Not about rain

Today I feel like a little light-hearted post, so if you were looking for something philisophical or deep then I believe you are looking in the wrong place!  For the readers that remain, indulge me whilst I try to get myself back from a Christmas-induced bout of writers' block which means my current book, which I've had open on my laptop for the entire day, remains untouched this month (year!...but it is only the 5th day of the year)  I'm hoping inspiriation will hit me shortly (although hopefully not literally, as I'm in no mood to sport bruises) and I'll be optimistic and say it will come just at the right time, and not whilst I'm in a meeting at work, or on the bus, or anywhere else where I might not have the equipment necessary to deal with 'creative flow' (necessary equipment for creative flow: coffee, my laptop, Kylie's Greatest Hits on repeat)


Currently I am in the mood to rabbit on about not very much in a slightly witty tone, adding brackets where I see fit to ad lib for further comedy value (do you see what I mean?) but the problem is I'm writing a book which doesn't fit that tone at all, so I'm sort of left in a situation where I'm taken over by a want to write down something, but without anything interesting to talk about.  As such, I decided to see if the Internet had any good ideas.

Ah, the Internet, such a big place for small people with ambitious dreams (i.e me)  A little bit ludicrous too.  There are a bunch of 'story generators' on there and 'blog idea creators' which randomly pluck 'interesting' subjects out of the air.  I stumbled upon the latter and was instructed to write a blog on subject of the Nintendo 64 Vs the PS1. As I have nothing to contribute to a discussion of that sort, what I have actually decided to do is make my own 'blog idea generator' which can be used as a universal tool for writers everywhere.  Or perhaps just me.  And maybe not even that.

STEP ONE: Pick the flower correspending to your month of birth from the list below:-
January: Tulip
February: Primrose
March: Rose
April: Buttercup
May: Daisy
June: Hyacinth
July: Tulip
August: Primrose
September: Rose
October: Buttercup
November: Daisy
December: Hyacinth

STEP TWO:  Add to the date of your birth the numbers as per the list below:-

(e.g. if your birthday is the 13th August then your flower is the primrose so you add 13 to 12 = 25)

Tulip: 100
Primrose: 12
Rose: 234
Buttercup: 3
Daisy: 24
Hyacinth: 89

STEP THREE: Sing the National Anthem loudly.

STEP FOUR: Step three was a trick, you can stop singing now!

STEP FIVE: Grab the book nearest to you and flick to the page number generated by step two (in the example this is page 25)

STEP SIX: The last word on the page is your topic for discussion.

Right, now I am going to follow my own advice (I'm not joshing you, I actually just made that system up now on the spot) and then we'll see what topic I get!  Ooooh the excitement.  Okay so....Hyacinth right...106...GOD SAVE OUR GRACIOUS QUEEN! Oh - hahahahahaha- trick!  And (drum roll please...) the topic for discussion is rain!

Weather.  How predictable.  I mean the topic, not the weather.  Actually the weather is pretty predictable.  There's a whole television programme about it.  What's that called again?  Oh yes, the weather forecast.  Well....I can't fault the blog idea generator as I did invent the system so I'd best get cracking with it!

It always rains when you go to the hairdressers doesn't it?  I've actually gone to the touble of buying an umbrella directly on the way to the hairdressers before, although I did have a tip off in the form of some very dark clouds in the sky.  I can deal with the rain though, as long as it's not too windy, my real problem with the hairdressers is not the post-new-hair-being-rained-on disappointment once I'm home and I see the state it's in (what was the point in ghds?) but rather the shampooing.  It's like being a sheep (do they get shampooed?  No, I think I might be thinking of shearing...) Anyway, last time I was ushered into the little shampoo section and they must have got a new system in place because, much to my horror, upon the sight of my vertically challenged nature, the hairdresser placed a booster seat (!) upon the chair I was about to sit on (I kid you not!)  If this wasn't undignifying enough I then came to the horrible realisation that, as a small person, I'd been missing out on a special form of torture reserved for the average-height hairdressee (that's a word, yes?)  Basically, when I lean back into the basin that is for hair-washing I normally feel very comfortable and actually quite enjoy having someone else partake in the arduous task of washing my hair.  But what I've found out is that at normal height (i.e if you are of an average height, or a small person sitting on a booster seat because the hairdresser made you) then leaning back into a basin is not only torture, but completley unnatural.  Suddenly the gap in the basin was touching a part of my neck which no-one should ever have to rest the whole weight of their head upon.  I thought I'd accidentally stepped into a Chinese torture room.  Whilst the hairdresser busied herself putting product in my hair and saying "I think I'll get the shampoo for sensitive skin because you have a dry scalp." (yes, thank-you very much for yet another insult...) I was trying to distract myself from the pain in my neck which endured for the entire shampooing and conditioning process by beating my thigh repeatedly with my right hand.  I imagine this made me look like some sort of demented, tribal, warrior woman, but desperate times and desperate measures and all that. 

