All names, characteristics and locations have been changed to protect the innocent.
This is how I spent my Tuesday night.
The Main Players
Mrs Dulcie Ogmore-Pritchard - Dowager Pensioner from Dingly - dressed in a floral Dolina dress, (ill-fitting) and constantly adjusting her squealing hearing aid and sipping marsala from a coke bottle. Always to be addressed as Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard.
Bebe Polkinghorne - Jobbing radio actress, dressed in understated Melbourne black, pony-slim legs crossed at the upper thigh.
Anthony "Soaked-up Tony " Bartholemew - lugubrious Treasurer, known for eye rolling, long monotone speeches and his stash of Captain Morgan in the library stacks.
Frau Helene Gudmundsdottir - Well coiffed doyenne of the Williamstown business community.
Dorothy "Dotty" Fields - Grandmother, Collingwood cheer squad founding member - Secretary. Keeps a collection of other teams supporter's hubcaps in her garage.
Geoffrey Carruthers - Long suffering Chairman. Voice of Reason. Stoic in the face of adversity. Was born to be an ombudsman.
Jonquil Curruthers - Geoffrey's mother. Archetypal Good Grandmother persona. Also stoic in the face of adversity. Libran.
Hyacinth Montrose - Jonquil's sister - a slightly more wizened, slightly harder version of Jonquil with a rapier wit similar to her sisters
Myfanwy Jones - silent widow under a grey bob. Likes to knit - a lot. Doesn't say boo to a goose.
And there is me, Pandora Behr, 43-year-old, long distance running, word nerd. The youngest in the room by fifteen years easily. Wet behind the ears. Literally. The humidity of the last few days has been killing me. Not helping matters the night before, due to the heat and humidity, I'd had about three hours sleep. After a long day at work, getting home to down a protein shake and then take off to this meeting, I was exhausted.
The Location: A drafty church hall type arrangement complete with lino floor and formica tables in Richmond.
The Event: The Annual General Meeting of the Mixed Elks Property Committee
This rag tag bunch have decided attend the Annual General Meeting of the Mixed Elks Property Committee. Some have to be there - like me.
Some are there because they want to be there. Maybe their medication has run out.
I've spoken in this blog about my participation in freemasonry. I love my allegiance to the Masonic cause. I love the masonic values and everything that freemasonry provides me with. I love that most of what I gleaned about freemasonry from Happy Days and The Flintstones has turned out to be on the mark - truly it has - right down to the funny handshakes.
A part of being a freemason is accepting that part of life is service. Service to your lodge. Service to your family. Service to the community. Service to humanity.
And part of duty of service to the lodge is getting roped into the Mixed Elks Property Association Committee.
And part of me wonders if this service element of the Masons is a crock of shit. And a lot of me wonders how being roped into the Property Assocation aligns with the service to humanity aspect of freemasonry.
I freely admit to not liking committees. Like meetings and any other gathering where alleged democracy is required, all codes of ethics, morals and values tend to go out the window as soon as you step into the room where a meeting or committee is convened.
And the nutters come out. I think there is something about a committee that ensures that there is at least one barking mad eejit to rock the boat. Just as you need a junkie on the tram after ten p.m. or a male school teacher who wears long socks, sandals and a short sleeved shirt to teach Physics - there has to be at last one complete fuckwit. It wouldn't be a committee if it wasn't.
Bring back oligarchy I say! Plato was right some three thousand years ago when he said that this was the only way to go. Rule by the sane. Rule by the trusted - none of these Polder decisions and constant arguing and half measures that democracy provides where compromises are made and nobody is happy. Rule by the intelligent, informed and not-that-barking-mad elite, I say!
Heaven help me - last night. Oh my. It's four hours of my life I'm never going to get back. And a decision which I know I'm going to regret got made. As of 10.32 p.m. last night, I'm now the Mixed Elks Property Association Treasurer. Voted in uncontested.
I must have been pond scum in a former life.
