what the?!

I am a terrible blogger. I am terrible at sticking to things in general. I haven't always been this way, I used to be a real 'go-getter' and then one thing lead to another and then it fell on something else and now I am a terrible stick-to-it-er. Now the only reason I bring this up is that I am suddenly having quite a little conflicting time of it all. Normally I start work on a project get really excited, research the crap out of it and then sit down to pull it all together, stare at the paper and run screaming from the room at the mere thought of failing at this task that I have prepared so dilligently for. Thats my generally pattern, and I'm fairly ok with it. The due date comes up and I run screaming back into the room and pull it all together in a crazy frenzy. However, in a recent happening, this pattern seems to be changing. I've been thinking about typing and editing a short scene I was working on...thinking a lot, not doing it though. Then all of a sudden yesterday afternoon, I sit down and write the whole thing in one go. I don't mean to frighten you dear reader, but I actually finished it! Feel free to stop reading here and have a breather, it is quite a shock. But wait before you do, there's a little bit more. This is not the first time I've come across this worrying behaviour of late. Nooooo, I also picked up three more stagnant projects and started working on them in a "I am finishing this now" kind of fashion.

Now there are two options here, either I have gone entirely insane, the world is on it's head and I am now living in a backward crazed world where I will be forced to do cartwheels to the train (which is more than a little worrying because between you, me and the world wide web...I can't do cartwheels! My butt overbalances me and it's all very unattractive! There is also a genuine risk of suffocating myself in my chest!) OR I am finally, after years of wandering through some fog coloured land of "but what if I can't" isms, getting my arse into gear! I might start practising cartwheels to be on the safe side...

I know I haven't written but I have a REALLY mediocre excuse!

So I have not blogged in quite awhile....I would apologise but as I have all of two followers I figure I'll just give them a buzz at a later date and bribe them to stay on with various forms of foodly goods. But in all seriousness (well with as much seriousness as you can for someone with the word spatula in their name) I've been as my mother says "a little bit off colour" and by that I mean I've been down right a pain in the arse to be around. Now openly, I'm not the healthiest person around, I accidentally poisoned myself for about three years before finding out I am allergic to gluten (go me!) so those surrounding me are kind of used to bitchy I will kill you if you don't abide by my wishes until this stops hurting personality and most have their own ways of dealing with it. But even they were questioning the turn of hand rages that I can throw without a second's warning (eg: "No seriously if we don't go home RIGHT now I will vomit ON you" and "I am not kidding if you don't get me drugs NOW you will regret it"...I am all charm yes) Anywho, turns out that I have been legitimately sick and probably should have looked into it earlier (like hell, evil evil doctors with your cold hands and metal ear stickies, I'm on to you) and this morning I learnt a good lesson, if you don't go to a doctor after a month of feeling ick, you WILL wake up with your eye puss glued to your pillows (mmmmmm) and welcome conjunctivitus into your life. So I have been punished and as I see it, it is a direct result of my non-blogging....so damn you puss eye causing blog!  On the plus side, I can now threaten to contaminate people with eye gunge if they don't abide by my wishes...every cloud.......

Now you know more about me than you ever needed to......and don't we all feel better...well no I feel icky but blogger-ly yaydom! x

So I did it. I deleted facebook. It was really very un-monumentous and was fairly depressing to realise how many people I am acquainted with that I don't spend anytime with or even think about very often. In general I could pretty much write off most of the people as lovely, but not close enough to warrant caring about 131 photos of their trip to Las Vegas (consisting of pictures of them drinking different coloured drinks and then, wait for it, the drinks BY THEMSELVES!). It's not that I am not very happy for my brothers best mates wife's sister who has just found out she's pregnant, it's more that it feels strange knowing details first hand when I have met the woman ONCE!
So I am no longer on the facebook bandwagon, and to my absolute lack of shock no one really cares, which gets me thinking, how much we think about others, and I'm not talking about the whole lets save each other and be good caring people but rather, more selfishly, how this is a thought worth remembering.
How many times I have not done something for fear that someone would look on it badly and now I realise they probably wouldn't have given a damn. Which is quite refreshing when you think about it. Thats not to say that the day I fell face first on the treadmill a lot of people (90% of the gym) didn't stop and look, but rather that laughing at me probably wasn't the highlight of their day (and if it was that's probably more their problem then my own...).
There is something nice in realising how insignificant you are in the world, makes it easier to get on with things and just bob along. Since realising this fact, I've been testing it using my new toy twitter. It's fun to direct comments to people and then never hear a response, in fact the best thing is to make a comment and then leave it for a few days and then delete it. It only illustrates how little influence we have on anybody else's world and it's even better when someone inadvertedly replies, seems to have a little bit more meaning somehow. Kind of like when you ask a question in a crowded conversation and you think no one's heard and then someone leans over to answer it.

