This is where I was going to take a photo a day in 2012 but forgot to stop. I also write something random to give you an insight into the craziness that is Susan's mind.
I know. I know. He's right. I'm wrong (not about the wearing of white swimming attire that's never right).
I'm referring to core exercises. I know all the reasons I should exercise my core muscles and yet I don't. Frankly I would refer to the strength of my core muscles as shocking but I suspect it's worse than that. I don't do core exercises because I am crap at them, really crap at them. So the reason I should do them is exactly the reason I don't. Life's so like that constantly attracted to the things that are bad for us while running away from the things that are good.
Anyway, it's not just the muscle strength of this bloke that impresses me. He has an inner strength of a different kind.
There's a special strength that enables a person to strip off to skimpy swimwear just after dawn and shut out the world while you exercises in public by the pool at South Bank.
I congratulate this bloke for that. Not ever, never, would you catch me doing that even if I had the muscles that made it possible.
But I will award myself one gold star and an elephant stamp for at least getting out of bed before dawn and walking to South Bank where this photo was taken. There has to be some intestinal fortitude buried deeply somewhere in that flabby untoned core.
Turning 18 really is a big deal. Old enough to drink. Old enough to vote. But rarely old enough to know better.
I teach a lot of 18-year-olds. In many ways they are so much older and wiser than I was at the same age (which isn't saying a lot because although I thought I knew EVERYTHING I now know I knew every little about the things that matter).
Not today's kids. They have access to so much so early that it is easy to forget that they are really just kids, kids in adult bodies but kids just the same.
Often when I walk through South Bank Parklands in the middle of the day it will be the students and not the kids playing on the swings.
Today it was birthday girl Yesim and her friends from Southbank Institute of TAFE who were getting into the swing of things.
Such youthful exuberance proving that growing older is compulsory but growing up, that's strictly optional and why rush it?
There's was horrible fog accompanied by groaning, crashing and pounding. Huge chucks were being gouged out.
That was my head felt at 4am. A searing pain behind my left eye radiated out and was accompanied waves of nausea. It was the type of pain that wouldn't have been out of place had I spent last night draining the contents of a well stocked bar. Except I hadn't. Not a single alcoholic beverage crossed by lips which made the same feel so unfair.
I'm not sure if I admire or pity those who say they never take painkillers. What I do know is that I don't understand them. Without the God-given relief afforded by the delicious combination of Ibuprofen and codeine, I'd still be lying in a darkened room whimpering. Now I still have a shadow, I can feel where the pain was but because mothers aren't allowed to get sick I was able to get up and get on with it.
Fresh air and sunshine helped - the noise and dust at the demolition site at QUT not so much. But the destructive scene with its frayed edges reflected my being today perfectly. I only hope that unlike this building I am able to greet tomorrow feeling far more intact.
If I stay at home I know exactly what I'll see. I'll see the pile of washing waiting to be put away. I'll see the bundle of assignments demanding to be marked and I'll see the huge fight brewing over homework.
Outside the front door the world is far more unpredictable and that's how I like it.
Every day when I step out my elderly neighbour, Margaret, asks where I'm heading. Every day I give her the same answer "Not sure, Margaret. We'll see."
Margaret is rather deaf so it's possible she never hears what I say or she thinks that eventually I'll work it out. She's probably wrong.
The conversations I have with strangers on the way start in the same predictable way. They see the camera and ask where I'm from. They seem confused when I say I live just up the hill. Tourists walk with cameras round their neck not locals, apparently.
So they ask what I plan to take photos of. They tend to look at me like I'm mad when I say I have no idea. But that folks is the joy. Not knowing and being constantly surprised at what's out there is the joy. Today there were the young men skateboarding at QUT near the Goodwill Bridge, the families at play in the pool at South Bank and the people crossing the Queen Victoria Bridge dressed in giant puff suits. I have no idea what that was about and while I was tempted to ask I decided I'd rather not know. Sometimes it's better to make it up as you go along and never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
I'm pretty sure I speak for most brides when I say that the wedding day can feel like a great big step off a very high cliff. After months of planning and stressing to make sure you get everything exactly right, when the big day comes all yo you can do is close your eyes and leap - figuratively at least.
