Desperately Seeking...

Life is a journey and every journey has a story. This is a blog that takes a lighthearted look at these clichés and many more. Join Jenny as she pushes the boundaries of her conservative middle-class life...

[jennynolch]

Desperately Seeking...a gentler way to get from A to B

Jenny gets her swagger on. 

If sitting is the new tobacco, walking is the new green macha smoothie served by Pete Evans in a recycled mason jar.

 Under-appreciated and undervalued, much like an English teacher explaining “Catcher in the Rye” in last period on a Friday. I am talking about walking that is, not Pete Evans. We ALL appreciate Peter Evans (except for that bone broth baby book, we don’t talk about that – Shhhh).

 Walking is something I have been doing for a long long time and by now I am pretty good at it.  I am experienced; nuanced.  I can wander, swagger, mosie, shuffle, glide and stagger in a walk that is totally unique to me.  You too have a walk that is totally unique to you.  Watch people on the street all walking in the same direction but with their own take on this ancient art.  The gentle intuitive choreography of the human frame.  Most people when walking in a group will subconsciously walk in step. Betcha never noticed.

 Walking is so easy – we all do it everyday.  It is so cheap even Aldi cannot compete and you can do it any time anywhere – some people even do it when they are asleep.

 Not only is walking an excellent form of exercise, it is a great way to release stress and increase your quality of life.  Dogs totally get it.  They are the happiest beings on earth. For a dog, no walk is boring.  Every walk is just SO EXCITING.  A chance at a sensory overload to satisfy their curiosity.  I too am now dog-like in my approach to walking. I wander the neighbourhood taking in every detail, smelling the roses and occasionally tagging my favourite chair at my local café.

 I can often be seen wandering the neighbourhood with my mauve trolley in hand.  Some call it Nana-like, I call it Nana fabulous.

 We all seem to be so impressed by the car a person drives but what if we were impressed by how far someone had walked. What if we were impressed by how they had escaped their insulated car bubble and interacted with the neighbourhood like a REAL person, having REAL eye contact, and REAL incidental conversations with fellow citizens.  Stop it. I’m too radical.  How would we judge people?  Maybe we wouldn’t – ahhhh!

 If sugar is the new salt, walking is the new Michelle Bridges meditating and breast feeding while taking a Spin Pilates class for obsese Australians.  That is quiet, gentle and carbon free.  I’m talking about walking that is, not Michelle Bridges.  No-one could have thought I was talking about Michelle Bridges.

[jennynolch]

I have just posted my latest blog below...Desperately Seeking...hand-picked spanner crab and finger lime pearls...tell me what you think?

[jennynolch]

Desperately Seeking…hand-picked spanner crab and finger lime pearls.

Jenny tries her hand at the underrated world of menu poetry.

 You say, “Poe-tae-toe”. I say, “Poe-tar-toe”. Seriously, who says “po-tar-toe” when you can say “poe-tae-to” baked in it’s “jar-ket” with jal-ar-peno, chorizo and lime butter, pickled cabbage and fresh capsicum salsa?

 You say, “Toe-mae-too”. I say, “Toe-mar-toe”. Or I could say “heirloom “toe-mar-toe” salad with fiore di buratta on smoked mozzarella with zucchini cucumber and green olive pesto.

 This is what the Ted Hughes Prize for innovation in poetry was MADE for.   Melbourne menu poetry: the greater the mouthful, THE GREATER THE MOUTHFUL!

 In a world striving for shorter, simpler and snappier, the English language is reducing faster than a red wine jus, often to a series of  three-letter acronyms like LOL, BTW and WTF.  Meanwhile the foodie world refuses to be so tongue-tied and is making everything longer, more complicated and at it's finest incomprehensible.  AND I LIKE IT.

 Not content with mixing languages (Frenglish) and regions (Tex Mex), our fabulous foodies are putting words together that have never been put together before.  Like the “cronut”, a crae-zee combination of a croissant and a donut that’s counterintuitive and mouth-watering at the same time.  AND I LIKE IT.

