My hair has always been my distinctive feature. For years I had a very long ponytail. It was obscenely long, and by that I mean, it reached my bum cheeks. I suppose you could brand it a I-could-give-a-fig-what-you-think-of-it look. Now, having cut that tail away, my short hair has decided to appear unruly and a little wild. I like it that way.
Basically I have decided to go for a look that doesn’t require a check in the mirror. It’s now a take-it-as-it-is look. And while I might agree with Leonard Cohen when he says, “I don’t like your fashion business mister and I don’t like these drugs that keep you thin. I don’t like what happened to my sister”… I’d be foolish to think that I was attempting some anti-fashion statement, because, as we all know, my unruly take-it-as-it-is look was claimed by fashion long ago. They are well organized and a little smarter than me. (BTW: I don’t have a sister, but I do worry about the influence of the fashion industry on my 14 year old daughter)
I guess I should qualify what I mean by the I-could-give-a-fig-what-you-think-of-it look... I actually called it my trained-monkey look. Working in Germany as an Aussie, it made no sense pretending I could be reliably & stolidly German, instead, looking creative and a little exotic sure helped put a few extra Deutsch Marks in my pay-check. So really, in a way, it was a calculated, highly manicured I-could-give-a-fig-what-you-think-of-it-performing-monkey look.
But what do looks have to do with time management? Well, having maintained a I-could-give-a-fig-what-you-think-of-it look for years and, now cultivating a take-it-as-it-is look, I must also accept some perceptions about me that may or may not go with that look.
For instance… not too long ago I received a text message at about 8.30am from my sister-in-law. The text started with the line, “When you are awake….” At first I felt like I wanted to defend myself. “Hey! I wake up every day at 7am (even bloody Sundays!!)”… but I fought the urge, realizing I would be wasting my time with that sort of reply.
My hair was always a topic opener. I'd be approached by strangers, in the street, in shopping malls, on holidays, asking, "How long did it take me to grow it? (the pony-tail)"... After a while, my answers became more creative. One story was that I started growing it in school. It was a strict school and didn't allow long hair, so, subversively I attempted to pretend I hadn't grown my hair long at all by brushing the back part forwards. Then (according to my story), my Maths teacher Mr McIntire stepped in and decided to humiliate me in front of the other students by making a pony-tail. Only he didn't succeed in humiliating me at all. I liked it... and.... kept it. So much for Authority trying to teach me THAT lesson.
That was one story. It's sort of true. It did happen that way, but I couldn't endorse it as the entire truth. Mostly it just happened without me noticing it. And that's not much of a story.
What I did notice though was that my look annoyed my family, so I think I played on that a bit. Call me a rebel or a black sheep, but it was a subject that cropped up constantly in the family environment.
Mum and I would joke that when we went out together, that I should perhaps walk a few steps away from her so people wouldn't think we were together. We joked about her disassociating herself from me. just in case she met someone she knew. She was fairly good-natured about it really.
My Dad, typically, applied his own sense of wry humour. He just said, "Enjoy it while you still have some."
That always reminds me of George Carlin's comment about people that shave their heads. He said, "If you really want to be bald, do what I did, wait a while."
My Dad, typically, applied his own sense of wry humour. He just said, "Enjoy it while you still have some."
That always reminds me of George Carlin's comment about people that shave their heads. He said, "If you really want to be bald, do what I did, wait a while."
But what do looks have to do with time management? Well, having maintained a I-could-give-a-fig-what-you-think-of-it look for years and, now cultivating a take-it-as-it-is look, I must also accept some perceptions about me that may or may not go with that look.
For instance… not too long ago I received a text message at about 8.30am from my sister-in-law. The text started with the line, “When you are awake….” At first I felt like I wanted to defend myself. “Hey! I wake up every day at 7am (even bloody Sundays!!)”… but I fought the urge, realizing I would be wasting my time with that sort of reply.
So fortunately I resisted the moment. Fortunately I realized that I wasn’t going to change a perception or opinion. Fortunately, the thought occurred to me, that… and I had to admit that I been the one to cultivate the perception in the first place. When you think about it, one of the best things about Performing-monkeys (especially & after all) is that they don't need to respect the standards of mundane human behaviour like effective time management. There's a certain lack of expectation super-imposed in the look. That's the message of the look anyway.
Let me just add this… A few weeks later, on a Sunday morning no less, at 7.29am, I had a valid & legitimate reason for texting her, but I couldn’t help beginning it with “Sorry, I know it’s a bit early on a Sunday morning, but… “