So blah blah blah, that is all I have to say really, that and to apologise for my ranty-mc rant rant previous blog. Oh and also to announce the swim in the baths challenge, where by I have to swim in the baths, preferably in winter in the morning. No brain, no pain, so I should be fine......

Human Folly

I am always astounded that when something goes wrong, there is a large amount of people who automatically assess how it effects them and what they can gain from it as a result. Recently on a trip back from Sydney to see a concert, there was a fatality on the line, which meant that the train was held up for quite sometime. It was an interesting situation to be caught in, as all of a sudden people’s priorities became vocalised and really quite clear. The three sixteen-year-old girls with over manicured hair, falling down pants and lack of an ability to manoeuvre words into any coherent sentence all started to draw attention themselves. “Oh my god, I can’t even believe how late we’re going to be! I don’t wanna see any like dead shit” which was then followed by numerous phone calls to parents and friends to say “Yeah we’s been held up cos like there was some dude and he jumped in front of the train and now we’re like stopped” This was of course I imagine followed by the parental party asking why they were on said train and the fantastic answer of “we’s got bored so we wents to Hornsby shopping centre and was headin’ back and now it’s stopped” The accident becoming a comfortable cover up for their obvious  misdemanours.

Then there was the couple who were also incredulous to this ever happening “This has never happened to me before! It’ just doesn’t seem right. I mean how are we gonna get home in time. This is so fricken stupid.” Wow, what a lot of insight that young lady possessed. Her conversation later turned into a very detailed description of “the train driver comes round and says to us that this guy has jumped right in front of the train and hes dead and now were stopped for questioning” which I was fascinated with because I had missed this conversation with the driver somewhere between her seat behind me and my own and had only heard “please remain patient, there has been a fatality and this train will be evacuated in due course once the authorities arrive.”

Then there was the brilliant man who called his work and explained that he had witnessed a crime scene and couldn’t  possibly come into work tomorrow. Now this was pure genius as there was an accident and then there technically he had witnessed the track that had been the scene of the crime . Only a man of particular skill could have worked that story out so quickly and I have to admit to being generally quite impressed!

The amazing way that everyone’s thoughts went to being stuck, being late, having to wait and being hungry FASCINATED me! Someone had just chosen to end their life, you would think they could be a bit more considerate, I mean really peek time on a Sunday, tsk, tsk, tsk.  Next time, he should plan it for maybe 1.30 am on a Monday morning, because then no one would b inconvenienced, so mr Jumpee, next time…oh hold on…..There is no next time because you only have one life and yours has so sadly JUST ENDED!  I wanted to scream you miserable people, what the hell is your problem?! Have some bloody respect! Someone has just died and the poor dude driving the train has had to watch it happen! But instead I sat there and tried to concentrate on my breathing. Why couldn’t I just say what I had going through my head? At what point did we stop pulling each other up on being basically ridiculous human beings and just let it become a culture? This attitude was worn loud and proud for 3 hours whilst the situation was sorted at which point I found a friend of mine to discuss the amazement that is human society. And two days on I'm still amazed that not one person, including me, had the guts to standup and say something.... really makes you wonder doesn't it...or does it?

Challenge #2 - Update #1

I am now officially on my first day of my second challenge to delete facebook and so am trying to slowly but confidently detach myself. I posted my blog url so that hopefully will mean people contact me because I feel like a bit of a moron doing the old "I am deleting my facebook so take my details because I am oh so so important!" I've also been going through my "friends" list and realised that I speak to a total of about 13 of the people on the list! Isn't that absurd! And whats more, I actually DISLIKE over half of them! How did this little world become so frightening that all of a sudden I have to pretend that I actually care how many of these people do well in "texas hold em" application...news flash: I DONT! 