 I too want to take a brave and radical step into food poetry.  I will attempt to take my favourite foods and combine them into a ménage a trois of magnificence that will trip the tongue of the most gastrocratic polyglot.  At my funeral I have requested my favourite foods be served: champagne, lamingtons and pommes frites.  I call it the “Sham-a-lam-a-fritzer”.

 There! I did it! AND I LIKE IT.

 Menu poetry is a talent for which Melbourne should be proud.  Where is the reality TV show called My Menu Rules?  Who cares about the back-story and the food when the true sensuality lies in the words that slip off the tongue and intrigue the senses.

 I realise that not everyone champions food poetry as much as I do. The vegan food stall within my local shopping strip tends to favour words like “raw” and “vegan”, and then run out of imagination and repeat the words “raw” and “vegan” again and again and again. By repeating it do they hope to condition us that raw vegan is aspirational?

 Or is the only other word that truly goes with raw vegan “WTF”?

[jennynolch]

I have uploaded my next blog on Desperately Seeking...my inner crazy-ass bitch.

[jennynolch]

Desperately Seeking… My inner crazy-ass bitch

Jenny takes up hip hop dancing, no really.

My friend is going through a nasty divorce and wanted to try something new, so she asked me to sign up to a Hip Hop dance class with her. Sure, I thought. How hard can this be?  I can move, or at least my sister can.  She was a professional dancer. Surely it must run in the genes somehow. Turns out, NOT.

 I’m a middle-aged women whose skin is so white its reflection can be seen from the International Space Station, so watching me Hip Hop dancing is like watching Embarrassing Bodies on Channel Nine: once the initial curiosity wears off you’re left with psychological scarring that haunts your dreams and makes you want to smash every mirror in the house.  

 Nevertheless I turned up full of excitement, confidence even.  Let’s go!

 Hang on, wait a minute! This is the first time this decade I have danced in front of people without the benefit of alcohol fuelled courage and Eighties pop nostalgia.  Here I am sober, in front of people I don’t know and they can move.  This is really, really, REALLY hard.

 At the end of term there is a performance at a pub in St Kilda. The song we’ll be gyrating to is Gold Digger by Kanye West, so I’ll be an ambassador for misogyny who reinforces negative stereotypes about women. I could quote the lyrics to demonstrate my point but that would involve quoting the whole song.  

 But I’ll worry about that later because this is SO MUCH FUN and such a release.  Lots of popping, pumping, thrusting and releasing my inner Beyonce.

 We’ll be performing on stage in front of real-life PAYING people: I’m expected to ask my nearest and dearest to pay $25 to see me Hip Hop dance.  They say when you perform you need to connect with the audience and give something back.  Hopefully that something back is not their money.

 I haven’t sent out any invites yet.  I need to get the wording right. I’m thinking of adding a warning:  what you will see contains explicit dancing and I am likely to injure myself and express course language.

 Then there are the costumes. Our theme is black and gold trashy ho. As I’m in between jobs and my suburban attempts at gold-digging have left me short of cash, I’m recycling clothes from my wardrobe, spraying them with adhesive and rolling them in gold glitter. I’m currently less Dr Dre and more Dame Edna, but don’t judge.  

 Dancing is about expressing a story, so facial expression is very important.  I have a way to go.  I’m currently less Dr Dre and more Daryl Somers, but don’t judge.

 Our dance group spans all shapes and sizes, and our ability ranges between competent and imagined. The full-length mirrors at the dance studio destroy the nicely crafted image I have of myself in my head.  The image I see tells 1000 words and most of them are @!#%%, @!#%%.

 Mind you, I think Hip Hop dancing is a release that most middle-aged white women need.  I’ve had many requests from friends wanting me to teach them some moves: popping, pumping and thrusting, they really lose their minds until one of the women disapproves and everyone returns to being super-uptight, middle-aged and white. Back in our comfort zone, we return to being the wrong kind of bitches.

