Thursday, May 31, 2012

Hitting the highs and the lows

I hit the highs and I hit the lows. I pretend that I’m okay, When all I want to do is cry. I fight the darkness that surrounds me, Telling myself it isn’t real. I scream inside while my mouth remains silent, A placid look of disturbed peace across my face. Can you tell what goes on inside? Do you feel the way I shatter, Only to be remade anew in a day’s time, Pattern never the same as before. Prey on the weak, Pray to your gods, Tell yourself it’s for my own good. You don’t have the scars. Aphorism 1 The good moments are not as permanent as we would like. Reality merely creates the illusion of happiness and pleasure which covers like a plastic plaster the fractured darkness within. What we must do is understand this and grasp the moments of light, cherishing them for the promise of hope they present to us. Then when we inevitably experience the fathoms of the dark, we appreciate the preciousness of the light. Aphorism 2 The giving of advice should only be done by one with real knowledge and/or experience in the area causing discontent. Those who recite what they see on television in an attempt to help another may cause more trouble than they intend.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Sickly Mess

Getting sick sucks. It’s a pile of snotty, cold tissues in the bin lost in a haze of medication to stifle the illness until it finally dissipates. Okay, so I maybe sick, but I’ve at still at least got my usual way with words. Bright side to everything, which has been a bit hard to find for me lately. It’s pre-winter by at least 1 ½ weeks. Already weather has hit zero degrees and I’m wondering if I can find a pair of gloves that I can write in. My nose hasn’t really stopped running since Saturday morning and I am close to reclaiming my title as Mucus Queen. I am epitomising the word ‘gross’ at the moment. The hard hitting cold and flu is coming at me, and so, in return I’m doing as much as I can now so that if I do get laid up with it, coughing my guts up, at least I’m ahead on my work. Then I can dose myself up on cold and flu tablets and really kick this thing in the guts. At the moment, I just feel weak, overtired and achey, but I’m not sure how much this can be aligned with the upcoming cold and flu as opposed to the darkness in my life that I’ve let get to the point where it’s out of hand. I spent Saturday morning in tears, feeling like a complete and utter failure because I didn’t meet my goal of selling ten books at the trade show I attended the night before. I don’t believe this was due to my ineptitude as a writer or retailer, it’s simply that the people there weren’t interested in the depths to which this book seeks. It didn’t help my mood that I was informed on the night that I had sold a book a few weeks ago, but hadn’t been informed of the sale. There’s an angry email in the internet 1s and Os at the moment trying to clarify what exactly happened. Fortunate for the person whose fault it was, I didn’t name names, not did I use the word ineptitude to describe how this person acted. Bleagh. I need to go blow my nose again!

Monday, May 14, 2012

Finding my Sporting Home

I’m not a netball player. I haven’t been since primary school when it was about numbers as opposed to talent that made up a team. Our team was made up of three or four small schools in the district. We never really trained together as a team. We hardly ever trained at all apart from the occasional throw of the netball at lunch or recess if we didn’t have anything else to do. It was the same for my playing hockey/ minkey… we didn’t really have the numbers to make up a team of girls at our school. In my year level there was me and two other girls. I made up for my lack of talent on the turf with a lot of raw enthusiasm. Once we got to high school the school teams focus was on talent as opposed to enthusiasm. If you didn’t have the best skills, you were left to the sidelines while others were allowed to play. Outside of required PE classes, I didn’t participate in any sports. By year 11, I convinced my mother to allow me to stay home and study instead of going to a swimming or sporting carnival because it was a better use of my time. Plus there was a lot of social issues going on in the background too, but mostly I just didn’t want to be around all that sport-fever. I come from a small town where the sports focus is football, soccer, motor-racing and cricket for the guys and netball and hockey for the girls. Lacking in talent myself, I could have become a supporter, but I never had the urge to go to a game. Most sports bored me. Football and cricket still bore me. I only half-heartedly watch them if I’m at home, spending my time with my father, who watches them. Instead of spending time on the sidelines of a cricket pitch or a football field [apart from backyard games], my childhood instead was spent in the canteens of our local motor racing track with my mother while my father either competed or participated in officiating duties. It probably shaped my thirst for sports that were a little more on the dangerous side. Sports where you cannot have complete control over what the wheels beneath you will do. I know it shaped my attitude towards participating in my local roller derby league on a volunteer/ official basis. I’m not cut out for the actual playing of roller derby. Too many psychological issues hold me back from really getting in there and giving/taking a hit. But it is a place where raw enthusiasm is encouraged. Yes, you have to be a good skater, or better than good, in order to compete, but if you’re willing to learn, people are willing to teach you. I help out in other ways. I don’t have money to give but I do have time. Helping out at league events is a major part of my assistance when I’m not refereeing or officiating. As a referee I am encouraged to skate at all sessions to increase my rules knowledge and skating skills. I’ve found a place where I can call my ‘sporting home’, if such a place exists. How about you?

Monday, May 7, 2012

Fashionable to be unfashionable

Is fashion important? I’m the first to admit that I have no ‘fashion’ sense. I wear clothes that are comfortable and in colder weather I add layers, irrespective of colour clashes and flaws. I used to read Cosmopolitan and Cleo, before they got too expensive. I would look at the women splashed across their glossy pages and think ‘If I had the money” or “If I had the figure” type thoughts. I rarely read these types of magazines now, and if I do, I read them at the library. They put an unnatural focus on fashion, making us believe that it is the be all and end all of everything. What is ‘in fashion’ today will be sneered at in a few months. Even the 8Os style came back in for a while, people forgetting the fashion-mistakes of those eras to all dress alike. Fashion isn’t important. Let’s face it. Reality is that if you have the compulsive urge to buy the latest fashions to feel good about yourself, you’ve probably got deeper issues that a psychologist will happily help you with. My own taste, if I could ever afford it, would trend towards the rockabilly/ burlesque style, because that is what I’m drawn to. Instead, I sit at my computer, wearing [outside of underwear type things] long over the knee socks with skulls printed on them, leggings under track pants, a sleeveless top, a long sleeved top that’s dark green and a bright pink wool jumper over the top of it. I’ll hardly make the cover of the next fashion magazine, but I’d rather be comfortable and cozy than cold but fashionable.