That's the spirit

When I was, I dunno, 10 years old, my brother and I made a Ouija board from the back of a 'twister' spinner board and the lid of an Aloe V bottle. We used to spend hours asking ghosts and spirits questions like “what’s your name?” and “how old are you?”. There we had the potential for having questions about metaphysics or existentialism answered, and we wanted to know if they were also 10. Go figure.   

The last time I wrote here was in March, when one might say I wasn’t in a great place.  I sorta rolled with this not great head-space and was a little bit actively internally destructive.  I don’t think it's necessarily bad though.  It has been dark, but I now have faith that this is the beginning of something bright. Kinda like how the Tower works. I think it was important to tear down my old structures in order to rebuild on a sturdier foundation. 

I have this new-found openness to the universe, and with that I’ve been liking some pretty ridiculous things on Facebook regarding positivity and happiness.  

“Life is not happening to you; life is responding to you!”

“Life is like a camera… just take another shot!”

Or this one I made myself:

Let's hold hearts!

(Don’t let me become a professional inspiration writer; the world parodies itself enough as it is!)

So, opening myself up to my spiritual journey, last week I decided to do something a bit different and went and saw a Spiritual Healer.  I quite liked her.  I went in and was like “I think I got some past life Karma that I haven’t worked through” and she was receptive to that. Not many people would be able to hear that sentence without bursting out laughing - I almost couldn’t say it without laughing, but she was totally cool with it; she was like “sure, we’ll go check that out”.

So she lay me down on this table and put on some music and got me to close my eyes.  I had weird visions things flowing through my head, lots of swirling patterns.  Like how colouring dye flows into water. And then lots of sudden sharp imagery, like arrows and those guns with pointy thingies. I want to say bayonette but I think that’s a type of window. (wait, that’s a bay window… bayonette is correct! Ten points to Griffindor!)

Anyway, after this weird nap thing I took she told me that there is something there, and it was quite traumatic.  So apparently, I was very young and got married off to some jerk.  He was quite the jerk so I stabbed him in the heart, and my servant took the blame.  I felt super guilty about that so I killed myself, and then I carried that guilt with me into this life.  So we cut the cords connecting me to that life and now I can live free and never have to worry about the fact that I murdered my husband again.  Phew, I can move on now! 

(That said, I actually did have a bit of a cry.  A maniacal laughing cry, if you know what I’m saying.  It was… I dunno… both absurd and cathartic?  Such a bizarre experience... 10/10 would do it again!)

She also told me that Archangel Michael is with me and looking over me.  This I’m a bit more skeptical about (more skeptical than me carrying past life guilt about killing my husband – this is something I can really buy into!) I kinda feel like if I’m gonna have an angel watching me, it’ll be one of them trainee angels.  Like regular angel Jeff.  He’s a bit dowdy and klutzy, but he has a good heart! Together we’ll make it, Jeff!

That’s enough.  I’m alive, and I’ll be back writing here again soon :).

Depressionista

Sorry I haven't posted anything for a while... I haven't felt much motivated to do much.

I can't really remember much from the last 3 weeks.  This depression is turning everything into a blur. Each day is a battle for survival, you know?  Nothing notable is happening; no real crashes, and no real breakthroughs.  It's okay sometimes and really difficult mostly.

I accidentally fell off the spectrum

Some days are bearable, mostly the ones where I'm too hungover to remember why I don't want to live.The other days are a struggle.  I much prefer the pain of a hangover than the pain of what is my reality.  

What I hate is that it hurts the people around me.  I hate that I can't face talking to anyone.  I don't check my Facebook, I don't respond to texts. I feel too ashamed to even go home and see my parents. Everyone has advice and I know everyone's advice is good and in my best interests... but I'm not in for my best interests.

It's really hard to explain; and to be honest, I don't want this to be one of those whiney woe-is-me blogs.  I've learnt through bitter experience that it's important to keep some personal things off the internet - crippling mental illness is one of those things. Unless it's retrospectively, like "Hey, wasn't that time I nearly drowned in melancholy hilarious? How self deprecatingly humorous of me!"

So this is my attempt to say sorry, and that I don't think I'll be back until I can write something that doesn't call for a CAT team or institutionalisation.

I'll get there in the end.  Just determining where 'there' is and when the end will be.

The disappointment is the hardest bit.

Music is the best!

Me rocking out in 1988

I love music. I remember being 4 and sitting on the floor of our lounge room with these oversized 80’s headphones listening to records. I remember I was 4, because the record I had was called 4. It was produced for us 4 year olds. Us 4 year olds love things that are related to being 4 years old. Like, I would use 4 to count things down. "1, 2, 3, 4, go!"

