NUDITY v MODESTY and MYSTERY.

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     As she reaches forty eight, J-Lo is still hitting the headlines, butt......................... 

 

 

     She is still gorgeous but her outfits, once very sexy, now smack of desperation to me.

I know I am ancient by her standards, I was twenty when she was born, and I can still see her appeal but wouldn't it be sexier if there was less flesh on show?   Her body type denotes her Latin heritage, she has a generous and much admired derriere but now also sports a pair of rather more adipose saddlebags than in the past and it is clear that her boobs are hoiked up and strapped in a merciless attempt to defy gravity.

 

     In my day - I do so hate saying it - we were much more modest that modern girls, even though our generation was the one for whom the mini skirt was invented....and many of us got the resultant thunder thighs when our bodies laid down stores of fat to compensate for the lack of warm covering.   Nowadays the muffin top is here, again the body reacted to naked midriffs by sending fat to the waistline to provide warmth.

 

     I remember being a teenager when The Who played one of their gigs at my local town hall.   It was great, I made a lovely blue dress for the night and it had a very on trend (we used to say trendy)  keyhole just below the neckline.   Not a cleavage viewer but a little flesh was on display.   I was about fifteen and was as flat as a board so I had a circle stitched bra that gave me a better profile.   They were very popular back then and Madonna sported a remarkably similar one on her Blonde Ambition Tour made by Jean Paul Gautier.   Unfortunately I wasn't actually capable of filling my cones and should have put a pair of socks in.  So, after a slow dance with a fellow I stepped back and as he looked down I realised that I was now sporting a large pair of dimples where my points should have been.   Soddit!   He strolled off and left me to race to the lavatory to adjust myself and I spent the rest of the evening declining slow dances for fear of repetition and more shame.   Hey ho I now say.... shit happens!   But back then I was mortified and he didn't ask for another dance.

 

     Back to J-lo - a truly beautiful woman still, but in my opinion the looks that night did her no favours as she resembled like a caricature of herself in her 'more is not good' outfits.   We all have butts and breast all residing at various levels on our respective bodies and fending off gravity is an on-going  battle for most of us but nowadays there is absolutely no mystery in the modern wardrobe.
 

     As a girl we had a phrase that we would whisper if our petticoat was showing - 'Charlie's dead' and we would nip of and pull it up.   In those days if one wore a halter, or one shoulder  top one would wear appropriate underwear and it was a cardinal sin to wear a black bra under a white top.    In the second picture J-Lo has no visible straps but too much visible boob for comfort - I guess those pups were glued and taped in because otherwise there would have been a Janet Jackson nippy moment!    I dread to think what J-Lo's body looked like after removing the first dress, I remember what it was like when we took off our fishnet tights, I looked like I had been wearing a pair of string bags and I soon learned that I had to wear ordinary tights underneath for fear of cottage cheese thighs.   I understand that Ms Lopez has had a series of lovers, some significantly and frighteningly younger and I am sure that with a young beau she needs to be on top of her game but the makeup and lace has to come off at some point and I doubt that anyone would be repelled by her au naturale.   Her career has changed, she has matured and surely she has enough money?   I fear that notoriety and limelight are intoxicating and it seems that they drive her, but in my opinion, she has taken the wrong road.

 

     I showed the pics to a male friend of mine and not surprisingly he did think she looked sexy,  but surely it is all a bit obvious for a woman of her stature?   This is not sour grapes, I am more than aware that my body is best on radio these days, I have bingo wings, and sagging and wrinkled body parts but I've earned them and at my age they suit me.   Jane Fonda is older than me and looks fabulous but you rarely see her showing much flesh, she is wise and recognises the value of illusion and mystery.   Marilyn Monroe was a girl who had the world at her feet and although she did a few nude shots she was well aware of the merits of alluding to nudity whilst not actually showing too much.  She was curvaceous and was regularly sewn into clothes and  her wiggle was enhanced by having the heel of one shoe slightly shorter than the other.  She was the consummate model, she seduced the camera and played with it and in return it loved her.  

 

     I see young women now who look so obvious and dare I say it, chavvy.   They think they look classy but many of them simply look like ridiculous Barbie clones.   All those Essex face lift buns, HD eyebrows and trowelled on foundation that are so popular these days do very little for them, and they all look the same.   Big hair, big lashes, big asses, big tits and big lips and those fake nails look so natural - not!   I do so hate to see young girls of fourteen fifteen getting into the uniform so early and I know it is a sign of modern times.  

