Hayson Manning's Blog, page 6

Sloths only go the bathroom once a week. I bet they don't take the paper with them...

Bondi Beach 
G’Day!
Today our greeting comes from Australia who are celebrating their national day today. 

My local paper runs a large advertisement which puzzles me:
'Come and join our Successful Ageing Seminar'
What if you’re not successful? Is there a pass grade? If you fail is it lights out? Wiki Commons courtesy of Incry
Me?  I'm fighting the ageing process one ‘miracle’ promise at a time.
I have bathroom drawers brimming with products guaranteed to turn back the clock, erase those lines and bring back once luminous skin. (I'm not sure my skin was ever luminous, but I live in hope). I’ll slather that stuff on for a week, a year, as long as it takes. I’ll stare hopefully at those lines imagining them being ironed out. (Honestly, if they made an iron for faces, that sucker would be winging its way to my door).

My clearly clueless wonder husband, sighs heavily when yet another miracle jar sits proudly next to his contribution to the bathroom counter- deodorant.  He asks in a bewildered voice why I bother because to him I’m lovely. Keep those rose colored glasses on Clueless. 

Zipping up and down the aisles of my local pharmacy, I'm struck by the tiny section dedicated to male moisturizers when women have triple-decked shelves dedicated to fighting the first signs of ageing. 
Is it mostly women fighting ageing? Is there a secret men’s club out there? - Clueless assured me there isn’t.  Is it programmed into our genes? Are we influenced by advertising? Are we worried about being replaced? Clueless looked a tad too excited at that thought.
I will keep searching for the ‘Turn Back Time’ miracle cream because hope and luminous skin are fabulous things.
Am I along in my quest? Is there such a thing as a miracle cream?What are your thoughts on ageing?

Sea otters hold hands when they sleep to keep from drifting apart.
Ahhhhhhhhh.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

One Food. Choose. Now!
The grunty teen and I were conversing - me in English and The Grunter in a series of caveman grunts I have yet to decipher because I have girly bits so I’ll never understand.
We were talking/grunting about food, more specifically what we would have for dinner. Head Clueless Wonder - the budding Gordon Ramsay was whooping it up in Sydney. 
Courtesy of Kevin Trotman Flickr CommonsThe Grunter was unhappy I wouldn’t be serving sausages swimming in cheese. I explained that I couldn’t because I’d signed an online eradicate scurvy petition when he was born and every meal had to contain a green vegetable or fruit.
There we stood like duelists at dawn.
Courtesy of Doug Gelster Flickr CommonsWe used to play this game when The Grunter was little and squishy and, well seemed to like me a whole lot more. If he could choose one thing to eat for the rest of your life what would it be? With nothing to lose I asked what he’d eat.
Grunter: “Sausages.”Responsible parent: “Salad (a total lie, but I was going for the higher moral ground here, and to underscore the whole scurvy issue.) Grunter: “A green apple.” Responsible Parent: “Peanut butter.”I can and do stand in the kitchen and spoon that goodness right into my mouth. While I prefer crunchy I will take smooth.Grunter: “Can, I make dinner?”Responsible Parent: “Sure.” Shocked and deeply suspicious, I had the Thai restaurant down the road on speed dial.
Twenty minutes later, The Grunter and I sat at the table. On his plate was a partially burnt sausage covered in bbq sauce, a slice of cheese and half an apple. On mine was a handful of scattered lettuce, a single wonkily cut cherry tomato and the other half of the apple covered in peanut butter.
Courtesy of Glenn3095 Flickr Commons
Best meal of the week.
If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be? I think you can guess mine. Does anyone know where I can purchase a manual on understanding grunty teen boys?

Nestled in my bedroom drawers behind the sweatpants and the ‘roomy’ jeans lie a pair of black jodhpurs. Every time we move house or country the Jod’s come. The Jod’s are family.When I open the drawer and run my hands lovingly over the black fabric, I am letting myself live the dream a little longer.
You see the Jod’s have one magical letter. The ‘S’ on the tag. That ‘S’ represents hope. Hope that one day my small self with fit those suckers. If you looked at me you’d say “Those Jod’s were quite a few cream donuts ago, just quietly.” Why, yes, yes they were. The Jod’s were a time when I could run without causing damage to the pavement. The Jod’s were pre-kids when I could party on tequila and feast on cheese-puffs (something I still do because they’re cheese puffs and I am their slave). The Jod’s were a time before I worked out (kind of) at home, instead of hitting the gym and being mistaken for the janitorial staff. (Apparently you don’t wear your Buffalo Bills T-shirt (with pride) and a pair of quietly unattractive bike shorts, but instead wear matching lycra in cute prints.)

