked at myself for the first time in the mirror and realised I had my top on inside out... the print on the inside was similar to the print on the outside, but I've got seams running down my arms and across my shoulder blades and the tag hanging out on the back...sigh...

This will teach me to wear things that don't need ironing, and to be such an undomesticated goddess that I drag clothes out of the basket of washing I've taken off the line a week ago that is still sitting in the middle of the kitchen table as I stagger bleary eyed towards the kettle and the caffeine.

But in driving back to the office afterwards I started to remember the number of times I've had a 'wardrobe malfunction'. What is it they say about humans... we're the only animal that blushes..or needs to... I do a nice shade of blush!

So here is recorded for all posterity, Miss Frou Frou's advice to avoid fashion faux pas:

Before making a grand entrance always look down - Fronted up at a party once, and didn't realise until I'd arrived and was inside that I was wearing one brown shoe and one white... same style, hence I hadn't noticed when I was walking, just different colours...as I was wearing a brown dress with white spots, bluffed my way through and said I had planned it.

If you must wear a bathing cap make sure it's not red - went to a fancy dress as Raggedy Ann once. I loved that outfit, red tights, black mary-janes, white pantaloons, with a white with red hearts smock, and a white pinafore. As my hair was short, I'd made a red crepe paper wig, and cause my hair is dark, bought a red bathing cap to wear underneath it. I looked cute as, and was having a lovely time dancing energetically. Took a toilet break and discovered to my horror that sometime on the dance floor I'd lost my paper hair, and there I was in all my bald glory... I looked like Telly Savalas with a bad case of sunburn.

Don't ever go to costume parties organised by boys - same costume, different party. Invited to a BBQ Costume Party at a friends. This time, no wig, as my hair was long (half way down my back) so I tied red rags through it. Except, only person in costume was me, and for a brief time the host, dressed as a footballer - what kind of a costume is a footballer anyway... To add insult to injury, he went and changed when he realised none of the other guests were dressing up... and I'd driven from Heidelberg to Keysborough dressed like this...

The gothic look is fine but take an umbrella - once arrived for what was thankfully a telephone job interview at an agency after being caught in a sudden downpour. I knew my clothes and hair were sopping wet, but was surprised at the look on the receptionist's face when I introduced myself and thought how nice she was when she went away and came back with a clean handtowel and a key to the bathroom and said you've got time to dry off before the call comes through. Until I looked in the bathroom mirror and realised my mascara had run to such a degree that I looked like Alice Cooper/ Marilyn Manson's love child... streams of black running down my face...

Weddings are hideous and always make sure your underpants are nice - I once walked across a crowded function room and stood with my back to the room at a wedding with my skirt tucked into my underpants. Not sure what was more embarassing, standing there with my bum hanging out for all to see, or the frantic manouevres trying to extract my dress from my knickers and stockings after the waitress whispered quietly into my ear.

Weddings are hideous, elastic is the bane of my existence and it can always get worse - picture this... my one and only experience as a bridesmaid. Bride, ex-fashion model, 5ft 9 in her stockings, slim and gorgeous. Other bridesmaid, about the same height, slim and very proud of her recent boob surgery to lift and separate. And me...5ft 2, almost as round as she is tall dumpling. Bride, in her wisdom, decides that the 'maids will wear burgundy Scarlett O'Hara style dresses, complete with wide off the shoulder flounces and multiple petticoats and pink stilletto heeled shoes (remember, for a girl who trips over ants regularly, any heel is a health hazard).

So, pick up the dress the night before the wedding. Already very anxious as I'm going to have to go braless. While the boulder-holders might be the first thing that comes off of an evening when I get home, I haven't been braless in public since I was 10!

Put the dress on morning of the wedding, only to discover the elastic in the off the shoulder neckline has gone... and I'm thinking I'm going to have to tuck my boobs into my underpants! Some needle and thread and I am literally sewn into the dress with very strict instructions not to move my arms too high or too wide.

It got worse... the bride decided to have Jaguar wedding cars. Gorgeous cars, but you try and look elegant while climbing out of a jag in an off the shoulder dress with hooped petticoats, held together with thread and a prayer, at the same time that you're trying to get a 3 year old flower girl to stop pulling her dress up over her head to show everyone her pretty knickers (heah that's my gig). I ended up flashing major cleavage at the collected wedding guests waiting on the church steps... talk about upstaging the bride.

It got even worse... wedding over, photo's taken, Toast to the bridesmaids, and I'm sitting with the now exhausted almost asleep 3 year old flower girl on my lap whose got one finger up her nose and the others clutched around the edge of my dress. As I start to stand up with her in my arms, the top of the dress starts a slow descent down... . The groomsman saved the day, with a frantic whisper from me, he wrapped his arm around me, clutching acres of cloth (and breast, come to think of it) and held on for dear life.

And then there is the whole 'if you don't want them looking at your feet, look ridiculous' school of tap dance costumes - I'll have to save that till another time, better go and organise something to wear to work tomorrow.

** Wonder what an OH&S Diva would wear? Rhinestone/Cats Eye Safety Goggles, with a orange flourescent hazmat suit with purple safety boots?