For most of the meeting I was listening and putting myself in my happy place, which mostly consisted of fantasising about a lanky but wonderfully muscled Swedish actor in some compromising positions. I also started my weekly shopping list, thought about how I can take out the tannoy and the annoying easy listening music at work, pondered how I'm going to train for and get to the New York Marathon next year
I'm not sure what bugged me more. Whether it be Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard talking loudly into her mobile phone after the meeting had started - continuing to do this at the meeting table throughout the meeting. It might have been Frau Gudmansdottir and Bebe Polkinghorne questioning every line on the Treasurers report - not just once, but five times over. Maybe it was that when I was expecting to be home at 9.30 and in bed by ten they were still arguing about the semantics of the word "Subs" that was found in a footnote in the addendum to the President's Report, again, for the fifth time of the evening.
Please remember that this was the first Mixed Elks Property Association meeting I'd been to - my Mixed Elks Lodge voted (read guilted) me into a three year stint on the committee at the last meeting - see, I get a lot of flack for not staying for supper. Thankfully, these meetings are only held once every three months.
By ten to ten, the time had come to find a new Property Committee President. The current Executive Committee - Geoffrey, Dotty and Tony the Soak stepped away from the top formica table. I went and sat next to Jonquil - my allie, voice of reason and grandmother substitute - though at 80, she's only just ten years older than my own mum.
"Enjoying yourself, Pand?" she asked.
"Do you want me to be tactful or truthful?"
"Truthful."
"I think I'd rather have root canal surgery without anaesthetic than be here."
"I feel your pain."
"Is it always like this?" I asked her.
"Half the time. The other half of the time the agitators stay away. These people are passionate."
"Don't they have anything better to do?"
Jonquil sighed. "Probably not."
The election of the new president was run - I ran it. They gave me a gavel - ah, the power. Fifteen minutes later - after discussing semantics with Frau Gudmansdottir and Bebe Polkinghorne about how their Elks lodge couldn't put up members as they hadn't voted them in, I was installed as treasurer and Geoffrey and Dotty were back as President and Secretary.
Another hour of pointless discussion about the auditor's report, the meeting was closed.
So traumatised from this meeting I went home and downed a very large single malt.
How do I feel about being the treasurer of the Mixed Elks Property Committee Incorporated? A little ambivalent. Somebody has to do it. See to me, it's running a spreadsheet, banking a few cheques and sending the odd stroppy letter - how hard can it be? I'm also wondering which one of my CPA friends I might be able to bribe into auditing our books for a barter - I knew enough CPAs to coerce them into a few hours work - well I think I do. Throw in a massage - amazing what a good massage can be bartered for. I have a few other barterable skills, but I'm not sure that they're quite right for bartering the Mixed Elks Property Committee Books for - I have my standards,.
Still you have to wonder...
Just what is it about committees that make you want to club half of the members like baby seals!
Pand
_________________________________________________
Days without ice cream - 17
Accountants
Personality
Bred out way back in the years
When God was a boy
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Pandora Lent XI
Day's without ice cream - 16
Thank you, Eric
When I'm tired and grumpy,
And the meeting's agenda's gone,
I sit with eyes unfocussed,
And think of you with nothing on.
(I realise I'm paraphrasing Adrian Mitchell - but something has to get you through the most bizarre AGM I've ever attended)
Thank you, Eric
When I'm tired and grumpy,
And the meeting's agenda's gone,
I sit with eyes unfocussed,
And think of you with nothing on.
(I realise I'm paraphrasing Adrian Mitchell - but something has to get you through the most bizarre AGM I've ever attended)
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Back and the Future
Much of my adult working life has been spent in offices.
More to the point, much of my working life has been spent pushing paper in the operations departments of financial institutions. Working with the distribution of dividends, corporate actions, cash balancing and reconciliations, data entry jobs in the back offices of International Banking Houses to be precise.
For me, after ten years of this sort of work, I was ready to slit my wrists. Then in 2003, after a large epiphany, three months on a Greek Island and a bout of deep depression, I made a change, found IT and began to discover that work could be fun, interesting and I could play to my strengths. Leaving the operations departments of these banks has been one of the best moves I've ever made - from financial, professional and personal standings.
So now, in my capacity as a Consulting Business Analyst for a second tier Business Consulting group (all this means is that I work with great people who drink lots of beer, have personalities and don't expect you to do fourteen hour days) I'm in a bit of quandary.