Still one of my all time favourite albums!

I also loved listening to the Beatles records. My parents were (are?) big Beatles fans. My dad is Liverpuddle-ian, so maybe it’s in homage to that. Or maybe it’s because the Beatles freakin’ rock.

For my 13th birthday one of my friends gave me a CD gift voucher for my birthday, probably with the notion that I get something cool like the spice girls or backstreet boys. Yep. I bought an ABBA CD. My friend was mighty horrified.

To this day I still absolutely love ABBA. They take me back to my early teens, to a place where my thoughts aren’t and I can get to where my feelings are. People say that ABBA is bubblegum pop, but I don’t get that. There’s something haunting about Agnetha’s voice, and there’s an underlying sadness in the melodies that stir up that same sadness I have inside.


"I just have a lot of feelings"

I think that’s why I love music. Music talks to my feelings, places that I can’t access on my own. I know I’m incredibly emotional; I cry a lot, I laugh a lot, I sing too often... but I find it difficult to connect to my feelings. I get frustrated with myself because I get stuck in my head; I want to understand why I react the way I do.

With music I can step away from these judgemental thoughts and just use my senses to experience the world, rather than telling myself this is how I’m “supposed” to be.  I’m allowed to cry during a song because it’s moving; crying for no reason is just weird.  Music has the capacity to make me feel anything. Happy, sad, anxious, energetic, quixotic, Kafkaesque. Music is absolutely incredible!

So one of my pet hates is when people say “I’m into every kind of music – except genre x”. Genre x is usually either country music, or “heavy metal” (just wait until I introduce them to black metal!)

All genre’s have their purpose.  Sure, some country music is terrible; just like some pop is terrible, or some classical is really boring.  But every single genre I’ve ever listened to has its gems.  Why write off an entire genre because you heard one song that you didn’t enjoy?  One is a ridiculously tiny sample size. You expect to make inferences for an entire population from one thing?  You're not a scientist at all!

Then again, I shouldn't judge.  I know I subscribe to black and white thinking.  (I'm the worst!)

... Music is the best!

50 shades of fan fiction

So far “le Janvier” is going well. I sliced off some of my tooth while flossing– that’s the last time I improvise with razor-wire! I actually freaked out quite a bit, who slices off a tooth? So I went to the dentist for a filling, and it turned out I just took off the edge of a tooth which was holding in a previous filling. So we numbed me up and put in a new filling. In the following hours I realised that because I had no feeling in my mouth I managed to chew up the whole left side of my cheek innards. You would think after 27 years I would know where my cheek is, but no. Luckily I had Mum around who stuffed my mouth full of cotton wool. I doubt I’ll ever not need my Mum.

I’ve been trying to slug through the last Fifty Shades of Grey book. I find it really hard to read; mostly because it’s so terrible. When I first bought the trilogy I was pretty excited, “Finally! Erotic literature tailored for Mommys, I thought this day would not come!” But it has nothing to do with fantasising you’re a mother who’s reading pornography. Its reputation is very misleading! 

I can handle the bad grammar, the molestation of a thesaurus, and the switching up of past and present tenses; but I find it difficult to ignore Ana’s Subconscious and Inner Goddess. I don’t know about you but my subconscious is below my conscious level of perception. While hers is reading “the complete works of Charles Dickens Volume One” (no specific titles necessary, neither the reader nor author have read any Dickens anyway!) my subconscious is off processing some childhood trauma or something. I’m not certain of that though; I have no idea what goes on in there – it is sub consciousness. The subconscious is like a warehouse of experiences our conscious minds don’t understand. I imagine it to be like a processing factory out in the woods, ready to deliver the pieces of information if the consciousness requires it. It doesn’t tut, have spectacles, or read fancy English books.

When I see the words “Inner Goddess,” I read it as “please skip to the next paragraph.” The metaphors don’t make any sense.  “My inner goddess is doing a triple axel dismount off the uneven bars.”  I don’t know what that is supposed to mean!  She feels so sexy she imagines she’s a gymnast? That sounds more stressful than erotic.  I also imagine her inner goddess being like Animated Lizzie from Lizzie McGuire, which makes her even more ridiculous.



The thing that bothers me most is that E.L. James doesn’t understand her characters, and is highly judgemental about "alternative lifestyles". The blatant emotional abuse issue seems to be ignored, but then the fact that Edward Christian is a little kinky is frowned upon. Ana clearly finds it hot, but after the sex is over she’s all “Holy shit bananas that was amazing, but there must be something wrong with him, even though I consented to it all and really enjoyed it too. Time to psychoanalyse and cure him! Because love is about curing people’s faults; faults which I both condemn and encourage.”

