Tuesday 30 April 2013

Typing stutter

It is unbelievably the number of posts for this that I start but, for one reason or another, never finish. It's like when you half remember a dream, or some anecdote from your life or a scene from a movie but suddenly-in full swing of relating something, you lose it. That's it; there is no getting back on the train of thought once you've leapt off the back carriage. You can chase the train, but you'll just stumble on the tracks, realise there's no catching up, and just accept that it's gone.
In real life the conversation moves on; there's a brief moment where the speakers recognise the loss of topic but they do not mourn, someone else has a story, or an idea, or news, and you forget all about what it was you were going to say. Not so when writing. When I click onto my blogger account and enter the realm of my posts, there await me dozens marked with neat orange italics pronouncing them drafts. I like that it says draft, it makes me feel more like they are practise runs, that I'll take another swing at them, roll them around in my mind and produce them differently, hopefully better. I know in reality that they are half formed thoughts, and it annoys me because I don't want to change them or improve them I just want them back. Sadly this means that the thing I like best about writing this blog; that I log on with a thought, follow it to its conclusion and then publish it. (Occasionally reading through it for typos since I don't seem to be able to find the spell check anymore.)
Some days it doesn't work though, someone messages me, my best friend calls, my mum needs to fill me in on when she needs me to babysit, someone wants to watch the TV or I have to have dinner. The thought is lost and, like waking from a dream, the more I try to clutch at the straws of what I was doing the quicker it seems to flee my brain. I keep these half thoughts here safe online so that if it ever returns to me I can get it down. If it never returns, I just let my eyes look on it in a new way, finish it some other, less inspired day and publish it with a little less satisfaction knowing that it wasn't what it could have been if I'd got it all out at its purest.

Leggings

No dear readers I am not converting this to a fashion blog (I'm mad enough to have one already...don't judge me I'm fabulous), but I do feel that this issue of the humble clothing item has weighed heavily on my mind this year and I must be silent no more on this highly superficial issue.
I wear leggings a lot, they are like sweatpants in terms of comfort and jeans in terms on wearability, they're great they really are. However ye people of Ireland have taken the legging, blessing that it is to those of us too style conscious to venture into the world in sweatpants, and you have made it a thing of cringeyness, of sadness, of oh-dear-god-no-...ness.
Issue one-why is it that such a high percentage for the Irish population think that it is suitable to wear leggings like trousers. No. I repeat no. This is incorrect thinking public and it should be clear why. Would you wear tights out without a skirt or a dress or something over your bottom?? No is (hopefully dear Jesus) the answer. Leggings are only a small, teeny really, step away from tights. Please consider the fact that they are much closer to tights than to trousers. So stop it. Cover your bum it is public indecency.
Issue 2- Irish people exposing their behinds in such away has another issue to it. Now I do not wish to offend people, I am Irish myself please remember but this has to be said. As a nation, our women are not blessed with good bums. I'm sorry but they tend to be on either the broad or flat side and this can be shown off in an extremely unflattering way by the leggings look. Too naked ladies. No please...even if you have a really great bum this does not look good. Stop wearing them like jeans..stop it
Issue 3-now this is the key issue with combining them with zero bum coverage is pants. If you wear big pants people can see them through it or you panic about having a VPL (visible pantie line for those of you unversed in underwear strategy). Worse than this...is the thong. Now thongs have their function, otherwise no one would wear an uncomfortable string type thing in their bum let's be honest, but leggings are not that purpose. I cannot count the number number of times I have had to walk behind an unsupported bottom with just a thin layer of fabric separating me and the naked glory of someones behind. You are fooling no one-we can all see your thong...and we don't want to. I would rather have a vpl than walk about with people seeing my entire bum. Ladies...please no.
Issue 4-finally and this issue is closest to my heart-gentlemen-never wear leggings. Unless you are at a ballet class or performing as Peter Pan you must never ever wear them. They were not made for you. They do not look good on you. They are not attractive. No. That is all.

I apologise for being so ranty but I had to get this out or I risked yelling at strangers to put clothes on. Which is a little premature at my age...I'll wait til I have teenage kids before I make such demands.

