Vintage Butt

My husband and I had one of our rare but essential kids free weekends recently. We went to Surfers Paradise (or should I say Surfers Parasite) and took a walk down memory lane and went to the Italian restaurant we had one of our first dates.  On our walk back to the hotel we discovered the night club we went to when we were dating.  We must have looked “with it” enough to score a free pass – normally the Gen Y girls handing out passes take one scathing look at you and pretend you’re invisible. So we hauled our vintage butts in to check out our old haunt “Melbas” and noticed that their logo included "open since 1981".

On entry my husband commented “Last time we were here this crowd were crapping in their nappies”.  Perhaps we should have taken the hint and left since we were obviously playing in the under 19’s team.  But where do you go if you are mid 30’s + without being made to feel ancient?  I have heaps of friends both singles and couples in this age bracket who want to still have a good night out, but are mostly disappointed.

The further we entered the club the ruder the shock became... I mean I am not dowdy but looked sacred in comparison to the current fashion.  I know it is an 80's flash back but I don't recall the fashion being so short that it was a live catalogue for Victoria’s Secret!  I wasn't even trying to perv and I could tell you the colour of the skimpy undies of at least 8 girls!  There is not much left to the imagination.  How do Gen Y guys control themselves- they either have low testosterone due to environmental damage , are so sexually active that they are completely satisfied or are just plain de-sensitised due to overexposure!

 I am relieved we didn’t stay past midnight.  Cinderella had problems with things turning back to pumpkins - what happens with alcohol and drugs in the mix? My husband amused himself and lurked suspiciously in the dunny to freak out the two non-gay guys in the same cubicle. He figured he looked old enough to be appear to be an under -cover cop and stuff up their drug deals for a little while.

At one point my normally silent husband made his attempt at a comforting comment (but painfully insightful) and said “Don’t worry love, in 15 years time this lot will be doing school drop off in their trackie dacks too”.  It just highlighted in light years how far apart my reality now is in terms of youthfulness!  

Another observation is how expensive it is for this generation to go out.   And I am not just referring to the $9.50 basic spirits.  By the time they set foot in a club they have maintained their trendy hair styles ($180+/month?), had a salon fake tan, nails done,  teeth whitened, brand names clothes(although the cost of the limited fabric hardly justifies the cost), expensive fragrances etc.  Even the guys are buffed, tanned, sparkling and smell metro sexual.   Do they have any spare cash for charity or health food or university fees for that matter?

Then tragically there are always the girls and guys who just don’t make the “perfect” grade no matter what the expense.  The current fashion of frilly skirts just barely covering the bum crack and ruffled tops that add volume and froth,  is very unforgiving to a larger girl who has not yet found the confidence to find her own non- mainstream style to compliment her shape.  At one point I glanced at all these skinny  scantily clad girls dancing around a larger girl in one of these short frilly get ups and thought she looked like the cake the skinny strippers jumped out of! Humour aside, it was sad and she looked sad.

Was my generation in their day ever that beautiful and perfect?  I know we didn’t expose quite enough flesh to actually rate it, but I know I never looked that lush.  I am glad my persona got the opportunity to develop on grounds other than my legs otherwise I never would have developed any confidence!  Somehow I still seemed to have my fair share of popularity – and I was fairly non-conformist! I mean I’m not a hypocrite - I was a tart – but I didn’t march to anyone else’s beat and the game played was not so overtly sexual.

My husband and I had our fun being horrified spectators but in all seriousness, what a concern. 

Where will my daughter’s skirt be by the time she’s out and about? Will it be essential to look like a porn star to actually rate on the attention scale of her young male counterparts?  How will my son behave?  Will he be desensitised and have unrealistic expectations – what will his sexual education be like?  What if she isn’t a perfect size 8 and he doesn’t have perfect guns and tatts?  Will they be reduced to looking like a mockery or worse still actually be part of the “in crowd”.  Will the idea of collective contribution to our society even rate or will it just be about budgeting for appearance and self gratification?