 But this is SO MUCH FUN. I’m finding more and more opportunities to express myself through the power of dance.  No need to yell at the kids to “go to bed”.  I simply shake my ample booty, rotate my hips, 2,3,4, put on my seductive pout and they run to their bedrooms in no time.

 It’s 3 weeks to go until we take to the stage to release our inner crazy-assed bitches.  We are currently less Dr Dre and more David Brent, but don’t judge.

[jennynolch]

Desperately Seeking… New Opportunities.

Jenny’s guide to moving on after a redundancy.

Who has been a victim of downsizing, a restructure, or a change of corporate direction? Let’s just cut to the chase: who has been sacked?  

 Who saw this as an exciting opportunity to pursue a new direction?  Who welcomed the recruitment process to find another job?  Who lists networking as one of their favourite activities on their Tinder profile?  Who sees rejection as just one step closer to becoming the go-getter who scores the perfect job?  Who enjoys “moving forward”?

 Exhausting isn’t it?

 This, I’m afraid, is the new world where we are all just temps until the boss figures out a way make do without us.  Job security is a thing of the past.  Employer loyalty is a quaint term that is as redundant as, well, me.

 This is not my first time. I’m now becoming quite the expert in the dark art of picking the shards of my shattered confidence off the floor, ignoring the flush of humiliation in my cheeks and talking myself up like the bastard child of Kyle Sandilands, a zombie and Anthony Robbins: all puff with dead eyes trying to harness the power of positive thinking.

 So read on if you find yourself in a meeting room rarely used, with a surprise appearance from HR and an outplacement consultant in the next room.  Here is my “how to” guide to starting again.

 First, as you exit the business, resist the temptation to tell your co-workers and management what you really think of them.  Become a liar.

 Tell them you have loved working on compromised projects that go nowhere, you will miss your boss’ sense of humour and his/her stories of inspirational (almost unbelievable) past success.

 At your farewell tell all those who remain that you believe the company has a bright future without you. But don’t tell Carina in cubicle 3 that the open-plan office layout allows the furtive rustle of Kit Kat wrappers to betray her pent-up resentment each afternoon.

 Before departing the premises ask your boss for a reference – preferably with tears in your eyes just after you’ve shared a story about your son/daughter/ random relative requiring expensive surgery.  

 In a final act of defiance, square the ledger by stealing some red pens from the stationary cupboard. (Trust me, if I did this it was harmless but surprisingly satisfying).  

 Whatever you do, don’t cry.  Your tears will only fuel the undead of the Human Resources Department.  They have become strangely addicted to human sadness and large bonuses.

 Next you need to network. This is as horrible as being stuck with the creepy old guy from accounts payable in an out-of-order elevator – and later realising that his after shave has embedded itself in your clothes and hair.

 You will need to meet anyone you have ever had anything to do with professionally for coffee.  I don’t mean the coffee after a date with a happy ending; I just mean coffee.  You will become so hyped on caffeine you will start to believe everything you wrote on your updated résumé.

 Over time you will become punch drunk and numb from endlessly repeating well-rehearsed phases like, “ I embrace change even when it’s forced upon me without my consent,” and “when one door closes another one becomes increasingly difficult to open if you’re over 45”.

 Then there’s the recruitment process itself.  You will need to apply for everything even if you don’t meet the selection criteria. The only job I ever met the selection criteria for was the job I had just lost.  The selection criteria is only a guide and is subject to your interpretation.

 And now for the interview itself… Research suggests that interviews are not a very useful way to predict job performance, which is precisely why they are used today.  We hire who we like and who is similar to ourselves.  This is why diversity in the workplace is an aspirational goal.

 The rules are simple and very similar to being a bridesmaid at a wedding.  Never be smarter, funnier or better looking than your potential new boss. Tell him or her that you’re very excited about the role, and never appear pathetically desperate for approval.  This comes later when you get the job.

 So let me know when you are free for coffee.  We can discuss exciting opportunities and a new direction as I move forward.

 Or we can just bitch about Carina in cubicle 3.