Monday 29 April 2013

Magpie

I am a magpie, collecting beautiful things into my life. Perhaps because of some acute awareness of my own normality, a sense of how ordinary we all are beneath everything, I, like so many, yearn to have beautiful things in my life.
I am not thinking of material possessions, not like the magpie do I crave the sparkle of jewels and precious metals. Money is not beautiful nor does it lure me. I will admit I appreciate the beauty that clothes, accessories and decorations bring into my everyday life but my insatiable desire to collect beauty to myself is not concerned with these easy methods of owning beauty. True beauty cannot be owned, only experienced. This is why is has to be gathered, collected, catalogued into the mind, into the creativity of an individual.
I've talked before about beautiful words, which I collect in my mind and in a document on computer. I have a tumblr account where I collect beautiful images. I have a camera to collect beautiful moments and sights and I have a tin to collect beautiful little objects; pressed flowers, buttons, postcards, notes and letters, ribbons and wrappings, beads and scraps of fabric.
But the place where I collect my most beautiful things is in my heart. The special moments you share with the people closest to you, the hugs and kisses with friends and lovers, those days of laughter with friends who you forgot you loved as much as you do. The moments where someone, who didn't have to, picks us up when we're down. When a stranger pays us a compliment, when a story moves us, when we surprise ourselves, when we make someone proud, when someone tells you they love you. These are the most beautiful moments, the little pearls the pressures of life reward us with.
Collected in the jewellery box of my heart with these moments are my life's beautiful people. These are the ones who didn't steal your heart, but made you realise just how it felt to really use yours, the people who make you smile even when you're sad, the people who make you feel lucky to know them, the people who inspire, the people that make you feel like you are capable of anything, the ones who make you feel like you are an inspiration. There is nothing more beautiful than a beautiful person who nurtures beautiful feelings and beautiful thoughts within you. That is the beauty I collect.

Shall we dance?

I recently re-lived one of those magical childhood moments that you grow out of being able to do, that you forget about because you think you're too old for.
I don't know if many of you did this with your dad or grandad or something when you were little but I vaguely remember being very small and dancing on my dad's feet. You tentatively put your feet on top of someone else's, part of you terrified you might squish them, then you hold on tight to the person and they move you around with steps and twirls and you can't help but feel like a princess at a ball.
I'm all grown up now but the feeling is exactly the same, perhaps even more magical because you thought you'd never do it again! I was particularly stressed out as I have college exams at the moment and, it having being a difficult year for me, I felt very unprepared. My friend opened his arms and gathered me in, holding me closer than my favourite jeans. While I was snuggled in the warmth of the embrace, he whispered into my hair 'Put your feet on my feet'. I laughed but he insisted so, ever so gently, I stood on his feet in my big heavy trainers. Suddenly he lifted my feet with his, gently at first, side to side like a slow dance, then faster, bigger steps til we felt like we were leaping around and I was his puppet girl.
Honestly, it may not sound it, but it was magical. Breathtaking and giggly, silly but sweet I felt like I was six years old again-and with that I lost all the cares of my adult self.

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Stress

People cope with stress differently. Almost no one knows how to deal with it in a healthy way. Some of us stop eating or sleeping, some of us can't stop eating and just feel constantly tired no matter how much we sleep. Some of us lock ourselves in libraries or bedrooms, while some of us get out and try to forget it's even happening. Some people cram and others plan. Some of us feel more confident the more we revise, some of us just find more and more panic with each turning page. Some days we feel we need to keep constantly busy so we don't have time to feel stressed while some times we just crack and lie in state, hoping that maybe we can acquire knowledge by osmosis.
Sometimes stress is like an illness; dark circles under the eyes, shaking hands, problems focusing, exhaustion, lethargy, depression, pushing people away and spending hours in bed or unable to eat or sleep.
Other times its like a drug; frenzied bouts of energy and productivity, sped up speech, constant business and inability to connect with people because of manic mood swings and brutal crashdowns.
For something that crops up so very often in even the most average of lives, our ability to deal with the feeling of stress is almost non existent-we simply have to battle through, hoping that every so often the stress will pressurise us into greatness and not into something more desperate.

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Gold and grey

Everything looks better in the sunshine, the grey buildings of the city centre transform, peoples eyes seems to sparkle and their hair shines and their skin glows. Where I live the days are too often grey, drizzly, dull and downright miserable. It's easier to be happy when the sun is shining, when the world around you is bright. The brightness almost encourage you to complement it with brightness in yourself. Grey days have a power to make us similarly gloomy, sluggish, dreary and tired. I find it harder to do anything when the weather is dark and depressing-it brings out the misery in me. I'd rather be warm in the sun and warm in my heart than almost anything else in the world.

Defining marks

I hate when my scars itch, that niggling irritation of an injury that has healed but hasn't had the decency to leave your body, that is not content with being visible but must remind you, itching away just in case you forgot it was there.
Growing up, scars were my trophies, rewards for scraps with the neighbourhood boys, daring feats on my scooter, silly falls on my roller blades. When I got to my teens they were just parts of me, signs of growing up, a patterned patchwork of the incidents that make up a life.
Growing older, they became something I worried about, I worried people who did not see their stories would read my scars differently, would judge me differently. The parkour accident that mean my shin will never be smooth, the long line and the lump of my foot operation, the perfect circles where moles were removed.
We are all marked in ways that single us out as individuals, some of us have different bones, one leg longer than the other, a curved back, double jointed fingers or something that doesn't work properly. Some of us have freckles, others have birthmarks and some moles (I have some on my face that can be joined into a near perfect parallelogram).
We are none of us without defining physical features, yet, when we walk around, we don't always remember these things because we carry them with us always and sometimes it takes a questions, a comment, a remark from some other party to make us realise that something about us is different...other times, the only thing we need to remind us-is an itch.