 How do I create an environment that nurtures the development of self esteem based on parameters other than appearance and sex, in this culture? How do you find the balance between living in the world but not being sucked into it? I feel a huge burden on my shoulders as a parent to somehow model and teach these values in the presence of a far more attractive vacuous and selfish counter culture. I want to cloister them at church and make them the “Jesus Freaks” but also know from my own life and my Mother’s parenting style (which worked!) that it is about applying your principles in the real world.  Cocooning can sometimes ill-prepare for the reality of living.

I am praying for a Gen X led conservative backlash...  One thing is reassuring...   some things never change,  and most Aussie males still cannot dance.  That's why clubs have strobe lights- to make them look like they can move even if it does resemble an epileptic fit for 30 second stints. Thank God for small mercies.

Mid life crisis or the second coming?

With all of these heart breaking and life wrenching floods occurring around Queensland many alarmists are speculating on the meaning of this natural disaster, on a spectrum from end times and Armageddon to the cause and effect of climate change due to our raping and pillaging of the environment.  I personally can’t see past the self centred fact that rainy weekends  with the kids make me feel like Jack from Stephen King’s “The Shining”.

But I think my dog might be onto something.  When the first storm hit, the kids and I were away on holidays and the week before Christmas she somehow got out, went missing for three days and was thankfully and prayerfully returned to us through the RSPCA but injured from a car hit.  She is terrified of storms but felt the instinct to escape (maybe in some misguided way tried to find us to protect us).  The whole episode cost us $2300 on a femoral hip ostectomy three days before Christmas (along with all the other stress and expenses!)

Now, I know that trying to psychoanalyse a dog is a bit far- fetched , but I can’t help seeing correlations.  I mean maybe animals know something and she was trying to get out to get on the ark.  I mean if she wasn’t confused by domesticity her instinct would have sensed the storms and floods and got the hell out to higher ground , but instead due to loyalty she left it too late, got lost finding us and was stopped short by a car that violently changed her course.

 It occurred to me,  if I wasn’t confused by my domestic role in life and not absolutely torn by loyalty, would I have hightailed it out of my life to find safer higher ground on  a blissful self centred plateau?

Maybe the dog not driven by logic, science and rationality knows something we don’t – is it the second coming? Has our free will bastardised the earth to such a point that we are no longer environmentally sustainable and everything is dramatically winding down and degradation is seeping out of the pores of the earth?

Maybe the dog is having a mid life crisis and is my alter ego.  I mean they say that pets tune into our emotional state and her behaviour has been peculiar in direct alignment with me recommencing therapy.  The dog is suddenly having an identity crisis just like me.  She is also mid life in dog years. This breed grooms themselves like a cat, are aloof, don’t bark, don’t smell as they have hair, not fur.  They are not demanding and would never impose on someone else but are completely loyal (much like I used to be).

Now she barks, digs holes, wakes me at three in the morning demanding to go outside and then stays there (she has always slept inside loyally by one of the children’s bed in protective mode), she does a handstand to pee because she can’t be totally male by cocking her leg and will not squat in the conformist and feminine way so she compromises.  When she is not escaping to run away or sleeping outside, she hides under our bed or takes up residence for days on end in my wardrobe cowering (incidentally,  she has also started to smell from licking herself obsessively and my wardrobe and clothes are starting to smell like dog!)

Does this really mean in alter ego terms that if she is actually tuned into my neurosis and is in fact mimicking my behaviour , that I secretly want to abusively bark at everyone;  would like to reinstate  the nightlife I had in my single days and go digging in the soil of my youth; I am conflicted between the masculine business woman I castrated to become a home maker but that I am not totally comfortable in this role so I am still trying to work out how to “mark my territory”; I can’t decide if I want to run back to the workforce or hide at home because I’ve lost all my instincts and confidence ; and ultimately I need a season in life to lick my wounds and smell offensive so everyone backs off and leaves me alone while I repair.

As I said, trying to psychoanalyse the dog using my own mental framework is a futile exercise as she doesn’t speak but t is an interesting exercise to speculate......