In some ways it is a huge plunge into the unknown.
I have to say I took a very conventional approach to the big day. Church wedding with my Dad walking me down the aisle, three bridesmaids and a bouquet with purple irises and lilies. The organ and trumpets blared as we left the church to the sounds of Trumpet Voluntary.
All very nice. All very conventional, just how I wanted it.
Just right will be different for every couple. Today Stef and Simmo took taking the plunge very literally throwing themselves off the Kangaroo Point Cliffs on harnesses.
They stopped half way down and with a crowd waiting at the base of the cliff recited their vows before kissing and descending the rest of the way.
The groom cried, the bride beamed and the crowd cheered.
It's what the couple, who met abseiling exactly four years ago today, wanted and it was what they got.
"Since being with you, my eyes have never strayed. They never will," Stef said. "You have the ability to motivate me without nagging. You've made me write lists for God's sake. You're my 3.14, you're my salty buttery goodness, you're my one and only and I love you."
In reply, Simone said. "As we hang here today I want to tell you the top five reasons why I love you.
1) You inappropriate chicken dancing at Coles
2) Your pickiness about crisp vegetables
3) For being a germaphobe about our bathroom but overlooking our unwashed bed sheets
4) For never farting in front of me despite your renowned farting skills and
5) for still letting me eat peanuts regardless of your anaphylaxis. So for these reasons and many more I vow to keep you as my one and only lover. To be together until we are old saggy and senile, until we are unable to recognise each other but still fall in love every morning at the nursing home breakfast table eating our bowls of Coco Pops. I love you so much and can't wait to start a family and have lots of little chicken dancing babies together."
I don't know what I expected to see when walking by the Kangaroo Point Cliffs today but I can tell you this isn't it.
Check out the video here (Apologies for the quality. It's a trifle difficult taking still photos and video at the same time, especially if when you left home you were only planning on an afternoon walk)
I am the come back queen. Throw a line at me and I'll have the perfect retort within, well, a few hours. Be patient. It might take days.
Don't you just hate that? When that killer come back, that perfect put down, that riotous reply jumps into your brain way too late to be of any use to anyone?
I really admire people who can think on their feet, whose quick brains and even more rapid mouths give them the ability to always have the last laugh.
I saw a master of that in action this morning. Comedian Ross Noble was doing his stuff at a live broadcast at the ABC studios in Brisbane.
From the weather to the traffic to a performance of a woman and dog synchronised dance team, Noble had just the right thing to say at just the right moment.
You rather got the feeling that presenter Spencer Howson was like the person in a front row seat at a comedy performance who thinks he might become the butt of the next joke. There's a genuine fear of what might come out next but at the same time a delight at watching a master up close. I suspect this was a perfect gift for Spencer who will be the birthday boy tomorrow. The cupcake from newsreader Shelley Lloyd wouldn't have gone astray either.
Generally when I utter the phrase "I just hung the washing out" there will be a resigned irritation mixed with a large dose of something resembling exhaustipation*. Well, if I don't who else will? Oh poor me.
Not today. Today there was genuine joy. Happiness is enough sun to dry your clothes after days and days of rain. Happiness is no longer having to rifle through the bottom of the undies drawer to find clean smalls.
Happiness is also a walk in the sun and today that happened and the destination was one of my favourite places when the sun shines - South Bank Parklands. Like just about every day this week my footwear got soaked, the difference is that today the water was in the water park not from the stuff bucketing down and forming great streams and puddles everywhere.
The socks and shoes are no less wet but like the washing, the reaction
is much different. The soggy footwear came when I was talking to
Michelle who was playing in the waterpark with her adorable toddler
11-month-old Thomas. Thomas has been walking for only three weeks but
there was no stopping him. The youngster from Townsville was taking to
Aquativity like a duck to water and the glee on his face was obvious. Hopefully the change in weather will ensure the visitors return home to Townsville on the weekend with a sunny picture of Brisbane in their minds. It threatened to be a little bleak up until today.