To pass the time

I wrote down all the burning questions in my mind, all the ones I could not and would not ask of you. I touched them to my old yellow lighter and watched sad words and ugly thoughts become beautiful flames.
I wrote down all the beautiful things you'd said to me, the things I couldn't stand to remember anymore, knowing I will never hear them cross your lips again. I tied them up with string and buried them like the feelings I cannot live with. 

Last of all, I took all the anger, all the frustration, the misunderstandings and the sadness. I stood by the sea and I screamed them into the wind, letting it carry them away from me while the crashing waves drowned them.
Then, when I was empty of everything in me that could hurt you, I wrote this to pass the time while I wait for you to learn to live with me. 

Friday 12 April 2013

Consumed

Panic; anxiety and pain and sadness are my fears. They are consuming, monstrous, destructive. The crushing pain like your heart is being crumpled like a sheet of scrap paper, the breathlessness like you've been punched in the stomach by hulk-like fists, the overwhelming, all-encompassing feeling of utter futility-of having no power over this unfathomable, crushing weight crashing down upon you. The tears that roll down your cheeks turning from a shower to a raging storm as you lose the ability to keep them silent, to stop your face from wrinkling up and noises like that of an injured animal escaping you-crushed out of you by the pain that you can't sooth because it seems to radiate from the very centre of your being. You feel like you would give anything, that you would tear the beating heart from your body just to take away this feeling, to relieve the pain, the weight, the breathlessness. The puffy face from the crying, the unpleasant stickiness of the congealed tears on your chin, the sicky feeling in your throat from all the gasping and heaving and sobbing.
But it is not the lack of control, nor the crushing pain, the hiccoughing cries, the sick feeling afterwards nor the sheer hideousness of the experience that is the worst part-it is the feeling that caused it-that one little thought that can cause an anarchy of emotion, physically and mentally, that is like a ravaging natural disaster upon the terrain of your body and soul.
And after the crying is over, and when the jumpy, heaving breaths have subsided, when the tears have dried- sometimes the rawness, the emptiness and that thought that triggered it; they linger on. This is why pain, however 'temporary' is so feared, so very devastating.

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Lovely Noise

Today while typing emails to people and working on my script I realised just how soothing and pleasing the soft clickety-clack  of my fingers moving across the keyboards was. It's probably one of my favourite sounds; it's the sound of productivity, creativity, enthusiasm, communication.
There are so many simple everyday sounds that are lovely just because of what we associate with them; I love the whoosh noise the burner makes when the heat is turning on, or the hum of the water heater when the shower starts running. I love the crackle of hot butter in a pan of the click the kettle makes when it has finished boiling.
I love the sound of my name in other people's mouths, the accent in a voice telling the story of where that person has been. I love the sound of fingers brushing lightly along skin or the beat of a heart. I like the heavy but gentle sound of sleeping breaths or the click of bones when I stretch in the morning.
I love that the world was intended to be experienced by each and every sense and if you focus on just one you realise just how much you take in every day, the murmur of other peoples conversations, the tinny sound of music escaping from earphones, pages turning, pens scratching on paper, chairs creaking, legs crossing and uncrossing, scratching heads, drumming fingers, tapping toes, beeping horns, engines roaring and the wind shaking the trees; these are the things that form the soundtrack of our lives.

Sunday 7 April 2013

Just trying it on

Today I want to discuss a pet peeve of mine; straight people who kiss members of the same sex 'for fun' (which often is a loose translation for 'because they've had a lot to drink'). While I am generally an advocate of fun, especially of the kissing kind in the right atmosphere, I can't stand mixed messages.
People don't realise how hard it can be for people who are actually attracted to people of the same sex to work out who's interested, who's not and who's just playing around for the night. For you it might just be a bit of fun or 'just to try it' but for some people it is a way of life and you could be toying with someone's emotions when you're 'just having fun'.
While you know what to expect from members of the same sex whether they kiss you on a night out or at a party or in a more casual setting it's 10 times harder when it's someone of the same sex because the signals aren't the same. Unless you're at a gay bar or you intimately know the person it's damn near impossible to tell who's just having a laugh and who actually might be interested.
I know many people who have been absolutely crushed after finally kissing someone they've liked for ages at a party only to find out when they spoke to them the next morning that it was 'so funny' that they kissed and they were 'sooo wasted'.
Loose sexuality these days can be really emotionally damaging in some situations (it's not exclusive to gays and bis receiving mixed messages) and I really so wish some people would think before they act.