In my current role, I'm finding myself back in the thick of an operations area of a financial institution. Even worse, I'm in the thick of the operations area of Bastard Bank's Retail Operations Area.
I DON'T WORK RETAIL!!! Especially not after my first job was spent in the sub-basement of the an Adelaide department store sticking on price tags - two year of that putting myself through my final year of university part time.
Okay, I'm not in this Gormenghast of a place to WORK in operations - I'm there do document the procedures and processes, that is once I get through the air locks, find my desk, pass the forests of paperwork and rows of fax machines and try to let to foreboding sense of deja vu pass.
I left these kinds of offices nearly a decade ago.
Working in IT and telcos, I've been surrounded by computers and people in jeans - people with quick wits, idiosyncrasies and tendencies towards the autism spectrums. Working on projects, I've been among a mix of megalomaniacs with their own agendas, decent, bright, fun hard working people who strive for the best (these are the people I seem to make friends with) and a heap of very bright people who have tendencies towards the autism spectrums. Throw into the mix guys like Traralgon, Ah-Sole, Danger Dood and the Hot Scouser and every stereotype is covered.
I like project spaces. I get them. They can be fast paced and interesting at times. It's normally varied work. You meet great people.
I don't like Operations Areas. Business as Usual can be as dull as it sounds.
Yet, I'm sort of glad, as this foray into the world of Business Analysis a bit of a soft landing as I 'get' what the teams are trying to do. I get what they do on a daily basis. I get how they do it. It's all second nature. It's ingrained.
And it hasn't changed much in the near decade since I left.
Nor have the people.
Similar people, different office.
Middle aged women in slacks and jumpers who go and find a cup of tea two hours by the clock. Younger women, seven months pregnant with photos of the kids framed on the desk. Young men in their thirties with Supercuts haircuts and short sleeved polyester shirts. Friendly management who try and make the best of the conditions. Same people, different office. Seen it all before.
And the killer for me - the radio is piped through the office.
ARGH.
I come from offices where everybody listens to music - it's what iPods are for! I've been known to bop along to the Pixies while fixing commas and parsing ("You are the son of an incestuous union..."). I do it regularly. ("Vamos, vamos, vamos") I used to have iPod swaps with my old project manager. ("I was swimming in the Caribbean').
In this new office, I've been subjected to GOLD FM and MIX FM. So far I've endured some really old favorites - Phil Collins, Bryan Adams, Mental as Anything - and a personal favorite - Meatloaf.
If I ever have to hear Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell" album again before I die, it will be too soon. Just as the CIA tortured Gitmo detainees with the Barney song, I have a similar feeling about Bat out of Hell. For two years, it was all I listened to as I stuck price tickets on department store items.
I know every word to that pharking album.
Hearing 'I Can See Paradise by the Dashboard Light' on Friday was enough to start my bottom lip quivering and the urge to run away to set in.
I'm back in an Operations Area. Joy!
It's only for a few months. I'm cutting my teeth on work things. I just have to remember this and remember this often. And go back to the mother ship of my old office when I can.
My earplugs will get a battering I reckon - that or I ramp up the iPod and play The Pixies, Florence and the Machine, The Rolling Stones and anything that is the antithesis of the easy listening crap they play over the tannoy.
On the good side of things, I'll go back to the project enclave after this stint, the people are friendly, its walking distance from home and the canteen is so bad I'll have to take my lunch in so I will get my diet back on track. And there may be a bit of travel attached to this job with the slight chance of being sent to Sydney for a few weeks.
On the not so good side of things, other than the persistent drone of easy-listening radio, I just have to remember that although this type of work started me on the route I'm on now, it's not what I do any more. It's not who I am. And I'm not stuck there, earning half of what I earn now, bored out of my wits with no way out.
Thank heavens it's not for too long.
I've had a weekend out from things. Went with Jay from the gym to see Rock of Ages yesterday - loved every minute of it.
As somebody who normally doesn't like musicals, this one got me to me. An old friend highly recommended it - and I'm so glad I went. The only musicals I tend to like are the edgy, slightly wrong ones - like Rocky Horror, Hairspray and Chicago. I think that Andrew Lloyd Webber should be publicly executed for crimes against humanity.
