The way that people behave on public transport is, I think, a very good indication of what kind of people they are and how they conduct themselves in day to day life. Public transport is a shared mode of transportation, and in order for you to help make it a more pleasant experience than it currently is, here is a set of guidelines that everyone utilizing PT should follow:
1. Do not carry on extended mobile phone conversations at the top of your lungs so that the entire carriage can overhear.
Now, I understand that mobile phones enable us to remain in contact regardless of physical location, but that does not mean that it’s a good idea for you to be discussing your yeast infection on the 5:30pm train from the City to Glen Waverley. Neither is it a good idea to be discussing any very personal aspects of your own or someone elses life - especially if you’re someone with a predisposition towards using the phrases “oh my gahd” and “like”
e.g. “Oh my GAHD, did you hear that Ben broke up with Linda? That’s, like, SO wrong, because she is just so right for him! And, like, oh my GAHD, what’s with him, like, asking out Michelle? HELLO??” (I am only slightly exaggerating, I’ve heard conversations VERY similar to this whilst on PT)
Conducting yourself in the above manner will make you appear as a dullwitted Paris Hilton wannabe, and despite what you think, this is not a good thing.
2. Do not put your feet/handbag/shopping on the seats of a crowded vehicle, especially when people are jostling for standing room
I’m really not going to elaborate here, because if you’re asking “why not” then you’re one of those annoying ‘Entitlement Bitch’ types and there’s no reasoning with you. People like you make baby jesus cry.
3. Do not smoke whilst standing at undercover waiting areas for public transport
Not only is it now illegal and a fineable offence, it’s really freaking annoying for everyone else, especially if you’re the type who stands in the doorway of the train puffing on that cigarette till the moment the door closes, and stinking up the carriage with the smell of your smoke.
4. Offer the elderly, pregnant women and anyone who is visibly injured your seat
Hey, Mr. Suit Wearing Type, I saw you look away from that old woman. I offer my seat whenever I can, and in this instance I’m sitting next to the window and if I offered my seat she’d have to clamber over 6 sets of legs to get to it whilst on a moving vehicle. Get off your sorry arse over there in the aisle and let the little old lady rest her swollen legs. Your granny would be so ashamed of you right now.
5. Watch where you sit
Now, despite the fact that the lady sitting down is in violation of rule number 2, that does NOT give you the right to plonk your arse on top of her handbag. For all you know, hiding inside that handbag is an authentic Ming Dynasty vase that you are now going to have to replace. It’s just rude, and it’s easier to avoid any drama by USING your mouth. Was it really too difficult to say “Excuse me, but I’d like to sit down. Could you please move your bag?”
6. Do not leave your bag IN the aisle or leave it on your back - it is not a person and does not need as much (or more) standing room as you do.
Okay, this is directed at you schoolkids with those giant Quasimodo-style backpacks. I’m sorry, are you all wearing chastity belts? Is there something preventing you from opening your legs and placing that giant bag between them instead of in front of you? And as for those of you who insist on keeping it on your back - THINK! This bag takes the space of an entire HUMAN in itself, by placing it between your feet you are instantly creating more room for yourself and your fellow commuters.
7. Body odour - maintain it
‘Nuff said. We’re coming into summer, and nobody likes having to stand with their face away from another traveller’s stinky pit during their hour-long journey home. A can of anti-persperant deoderant is less than a cup of coffee from the supermarket - consider it a worthwhile investment.
8. Respect peoples personal space, and apologise when you invade it
When those trains are packed like sardine cans, it means that the occasional jostle as the train bumps and jerks along on it’s journey is unavoidable. However, if you happen to have stepped on someone’s foot with your stiletto heel, or just elbowed them in the stomach - look them in the eye and apologise. I know you didn’t do it on purpose (if you did, may you rot in hell), but it’s just good manners and will prevent the injured person from seeking an excuse to return the ‘favour’.
9. Listen to your music at a respectable level
When I get on public transport, I usually just want to sleep for the duration of my journey, and having someone blasting death metal from their earphones while sitting next to me pisses me off to no end. First of all, have you not heard of tinnitus? You’re doing permanant damage to your ears by listening to your music at that level. Second of all - you’re NOT that cool, and people are not going to think “hey, that guy is awesome because he has great taste in music”. It is more likely that they’re going to think you’re a tosser for bopping your head, scrunching your eyes and jiggling to your death metal on the train.