      I use makeup and do wear lashes, I always did, but everything these days seems to be done times twenty.    I see young plump women wearing thin girl clothes and wonder why, when they could look so much more attractive if they wore size appropriate clothes.   We were still in ankle socks at fourteen, riding bikes and playing and we had a level of innocence that is unheard of these days we were demure, modest and had a little mystery. 

I wrote the following poem fourteen years ago and it seems even more relevant now.

Does My Bum Look Big In This …..Coffin?

Future scientists will have some really hard times,

what were our good deeds and what were our crimes?

Imagine the day that they dig up our bods,

are some of them ‘princesses’ and some of them gods?

 

They’ll marvel at the princesses with badges abreast,

a silicone implant on each side of their chest

Will they think that such girlies, were special and fab,

when the truth was more mundane, silly and drab.

 

Will they open the boxes and gasp at the sight,

of two silicone sacs, some girlie’s greatest delight.

I can imagine them wonder if they’re losing their wits,

confused that on some fronts are big plastic tits.

 

Then there are the ‘princes’ with prosthetic ‘meat’

who thought that they’d give us a great throbbing treat.

To pleasure and satisfy their sole intention,

that’s why some sad boys got that penis extension.

 

Some will be minus one or two of their ribs,

having said it was ‘natural’ and other such fibs.

Have we taken our ‘beauty’ beyond what is fair?

by sucking and cutting, rearranging what’s there?

 

If they try to reconstruct us they’ll get such a fright,

cos some of these girlies only looked good at night.

I know that I’m guilty, I’m as vain as the rest,

I’ve tattooed my eyelids and yanked up my chest.

My hair ain’t quite natural, its tinted and tweaked,

if I had bedside viziphone I’d be totally freaked.

My eyelashes flutter with lustre and mascara’d hue,

they’re stuck on each morning with copydex glue.

I know that its sad …..and seriously silly,

but guys get obsessed with the size of their willy!

If I put two hot water bottles up under my blouse,

would he find it exciting and start to arouse?

So we worried about cellulite and firmed up our muscle tone,

then along came those surgeons with big bags of silicone.

They offered the answers to our longest held prayers

peddling boobies and mouth jobs to fend of the years.

Its great when we’re young and seriously pretty,

but old gals like me look strange with pert plastic titties.

You’ve seen them in movies looking constantly shocked,

the G-force expression fixed and permanently locked.

When one of those girls puckers, don’t get an erection,

her smile may be the result of a silicone injection.

Remember if you’re tempted to approach intending a pass,

that the girlie you fancy may truly talk through her ass.

 

©Margo A. Burgers 2003

 

 

 



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Courage In The Face Of Adversity

Its all about courage.....
 

     Being a somewhat mature critter I tend to record most of what is on television after nine o'clock for fear of nodding off and missing the end of programmes, so I had recorded Me and My...Body and I can't tell you how glad I am that I did.

     The programme focusses on a variety of people with a range of physical differences, a boy born with no legs, a lady who's mother took thalidomide and several others were featured, all accidental victims of fate, but there wasn't a single victim among them.  

 

     I remember the thalidomide scandal, it was a drug that was widely prescribed for pregnant women going through morning sickness, unfortunately the side effects were devastating and babies were born with all manner of deformities that devastated families and tore them apart because of the guilt that was directed at them.    I met one such baby, a tiny scrap of humanity who had no arms, just the semblance of tiny hands in its shoulders and flippers for feet.   The child had eyes as deep as the ocean and over the years I have often wondered how that baby fared.  

 

     The people in the programme spoke candidly about their situations telling of the accidents and conditions that shunted them beyond the boundary of being able bodied into the nether world of survivors.    There is no tag on our toe saying that we will have three score and ten wonderful and marvellous years of good and healthy life.   As a person without faith I believe that we get what we get and must do our best to make the best of this wonderful thing called life.

 

     Since I became a member of the Instagram community I have come across people who are also managing situations that are beyond difficult, one runs to assuage the grief of loss, another is supporting a sick child....we are all walking wounded in some way or other and this modern world is an unfriendly place for those who are in any way different.

 

     If one sprains one's ankle, once healed it is forgotten whereas if someone has had a nervous breakdown, for example, it is remembered.   'You know her, she had a nervous breakdown' may well be whispered as a qualifying factor that shapes our opinion of that person.    We love to attach labels to others that render them inferior or different in relation to our sense of ourselves.  

