hand models must love e-readers

Imagine being hand model.

Imagine your hands being your livelihood, but not in the way a carpenter's hands are his livelihood. Or like a dentist's or a brain surgeon's or a sewer's*. Imagine your hands being so goodlooking that you make money from them. People make money from how their faces look, how aesthetically pleasing their features are, and I get that because you can see someone and think Wow, that person is beautiful or even they are just really attractive. And that's fine but I don't think I've ever looked at someone's hands and been all like Phwoar! Check those beauties out!

And then when you think about it, being a model - a face model as opposed to a hand model - is just as dumb because your face is your living. A pleasing countenance is not a skill. Pretty hands and fingers are not a skill. And yet, imagine the stress that must come from being a hand model. Imagine not being able to cook, in case you cut your finger or burn the back of your hand. Imagine you have a job booked and you’re just about to leave to go to the job, but as you open the car door, you somehow break a fingernail. Imagine the sheer horror of looking down to see a jagged nail. Your entire day would be fucked.

I read on BellaSugar that one of the requirements to be a hand model is to have “veinless and poreless” hands. I’m no expert, but in my medical opinion, having hands that are without veins and pores would probably be a very bad thing. In the same article, the hand model from the cover of the Twilight book, the one where the hands are holding the red apple, says that people think hand models live like your average supermodel or rock star. The fuck? People are that stupid? Also, why is the Twilight hand model even being interviewed?

Hand modelling is totally ridiculous. I defy anyone to take their job, their career, as a hand model seriously. I mean, if it was me, if I was the hand model, I would be laughing myself into delirium. I’m getting paid to have pretty hands!!! I would also have the perfect excuse never to cook or clean again. Or do anything again, really. Couldn’t even turn the page of a book, for fear of getting a paper cut. Hand models must love e-readers.

To be honest, I find the whole thing to be a little perplexing and frankly, quite disturbing.

*Sewer. As I typed that word, I immediately thought of the other sewer and that wasn't very pleasant. So I wondered what other words could be used as a substitute and seamstress came up but to my ear, the ess just makes it sound feminine - even though seamstress is apparently a gender-neutral word - and I didn't like the insinuation that sewing was a woman's job/hobby. Dressmaker was suggested (via Twitter. Because nearly all of my pondering and musing is done via this medium these days) but then, probably incorrectly, all I think of is dresses, not just dress meaning clothes in general. Tailor was also suggested but I immediately think of a man, measuring up men for men’s suits. So if not seamstress or dressmaker or tailor, then sewer? I don't know, I don't think any of the words sit right but I do think I'm overthinking it all a bit too much. So, sewer. God, imagine being hand model, guys.

a post of nothing

Some things never change. I don't mean this in a philosophical way, just that there are little routines and constants that pop up every now and then, and it takes me by surprise that I have even noticed them.

Like when I leave work on a Saturday and I key my code into the alarm and Goodbye Annelise flashes up on the tiny little screen, I always say Buh-bye. Every week.

Or whenever I take a USB stick out of the computer, every time without fail, I say Yoink!

Or when I hand in an essay, just before I let go of it to let it fall through the slot, I say in my head God speed, little buddy. I don't even know what that means. I'm not religious and none of those damn essays are my friends. Also, I handed in my Social Inquiry essay as I was talking to someone and completely forgot my essay farewell and because I'm superstitious when it suits me, I fear this will result in a poor grade.

I handed the last essay in on Friday so apart from an exam next week, I'm done with this whore of a semester. Hallelujah. (Also, it makes me inordinately happy any time I type out Hallelujah and that annoying red squiggle doesn't appear under it. Smartarse.)

And now I'm on holidays until 30 July. Cue lots of sitting on one's arse.

Sooky bub

Everything is making me tear up these days, if not completely bawl my eyes out. Not in a sad way, just in the kind of way where it seems like you feel every emotion.

While trying to write an essay last week, I was in the middle of a procrastination binge and happened across a story of a Yale graduate, Marina Keegan. She wrote an essay about finishing college and about all the hopes and fears she had for the future. Just days after graduation, she was killed in a car accident. The line in the essay We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time opened the floodgates and I was a mess for about half an hour or so.  You can read her essay here if you want.

It was raining one day on the way to uni and the sight of a flock of sheep trying to shelter under the branches of a tree made me cry.

Song lyrics are making me cry all the damn time. I can’t even remember one in particular because it’s ALL OF THEM. I’ll be singing my heart out in the car and then all of a sudden, my throat will start tightening and I’ll keep singing even though I sound like I’m choking because listening to that is oddly satisfying.

So, given my current heightened emotional state, it was no surprise that I had to start blinking really quickly and using all my concentration to swallow when I opened a mysterious package that came in the post at the end of last week. I immediately recognised the handwriting as Sarah's (it’s really pretty handwriting) and thought ‘Oh, must be a book,’ because we did this book-swap thing a while back until Australia Post deemed it too expensive to keep up. The thought that we weren’t swapping books any longer didn’t even cross my mind. I sat down at my desk and ripped open the bag and out fell this:

Chocolate! To help me keep my sanity while getting this one remaining essay done! I sat down in my chair and had to do that thing where you squeeze your eyes shut and screw your nose up and purse your lips to stop the tears again.

People are awesome. Sarah, you are awesome. Thank you! I am going to DEVOUR it all.