10. If you are incapable of following these rules, do not enter into the public sphere
If you disagree with the points outlined above, then you are a selfish, thoughtless individual who should be locked in their home till they learn to respect others.
Every single one of these points has been based on behavior I have witnessed or had to put up with whilst travelling on the train & tram networks in Melbourne. Really people, it is NOT all that difficult to behave like a decent human being in public. Didn’t your mothers ever teach you lot manners??
So Sunday marked my 2 week anniversary of no cigarettes…except it didn’t taste too sweet as I cracked on Friday as I left work and sparked up.
And took a drag and recoiled in disgust - it tasted horrible! Nonetheless, I wasn’t going to let the taste put me off after craving it for so long, so with much determination I strove on, breathing deep and ignoring the shortness of breath I was developing and that awful feeling in my stomach. Not to mention that wise little voice in my head that was yelling “WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING YOU IDIOT! YOU’RE NOT EVEN ENJOYING IT! PUT IT OUT!!”
Half a cigarette later, I just could not take another drag and ended up butting it out.
I felt two different kinds of horrible - firstly the immediate effects of the cigarette in that I felt slightly out of breath, my heartbeat had increased and it almost felt like I had a teensny bit of a headache. Secondly, my conscious was roundly berating me for being weak and giving into such a desire - and continuing it even after it became apparant that I didn’t enjoy what I was doing.
As punishment? I went to the gym and worked out till I could barely make it home due to the pain I was in. And again on Saturday morning, though admittedly that was a much lighter session as I was still in so much pain from Friday’s workout.
Still craving having a smoke…but I *will* get through this.
Besides, I’m not quite ready to handle another murderous session at the gym *winces* thighs still in way too much pain.
1. I’m annoyed at the fact that the week has been full of pretty nice weather, and the weekend (my time off) will be utterly craptacular.
2. I’m STILL giggling over an old aquaintance who seemed to think he was of a lot more consequence to me than he actually was. Mind you, when I read his “I can’t talk to you anymore. Goodbye” email, I burst into laughter as the only contact I’d had with him was a brief chat on msn once every few weeks. Oh look - my world is a-crumblin’!
3. I’m convinced that my pilates instructor is trying to kill me…or at the very least, render me incapable of movement. Every week after my lesson I’m left unable to move a section of my body. This week, it happens to be my thighs. I must be something of a masochist though, as I’m addicted to it!
4. If anyone had told me a month ago that I’d love going to the gym, I would’ve snorted in their face. The last time I was a member of a gym I hated it - I was a member of fitness first and rarely went due to the queues for equipment, lack of interaction and the sheer rudeness of their staff (here’s the equipment, now shut up and use it and don’t bother us!) and intimidation from the huge number of muscle-heads that frequented the place. My new gym is smaller, much friendlier (after a month of 3-5 times a week visits, I’m on a first name basis with most of the staff) and somewhere that I’m excited about going after being at work all day.
5. I need more social contact - I have withdrawn into the worlds of home, work & gym and this is unacceptable!
6. I think my leg hair is finally long enough to wax off tonight! YES! I will be gorilla-legg’d no longer!
7. I’m slightly disturbed by the fact that it’s a Friday and tonight, instead of sticking around the office for free booze, I’m going to be racing off to the gym to meet Vee for our cardio/weights workout. And I’m more excited about working out with Vee than the alcohol. If I was boring before I quit smoking, what have I become now???
8. It’s beautifully sunny outside yet I’ve not dared to leave the office once today in case I give in to the temptation to have a ciggy. Oh god, I’m ACHING for one. If I can make it till Sunday, then that makes it 2 weeks without a full cig. 3 weeks is when it’s meant to get easier, right? Right?
9. I really really really want a Nintendo Wii, but there’s no way I can afford one. Probably a good thing too, as I’d never use it. I think I just like the wireless, light-sabre-esque controllers.
10. After not writing anything creative in freaking FOREVER (not including the food blog) I think I finally found some inspiration last night. Not sharing what it is though.
It’s been over a week since I’ve had a cigarette.
I faltered today. After a stressful weekend and only 3 hours sleep, by 3pm I was absolutely dying, and so dashed out of the office to have a cigarette.
Halfway through, I lost interest and butted it and trashed it. It just didn’t have the same effect on me that it used to, and I felt bad for lapsing from my resolve.
The fact that it didn’t taste as good as I remember must be a good thing, but that doesn’t help the mental cravings I’m having. Perhaps I should replace smoking with another habit…but what?