 

    I don't know how any of the people in the programme feel, I don't know anything other than how I feel and being inadvertently different is something so much bigger than choosing to ink one's body or die my hair blue as have done.   I remember the crushing weight of my 'difference' when I was a schoolgirl moving up from the infants into the juniors.   My teacher stood me up in front of the class and announced that as I didn't have a father I was entitled to free school meals and a piece of me died that day, I was mortified.   As a child I didn't want that sort of attention and whispering, I had kept silent about my status because in my family it was all smoke and mirrors, there were herds of elephants in every room and by the time that I moved up into junior school my mother had two husbands and divorces behind her which was pretty scandalous in those days, after all divorce was rare and the only other children without fathers were ones whose dads had died in the war.    

 

     When I got home I was clearly confused and distressed, a secret had come out and now I was marked by it.  My mother was incensed and went up to the school the next day and told them to give my free meals to a child with two parents who couldn't afford to pay, but the damage was done and I cowered, shrouded in my difference and it felt awful, but time does heal wounds and my difference was temporary and soon forgotten when someone threw up or had an accident.  But I do remember the kids coming to the gate to see my mother because for them the notion of a divorcee was someone like Jayne Mansfield driving a Cadillac and there was Crimplene woman waiting by the gate, no pink caddy or film star looks and the response was 'is that her?'

 

     Difference comes in many guises, we are all essentially different, some by choice or fate, others by accident or illness and it clearly takes enormous courage for the people in the programme to get up each day and cope, yet at the end of the programme we learned that each of them has embraced their situation with such grace and fortitude.   Their difference has enhanced them, it didn't kill them, it made them stronger.   

 

     Some people do have it easy and seem to lead a charmed lives in comparison with others whose problems seem to be unrelenting..   Others seem to invite complications into their lives by forgetting too much and repeating past mistakes.  Whatever your demons are my dears, each of you is struggling with something that makes you feel lesser or different in some way.    Life is full of 'isms', 'ists' and 'phobes'  we judge too quickly, assume too much and disregard the feelings of others too eagerly in this me-me world that we now inhabit.    Be it running through your anxiety or eating your sadness it is all about difference and how small we feel when we suddenly shrink to the size we were when we experienced our first humiliation.

 

     If you want to learn about courage go to YouTube and look up Nick Vujicic, I found him some years ago and he remains my hero, a man of such bravery and humour, he is a testament to ....courage in the face of adversity.

 

  

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

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Escape from Ikea

 

Hello my dears, I'm back for another ruminate and much to my surprise I find that you seem like my musings.   I still don't quite get it, maybe I never will, but l but I do like chatting to you all from the comfort of my keyboard.  

 

The burning questions are, how much of me do you want?   Weekly?   Twice a week? or Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday?   As I am such a blog novice I would value your opinions about my opinions.   I don't want you all to suffer bouts of narcolepsy mid blog, I certainly don't want you to be bored bunless and worse still, I don't want you to ignore me either.  Although I think its likely that my keyboard will have to be prized out of my cold dead paws, because I seem to have found an outlet for my rather idiosyncratic voice.  

 

So my darlings, tell me how often and how long works for you, and, like a sensitive lover, I will try to keep you satisfied....you won't notice the absence of a penis, in fact it may be better, because those critters never seemed to learn that tiny a tadger coupled with good technique will ring my bells any day.    

 

I aim to please, unlike the majority of my critters ever did anyway!   

 

Times were very different back then, in my day we were just an alternative to masturbation and if half of those boys could have shagged their mommies they have stayed at home because mommy made better gravy and loved them unconditionally.

 

So, here I go, todays topic will be visiting Ikea.   It has always been a matter of psyching myself up for a fortnight, working out when the kids are not off school and sneaking in under cover of daylight.   I dread the crowds and miles of endless routes with unfathomable dead ends as I find myself going against the flow....shock horror!

 

I first came across Ikea in my old Cargo Margo days, there was one just around the corner from an hotel I used to stay in when we went to Singapore.   I loved it and did a sort of supermarket sweep of the place dragging all manner of goodies home.  The simplicity of their wares impressed me and when I headed over to Australia to see my family in in Perth I found one there too so more bits and bobs came home.   On that trip we had been delivering race horses to Australia and when I got off I took a coach trip across the desert to Perth and spent a couple of weeks before flying back to base. 

 

Imagine my delight when one of the largest Ikea stores opened on my doorstep.   No more dragging my sorry ass home laden with all things Swedish.   No more being novel either, but I can hack that, nothing is new for long....