So, can someone else, of an average height, please confirm that the basins cut into one's neck in exactly the wrong place?  Next time I go I will, of course, wear six inch heels and avoid the booster seat altogether.

Oh look, that wasn't about rain at all, was it? Oh well...

(PS if you would like to use my blog idea generator please feel free.  It's also fun to put the 'topic' as your Facebook status - although 'rain' would be a rather boring Facebook status I imagine 'Soz', 'ham' or 'FAT' would be rather fun (I just picked those words out of the book beside me)  Anyway, just use it how you see fit)

The ones that slipped away

I've been thinking about the past a lot recently.  It's come to me in dreams.  Some of them just silly little reminders of people who were once a large part of my life, others haunting images that tell the tales of past and future selves, and how they meet in the middle, or maybe not at all...

Obsession with the past is never a good thing, and I shake these things off, because it's necessary.  All the same, I feel slightly emotionally exhausted from trying to reconcile my life now with the life I was living just 12 months ago.  Am I the same person?  Do I want to be the same person?  Is it weird that the most important people in my life now are slightly different?  Should I be scared about the future, because of the change?

Sometimes I really think that Poland was all a dream.  Did I really live there?  Did I really use to get the train and the bus on my own in the dark on a Sunday night, travelling from town to town, not speaking the lingo?  Did I really have those zloty in my purse, instead of pounds?  And have that weird fish salad thing that they sold in the little shop downstairs?  It all seems like a crazy fantasy that I made up when I was bored.  Then Sue or Leanne or Ana or someone drops me a line, and I have to accept the fact that I did live with Sue and Ana, and I did work with them both along with Leanne...otherwise how else would I know them? 

Then I remember the others I met in Poland, and how I may never see any of them again, and this really deeply saddens me.  These people walked into my life, they made an impact, and then they disappeared.  And for some reason I feel everything like it's a big blow.  Maybe just because I'm in a reflective mood, maybe because I've always found it difficult to let go, or maybe because you never really realise how much you relied on a network until it's not there anymore.  I had to make a new network of friends whilst on the continent, with my family physically far away....and now even though I'm close to my family again, without the network there just feels an absence.

Maybe that also explains my utter fascination with the life of one of my friends, who, I hope with all my heart, does not class herself as a former friend or just 'somebody that I used to know'.  See, she really was someone I could talk to anytime about anything, even if I hadn't seen or spoken to her in months.  And I could always rely on her to come round with food and drink and a big smile for games and giggles at my place.  Now I see her life only through pictures on Facebook, and she even looks different.   I dreamt about her: there were two of her.  One looked like I remember her, the other looked like her in the new pictures.  Old friend introduced me to her new self, but I didn't feel the connection - it didn't really seem like her at all.  My head couldn't connect her, this persona I see on the Internet, with the person I used to know. I know it was just a dream, but I can't stop thinking about it.  Does that person still exist?  Yes, I'm sure she does, but I feel quite scared, quite alarmed, after that really scary dream, as though she has been replaced by an imposter.  (It should now be noted that directly following this encounter in my dream I went upstairs and found a panda in the bath.  I'm not really taking the meaning of that all too seriously, so perhaps I ought to take all of the dream with a pinch of salt?)

The point is, with her seeming to slip away from my life too, when I used to rely on her so much...it seems bizarre, it seems strange....and the absence is sorely felt.

