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!