Rock of Ages has a Rocky Horror sense of fun, a completely wrong sense of humour and one of the best eighties sound tracks out there. And they give you a fake cigarette lighter to sway to the music with. I'm never going to hear Pat Benetar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" in the same way again. I don't believe that I ever wore the clothes they wore - I've never worn acid wash double denim or gym lycra unitards. My hair's too boofy to have a spiral perm... And the last time I wore suspenders and stocking was to a "Shock Your Mother" party at college. Thankfully all the photos of me in a school uniform, stockings and suspenders in a shopping trolley have been burned.
If you get a chance to see it on stage - do it - though the movie of the stage show is coming out next year. Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx should be a hoot.
Other good things to happen this weekend - Pump class with 25 kilogram squat track, meditation, a quiet night on Saturday with a lot of Vampire Porn (True Blood). All good things.
On the not quite as good side - a not that interesting Mason's rehearsal, which was infuriating and insightful in turn and completely wasted Friday night. And lots of vampire porn has made me decidedly horny. But we can't talk about the last thing.
I'm going into middle age - I didn't think you were supposed to get horny any more.
I suppose the latter is a bit of compensation for the fact that tomorrow morning it's back to Gormenghast to look at operations processes which haven't changed that much in twenty years.
_________________________________________________
Days without ice cream - 15 (and brownie points for donating to Trin the scoop of vanilla ice cream that turned up in my skinny iced chai latte up at the 1000 Steps - like who puts ice cream in skinny iced chai latte?)
Unexpected
Sometimes I think of your skin
The unexpected smoothness found
At the base of your neck
And your chest's scent
Where I used to lay
Your chest, my pillow
Your arm, loose around me
Protective and calm
I can never go back
But you are always there
In the recesses
Where light rarely goes
Soft, smooth, scented
Imperfectly perfect.
Protective and calm.
More to the point, much of my working life has been spent pushing paper in the operations departments of financial institutions. Working with the distribution of dividends, corporate actions, cash balancing and reconciliations, data entry jobs in the back offices of International Banking Houses to be precise.
For me, after ten years of this sort of work, I was ready to slit my wrists. Then in 2003, after a large epiphany, three months on a Greek Island and a bout of deep depression, I made a change, found IT and began to discover that work could be fun, interesting and I could play to my strengths. Leaving the operations departments of these banks has been one of the best moves I've ever made - from financial, professional and personal standings.
So now, in my capacity as a Consulting Business Analyst for a second tier Business Consulting group (all this means is that I work with great people who drink lots of beer, have personalities and don't expect you to do fourteen hour days) I'm in a bit of quandary.
In my current role, I'm finding myself back in the thick of an operations area of a financial institution. Even worse, I'm in the thick of the operations area of Bastard Bank's Retail Operations Area.
I DON'T WORK RETAIL!!! Especially not after my first job was spent in the sub-basement of the an Adelaide department store sticking on price tags - two year of that putting myself through my final year of university part time.
Okay, I'm not in this Gormenghast of a place to WORK in operations - I'm there do document the procedures and processes, that is once I get through the air locks, find my desk, pass the forests of paperwork and rows of fax machines and try to let to foreboding sense of deja vu pass.
I left these kinds of offices nearly a decade ago.
Working in IT and telcos, I've been surrounded by computers and people in jeans - people with quick wits, idiosyncrasies and tendencies towards the autism spectrums. Working on projects, I've been among a mix of megalomaniacs with their own agendas, decent, bright, fun hard working people who strive for the best (these are the people I seem to make friends with) and a heap of very bright people who have tendencies towards the autism spectrums. Throw into the mix guys like Traralgon, Ah-Sole, Danger Dood and the Hot Scouser and every stereotype is covered.
I like project spaces. I get them. They can be fast paced and interesting at times. It's normally varied work. You meet great people.
I don't like Operations Areas. Business as Usual can be as dull as it sounds.
Yet, I'm sort of glad, as this foray into the world of Business Analysis a bit of a soft landing as I 'get' what the teams are trying to do. I get what they do on a daily basis. I get how they do it. It's all second nature. It's ingrained.
And it hasn't changed much in the near decade since I left.