Even though things in just the space of a year have changed so dramatically, it doesn't mean that things have changed for the worse.  I'm happy and I've grown.  It's remarkable that the people who now belong in my life include some people who I never thought would play the major roles that they do.  In fact, instead of focussing on the friends who I've had to leave behind, even just because of geographical barriers, I should really be focussing on the new ones, because they're just as important. 

By no stretch of the imagination could my heart ever really leave behind those friends I made in Poland, or elsewhere. Even those people who left my life by choice have left their mark and I doubt they will ever be removed.  It just makes up another part of me, teaches me important lessons and enables me to understand humanity a little more.  I've left the light on and the door open for these people, in the hope they might return.  Maybe they never will, but at least I gave them the opportunity.

In the meantime I'll just be grateful for everything I have, because I'm privelleged to know and be friends with some fantastic people!

How Edward Cullen isn't god-like and other counter arguments

Since the release of the books and films, witty analyses of Twilight and its sequels have been dominant on the Internet.  Most of the critique, or appraisal, centres around the reason for its success, how transparent it is, and the need for an explanation because, of course, how 'lame' it all is - it is as bizarre as that phase where year 11 kids started bringing their childhood lunchboxes back into school, claiming it as 'retro' or something (anyone else remember that?)

The explanation goes a little something like this: Girls like Twilight.  Girls like Twilight because of the hero, Edward Cullen, who is immortal, and loves the awkward teenager Bella unconditionally.  Edward is god-like, and as all girls are an awkward teenager inside, with a longing to be loved by an immortal being, Twilight fulfills their dreams of one day also being loved unconditonally by a god-like creature.

For me there are a million and one things wrong with this argument, but I'll just give you the 3 main issues I have with it.

1)  The first premise is that girls like Twilight.  I would like to deny this sweeping generalisation, which assumes that Twilight is liked only by girls.  And I'm pretty sure there a few women who couldn't give a flying fig what happens in Forks.  Additionally, I can name men who like Twilight.  I have heard it said, in response to this, and also in anticipation to such a response to the above argument, that any men who like Twilight are gay.  Well, firstly may I congratulate you on re-affirming a stereotype and secondly I might point out that the derrogatory way in which you use the word 'gay' is offensive.  Thanks.

2) Edward Cullen is not god-like.  I don't even know where to start with this, because there are so many reasons why, so let me just give you a taste of some of the reasons I have to counter this.  1) He's selfish - he freely admits in book 1 that he is and that he should stay away from Bella, as it is in her best interests, yet still he enters into a relationship with her 2) he attempts to kill himself in book 2, not in a self-sacrificial act for the good of man-kind - no- because he can't take living without Bella (again...selfish?) 3) he doesn't have unconditional love for everyone, just for Bella.  He actively hates some people.  Namely Jacob Black and certainly Mike Newton in book 1. 

3) If Twilight is able to fulfil the needs of those girls who long for a god-like figure to love them the way Edward loves Bella, then how do we explain all those women who love Twilight yet are believers in a religion which has a God?  If they believe in a Father-Creator, a Heavenly-Paternal being who loves them so unconditionally, or have a relationship with Him, then why would they crave this sort of re-affirmation?  I don't think they would.  However, assuming they do want some sort of secular, pop-cultural point of reference to solidify their beliefs or to re-affirm their own values, why choose a hero of a book who, at one point, abandons the awkward-teenage Bella and cuts her out of his life for months on end? 

So, why am I annoyed enough to write this post?  Well, mainly because I wanted somewhere to tell people why I like Twilight.  It has nothing to do with Edward Cullen, his stinky breath (seriously Meyer you mention his breath too much, it makes me feel a little sick!) or my identification with Bella Swan (not that I particularly see myself in her.  Rather she is way too cool and aloof compared to me as a teenager.  And she does the washing up.  A teenager who does her chores!) 

The reason I like Twilight is probably the same reason everyone else loves Twilight: the love triangle. Simple as that.

Team Jacob BTW.

Traffic

Waiting at the traffic lights
hoping for the red
that means you don't have to deal with the pedal that's under your foot.

You can wait patiently
as long as it takes
to see it was all a waste,
just as you imagined.

