Junk Food for My Brain

just some of the magazines I used to read

My name is Joy, and I’m a Woman’s Day reader. I first started reading the magazine as light relief on the bus on the way home from work. I thought it was a harmless pastime, but before I knew it, I found I had to buy it every week. I was in denial for quite some time, and even told people that I only bought the magazine for the crosswords and sudokus. But deep down, I knew I was addicted, and loved finding out about who was cheating on who, and who had put on (or lost) enormous amounts of weight, and who was only 28 and having a relationship with their long-lost 60-year-old father. And like all addictions, it didn’t just affect me – if not for people like me, creating a market for paparazzi photos, Posh and Becks could be living a normal life (yeah, right), a whole generation of people wouldn’t be scarred from seeing those photos of Fergie getting her toes sucked, and Diana might still be alive!

I should learn to chill out like Maggie

There you go, there should be a regular meeting for people like me, so we can share our stories of addiction to women’s magazines. Until recently, I hadn’t bought a Woman’s Day since just after we moved to Bathurst. Whilst my life has been busy, and it feels like I just don’t have enough time to do all the things I want to do, it must be the right kind of busy for me, and I must have enough time to just chill out, because I haven’t felt the need to feed my addiction.

When I was working, my brain had enough stimulation that in my down time, I needed something that didn’t require me to think too hard. It was like junk food for my brain, when I read the magazines. And the trivial crap in those magazines was just up my alley – my brain retains all that sort of stuff (Les hates playing Trivial Pursuit with me). Just like real junk food, brain junk food is empty calories – of no real benefit, but you feel good at the time.

a recent visitor -
this has absolutely no relevance to this post!

In my reading prior to retiring, it was said many times that it is important to keep exercising the brain. So since I stopped working, I’ve consciously tried to do just that. I have puzzle books so I can do a crossword, Sudoku, logic puzzle, or any of a number of other brain exercises, whenever I want to. Just recently, I discovered crossword puzzles that are mathematical, where I have to solve mathematical puzzles to find the answers, and they have to fit into a grid the same way as words have to fit into a normal crossword grid – brilliant fun! 

So I’ve been doing all the right things, and feeling pretty good about it all. But then, a week or so ago, I relapsed. Yup, I bought a Woman’s Day. And I hate myself for it. It feels like I’ve gone back to my old bad habits.

if you look carefully, you can see the green of
the pea shooting - my vegie garden project

But it was also educational. I can now see that there are limits to what I can do and continue to live the life I want to live. I can look back at what’s been happening for the last month or so, and learn that it was too much. I can see how out of balance it was, and the effect it has on me.

I can also learn to live with the fact that, just as I will always be addicted to chocolate, I will always be addicted to Woman’s Day. Is it really such a bad thing? I don’t think so. I allow myself the pleasure of a chocolate hit every now and then, and it is only a problem if I eat the whole block instead of just a few pieces. So with the magazine, I’ll only worry if I find myself considering getting a subscription (yes, I have done that in the past).

When I Grow Up

When I was a kid, what did I want to be when I grew up? I don’t remember. In fact, my childhood remains mostly a mystery to me. For some reason, I don’t have very many memories from then – just bits and pieces that make no sense as to why I remember them and not other, more significant things. I don’t know if this is normal, or not. But it’s me.

Anyway, I’m sure I was asked at various times what I wanted to be when I grew up. I have no idea what I might have said in reply to that. Both my parents were teachers, and that may have been a logical assumption as a career, but when it came time to choose something at the end of high school, teaching didn’t even get a look in – I knew by then that I didn’t have the patience for it.

I love walking in the National Parks

I don’t remember having a burning ambition to be anything in particular. But I do remember thinking that a park ranger in the national parks would be a cool thing to be. Back then, that sort of work wasn’t considered a worthwhile career – we certainly hadn’t really started thinking of the environment and national parks in the way that we do today. So when I was discouraged from pursuing that, I gave in pretty easily.

or walking anywhere in the bush

 

In the end, I studied accountancy at university. From there, I worked as an accountant, then a systems support analyst, and eventually a business analyst. I enjoyed the work, for the most part, but I think I was always waiting for that thing that really inspired me – what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Now I’m retired. And I’m still wondering what I will be when I grow up! I don’t think of myself as being middle-aged (well, being over 50 means that I am certainly in that category). In some respects, I still think of myself as being in my early 30s. When I was in my 20s, my mother commented that she still thought of herself as being 27, even though she must have been close to 50, if not older, at that time. So I’m not on my own in my delusion.