 

Now I venture into Ikea with caution, it is HUGE and so confusing.   They have sneaky little doors that let you avoid parts of the store, but then you might miss something and you know how women loathe to miss anything!    I see them mesmerised by all things Ikea doing what I do, mentally shifting my furniture around so I can squeeze something rather fetching in, but alas my squeezing in days are done, I have too much of everything and it has all been moved closer so I can't even move my flat lays sideways.   Did you get that? I've actually put the notion of a flat lay in a sentence - crikey!   I am a speedy learner, I had no idea what one of them was a month ago.   Instagramming and blogging are my new best hobbies, I'm constantly checking my phone and am amazed at how many of you read me....

 

I circumnavigate Ikea with great caution, as a pescetarian I am not keen on meat balls, though I have eaten the fish and it wasn't bad.   I do have a preferred route, up the escalator, turn right, avoiding children's stuff and room settings.   I head onto the market hall following the illuminated arrows avoiding random 'stoppers and grazers', you know the sort, they're all over the shopping world these days, people who need to be fitted with brake lights and indicators because when the do see something shiny they stop.   I bounce off them and they give me a look - the 'piss off you old fart' look that makes me snarl and prepare to charge.

 

Women in places like Ikea are like an unruly herd of wildebeest, they wander, pick up and examine every angle of things, discuss them and often abandon them wherever they stand. Its no wonder that Ikea staff have to screw so many display items down, otherwise there would be more chaos than there already is and I think they probably have a 'put it backer. returning discarded items from whence they came.   Give a gal a trolley and she's lethal, she will see something and just walk away from her chariot and give me 'the look' because I moved it to get by.   Bitch looks then go back and forth till one of us blinks and moves on.

 

Now those poor men that couldn't get away from the Ikea run walk like sad post-war casualties, their eyes are glazed because they know that they will have to build whatever she's bought and he's paid for, and those frigging instructions are in Swahili!    When my Ikea first opened there was a little cartoon room for the kids and it always amused me how many men were happily hiding in the dark there, I'm not sure if there is one now but I do wish parents could leave their kids somewhere, get a ticket and do their do.   I for one, as a childless old biddy, get heartily sick of squealing offspring running amok;  you may love you babies and short people but I am not happy about being walked on or having my eardrums shattered by wailing sprogs, who don't want to be there anyway - and who could blame the poor little blighters.

 

So, for me Ikea is akin to Bedlam, I make occasional and necessary trips for picture frames etc., and   once my mission is complete I make a break for the fence as soon as possible.   I avert my gaze from all that lovely white stuff that appeals to me so much, although I do love to have a look around the damaged but adorable section in case there is a treasure with my name on it.  Today I self-served, paid up and apparently won a doughnut - hmmm!  I didn't claim it, I'd have to go back in and I'm going to need a sedative already.   On the car park, I load up and go out the in, it is a rule of mine to ignore an arrow on the tarmac at least once a day if possible, it is about defiance and being a bloody minded bitch I guess.

 

Today I left and something really interesting happened, as I was coming out I saw two women coming in and recognised one as the sister of someone that I haven't seen for about 40 years, the other woman was her.   Kiss, Kiss as usual - I am a kisser - Hello, how are you's? were exchanged then one said - was that you on the back of a magazine recently?

Oh yes! said I, t'was me! I can't tell you how nice it was to still be recognisable after all these years.   Fortunately I had my slap on and looked reasonable .... and as we parted I thought to myself 'thank you REW' I'm still here! - and if it hadn't been for Tereza of cityscapebliss this blogging thing would never have happened.

 

Time to go now, till the next time,

 

Me

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Grrrh!

Grrrh!

 

I got up happily this morning thinking about you all and wondering how my first blog had been received.   As I got my first cup of coffee ready I looked out of my bedroom window and saw a collection of assorted white goods up against my garden wall and none of them was mine.

 

Grrrh!  thought I imagining that I would have to call the council tomorrow to get them taken away.  

 

Fly tipping is epidemic in the UK, my elderly former neighbour was caught out by a man who offered to take her fridge away for a fiver and when she went out he'd taken the fiver and left the fridge in place....Katching for him!   Deep embarrassment and a loss for her.

 

I have cameras and have just checked to see a wagon passing by at 04.00 this morning and as it went by it shed its load of items in the middle of the road.  The guy calmly came over and put his rubbish against my wall and left it for me to sort out.   Later a council vehicle came and two really nice fellows told me that they are out every day removing discarded items from all over the borough.  

 

When did we become so dirty?  How do we stop these buggers from doing such things?  Clearly whoever did it has no scruples and we are all paying for the disposal of these items on our rates.   The council fellows told me that these critters weigh in the gas bottles in the back of fridges and dump the rest because they have little or no scrap value.