Tuesday 2 April 2013

Peer pressure

Today I experienced something I hadn't for a long time; peer pressure. OK admittedly it was highly lighthearted and jokey but nevertheless I was surprised at how difficult I found it to stand up for myself to my peers.
Growing up I was lucky enough that most people actually kind of respected the fact that I wouldn't be pressured into things and they were usually quite complimentary of the fact that I didn't drink or smoke or do drugs or fool around with inappropriate men. Granted there were also a lot of insistent drunkards who kindly poured beverages on me in an attempt to nourish me with alcohol or those who spiked my drinks and offered me 'just a glass of fanta'. Luckily, I was always much more assertive when I was younger because it was something to be proud of then.
Nowadays a lot of people kinda just think it's weird and some are actually almost uncomfortable with the idea that I don't drink, smoke or do drugs. I don't care because I don't object to these things-hell they are pretty darn normal these days! I think many people worry that because I'm not partaking that I am judging those who do; that's how I would probably feel if there was one person who wouldn't get involved in something I was doing with my friends.
I find it a little frustrating that if I objected to cocaine people would agree and if I refused ecstasy many would respect me for it but when I refuse to drink people find it near impossible to  accept. It's ridiculous that it is easier to lie and say I can't drink or to make up a reason for why I don't because 'I'm just not into it' isn't good enough.
I wouldn't force people to live my way and I respect that people find that a few drinks or a smoke enhance their evening-for me I enjoy things just fine without the assistance of substances.
I wonder sometimes if this is a reflection of the influence of the modern culture of instant gratification-people have become so used to enhancing stimuli that they prefer the altered consciousness to the all natural experience.
I do not propose that people shouldn't drink-hell most people are more interesting with alcohol, I just wish that people didn't find it weird that I don't.

Dear Diary

I got thinking about 'dear diary' because I wondered if, when people who know me read this they feel like they are reading my diary, invading my private thoughts (you're not by the way I mean I wouldn't put private things on the internet let's be sensible!). The first of my close friends to read this blog and one of my regular readers (god bless him) felt he had to tell me that he was reading it because it might be sneaky to read it behind my back in case I wrote something really personal.
While this is generally quite a personal blog it is far from a diary; my own diaries from my pre-teen years were painfully dull tomes relating in great deal a flower I saw or how great my teacher was or how my friend broke the milk jug from my tea set. I stopped keeping a diary in my early teen because my dad as good as told me that my mother was reading it and, while it was still exceptionally boring, I didn't want to one day write something interesting or bitch about my mum and have her read it.
Occasionally I wish I still kept a diary just to have a record of the more significant moments in my life-electrifying moments, successes, disappointments, new experiences, first kisses-the stuff that growing up is made of. The only references to 'dear diary' I make now is when I joke about 'dear diary' moments; 'Oh my god my teenage brother spoke to me...and asked me about my life..and listened to the answer' = dear diary moment. The only actual written diary is a dull day to day account of my life through Russian which I fill out every week for homework!
It's not too bad not to have a diary as the important things will stay with you anyway and sometimes when you don't write the bad down you can forget to yourself that there was any. I'd rather have a selective memory than a head full of bad ones-and either is preferable to a poorly written chronicle of my daily tribulations!

Monday 1 April 2013

Dull as dishwater

Today I have misplaced my sparkling personality-I have become a wet towel of a human being with all the vibrancy and vivacity of a slug. I am having a day of disillusion- nothing interests me enough for me to motivate myself in any way which is rather...well depressing. I'm sure I am currently depressing you my dear reader with all the ennui that is positively oozing out of me.
This year has not been going to plan and like any human I have my days when this thought gets on top of me like that mucus monster in the sinus-medication advert! Between the recovery from the broken leg and my immune system having crashed and burned I have days, like today where I am too unwell and exhausted to energise myself to get things done.
Sometimes, when we feel overwhelmed it feels so much easier to curl into a ball and pretend the world is a big black hole than to force the weight of it off of us and battle through and feel better for having got shit done!
But it is absolutely no fun being a misery guts-it makes you feel worse and it makes it harder for people to be around you too- the feeling of 'God I'm a miserable cow today' just makes you more of a miserable cow! It's the same as anything you dislike about yourself bothers you more every time you acknowledge it.
The only person who has the ability to put you down is yourself and it's something we are all particularly good at which is a sad thought. Luckily even on days like today when I feel like I'm allowing myself to be a useless individual (and I really am-it is pure sloth that I am allowing to overwhelm me) I always tell myself that it's OK to be like this every so often because no one can fir on all cylinders all the time.
While I may have my days where I am totally boring, lazy, lacking in motivation, miserable, cranky and downright depressing I know that I also have the ability to be fun and happy and cheerful and hardworking and helpful and kind and interesting.
Today though I am dull as dishwater, I am a grey blob, I am frankly a little bit of a waster today!