I have also already met with the unavoidable annoying question of "yeah, but why are you doing it? you can just downsize it can't you? make it really private?", in response, yes, yes I could do this, but then I could just as easy not have one at all and achieve the same end.

I realise this is a very rant like update but in daylight I have actually begun to hate facebook, more than just find it a waste of time. There are some really mean aspects to it all....which I will update in full over the coming posts if only to strengthen my own resolve :)

Face-off with Facebook - Challenge #2

Challenge number two has been a tough one. I have had a few in the pipeline but for whatever reason I have had to drop back and will do these at a later date. The last challenge was to test my fear and I think it did just that... although the write up did leave a lot to be desired, so apologies for that one.  So for this fortnight's challenge i am assigning something that i should have done quite some time ago but have been putting it off and putting it off because I am a lazy lazy young lady! 

For a bit of a back story, I signed myself up for a facebook account when I was about 20 and it was to keep in contact with close friends and to post pics and do the whole community thing. I had all the security protocols and what not and it all seemed dandy. After a little while though, things started changing. Less people exchanging news, and more people ranking friends and doing "which miley cyrus song am I?" quizzes. Then there were the "Become a fan of 'people against beating small children and women on trams' group" which was so rightly examined by my good friend Dr Q who countered this argument with his own "People in support of not getting shot in the face with a crossbow group". But mostly it just became fairly half hearted on my behalf. Then my friend who I will warmly refer to as Earl Grey informed me that everything I wrote on there was the property of Facebook. Which lets admit it, is a fairly horrifying thought. I started thinking about all the dodgy "I've had too much to drink" photos that I have in existence and it was rather a frightening thought that they would be posted and tagged to my name. So after some serious thought I have decided to bite the bullet and be independant and DELETE MY FACEBOOK! Shock horror for anyone of my generation. I did mention it to a few close friends and the general feeling was "why would you do that?" "How will I know what your doing?" to which I counter, I have a blog, I tweet and I own a phone! If you cant find me, you aint trying! So I challenge not only myself to this, but also my close friends to remember me even if I'm not commenting on facebook.

Now I know that the whole deleting facebook probably seems pretty lame to some people, but for me, facebook is fairly addictive! You can see into other people's life and monitor them! Which is that horrible addictive nosy parker streak I have's dream come true and also a reason to get rid of it (the next step will be to stop gossiping entirely but lets just start with baby steps!) So I am breaking  four year trend and will have to learn to live without it. The rules are these:

I have two weeks to:

 1. Remove all important info from facebook.

 2. Notify close friends of twitter account, email, blog and (god forbid) phone number and NOT make a big deal about it.

 3. Finally disable my account. 

 I am aiming to track my progress with this challenge this time, so hopefully I will update and you can all have a laugh as I rid myself of the facebook addiction....I wonder if there is rehab for this....

Random Fandom

When I was younger I stuck pictures of my favourite bands on my school books. I had a crush on then famous tennis player Mark Phillipoussis and Boy Band singer Taylor Hanson. I had posters of Leonardo DiCaprio on my walls and would sometimes wish that I could see him for real but that was the extent of my fandom. Not to say that I don't still have the odd moment where I think "god Ben Mendelsohn is so very very sexy!" but the reality is he could be a real arse in person and I don't pretend to be mates with him (he might with me, but then why wouldn't he?! :P) So i have to admit to my absolute shock and amazement at the fan crazies (sorry I know that is rude but I am struggling with what else to call them!) that surrounded the recent Harry Potter installment. We all expect that the three leads are going to get some degree of full on attention and I think they seem to handle it pretty well, I did not expect the level of fandom surrounding the other actors, nor did I expect the level of passion with which they address this appreciation. It is frightening! Youtube is a myriad of scary slideshows devoted to nearly every character and the actors who play them admitting undying love to the actors who portray these side running characters. I dare you to type "Fred Weasley" into youtube and just trail through the frightening array of devoted love interests that James Phelps (the young guy who plays Fred) can proudly skite of. I had no idea who he was till this little foray into fan world and now I'm just impressed with how normal he seems and even more impressed with the young fans that can tell him and his twin so readily apart. I've become so fascinated that I found myself "following" some of them on twitter, purely to see if the fans were on there too (they are! The Phelps Twins have more followers than Kristin Chenoweth which is just weird!).