But whilst an amber glow stares you in the face
the only real thing you know is that you've stopped or started the race.

The cat might be alive, you know,
and what will you do then?

You didn't expect to see green
you didn't expect to go
part of you really wants it
but you can't be seen to, though.

Heart going faster than the second hand on your watch
your watch just stops
your heart beat hops
you make a move
and chance it
heart now dancing...
afterall -
it's orange,
you can go!

GO!

Why I'd rather bury my head in a pit of eels than be an athlete.

Well, it's always in the summer that my attention has to turn to the complete standstill of the world because of the supposed importance of some sporting event or other.  I probably sound a little ignorant right now, what, with the olympics just starting, and surely this ancient competition that is steeped in history and culture, a celebration of diversity and community deserves a little more credit than a blasé label like that?  Maybe you're right.  My point is that for someone who has about as much interest in sport as a butterfly has in Masterchef, it's rather frustrating, to say the least.

The news channels forget that anything is happening in the world other than people winning (or not winning) gold medals, or trophies, or whatever it is that you get for winning the Tour de France (???)  Suddenly, violence in Syria, or debt in Greece, or unemployment in Spain, is not even news worthy.

Moreover, those who do not understand the sport or the athletics are left behind.  I have no idea the rules of many of these sporting events, I don't know what constitutes a loss and what constitutes a win.  When Wimbledon was on the telly, I wasn't really sure why people were clapping?  I could barely see the tennis ball it was so fast up and down the court...is that a good thing?

My memories of sport as a child are something like this:
Firstly Sports Day at primary school.  Running along with an egg and spoon, and that weird obstacle course that involved bean bags, hula hoops and some weird net thing that you had to crawl under, like you were training for the army or something.  I never quite realised how bad I was at any of these things because of the fervent cheering on I got from my Mum when she came along to support me.  Somehow finishing last didn't register on my radar as a bad thing because, well, people thought I was good enough to cheer on.

After this, sport continued in secondary school less as an ad hoc, 'Have you got your trainers?  Right let's do some PE then' and more as a timetabled activity.  That is when it became apparent that I was about as much use as a copper wire in a spaghetti bolognase.  Suddenly, I was expected to play football.  I had to chase the ball, and when I got it, kick it to someone else, or you know, into a goal or something.  Sounds pretty simple doesn't it?  Yeah, well, no-one actually explained the rules of football to me.  Beyond the simple system of how to score a goal I had no idea what a penalty was, or why it was required, or why you might need to take a corner, and what's the deal with swapping the goals at half-time?  Talk about confusing.  It was hardly surprising that I used to run in slow-motion on purpose just to avoid actually having to do anything with the ball.

Throw in a couple of PE teachers requesting I sit out of sport because I was nigh-on useless, an incident when I was so utterly pathetic at high jump that I was made to stay back at lunch time until I could get over the pole (the teacher gave up in the end, just as well or neither of us would have had a lunch break) and an incident involving hurdles that I don't really want to go into (years of taunting and teasing over that one) and my will to want to learn and to watch sport was completely annihilated.

During PE at school I was teased for being bad at sport, for not having breasts (the sort of thing that becomes rather apparent in the changing rooms) and for my clumsiness.  During a Judo lesson I relished in actually being told rules to the sport, and was happy to be able to use it effectively.  Someone who didn't really like me in my class used it as an opportunity to just beat me up, without any adherence to the rules and she had to be dragged off me by the teacher.  Is it any wonder sport came to be something more akin to torture in my mind than enjoyment and fun?

Watching sport often reminds me of my own inability, it reminds me of the taunts, the criticisms, the helplessness of the teachers who really couldn't believe there could be someone that bad at physical activity.  It's not something I like to subject myself to.

So, now, I'm 24, surely I can get over all the stupid history of my awkward teenage years where I had little or no athletic ability growing up in a cruel social hierarchy?  Surely I can just sit there and watch and enjoy other people doing something that they're good at?

Well, sport isn't as universal as music.  It's not something that everybody loves.  I agree that you don't have to be good at sport to enjoy watching it, but if you don't really understand the game then where's the joy in it?  If you only have bad memories of playing it and not understanding it, then where's the pleasure?