It is my observation that when leaving a voting booth with an armload of stuffed toys, people will look at you veeeery strangely.
Perhaps I should have bought them after I had voted…
It’s not my fault that Mr. Woofy only plays with soft toys.
This is my 5th full day without having placed a cigarette between my lips.
The cravings are driving me mental, but I’m not budging from my resolve to do this cold turkey.
Help me…*sobbing*
So, I’ve decided to officially quit smoking. True, I haven’t really smoked since coming down with this infection last week, but making it official means that I’m not going to carry around any cigs/lighters and try going cold turkey. Oooh, scary! Why so scary? Because I started smoking from the age of 15 - as a social thing, when my ’sohn-bae-del’ (older friends) took me out to pool halls to smoke, drink and play pool. By the time I was 16, I was back living in Australia without my family and had become a regular smoker, changing from Marlboro Reds (16) to Marlboro Lights (12) so that my throat wouldn’t hurt so much from the increase in quantity.
By the time I hit 2nd year uni, I was a pack-a-day smoker who also had a bit of a caffiene addiction (4-5 cups a day), not to mention the love of alcohol which saw me do extremely…odd things. Never dangerous or really self-destructive, but odd. The whole ‘flashing the girls to a room full of people, then cupping them and dancing around making a song about them’ incident is one that either myself or those who witnessed it are likely to forget. Thank god I only speak to one person who was in that room, the others have become blurred faces in the back of my mind.
Last year, I did quit the cigs for almost 2 months…and then an extremely stressful period at work saw me start the habit again, which, though it made me feel like I had no conviction, helped me to retain my sanity. To this point, I’d reduced the number of cigarettes I smoked to about 3-5 on a daily basis, though I’d easily go through a pack if out for a night of drinks. Ahhh, alcohol. I rarely drink these days, but when I do, my right hand and my mouth starts craving the ritualistic process of smoking. Shall I be able to resist this time? I’m not going to be too hard on myself - if I find it too difficult, then I’ll let myself have a few whilst out, but only then.
I’ve spent the last 9 years of my life with a cigarette in hand, and I’m only 24. That’s over a third of the years I’ve been alive. I really don’t want to give any more of my life to these bloody cancer sticks.
“Next Stop Wonderland”
It’s fairly unlikely that you’ve seen it, it was a small, low-budget ‘quirky’ (I hate that word too, but what can I do?) story about love and relationships that I first saw in 1999. I fell in love with it’s lack of rose-coloured glasses and flawed characters
Erin: I don’t believe in fate, I don’t! Case in point, my mom and dad. They only met because my mom had to take the next flight because her cab was late getting to the airport because on the way it struck and killed a little dog!
Berit: That’s fate!
Rick: Tell that to the little dog!!
The heroine, Erin, is unceremoniously dumped by her bf in the street at the beginning of the movie, and spends the rest of the movie meeting (and being seriously unimpressed by) various men, all of whom have almost laughable flaws. Sure, this is the realm of the silver screen, but the charm of this movie is that the storyline and the characters are so believable. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for a perfect creature, and I’m the first to extol the virtues of being human – having those flaws that make us who we are, as I believe that you grow in the battle to overcome them.
I’ve been dating since the age of 15, and have been with all sorts of men (yes, even the taken kind, though admittedly we’d been shag buddies on and off for a few years…and the last time, he ‘forgot’ to tell me that he’d just started seeing someone, the dog!), and still I’m not sure what I want in a partner. Sure, I can tell you what traits I find myself automatically attracted to, but they don’t necessarily match the traits that I see as important for a viable future. So, where does that leave me? In an interesting no man’s land (Aren’t I the wittiest? Just call me Oscar Wilde!) with a sore head and an upset tum from the internal conflict.
What I’m attracted to is easy enough. Artsy/creative guys (I don’t mind thespians and writers, but have a weakness for men who know how to handle guitars…especially a bass!), slightly unkempt in a certain way that makes me weak at the knees, over 6 foot, brunette, talkative, witty, wicked sense of humour and a book/movie/music fiend. Add a few tatts and piercings and a certain amount of desire to succeed in life and you have my ultimate mate. Well, I’d also hope for a certain amount of sanity as well as some other more private aspects that I’m not about to state here…but there you have it.