Can’t he just be a sadistic pervert and leave it at that? To each their own.

Plus his back story is lame and lazy. I would be much more satisfied with “he’s got Scorpio rising with Pluto in the 1st house”. Leave it there, it’s sexier.

But no; we have to figure out the hunky mysterious man, stripping him of his hunky mysteriousness. Mystery is sexy, mother-issues... less sexy.

Christian stalks Ana, which also isn’t sexy, or acceptable. If he is supposed to be this confident dreamy guy then I would think it would be out of character for him to be obsessing over her. Confidence is sexy, jealousy and trust issues aren’t. The stalking and jealousy thing comes across as wimpy, and as soon as he started doing that I just got annoyed with him, and certainly didn’t want to be having fantasy dommy/subby sex with him.

I love you like a friend, wimpy cartoon guy!

Ana annoys me too. Saying you’re smart and read old English literature is not the same as actually being smart and able to use words correctly. Not using plain English makes her come across as a dumbass. Sure, the words sound impressive when not in the context of your sentence; but they are, and their meaning isn’t what you think it is. You sound like a wanker, dear. I can empathise with Christian – I’d wanna smack her too.

Beh. The characters deserve each other really.

Here’s a review which sums it up well. It has GIFs!  Possibly NSFW, depending on where you work.

This video also makes me laugh: It has Selena Gomez.

In conclusion, read it if you want a laugh from reading the numerous parodies and reviews, but not for sexual stimulation.  There are much better written erotic novels out there.  Hell, there is a lot better fan fiction out there, with even better shipping than Bedward! 

"I heart you Doctor Tennant!"
"Actually if you don't mind it's just the Doctor..."

Room sniffing

Happy New Year friends! I hope everyone’s pumped for 2013.I find the first week of a new year is my favourite; It’s hot, there’s no work, and I haven’t failed my resolutions yet. This year I resolute(?) to write at least 12 posts again. It’s not an inspired resolution, but I’m so chillaxed right now that I’m using the word “chillaxed” without quotations.

Today I went into what was my Nana’s room in the last months of her life. I miss my Nana, and complain of it often to anyone who’ll listen. Her scent is still in the room; her things and her smell. I feel sad knowing that each time I sneak in there to steal a sniff of her I’m losing the potency by diluting her scent with fresh Sam, but time will also steal that. I can beat time if I use the power of the present (I’m on to you… time; if that is even your real function!)

I suspect Mum’s the same. It’s been almost 2 years since Nana died, and the room is unchanged. A closed off room we pass every day but don’t enter. It’s there and it’s not there. The Schrodinger’s cat of Canberra; though when you do open it she’s still alive, in a way – Unfortunately not in a literal way; in more a “her memory will live on…” sort of way. So it’s not really a Schrodinger’s cat at all…

There’s this idea that we have three deaths. The first is our physical death, when our body dies. The second is when we are consigned to the grave, and the third death is when our name is spoken for the last time.

I suppose it’s fortunate that I have a super common name. :P

Anyway, while trying to acquire some olfactory nostalgia in my Nana’s old room, I came across some postcards sent to Nana from my Mum when we went overseas when I was very young. I saw them and thought, “I better not look, it’s addressed to Nana,” but then I thought, “it’s a postcard, if the postman is allowed to read this then there is no reason I shouldn’t be allowed to too!”

My ego was expecting such sentiments as “Samantha is a delight; she is by far the finest daughter one could ask for,” and, “children are the greatest joy of one’s life!” Nope. “The kids are tired and fighting,” and, “this is hard,” were the more the idea. I felt a bit sorry for my mum (and my ego).

Then I realised, Nana wasn’t just my rock; she was my Mum’s rock too. In fact, Mum was there first so she might've even had more of a claim on Nana than I did. Though Nana wasn’t Mum’s Nana, she was Mum’s Mum, and I know what a powerful relationship Mothers and their daughters can have. Since losing Nana, Mum and I have found rocks in each other. (We should probably get that checked out…)

It’s funny that all of those years I went down to my Nana’s house to complain about my Mum; Mum was doing the same thing about me. To be fair, I was a shit teenager. In fact, I used to go to my Nana to complain about myself as well.

Anyway, point is that Mum and I are cool with each other now. Our parent/child relationship was testing at times, but we’ve come to an understanding about each other and both really appreciate one another as adults. Or at least, I know I really appreciate her. My Mum makes a really great friend; I’m blessed to have her. I just hope she doesn’t mind that I have a room sniffing habit.

Mum, your daughter is weird! (This message also applies to Dad.)