So here's my question to the ether or anyone who answers, how do you shake that expectation of a fictional character as an actor? I mean it's one thing for Harry Potter to shake the label, but what about the Neville Longbottoms, Luna Lovegoods and Weasely twins? Do they also live forever in the shadow of a minor character, or will their fans follow them from project to project? And secondly, what do these actors have to maintain in order to stay in favour? I imagine you have to try and be pretty interesting if you know that thousands of fans are reading your twitter comments daily. It all seems rather exhausting really don't you think? Who knows, maybe it's just bizarre because at the ripe old age of 23 I really can't be arsed making slide shows or maybe it's just a genuine hope that we are actually all the same and their normality will shine through...or maybe I'm just so wrapped up in my on world I've no space to dream....gosh thats depressing...certainly hope thats not the reason :)

The Ring......*insert ghostly noise here*....spoiler alert

The Ring, it turns out, did not suck my soul. Nor did the young woman in it (I now know her as Samara...because that is her name) try to stalk me down and kill me in my sleep. I can safely say I survived my first, albeit somewhat weak, challenge which took me the whole two weeks to work up to. I think I am the first person to suffer pre-film watching nightmares. Although I can still manage to scare myself into believing that someone will crawl in my window and attack me....although I'm not sure if it's the attack I am scared of or just the concept of someone being there that horrifies me. When I'm having my frequent nightmarish situations I never get to what the ghostly horror actually does to one, just the sheer fact that they are there!

I have to admit to being excited that I got through this little task, but I also have to admit that I was a little bit disappointed in myself for being so scared in the first place. I think in future I will face the fear rather than dwelling in it and hiding from it. It's kind of like the concept of being afraid of the dark (a fact I can often commiserate with!) it's just the same only darker but actually making yourself believe it is another thing entirely.

It made me question what exactly we fear. I mean if you think about it, the absolute worst that can happen is death, but thats really just another ending really isn't it? I don't imagine actually being dead hurts, the pain leading towards death might, but the actual being dead might be kind of ok...I don't know, I've never been dead, so don't quote me on that. Now I think about it, I'm kind of more scared of having everyone around me dead rather than dying..uuuugh, now that is horror making stuff. Also have you ever noticed in the movie it's never the ghost who can never rest we fear for, but the human being? I don't understand that at all. You would think that it would be far worse to be the one who couldn't just chill out and be at peace already....I might be missing something here. Still though, I will be petrified next time I'm told a ghost story, my only calm is that it'll have to be a really good ghost story to claim my sleep.

Tea on a hot tin roof

For me, tea is no longer just a warm comforting drink. It has become an all encompassing religion. There is something about that quiet vigil of tea as you feel it slide down your throat and fill up your senses...not quite like a night in the forest, more like a night wrapped in a quilt sitting in front of a warm fire with rain on the tin roof and wind whipping around the outside of your house (I have thought about this a LOT!)
Tea seems to have gained popularity of late and everywhere I turn I hear someone telling me how much they love tea, which I get really excited about, how wonderful! A fellow tea drinker, let us enjoy the magical brew together only to find they drink chai latte, call it tea and consider an english breakfast tea bag the height of 'mixing things' up tea wise. Now it's not that I am particularly against tea bags, in fact Madura tea does some damn fine teas, but as a connoisseur of tea, the brewing process is half the joy. The smell of the tea leaves as the hot water hits them is completely irresistible and if I could bottle it I maintain, I would make a fortune.
Tea is the one constant that I can remember throughout my life. In fact I can remember begging my mother to let me drink tea when I was four and her saying "no" which I am sure must have led to some fantastic gesture of defiance such as running around the table in circles screaming "TEA! TEA! TEA!" which I was very good at indeed and often ended up so tired that I just fell asleep from the exhaustion of it all.
I don't just remember good tea moments (of which I have many) but I also remember the bad tea moments of which, unfortunately taunt my memory like the little bully in the playground who has chocolate all around his face who has been told he is cute so many times he has become a right pain in the rear end. I'm talking the moments at truly terrible theatre shows where you think "I am actually going to poke my eyes out with chopsticks if I have to sit through the second act of this" so you make your way to the little tea and coffee booth (because you've gone to the matinee of this dreaded performance in order to bypass the loss of a perfectly good evening for faff and therefore the option of anything harder is not an option at all) and decide to commiserate the loss of those hours which you will never have returned by a lovely warm cup of tea. So you pay your $3.50 (extortionate prices paid to maternally older women who also convince you you need to buy an anzac cookie that is made just like they did back in the war - hard as nails and dual use as coaster provided.) and for your pain you get a polystyrene cup of warm milky water in which a dodgy tea bag has once been dipped in and pulled out again just long enough to colour the water. It is the most displeasing experience and one that sticks with you and make you concerned everytime you order a cup of tea.