However, when I think about the kind of figure I want to raise a family and grow old with…the traits change slightly. The physical aspects (brunette, body art) become much less important, and things such as stability, direction and motivation come much more to the forefront. As I was growing up…actually, until my father opened his own business this year, he had never been able to hold down a job for very long (the combination of his personality and his schizophrenia makes for someone who is extremely difficult to get along with) which resulted in my family moving from place to place every few years, and spending many years barely being able to get by financially. My mother did her best to hold the family together and she did an absolutely admirable job, but under no circumstances will I raise a family under those conditions.
Why the heck am I rattling on about this? Oh, who knows - certainly not me. I guess it was just on my mind.
In the end, it’s like Rick says in the movie - the mystery of love isn’t in how you meet each other, but how you stay together. I’m yet to master that bit, but hey, I’m still young 
What do you do if you wake up one morning with the world’s scratchiest throat, phlegm issues and generally feeling spaced out?
1. So long as your not suffering bodily aches (which I’m led to believe are the precursor to a flu), drag yourself to the gym for a light cardio workout or out for a walk to get yourself moving and get some endorphins flowing through your system.
2. Take a hot shower to freshen up and relax those muscles, then set about making yourself a vitamin-rich lunch.
3. Go to a beauty parlour/day spa with a mate and get some treatments to get some pampering and make you relax. A facial or a pedicure is a good choice, waxing not so much.
Vee relaxing on the balcony after our pedicure at the day spa
4. Go have a delicious meal for dinner, something flavourful and filling, such as a paella claypot, at a trusted restaurant
This is the paella claypot at Coco Lounge - saffron rice with black mussels, tiger prawns, chorizo and chicken in a home made napoli and white wine sauce. Great with a little fresh lemon juice squeezed over the top!
And what not to do when in the stranglehold of a cold? Go to a night screening of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan screening which will end up making you laugh so hard that you rub your throat raw and are completely unable to talk the next day, as well as being tired from not getting a good long sleep due to the dry-throat coughing that kept you up all night.
I’m almost all better now, just a little residual scratchiness in the throat. The good thing that has come out of all this is that I’ve found it almost impossible to smoke thanks to the throat pain, and I’ve had about 4 cigarettes in total over the past 4 days. I’m still craving the physical process but not the tobacco so much, so maybe this is my chance to quit?
No, not Naomi Wolf’s book (which I’m yet to read, shameful as that admission is), but my own ponderings on the subject. What’s brought this on? My recent trip to a day spa with a girlfriend. I went and had a pedicure and a full bikini wax, whilst she had a pedicure and a moisturising facial.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoyed the treatments (even the waxing, must be the masochist in me!) but browsing their pamphlets made me wonder where on earth all these treatments have come from. Calling a facial the ‘Taj Mahal’ doesn’t make it as old as the actual building itself (though, funnily enough, it is a treatment for older skin), and I guarantee that women back in those times did not slather their skins with fruit acids to try and restore that dewy freshness. So where is it all from and why do we do it?
Take my bikini wax, for example. I’m single and most definitely not getting any action, so why did I bother. Okay, so baby blue is getting a workout, but I’m inclined to categorize that as stress release - besides, this is such a fantastically designed plaything that has the added bonus of being inoffensive to look at due to the fact that it was designed by women for women. Okay, enough of me extolling the virtues of my vibrator, back to the wax. So, why bother, if nobody is going to appreciate it?
Well, to be honest, I appreciate it. In the hotter summer months, I think it’s more hygenic, feels fresher and prevents smell. Sure, it looks weird and the new sensations take a little getting used to, but after going so long without any maintenance, it’s nice to be hairless again. However, is it worth the pain and the $45 every 6-8 weeks to maintain this? After getting these waxes done on and off over the past 3 years, I think it’s fair to say that I’m still undecided. I think the same goes with the facials and pedicures - to be honest, how often do you really look at someone’s feet? Yeah, me too. But having had the pedicure (with the dead skin being sloughed off) which resulted in soft skinned, moisturized feet with toenails painted red made me feel relaxed all over…which was a good thing, as I was as sick as a dog that day.
I’m not sure where I’m going with all this, but I did a bit of a clean up of my room today and looked at the sheer variety and number of beauty products that I own, and it was truly mind-boggling. With one hand I think it’s just excessive, but with the other I can justify each purpose. Ugh.
I’m sure that sexuality slots into this subject somewhere, but I’m not in the mood for it today. I think I’ll go reread Palahniuk’s “Invisible Monsters” - a story with an interesting idea of love and beauty (that’s not a story synopsis, it’s just one of this book’s elements).
