To the beat of her own drum
I’m back from my adventures! Are you happy to see me? I got married, I flew to Europe, I climbed the Eiffel Tower, I saw hundreds of paintings in hundreds of museums, I drove through the Alps in a thunderstorm, I got lost many times in five major European cities, I shopped at Zara in all five of said cities, I swam in the Mediterranean, I avoided sunburn and pickpocketing and I ate at least one croissant every single day. And now I’m back in Sydney, six suitcases full of stuff and one husband richer.
It’s been a challenge going from adventure mode to sitting-in-a-chair-working-12-hour-days mode and I must admit, I’ve been a grumpy camper. I’ve been the sort of camper whose camping trip has been rained out. The sort of camper who is stuck inside a leaky one-person tent that she can’t stand up in and all her socks are wet and she can’t start a fire so all she’s been eating are cold cans of spaghetti and all she’s been doing is sulking and wondering if she’ll be eaten by a bear soon. Going back to work after holidaying in Europe is like eating cold cans of spaghetti in the rain and then getting eaten by a bear.
There’s one consolation that makes going back to work a little bit better: getting to be creative with my work wardrobe. Of course that creativity has to exist within the confines of a corporate environment where the boring, sometimes ill-fitting pin striped suit is king, but I try to live by the sage advice given to me by a very successful businesswoman: you’re not a man, so there’s no need to dress like one.
Carefully following that advice, I’ve put together a wardrobe full of bright, feminine dresses and silk blouses, skirts in different styles and shapes and colourful bags, belts and shoes that will set me apart from all the other worker bees. I was just starting to run out of creative ways to avoid wearing a suit when this editorial in the Australian Financial Review Magazine came along. It made me hop around the office in excitement because I had found my new inspiration.
Of course he’s checking her out. She’s wearing Prada.
Cold cans of spaghetti! At least it wasn’t spaghetti “sauce” the camp leaders made us make at the campsite, from fresh veggies, when we were 8th graders. 8th graders don’t know how to turn a vegetable into spaghetti sauce, and whatever we might have known is impossible when all you’ve got is a pot and a fire. They were a bit short sighted on the whole food thing sometimes.