Nor have the people.
Similar people, different office.
Middle aged women in slacks and jumpers who go and find a cup of tea two hours by the clock. Younger women, seven months pregnant with photos of the kids framed on the desk. Young men in their thirties with Supercuts haircuts and short sleeved polyester shirts. Friendly management who try and make the best of the conditions. Same people, different office. Seen it all before.
And the killer for me - the radio is piped through the office.
ARGH.
I come from offices where everybody listens to music - it's what iPods are for! I've been known to bop along to the Pixies while fixing commas and parsing ("You are the son of an incestuous union..."). I do it regularly. ("Vamos, vamos, vamos") I used to have iPod swaps with my old project manager. ("I was swimming in the Caribbean').
In this new office, I've been subjected to GOLD FM and MIX FM. So far I've endured some really old favorites - Phil Collins, Bryan Adams, Mental as Anything - and a personal favorite - Meatloaf.
If I ever have to hear Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell" album again before I die, it will be too soon. Just as the CIA tortured Gitmo detainees with the Barney song, I have a similar feeling about Bat out of Hell. For two years, it was all I listened to as I stuck price tickets on department store items.
I know every word to that pharking album.
Hearing 'I Can See Paradise by the Dashboard Light' on Friday was enough to start my bottom lip quivering and the urge to run away to set in.
I'm back in an Operations Area. Joy!
It's only for a few months. I'm cutting my teeth on work things. I just have to remember this and remember this often. And go back to the mother ship of my old office when I can.
My earplugs will get a battering I reckon - that or I ramp up the iPod and play The Pixies, Florence and the Machine, The Rolling Stones and anything that is the antithesis of the easy listening crap they play over the tannoy.
On the good side of things, I'll go back to the project enclave after this stint, the people are friendly, its walking distance from home and the canteen is so bad I'll have to take my lunch in so I will get my diet back on track. And there may be a bit of travel attached to this job with the slight chance of being sent to Sydney for a few weeks.
On the not so good side of things, other than the persistent drone of easy-listening radio, I just have to remember that although this type of work started me on the route I'm on now, it's not what I do any more. It's not who I am. And I'm not stuck there, earning half of what I earn now, bored out of my wits with no way out.
Thank heavens it's not for too long.
I've had a weekend out from things. Went with Jay from the gym to see Rock of Ages yesterday - loved every minute of it.
As somebody who normally doesn't like musicals, this one got me to me. An old friend highly recommended it - and I'm so glad I went. The only musicals I tend to like are the edgy, slightly wrong ones - like Rocky Horror, Hairspray and Chicago. I think that Andrew Lloyd Webber should be publicly executed for crimes against humanity.
Rock of Ages has a Rocky Horror sense of fun, a completely wrong sense of humour and one of the best eighties sound tracks out there. And they give you a fake cigarette lighter to sway to the music with. I'm never going to hear Pat Benetar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" in the same way again. I don't believe that I ever wore the clothes they wore - I've never worn acid wash double denim or gym lycra unitards. My hair's too boofy to have a spiral perm... And the last time I wore suspenders and stocking was to a "Shock Your Mother" party at college. Thankfully all the photos of me in a school uniform, stockings and suspenders in a shopping trolley have been burned.
If you get a chance to see it on stage - do it - though the movie of the stage show is coming out next year. Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx should be a hoot.
Other good things to happen this weekend - Pump class with 25 kilogram squat track, meditation, a quiet night on Saturday with a lot of Vampire Porn (True Blood). All good things.
On the not quite as good side - a not that interesting Mason's rehearsal, which was infuriating and insightful in turn and completely wasted Friday night. And lots of vampire porn has made me decidedly horny. But we can't talk about the last thing.
I'm going into middle age - I didn't think you were supposed to get horny any more.
I suppose the latter is a bit of compensation for the fact that tomorrow morning it's back to Gormenghast to look at operations processes which haven't changed that much in twenty years.
_________________________________________________
Days without ice cream - 15 (and brownie points for donating to Trin the scoop of vanilla ice cream that turned up in my skinny iced chai latte up at the 1000 Steps - like who puts ice cream in skinny iced chai latte?)