I know I sound like a tea snob, and this is largely because I am but there are somethings that should remain sacred and tea is just one of those things for me. This warm drink has so many traditions and stories around it's hard not to want to seep yourself in it all and just relax.....

so now I'm going to go and boil the kettle because I have a weird craving for tea...

Fearing Fear.

I realised a few days ago that I have gone a large portion of my life being scared of absolutely everything and it got me thinking.... how much have I missed out on because I am too scared to grab it by both hands? I know that I've missed out on meeting new people because the prospect of going out in a large social gathering and being invisible is only fractionally less scary that the concept of being noticed for falling on my arse or generally being a moron. Don't get me wrong, I've had my fair share of moronic moments...only yesterday I fell headfirst into an elevator (yes, there is a certain amount of effort involved with this task, in case you were wondering) But there is a difference between making an arse of myself with those who have been forced to accept the fact that I am slightly, if not largely strange and making an arse of myself as the first impression.
And it's not just the social aspect of things that I've been scared of, it's everything else! I frequently have that moment when your running down the stairs and you realise that you need to slow down because what if you over judge a step, take it too quickly, fall down the stairs and die! I am so scared of this eventuality that I walk down all stairs I take, even if I am really really late. I don't even turn the speed on the treadmill up too fast in fear that I will tire too quickly and won't be able to keep up or get the speed down in time and will fall off said treadmill and die! Now I am aware the eventuality of dying from a treadmill related injury probably very slim, but in my over thinking, hyper imaginative, paranoia ridden mind - it is a very real possibility.

If it were just the social and the physical well being that I harboured fear of, then maybe I could conquer this strange little fear factor, but it's the fear of fear itself thats the real kicker. And by this I mean, I get so scared that I will be scared that I won't do something. A wonderful example of my sheer bewildering behaviour was illustrated when a close friend decided to show me a scene from the horror movie "The Ring"...SPOILER ALERT... the scene where the girl crawls out of the tv. After viewing this, I refused to sleep in a room with a screen...or a mirror....or a glass surface that might be mistaken as a screen or mirror. I also refused to sleep in a room by myself because the horrifying woman from the film might come find me and prey on the fact I am all alone. I made up this spectacular story about the character in the film and why she was targeting me, although I had no idea about the movie, nor would I allow anyone to talk to me about it for fear I got more scared! I was so scared that I would be scared that I didn't even contemplate the idea it might quell the original far altogether, oh no no no, rather instead I held fast to my story about the screen woman (which, admittedly was quite good and made me refrain from sleep for close to a week because I was so terrified- incidentally, the woman in "The Ring" does not hunt down young women scared of people crawling out of glass surfaces and suck their souls....or so I've been told!).
Strange thing is, I'm a sucker for scary stories! I love em! I will purposely listen to most of it then realise I'm scared and tune out for the last bit and then spend the next few hours thinking about it. It's a vicious vicious cycle I assure you.

But back to my point, with all this fearing weighing me down, my question is how do I fly when I'm too afraid to leave the ground in case I come slamming face first into it (NB: Fly metaphorically...Not actually fly. That would be silly. I don't have wings and if I did I would probably be so scared they would malfunction I would never use them anyway).
So I am proposing a challenge to myself where by every fortnight I am going to do something that scares me to death so that I might finally lose some of my ever increasing, over populating, mind boggling inhibitions that I seem to collect like novelty gifts from half hearted friends that one day you go "I can't get rid of them but I don't want them!".
My first challenge is the scary movie challenge, easier than dealing with the scary demons of the treadmill....baby steps on slow. The challenge is as follows: To actually watch "The Ring" and not run screaming from the room, but rather to rationalise it so that I may also sleep afterwards. I am well aware that this could result in my sleeping on my housemates bedroom floor for the next month but....nothing ventured nothing gained!

LETS DO IT!