The Jod’s represent hope. Hope that one day, barring disease they will slip on with ease. Hope that one day I will finish the Paleo/Atkins/South Bay/Tomato Soup/Orange Juice/Fig and Bacon/Boysenberry ice-cream and cheese puffs diet (okay, I made the last one up). Until then I’m hanging onto the Jod’s, because they give me hope, and if you can’t hope then my world got a bit smaller (but not my butt) and sadder.




What about you? Is there a piece of clothing you hold onto?  

Nestled in my bedroom drawers behind the sweatpants and the ‘roomy’ jeans lie a pair of black jodhpurs. Every time we move house or country the Jod’s come. The Jod’s are family.When I open the drawer and run my hands lovingly over the black fabric, I am letting myself live the dream a little longer.
You see the Jod’s have one magical letter. The ‘S’ on the tag. That ‘S’ represents hope. Hope that one day my small self with fit those suckers. If you looked at me you’d say “Those Jod’s were quite a few cream donuts ago, just quietly.” Why, yes, yes they were. The Jod’s were a time when I could run without causing damage to the pavement. The Jod’s were pre-kids when I could party on tequila and feast on cheese-puffs (something I still do because they’re cheese puffs and I am their slave). The Jod’s were a time before I worked out (kind of) at home, instead of hitting the gym and being mistaken for the janitorial staff. (Apparently you don’t wear your Buffalo Bills T-shirt (with pride) and a pair of quietly unattractive bike shorts, but instead wear matching lycra in cute prints.)

The Jod’s represent hope. Hope that one day, barring disease they will slip on with ease. Hope that one day I will finish the Paleo/Atkins/South Bay/Tomato Soup/Orange Juice/Fig and Bacon/Boysenberry ice-cream and cheese puffs diet (okay, I made the last one up). Until then I’m hanging onto the Jod’s, because they give me hope, and if you can’t hope then my world got a bit smaller (but not my butt) and sadder.




What about you? Is there a piece of clothing you hold onto?  

The Art of Being Consistent or in my case Horribly Inconsistent
I stand in front of you with a confession. I am hopeless at social media. I don’t mean to be, I really don’t. I aspire to be that fun and funky friend who writes witty and scintillating posts that I’ll whip up and post, frequently.
Oh how I wish I was witty or scintillating. I am depressingly neither.

Between working full time proofing death certificates (I take my job seriously. The typo of ‘Gunshot wood to head’ will not go out on my watch. No. No.)  I arrive home and catch sight of myself in the mirror and whisper “Whoa. I seriously need to run four marathons a week.” Just quietly, I still need to learn how to run.
Luckily I don’t cook because I live with a Gordon’s Ramsay wannabe, so while he’s throwing a hissy in the kitchen and swearing at an orange, I open the laptop and work on Bound to the Bounty Hunter which is taking longer to birth than the universe.

Today, at last, I would be seated at my computer spitting out witty and scintillating posts and not  watching ‘animals that shouldn’t be best friends but are’ videos, to confirm there is good in the world. Well, stun me into silence when Clueless Wonder Two looked at me with hope and sparkle in his eyes (very rarely directed at me since he became a grunty teen) and asked if we could sit down and watch the ‘best program on the Teev’. Joy filled my heart. Clueless was into The Young and the Restless? I plopped down to discuss the Abbot/Newman rivalry and his thoughts. Oh, the excitement. Was he Team Abbot or Team Newman?      


Six hours later, I now know that to kill a zombie you have to stab them or shoot them in the head. Good to know for future reference.  Clueless and I had bonding time which is rare here at Casa Manning. However, Sophie and Harlan in Bound to the Bounty Hunter and still the equivalent of Pluto regaining his planet card.


I apologize for not posting enough. It isn’t because I’m not thinking of you because I am. I aspire to post more often and I will even if it is to post a lion and a baby zebra who are now besties, or hot dudes who look like Vikings,  or how Pluto’s doing on getting his planet card back.
I do try and find you on Facebook and like your posts. You inspire and humble me. And I thank you.
I remain your hopelessly useless friend,Hayson

I thought I'd cross-posted this, but as I'm as smart as a pickled onion, I didn't.

I was sitting with a friend of mine and we were laughing about stupid stuff that’s happened to us. This got me thinking, which always scares the one cell in my head masquerading as a brain. I bring you Hayson’s Dilemmas. Basically, a ‘What would you do?’
Dilemma.
You’ve just worked a crap night-shift at a bank. It’s midnight and you’re at Central Station, reading a book waiting for your train. You don’t notice the homeless, drunk man wandering your way with his peen flapping in the breeze, until your shoes fill with warmth.  
Horror hits your cheeks as you realize what’s happened. People shuffle away from you, because you’re the chic sitting frozen in place whose shoes are filled with pee. To add to the dilemma you’re wearing stockings. Worse dilemma is you freaking love these shoes. These shoes are like slippers. The shoes you’ve gone the yards with, broken through the blisters, limped your way to a glide. Your feet rejoice when they slip into them.