Unexpected
Sometimes I think of your skin
The unexpected smoothness found
At the base of your neck
And your chest's scent
Where I used to lay
Your chest, my pillow
Your arm, loose around me
Protective and calm
I can never go back
But you are always there
In the recesses
Where light rarely goes
Soft, smooth, scented
Imperfectly perfect.
Protective and calm.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Pandora Lent X
Days without Ice Cream 14
frustrating night life
computer crashes again
max irritation
frustrating night life
computer crashes again
max irritation
Friday, November 4, 2011
Pandora Lent IX
Days without ice cream- 13 (though the temptation to get a magnum on the way home from masons was nearly impossible to overcome)
Voiceless
I ponder what it must be like
To talk to the same person
For one whole week.
To have a real conversation
With the same person
Every day
For a whole week.
To discuss more than work
Or the weather
Or what's on the box
Or the football ladder
With the same person
For one whole week
And to not remember what this is like
Is a concept as alien
As world peace
Something to strive for
Yet so elusive.
(Dream group has set off some pretty black crap - normal programming will resume shortly)
Voiceless
I ponder what it must be like
To talk to the same person
For one whole week.
To have a real conversation
With the same person
Every day
For a whole week.
To discuss more than work
Or the weather
Or what's on the box
Or the football ladder
With the same person
For one whole week
And to not remember what this is like
Is a concept as alien
As world peace
Something to strive for
Yet so elusive.
(Dream group has set off some pretty black crap - normal programming will resume shortly)
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Imperfect Pictures
One of my greatest dislikes, along with bananas and lasagne, is having my photo taken. Loathe, loathe, loathe having my photo taken.
I'm the first to admit that most of this comes from having zero self-esteem or self-worth over the years. Thinking that you are the ugliest, smelliest, most useless person that ever walked the planet doesn't do great things for you when it comes to making your mark on the world. Knowing that you're not particularly photogenic doesn't help either - but I've had a pathalogical fear of having my photo taken for many years. I liken it to being from a long lost tribe who believes that the camera steals your soul - which has been a short story idea for a long time too.
Because of this irrational fear, with the exception of the odd school photo, and the odd sneaky shot, I have very, very few photos of myself for the last forty years. Unfortunately, the bulk of the photos of me taken before the age of seven were destroyed in a caravan fire - my grandparents had taken the photos on a grey nomad trip around Australia - they were all destroyed. Years of dodging the camera have meant that there are next to no shots of me though university, my twenties or my thirties. Never getting engaged or married or having children or going on holidays with anybody means I've escaped the camera for the most part - actively, vocally avoiding I them for what seems like ever.
I also don't have photos around my house. I have a couple of photos of my nieces on my book case taken a few years ago and there are some shots of friends on the fridge. From what I know, my mother has one shot of me on the side board. I've tried to steal it away on many occasions because I'm embarrassed about the monobrow...
I'll also admit to having a real hatred of seeing myself in photos - so much so that I've been known to rip them up, detroy the negatives and burn the evidence or throw tantrums until friends get rid of them - yes, it was that bad. There is a part of me that just didn't want to face the truth as to how big I'd got, just as there was a part of me who felt like my existence wasn't justified.
Thank goodness that has changed.
Another incedent in my twenties has made me reticent to go anywhere near a camera. Having your work head shot plastered onto hard core pornographic shots and distributed around the company didn't do anything for my liking of having my photo taken either. The incident nearly had somebody fired (if it wasn't London in the 90's and in today's politically correct world the consequences would have been far more severe) and left me scarred for life. I still refuse to have my photo taken or published in any sort of corporate capacity other than ID cards.
It's only in the last few years that I have got a little better about having photos taken. Not much, but a bit better. I've been known to untag photos on facebook, rather than demand that they be taken off entirely, and I've even posted the odd photo of myself - though I do vet them carefully. I'm still not really that taken with being photographed, but it's not something that sends me into a mad, tear-filled frenzy any more.
I know that it's an irrational fear. I know that it's stupid - but having my photo taken still fills me with dread.
So this week has left me feeling rather rattled. I know that my passport needs renewing - the sooner the better. I also got notification that my driver's licences is also up for renewal. And starting a new role in a secure building meant a new photo for a new ID tag - another photo.
