I read in the paper that a researcher in Canberra has come up with a new technique for detecting breast cancer. From examining a single hair she can tell if the patient has cancer, even in the very earliest stages which have always been so difficult to detect by mammograms. As a man I have always felt that breast cancer came strictly under the heading of secret women’s business, along with anything else tested for using a lollipop stick, but even I can see what a useful piece of research this is. Further research is underway to see if other cancers can be detected from examining hairs. All that information in a single hair makes you think…
Men go bald - men die younger. So maybe if only I keep my hair healthy I will live longer. Up to now I’ve always felt that if my hair needed a few extra vitamins I’d dunk my head in a jar of vegemite. Now I’ll have to make an extra special effort to find the right shampoo. The problem is that I’ve never known if my hair was greasy or normal, if it needed aloe vera, jujube or a warm conditioner. Coming to think of it what is aloe vera? It’s all been another of those secret women’s businesses.
I hope all this doesn’t mean I’m going to have to become a sensitive new age guy and start grooming myself. The only redeeming feature I can find in all this is that I remember hearing years ago of the folic benefits of beer. So I’ve decided to spend more time in the pub - it’s a matter of life and death!
Of course my main problem with modern consumerism may just be related to my inability to make choices. When in the peace and quiet of a trout stream I can make a choice when it comes to a fly selection, when it comes to anything else I haven’t a hope, ask Vicky, or Penni, but preferably not both together.
My friend Hairy came round to my house the other afternoon. He had clearly been sniffing too much shampoo. Apparently he wanted me to know that he had left me his Orvis collection in his will, and could he have fifty bucks on account. Three weeks ago Hairy had owned a set of five (yes five) Orvis bamboo fly rods build between 1962 and about 1983 (worth several thousand dollars). Now he owns a cheap Japanese graphite copy of a real fly rod (worth less than the cost of a tram ticket to the porn shop where his old rods now lived.) I gave him $50 for the porn shop ticket, I figured I’d buy back his rods and give them back to him when he’d dried out.
Sometimes I think my life is a mess, and then Hairy comes round on the scrounge.
I first met Hairy at school, but we only became good friends when we discovered by chance we had gone to the same university. He was studying particle-physics. He got a first and for a while worked in a job so classified that not only did he have to de-list his phone numbers but he was forced to move and use a PO Box which was collected on his behalf by a man from the Department, all very John Le Carré. In short he was a brilliant mind, and a great friend. Now he was a shambling drunken mess and has difficulty holding down his job at the Dry Cleaners. His whiskey comes straight from the bottle; his life was on the rocks.
It’s very sad when someone you love fucks things up so spectacularly.
So I’m in the porn shop and the man gets me Hairy’s rods for $250. Either the porn shop guy is the cheapest bastard on the planet or he didn’t think they were genuine. I mean it they were genuine who’d let them go for $50 each. My favourite was an 8’6” HEH (#5 weight.) When new the varnish had been clear, now it had warmed into a handsome sunny yellow tined honey colour. The scratch marks (all minor) have thankfully not been expertly repaired, rather they had been left to suggest a history of past glory days, not scars or imperfections instead being more alike to the wrinkles on the face of a beautiful mature woman. It still casts tight easy to control loops, absolute perfection. In short I was holding the best, most beautiful and sexiest fishing instrument I ever seen. Perhaps the sexiest thing I had ever seen, well at least since my wife had stopped wearing her frilly french knickers - about 35 seconds after saying “I do.” $50 and Hairy would never remember if he sold it to me, might not even recognise it. I knew I couldn’t give it back to him, next time someone would realise what it was worth and give him enough money to kill himself.
Anyway the whole thing made me think about my ethics. Apparently I can cheat on my wife but not my mate.
Is cheating the betrayal of liking just being with someone else, holding their hand when you walk in the woods, giving them a kiss, wanting them? Is it all OK if you don’t have sex? If you do have sex what then? Is the sex the cheating or the deceit about it?
Guilt can eat into you like a cancer, and it doesn’t matter how often you wash your hair.
Men go bald - men die younger. So maybe if only I keep my hair healthy I will live longer. Up to now I’ve always felt that if my hair needed a few extra vitamins I’d dunk my head in a jar of vegemite. Now I’ll have to make an extra special effort to find the right shampoo. The problem is that I’ve never known if my hair was greasy or normal, if it needed aloe vera, jujube or a warm conditioner. Coming to think of it what is aloe vera? It’s all been another of those secret women’s businesses.
I hope all this doesn’t mean I’m going to have to become a sensitive new age guy and start grooming myself. The only redeeming feature I can find in all this is that I remember hearing years ago of the folic benefits of beer. So I’ve decided to spend more time in the pub - it’s a matter of life and death!
Of course my main problem with modern consumerism may just be related to my inability to make choices. When in the peace and quiet of a trout stream I can make a choice when it comes to a fly selection, when it comes to anything else I haven’t a hope, ask Vicky, or Penni, but preferably not both together.
My friend Hairy came round to my house the other afternoon. He had clearly been sniffing too much shampoo. Apparently he wanted me to know that he had left me his Orvis collection in his will, and could he have fifty bucks on account. Three weeks ago Hairy had owned a set of five (yes five) Orvis bamboo fly rods build between 1962 and about 1983 (worth several thousand dollars). Now he owns a cheap Japanese graphite copy of a real fly rod (worth less than the cost of a tram ticket to the porn shop where his old rods now lived.) I gave him $50 for the porn shop ticket, I figured I’d buy back his rods and give them back to him when he’d dried out.
Sometimes I think my life is a mess, and then Hairy comes round on the scrounge.
I first met Hairy at school, but we only became good friends when we discovered by chance we had gone to the same university. He was studying particle-physics. He got a first and for a while worked in a job so classified that not only did he have to de-list his phone numbers but he was forced to move and use a PO Box which was collected on his behalf by a man from the Department, all very John Le Carré. In short he was a brilliant mind, and a great friend. Now he was a shambling drunken mess and has difficulty holding down his job at the Dry Cleaners. His whiskey comes straight from the bottle; his life was on the rocks.
It’s very sad when someone you love fucks things up so spectacularly.
So I’m in the porn shop and the man gets me Hairy’s rods for $250. Either the porn shop guy is the cheapest bastard on the planet or he didn’t think they were genuine. I mean it they were genuine who’d let them go for $50 each. My favourite was an 8’6” HEH (#5 weight.) When new the varnish had been clear, now it had warmed into a handsome sunny yellow tined honey colour. The scratch marks (all minor) have thankfully not been expertly repaired, rather they had been left to suggest a history of past glory days, not scars or imperfections instead being more alike to the wrinkles on the face of a beautiful mature woman. It still casts tight easy to control loops, absolute perfection. In short I was holding the best, most beautiful and sexiest fishing instrument I ever seen. Perhaps the sexiest thing I had ever seen, well at least since my wife had stopped wearing her frilly french knickers - about 35 seconds after saying “I do.” $50 and Hairy would never remember if he sold it to me, might not even recognise it. I knew I couldn’t give it back to him, next time someone would realise what it was worth and give him enough money to kill himself.
Anyway the whole thing made me think about my ethics. Apparently I can cheat on my wife but not my mate.
Is cheating the betrayal of liking just being with someone else, holding their hand when you walk in the woods, giving them a kiss, wanting them? Is it all OK if you don’t have sex? If you do have sex what then? Is the sex the cheating or the deceit about it?
Guilt can eat into you like a cancer, and it doesn’t matter how often you wash your hair.
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