Miscellaneous musings

Musing #1
I’ve recently-ish (towards the end of last year) dipped my toe into Instagram waters. I LOVE glorying in photos of the Greek Islands and mouth-watering donuts. However, what I find odd are the pics of mine that get the most likes. I put up pretty beach pics (or pics of gorgeous trees or books etc) and as a rule I get between 18 and 35 likes. I put up a picture of my painted toes after a pedicure and I get 85 likes…and weird personal messages from men who tell me how gorgeous my feet are. Really? Social media is an odd animal, yes?

Do you really think this...

...is better than this?

Musing #2 (which follows on from Musing #1)
Many moons ago I worked in a call centre for a bank and we had a regular caller named John who would ask us what shoes we were wearing? The very first time I had him on the line my supervisor was walking past as I said, “You want to know what shoes I’m wearing?” My supervisor leaned over and spoke into my headset: “Go away, John. We’re busy.” And ended my call. Another time I told John I was wearing a very boring plain black court shoe. And his breathing got…laboured. This is why I can never write a hero whose name is John.

I mean, I love shoes as much as the next person, but come on!

Musing #3
Does anyone here follow a sporting team? When I was growing up, my dad would drag us along to the local Rugby League games—all three grades, thank you very much. I loved it. I stopped going in my later teenage years, though. And then in my early twenties I met Mr Douglas who was a first grade soccer player in Sydney back in the day, and an avid soccer fan. So he now knows the names of lots of romance writers and I know the names of lots of soccer players. A few years ago we got season tickets for our local A-League team. We thought it’d be fun. We came second last the first year, dead last the second year, we made the grand final last year, and this year…sigh… This year has been particularly frustrating. I can’t decide if it’s better to play really well and lose, or to play really bad and win. Still, sitting on the sidelines of a sporting game is one of the few places where you can yell as an adult and it’s entirely acceptable. This has been very…uh, freeing during the times when my PhD has been driving me particularly crazy.

This was the half-time entertainment a few weeks ago.

Dinosaur soccer may, in fact, have been the highlight of my soccer year. ;-)

Musing #4
Speaking of PhDs…I believe mine might be done. ;-)


Has anyone else been having any miscellaneous musings this week?