Do you?
A. Pretend walking around with pee in your shoes is an everyday occurrence and act like it never happened?
B. Lose the shoes and stockings in a bathroom at Central Station which is frequented by people loitering by doors with crazed eyes begging for a dollar. Do you risk hypothermia and people staring in horror at your winter Hobbit feet?
C. Step onto the train, hoping you don’t slosh pee over the floor, abandon your foot-friends at the station near your house, say a few kind words before running home?
That my friends is what I was faced with. I should preface this that a tiny sob escaped me before I made my decision.
Be honest, tell me what you’d do? Would you choose A, B or C from above or would you do something else.

Release Day for Winning the Boss's Heart
Much excitment and 80's style Hammer dancing sans legwarmers and funky parachute pants, here at chez Manning, as my second Entangled Indulgence released today.

If you have a minute and feel the need to be bored to death I'd love if you could stop by: Oh, there's giveaways!






September 11:  Long and Short Reviews Long and Short Reviews
September 14: Just Contemporary Romance
September 18: Farm Girl Books Farm Girl Books
September 25:Regina May Ross's Books Regina May Ross's Books
September 25: It's Raining Books It's Raining Books
October 2: Reading In Twilight Reading in Twilight
October 9: Simply Ali Simply Ali
October 16: Lisa Haselton's Reviews and Interviews Lisa Hasselton's Reviews and Interviews
October 23: Ramblings From This Chick Ramblings from this Chick
October 23: As the Pages Turn As the Pages Turn
October 30: Harlie's Books Harlie's Books

Words I cannot and will not use in a manuscript.

Before you read on, I’d like to mention that there is some crudity ahead. Please stop here if you find genital slang offensive.
I’m loving my mandatory reading period every day, because it makes me a better writer (hopefully) and, well, I just love to read. I came across a sentence that just made me shudder and whisper ‘No,’ loudly to the room. This got me thinking of phrases or words I can’t type.
I'm sure there’s a few here that have come up in lists before. But here’s my starter for ten.
YeastOr any forms of the word. I read a description of a man thinking a woman smelled all yeasty. Yeasty! My first thought was ‘Oh, dear lord the poor thing. She’s probably itching up a storm right now.’ If hub’s whispered that I smelt ‘yeasty’ I’d be down at the CVS in the feminine hygiene aisle, buying gallons of flower scented fluid. I’m sure the writer probably thought crusty just baked bread, but that wasn't my first impression, so yeast and all its forms. Goneski.
AnusA perfectly normal part of the anatomy, but I can’t think of a way to make that sound remotely sexy. I have to say in one of my many typos, I sent out a family email mentioning that I’d taken hubs and the kids to Anus Steak House and we'd had a ball.  Go the missing G. Yes, I'm still living that down.
PantiesI know, I know. Love it, hate it. It’s one of those words and I read it a lot, I just can’t use. I never think to myself ‘I have to go pantie shopping,’ or ‘those panties would look awesome on my ninety year old nan. Good Lord! No. For me, no, no, no. I have a perfectly good selection of underwear.
Come for meUttered by a man in the throes. If I was told to come for him on demand, I couldn’t. Then I’d get anxious and we’d still be there fifteen hours later, which in our advanced years is never a good thing. Every time a man whispers this, whoop, off she goes and collapses around him a second later. I've never read where a woman whispers that to her man. I wonder why?
Canal I once read ‘he placed himself in my canal.’ My what? My canal like I’m the Suez? That’s about as romantic as taking me to where Dexter buries his bodies and asking me if I’d like to do a spot of snorkelling. He placed himself  for me is actually just as hideous. Does the writer mean all of him or is the himself another word for the good old bloke. Speaking of the good old bloke. The following will never make an appearance in any of my books. There will be no Giggle-Sticks, Tallywhacker's, Mr. Winky’s, Big Dick and the Twins, Russell the Love Muscle, Bobby Dangler and Purple-headed Womb Broom will never see the light of day.
 While I’m on a roll, Lady Garden will never be typed nor will Squeeze Box, anything related to a tunnel,  canal or cave. Cha-Cha, Bat Cave (how I ask does bat get a look in?) Bald Man in a Boat (really…), Mossy Cleft, Ba-chonka, Poontang or Quim.
Are there any words or phrases that make you cringe? Mmmmm.Yeasty