Three of the buggers.
The familiar feeling of horror has been sitting with me for a while. Two of these photos will last ten years. Not that anybody really sees them or looks at them, but the thought that they will be around to haunt me fills me with dread.
Okay, my last passport photo was tolerable, even I can see that. I know how much I weighed when I had the photo taken - a strange fact since it was some ten years ago - and I'm happily six or seven kilos lighter now. My last licence shot was a complete dog. Almost at my heaviest, I look miserable. I'm really thankful that this licence shot is being retired. It's truly dreadful. I think I can count five chins.
Then today, on entering the new building, for the new role, after walking the three kilometres to work, somewhat red faced and sweaty, the security guy said I needed to have my photo taken for the new pass.
I was flummoxed. No getting out of it. Argh. Everybody working in this building needs this pass to get in and out of the building, which has two sets of air locks to get to the main lifts, to the loo, to the canteen - it's like working at the Royal Mint or the Pentagon. If you don't have this pass with you they wont let you in without and escort. Fun.
After a minor silent grumble, I did what I was told. I went and stood in front of the third chair and looked at the security camera dome. After looking the two wrong security domes, I was finally standing in the foyer looking like an idiot for what felt like an age - and then I was summoned.
And what would you know - on my new pass, a very acceptable likeness of me. It's okay. I'm not scowling. I'm not frowning. I'm not looking like I'm about to murder the photographer. It's okay.
Lets hope the passport short and the driver's licence go as smoothly.
It's only just dawned on me in the last few months that I don't have this photographic history of myself. I'm not sure how I feel about this at all. Part of me is very sad. Part of me is trying to rectify the situation to a point.
My friend Gloria, a very good photographer, has been at me for years to take my portrait once again. I let her do it a few years ago when I was ten kilograms heavier. Though I can see the merits of her photos - I look at them and still see a moose - the photos are in a drawer somewhere, never allowed to see the light of day. Maybe this is another thing to work on - try and get over this fear.
Or maybe I should leave it. I think I needed to write about this after dream group left me rattled last night. My dream. Not a great or positive dream. The conversation was pointed. I'm in constant competition with myself. It's almost cellular.
I'm still processing all this. I just know I'm in for a rocky few weeks.
Pand
________________________________________________________________
Days without ice cream - 12
I'm not a photograph
An image without soul
A test shot, paper thin
Without substance or depth.
I don't want to be taken
Or shaken or made
Left on show to collect
The dust that will only collect
For images change with the wind
And the tides and the seasons
Capturing a moment
Feels so futile.
I'm the first to admit that most of this comes from having zero self-esteem or self-worth over the years. Thinking that you are the ugliest, smelliest, most useless person that ever walked the planet doesn't do great things for you when it comes to making your mark on the world. Knowing that you're not particularly photogenic doesn't help either - but I've had a pathalogical fear of having my photo taken for many years. I liken it to being from a long lost tribe who believes that the camera steals your soul - which has been a short story idea for a long time too.
Because of this irrational fear, with the exception of the odd school photo, and the odd sneaky shot, I have very, very few photos of myself for the last forty years. Unfortunately, the bulk of the photos of me taken before the age of seven were destroyed in a caravan fire - my grandparents had taken the photos on a grey nomad trip around Australia - they were all destroyed. Years of dodging the camera have meant that there are next to no shots of me though university, my twenties or my thirties. Never getting engaged or married or having children or going on holidays with anybody means I've escaped the camera for the most part - actively, vocally avoiding I them for what seems like ever.
I also don't have photos around my house. I have a couple of photos of my nieces on my book case taken a few years ago and there are some shots of friends on the fridge. From what I know, my mother has one shot of me on the side board. I've tried to steal it away on many occasions because I'm embarrassed about the monobrow...
I'll also admit to having a real hatred of seeing myself in photos - so much so that I've been known to rip them up, detroy the negatives and burn the evidence or throw tantrums until friends get rid of them - yes, it was that bad. There is a part of me that just didn't want to face the truth as to how big I'd got, just as there was a part of me who felt like my existence wasn't justified.
Thank goodness that has changed.
