Daily Muse - A Surfer's Guide to Life

When life gives you mangoes.

I should be properly blogging instead of uploading photos and videos but Musefeed is dedicated to OTHER inspirational people so whateverly, Beverly. Plus I'm grossly uninspired again. Shout-outs to the quarter-life crisis. I’m launching my own business and I’m terrified. Another day of inhaling taramosalata, facebooking, boredom and being dumb has passed. Dumb. Dumbedy… dumb dumb dumb…hey! I know someone who’s dumb! My thoughts drift to halcyon teenage days of ‘dating’ pro surfers on Spring Break in Bali. My girlfriends and I would eagerly collect quotes from our moonlit walks on the beach with the crème de la dumb of tanned, gorgeous surfers. Why? Because we were anthropologists.


One of them, an Australian who I'll call 'Plankton' to protect his identity, had just been surfing in the south of France. He had a horrible mark on his leg. I asked about it. ‘Ah yee, oi got a beeern on me leg from roiding me motahboik and the engine loik hit it. Ah yee not to worry, eets only pa-tiiit.' What? It's only what? 'Wattsa matta, darls? You don’t spoik French?’ Genius. Then there was the one who was as luminous as Brad Pitt. I was 18. He sauntered up on the dancefloor shooting testosterone darts in to my Malibu and pineapple heart. I asked him what he did for a living. He pointed to the floor. ‘Sorry?’ He pointed again. I still didn’t get it. He pointed again and then let out an Amazonian mating call, ‘toooiiiils’. Quoi? ‘tooooiiils’. He meant ‘tiles.’

My favourite of the lot was truly Darwintastic. His name was Mango. He once sent me the following email along with the above photos of himself riding a killer wave:


emma.

Here is what I have been up to. For me riding these waves puts my level of perception on wavelenghts most people must live several lifetimes to comprehend. One day, maybe I will be lucky enough to feel your skin up against mine.

M

He never did feel my skin up against his. But today, years later, he has inspired me and validated zoning out of the business plan to look at stranger’s personal photographs all day. Why do we wallow in anxiety? Grimace about the economy? Or get scared about not being on the property ladder and getting hired at some swanky agency? What happened to trying to kill yourself and then celebrating victory when you don’t die on a bunch of barnacles? Sort of like starting a business. Maybe life is like surfing? Or maybe you don’t get it. Maybe my level of perception is on wavelengths you’ll have to live lifetimes to comprehend. Maybe if you hit your head on the seafloor a lot and like toke another doobie you'll get it. Brah.

Daily Muse - The Nutcase

My boyfriend and I have been arguing the last few days. I have been sick in bed barking orders through a mouth full of rice pudding Jabba the Hut stylee, 'run the bath, get me fennel tea, you should have called me on the way back from getting me the paper in case I wanted something else. God you're selfish. Wait ,don't go upstairs. I'm lonely! Jonathan I said I love you come back! Wait. Do you know how to make chicken soup? Ok I'll wait for it in bed then. Make sure no bones, ok baba?'

I have sometimes wondered what it would be like if I weren't an assertive - sorry menacingly hostile - young woman. Who would I look to as a role model? A woman who tells it like it is. Liza Minelli? Maya Angelou? Emmeline Pankhurst? Or Peggy Lee with her rally cry for the not so meek, W-O-M-A-N:

I can rub & scrub this old house til it's shinin like a dime
Feed the baby, grease the car, & powder my face at the same time
Get all dressed up, go out and swing til 4 a.m. and then
Lay down at 5, jump up at 6, and start all over again
'Cause I'm a woman! W-O-M-A-N, I'll say it again.

How do you go from being a girl who quietly puts up with a sexist boss or being in love with a flirting cad to become a boner-fide ballbreaker? And then I came across the following on the BBC website ( I kind of wish I wasn't eating rice pudding at the time). To set the record, I think this woman is sick and twisted and Pol Pot incarnate in Punky Brewster's body. But she's a potentially useful muse for the most submissive of us ladies. She's the ultimate hardcore chick, from concentrate. Mix one part Amanda Monti with 9 trillion parts water and you've got yourself a W-O-M-A-N. Anyway we neededed a new Lorena Bobbit, ever since she moved to Russia and changed her name to Ivana Kutchokokoff (geddit?). Plus after reading this I have been much nicer to the boyfriend although he's not amused with my belting out the following from my sickbed:


I can rub & scrub this old house til it's shinin like a dime
Feed the baby, grease the car, powder my face and bite off your nuts at the same time..Cause I'm A ...




Woman jailed for testicle attack

A woman who ripped off her ex-boyfriend's testicle with her bare hands has been sent to prison.

Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage when Geoffrey Jones, 37, rejected her advances at the end of a house party, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

She pulled off his left testicle and tried to swallow it, before spitting it out. A friend handed it back to Mr Jones saying: "That's yours."

Monti admitted wounding and was jailed for two-and-a-half years.
...W-O-M-A-N! BLEEUUURRGGGGGGH!

Daily Muse - Guru of Giggles

I have a business idea. It's called 'Shared Hatred Retreats' where you send a group of colleagues on a team building weekend with this man (who incidentally is my childhood imaginary friend brought to life). By the end of the weekend they will be empowered with an unbreakable bond that will make them want to stay late at the office huddled in a corner together. What you can do? Just laughter.

Muse of the Week. This boy is my hero.