one of Mum's paintings

And being retired, I now have the time to spend doing lots of different things – trying to find my passion, maybe? My mum tells me that she also tried many different things. I remember her sketching – sitting on the sidelines whilst Dad played cricket or something. I remember her knitting, both by hand and on the knitting machine. I remember her decorating cakes (she used to get really cranky when we watched her doing it, so used to only do it at night when we were all in bed). I remember her sewing curtains, and cushion covers, and our beloved snake chair. So my memory mustn’t be too bad after all!

Falling into the category of things I know she has done but don’t remember her doing, are patchwork (she still has the pieces ready to be sewn into the quilt), and painting (her art-works are hung on the walls at home).

In the recent past, Mum has been a keen, and very good, photographer. She has made beaded jewellery. She has made her own greeting cards, often using her photographs. Who knows what else she has tried her hand at!

Mum and me (guess which is which!)

So now I know what I’m going to be when I grow up. Whether I like it or not, I’m going to be my mother.

What's in a Name?

A couple of weeks ago, Les and I drove back from Parkes along the back roads, as you do when you are retired and have all the time in the world. The trip took me on roads I’d never been on before, and through towns (or tiny little villages, to give them their correct description) I’d never heard of, let alone visited. It was a really pretty trip, but it got me thinking. There should be a regulation that insists that they (those mysterious people who do these things) include on town signs an explanation of how the town name came about.

what sort of rock would be cranky?

I love words, and as an extension to that, names. It interests me how much a name can influence how I think about something, without me even knowing what that thing is. I love finding out how names come to be.

this is the view at Cranky Rock - sort of what I expected

But getting back to our trip back from Parkes (named after Sir Henry Parkes, because he visited once).  Since I am the navigator, and as I said, we were on roads I’d never been on before, I had to rely on a map. The only map I had on hand was not very detailed, but good enough – how lost can you get, and we had a full tank of fuel? First stop after Canowindra (Aboriginal word, I’d been there before, and know how to pronounce it) was Mandurama (another Aboriginal word, don’t know how to pronounce it, didn’t know where it was, but the signs were there). All good so far.

But from Mandurama, I needed to get us to Barry (can pronounce it, but why on earth would there be a town called Barry?). Hadn’t heard of it before. Didn’t have a clue which direction it would be in. Thought for sure there would be a sign to point us in the right direction. No such luck.

But there was a sign for Neville. Why on earth would there be a town called Neville? Did the townsfolk have a falling out with Barry and become Neville fans? What are the chances I’d be on the right track towards Barry if I directed us to Neville? Turns out, pretty good.

Neville is, in fact, on the way to Barry, when driving west to east. Who knows why they (those mysterious people again) chose Barry to put on the map, but not Neville. The villages are much alike, as their names suggest. They are both VERY small. Neither has anything in particular to make it stand out. Except for the fact that they have names that are not really thought of as town names.

In fact, what else other than a person would be called Barry or Neville? I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone calling even a pet by either of those names.  But the names were very effective in setting my expectations for those villages. And the villages lived up to those expectations.


Chifley Dam - named for Ben Chifley
who lived in Bathurst

How often does that happen? For people as well as for things. I’ve heard of people who had a name picked out for their child, then changed their minds once the child was born, because “he just didn’t look like a Barry”. If they had named him Barry, would that have affected what sort of person he became?

The opposite is also true, though. There is talk around at the moment of changing the names of things as some people may find the current names offensive. One in this area is a road called “Curly Dick Road”. Sure, I had a little chuckle to myself when I saw it, but it is just a name (the road has lots of bends, and a man called Dick killed himself driving too fast around those bends). And it doesn’t change how the road is used. Why change it? Changing the name of something like that doesn’t change the thing.

What is my point? I’m not sure, really. Maybe it is just that I find names, and where they come from, and the way they affect how I think of things, fascinating.

By the way, according to Wikipedia (and I believe everything it says), Barry is probably named after a Caleb Barry who was the former bank manager of Blayney. I’m still searching for a reason for Neville.