 

Apparently if I had called the council I could have had five items removed...for a modest fee so  rather than pay people are dumping their furniture and other items on the pavement and calling the council and telling them that the items have been fly tipped.   It beggars belief that people will do such things but I have driven down countless country lanes and seen dead mattresses and other items that have been dumped.  

 

I am sure we have all seen such abandoned items and it is our rates that are going up to cover the cost of retrieving and disposing of such things.

 

I have not problem with people trying to earn a living but at what cost!  Our urban  environment is fast becoming a dangerous wasteland.  

 

I will be contacting the council tomorrow to tell them that I have some film but sadly no identifying features to enable them to prosecute the perpetrators.

 

Our towns used to be clean and safe places to walk in, nowadays I don't venture into my town unless I really have to.   There is rubbish everywhere and I see people throwing their flotsam and jetsam down without a second glance.

 

When I grew up we saved our rubbish and took it home, driving through Birmingham this morning I saw empty booze bottles and all manner of trash and it absolutely disgusts me that people have so little thought for others.

 

Youngsters learn from us so we need to be sure that we set a good example for them.

 

Just beware if someone offers to take your dead fridge away for few pounds, he may move it down the road or leave it in a country lane.

 

Rant over.........

 

I'll be in a better mood when I've had a coffee.

 

Back later,

 

Me

 

 

 

 

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First Blog - bear with me, hopefully they'll get better.

First Independent Blog

It seems that I have been swept up into the social media experience and I am rather glad to be here with you all in the e-ther.

One minute I was reluctantly contemplating my dotage, I had retired and was taking it easy.  Now I am working occasionally and am all over Instagram like a rash and hopefully this will be my first of many blogs.

So, tell me, what would you like to read about?    What do you want to know?   I am, after all, an elderly, never married woman who had no kids but has lived a somewhat colourful life.

I have always been something of an outsider, an observer if you will, because I continue to be me. I never lost my name by becoming 'mom', 'the wife' or 'the other half' so I am still happily living in my own skin and am fiercely independent.

Life takes us down a variety of paths, our early experiences certainly shape our futures and the choices that we make, but they don't have to define us.   For me independence has been all important.  I consider myself to be a pessoptimist - one who is optimistically challenged in that I tend to expect the worst of people but am still able to recognise good things when they happen.   It is my default stance and has stood me in good stead and initially I applied it to Instagram, expecting it to be very 'not me', having found Faceache aggressive and confrontational.

By contrast Instagram seems to be populated by some very interesting people, you are talented, observant and pithy and I find myself warming to social media because of you.

The community is diverse, some are wounded, some are possibly a little blinkered, but you are all creative and dare I say it 'nice' in a good way.   I don't mean the nice of so-so soup or the nice that is used to refer to someone when you can think of no other suitable word to describe them.   I mean the nice of goodness and warmth as you follow people and like their posts.  

As a seriously mature critter, I find there is freedom out there among you that is not afforded to me in the real world.   There I am an old woman who is often invisible, written off for simply being old, even though I am one of the least invisible creatures out there.   I am a pensioner, my hair is seriously grey with a streak of bright blue to remind me that while little old ladies have blue rinses this badass old bugger still has attitude in spades.

In a few short weeks I have made a few Instapals who are younger than my earrings but they speak to me freely and with candour.   It amazes me that so many of you have chosen to follow me and I can't quite get my head around why you do, but I find it all rather comforting.  Although I am alone I am not lonely, whatever the time of day, if I can't sleep there is someone out there doing something and I like knowing what you are all up to.     

I admire the pluck of so many of you, after all, we are all walking wounded in some way or other, but you are sharing your worlds with each other and hopefully I can be a part of that and may even be able to offer a little help here and there.  

I gather that some of you find my life intriguing and I have to admit that you couldn't make it up, but for me what doesn't kill you most certainly makes you stronger.   So, if I can be there for you in the same way that you have been there for me I am happy to share my experiences and in the process perhaps you won't feel that you are isolated, unless you choose to be.

I will talk about life as I see it, you may not agree with me but I am happy to explain why I feel as I do, although that does not mean that I want to convert any of you to my way of thinking.    I will give you glimpses of my home because I am seeing it with fresh eyes because of you and I gather you are interested in my rather quirky little house.   My ramblings and rants may touch a spot with you and hopefully we can learn from each other and grow with each other. 

Life is still deliciously interesting to me, it is as good as ever it was and I continue to be happy to be here among you. 

Ask questions please, tell me what you want and I'll see what I can do.

Remember that I am a blog novice so be patient with me please, I think this might be a pleasant and interesting journey for all of us.

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