Another incedent in my twenties has made me reticent to go anywhere near a camera. Having your work head shot plastered onto hard core pornographic shots and distributed around the company didn't do anything for my liking of having my photo taken either. The incident nearly had somebody fired (if it wasn't London in the 90's and in today's politically correct world the consequences would have been far more severe) and left me scarred for life. I still refuse to have my photo taken or published in any sort of corporate capacity other than ID cards.
It's only in the last few years that I have got a little better about having photos taken. Not much, but a bit better. I've been known to untag photos on facebook, rather than demand that they be taken off entirely, and I've even posted the odd photo of myself - though I do vet them carefully. I'm still not really that taken with being photographed, but it's not something that sends me into a mad, tear-filled frenzy any more.
I know that it's an irrational fear. I know that it's stupid - but having my photo taken still fills me with dread.
So this week has left me feeling rather rattled. I know that my passport needs renewing - the sooner the better. I also got notification that my driver's licences is also up for renewal. And starting a new role in a secure building meant a new photo for a new ID tag - another photo.
Three of the buggers.
The familiar feeling of horror has been sitting with me for a while. Two of these photos will last ten years. Not that anybody really sees them or looks at them, but the thought that they will be around to haunt me fills me with dread.
Okay, my last passport photo was tolerable, even I can see that. I know how much I weighed when I had the photo taken - a strange fact since it was some ten years ago - and I'm happily six or seven kilos lighter now. My last licence shot was a complete dog. Almost at my heaviest, I look miserable. I'm really thankful that this licence shot is being retired. It's truly dreadful. I think I can count five chins.
Then today, on entering the new building, for the new role, after walking the three kilometres to work, somewhat red faced and sweaty, the security guy said I needed to have my photo taken for the new pass.
I was flummoxed. No getting out of it. Argh. Everybody working in this building needs this pass to get in and out of the building, which has two sets of air locks to get to the main lifts, to the loo, to the canteen - it's like working at the Royal Mint or the Pentagon. If you don't have this pass with you they wont let you in without and escort. Fun.
After a minor silent grumble, I did what I was told. I went and stood in front of the third chair and looked at the security camera dome. After looking the two wrong security domes, I was finally standing in the foyer looking like an idiot for what felt like an age - and then I was summoned.
And what would you know - on my new pass, a very acceptable likeness of me. It's okay. I'm not scowling. I'm not frowning. I'm not looking like I'm about to murder the photographer. It's okay.
Lets hope the passport short and the driver's licence go as smoothly.
It's only just dawned on me in the last few months that I don't have this photographic history of myself. I'm not sure how I feel about this at all. Part of me is very sad. Part of me is trying to rectify the situation to a point.
My friend Gloria, a very good photographer, has been at me for years to take my portrait once again. I let her do it a few years ago when I was ten kilograms heavier. Though I can see the merits of her photos - I look at them and still see a moose - the photos are in a drawer somewhere, never allowed to see the light of day. Maybe this is another thing to work on - try and get over this fear.
Or maybe I should leave it. I think I needed to write about this after dream group left me rattled last night. My dream. Not a great or positive dream. The conversation was pointed. I'm in constant competition with myself. It's almost cellular.
I'm still processing all this. I just know I'm in for a rocky few weeks.
Pand
________________________________________________________________
Days without ice cream - 12
I'm not a photograph
An image without soul
A test shot, paper thin
Without substance or depth.
I don't want to be taken
Or shaken or made
Left on show to collect
The dust that will only collect
For images change with the wind
And the tides and the seasons
Capturing a moment
Feels so futile.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Pandora Lent VIII
Days without ice cream - 11
Passport Photo Blues
Blind panic remains
Queueing for unwanted shots
That last a decade
Everyone gets it
The passport photo tremors
That last a decade
The chance to forgive
The choice of crap coloured shirt
That lasts a decade.
And when it comes round
You promise not to error
In your passport shot.
Passport Photo Blues
Blind panic remains
Queueing for unwanted shots
That last a decade
Everyone gets it
The passport photo tremors
That last a decade
The chance to forgive
The choice of crap coloured shirt
That lasts a decade.
And when it comes round
You promise not to error
In your passport shot.
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