When I was in Australia I had the opportunity to watch an AFL game.  Not something I would have particularly chosen as an activity for myself, but the ticket was there, and I took it.  Whilst watching the game I had some of the more important rules explained to me, and it was sort of like a lightbulb was switched on.  The game became interesting to watch because I knew what was happening, and I had no bad memories of any such sport to taint my enjoyment of it.

This summer, whilst the olympics reigns the television screens there will be a few things I'll enjoy.  1) The continuing discussion and appraisal of the opening ceremony which seems to have been a platform for politics, cultural expression and, for some, provoking a critique or assessment of British history. 2) My own personal commentary on events for my own amusement.  For instance, I'm pretty sure that the amount of air time that the shower room in the diving events gets requires some sort of comedic commentating on the 'shower olympics'.  3) Lastly, I'm going to enjoy not needing to don an ill fitting outfit for physical activity, a catalyst for a string of taunts from peers.  I don't need to do PE anymore, least of all in some unattractive outfit designed by sadists.

Dear athletes of this world, take no offence at my words, there's lots of things I can do that I'm sure you'd find boring to watch.  Writing this blog for instance.  Despite this, I wish you the best of luck!

It was Earl Grey too...

For Sue:

Hey
where've you been?
I missed you, right before you walked out the door.
I didn't let you see my tears
and others didn't know
what they were for.


Hey you,
crazy you're on the other side of the world,
and yet hide
so easily, despite the web,
the world quite widely manifested.

Did you know you taught me how to travel?
Did you know you taught me to relax?
Did you know you taught me 'no worries'?
Do you know how much you make me laugh?

I bet soon you'll sneak sugar in my tea again
I bet soon we'll be laughing on the net again
I bet soon we'll dance around the room again
I bet soon we'll use plants to defend our brains
(against zombie attack
 - do you remember that?)

Hey
how've you been?
I miss you, but I know that's very silly.
I guess I just need a good laugh lately.

Hey you,
crazy you're on the other side of the world,
and yet I'd bet anything I tasted sugar in my tea just then,
and then I smile and lift my pen.

Packing

We're always lead to believe that life is the only journey you can't pack for, that what you take with you from experience to experience is determined by your previous experiences, and the emotional and psychological result of these.  I am starting to believe that this is untrue to a certain extent.  I mean, let's face it, we're not just our psyche.  We are more than this, and, although it is not always easy, we can control our action, so why can't we control what we think?

Well, we can.  How you feel is not what you think.  What you feel can't be helped, what you think is a decision.  Sounds sort of easy, but I don't really think it is.  I haven't read a lot on this, but I have heard some people in the sort of 'self-help' business go on about it.  I didn't really give it much thought, but have found myself driven lately to move past what I feel, and make a conscious decision to think something which goes against the grain of that.  Thought leads to action, so thinking right leads to doing right. That's why this is important.

In a physical sense, when we go somewhere we think carefully about where we're going and what we're doing to decide what we need to pack.  We try to cover all eventuality, but, inevitably, we forget things, over-estimate what we'll need or under-estimate what we'll need.  In a psychological sense, you can't always prepare for what's coming.  You might try to psyche yourself up for something, but we don't always know what is around the corner, and even when we do, often we have no idea of the psychological impact.  The only thing we can do is try to alter our thought pattern.  Turning feeling into thought leads to turning thought into action.  Trying to think things you don't feel is very difficult, but I think I'm going to try and do just that as an experiment.

For example, at the moment I'm about to prepare for a physical journey of my own.  The feelings I have are of apprehension, fear, and excitement.  I don't want the negative feelings to have a negative impact on my journey, but if I allow them to overtake then they very well might.  What I'm going to try and do instead is think, consciously, about the positive aspects of my trip, and everytime a negative thought comes into my head I'm going to turn it into a positive one.  Anything which is a worry which can be helped by physical activity (i.e being more physcially prepared) then I'm going to deal with it as soon as I can so that there is no basis for a negative thought surrounding it.  I'm doing this to try to have a positive impact on me, and I'm not sure how successful it will be, or even what the real impact could be... but I think it's worth having a go.

So...I guess I'll let you know the result in the near future :)  Wish me luck!