Counting down

…getting ready for take-off…

 

I have a big night planned. In fact, I’ve already started drinking, and I’m not looking forward to going back to this blog entry tomorrow to see how many spelling mistakes I made (blame the alcohol!). The loud music isn’t exactly helping, either. But never mind, that’s how I want it. I don’t feel like thinking or feeling anything anymore, at least not tonight. I don’t know exactly why, but I feel kind of depressed right now. And I drink to forget all my sorrows, and lull myself into a false sense of security and positivity, which at least helps me feel better for as long as it takes me to get sober again. And I enjoy that state of false hope and happiness. I know it’ll be gone when I wake up tomorrow morning, but how much don’t we humans do to feel happy, even if only for a short while?

 

Being stood up by someone I thought I could count on to accompany me tonight didn’t exactly improve my mood, either. But that’s the story of my life. Never trust anyone. Once again, I ask myself: Is it because of me? Of who I am? Does something about me shout out to the world that it’s OK for you to abandon me at the last moment, that I’ll survive? I don’t know, I don’t always give a fuck (although tonight I do), but I’m sick of it. I try my best to be a kind and caring person, but it always backfires. I never receive anything good in return, just cold shoulders and rejections. Destined to loneliness? Yessir, I think so. Real friends are hard to come by. In fact, so hard that I think I’ve only ever come across one. And she’s not here (or maybe I’m in the wrong place?), so I’m by myself once more, just like I’ve been for the most of my life.

But enough ranting. I hate bringing other people down because of my problems, and it sounds so very weak, to boot. And I don’t see myself as a weak person. So just ignore everything I wrote above (you know what they say, it’s supposed to help to ‘unload’ your troubles), and focus on the awesome night I’m about to have. I’m pretty sure I just started drinking at 5pm for the first time in my life, and it was amazing. Just keep in mind that I’ve got a fridge full of beer, wine, sparkly drinks and last but not least, gin, to keep me going all night.

 

So keep on counting down for me, please. It’ll be a big night, and who knows what’ll happen (I sure as hell won’t, because I’ll be beyond drunk). I might even meet someone nice out on town to drown the rest of my sorrows with. Wish me luck.

My Irrational Fears?

 

There are things I would pay to not have to do. And there are things I would pay to do that other people would pay to not have to do. I guess what’s strange about this is what those things are. For instance, the other day I was in the bathroom in the morning, getting ready to go to a lecture, when someone knocked on our front door. My initial thought was to make sure the bathroom door was locked, turn the light off and hold my breath until something happened. You see, I have this irrational fear of answering the door, especially to strangers. However, I’d heard one of my flatmates get up a couple of minutes before, and knew he was in the kitchen, so I waited for him to answer the door. For some reason it took him a long time to walk the one metre from the oven to the front door, so the person knocked again. And every knock sounded like a gunshot to me. I got more and more anxious and unsettled with every knock. Finally I heard the door open and then close again, and when I left my bathroom sanctuary a few minutes later my flatmate informed me that I’d received mail. My new Visa card had arrived by courier… Oh. Right.

A similar fear is my fear of talking on the phone in general; making a phone call is classified as torture in my world, and I simply don’t answer the phone if I’m not expecting a call from someone or can tell from the phone number who it is. In many ways, the phone is a greater evil than the front door. When people call and I’m the only one around to answer (which I won’t do), the phone just keeps on ringing, and I almost freak out. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the annoying chiming of a phone. It really gets on my nerves. Unfortunately I’m too polite to pick up the phone and just hang up instantly.

 

I would never walk up to a stranger and engage him or her in a conversation voluntarily. I would, however, gladly speak in front of a room full of people, or perform something on a stage. I would pay a lot of money to not have to travel anywhere by boat ever again, but I would love to jump out of an aeroplane with nothing but a parachute to save me from certain death. I’m scared witless by the thought of swimming in the ocean where I can’t see the bottom, and where I can see the bottom I’m afraid of accidentally touching either the ground or some seaweed, yet one of my life goals is to go cage diving to see Great White sharks up close, and the thought of this does not scare me at all. Height does not scare me, apart from when it’s above water; I have, on two occasions, paid to jump off a platform with only a bungy cord attached to my feet – the first time it was a 45 metre drop and from a bridge suspended across a river – this nearly had me wet my pants. The second time it was a 134 metre drop and from a jumping pod suspended by thin steel wires across a nearly dried-up river valley far below, and I’ve never been more excited in my life; I couldn’t wait to jump off.

 

I’m afraid of driving a car on public roads, but if I could I would get a pilot’s licence. I have vowed never to ski or snowboard again, because the knowledge that I will, sooner or later, lose control, and that falling over is going to hurt, does not appeal to me. Yet I dream about one day climbing Mt Everest. Dream big and make it happen?

 

My greatest fear, however, is people. Rejection, judgment, failure, anger, desire – no matter what they do, how they act, or feel – I always feel intimidated by their presence, be it a stranger or a close friend or family member. And this fear can only be countered by one thing: Life.

 

No matter how odd these things may seem, it doesn’t change how I feel about them, and no matter how innocent or dangerous they may be, one thing is for certain: The postman always rings twice. And I’m not answering.

I once knew a funny story…

 

…but now I seem to have forgotten what that was, so let me tell you another one instead:

The brain really works in mysterious ways. Forget about any so-called deities working in mysterious ways – it’s your brain you ought to worry about. As late as this very evening on which I am writing this blog entry, I realised something very funny about the way my brain works. I had decided to make a very simple dinner, which I knew wasn’t going to fill me up, so I decided to have some ice cream before dinner (I know – I’m a Rebel with a capital R). The reason why I had what many people would correctly label as ‘dessert’ before my dinner is simply the fact that when I have ice cream I get so awfully cold (can’t possibly imagine why), and so I need to eat or drink something warm to heat up again. In this case, my dinner would restore me to a normal temperature. So I loaded up a bowl with yummy vanilla ice cream and ate it all up (it felt so good) whilst cooking dinner. When my dinner was all cooked I was just about to find a new bowl for it, when I changed my mind and cleaned the one I had just used for my ice cream, because otherwise I would have to clean two bowls. And I suppose you now see what makes this a funny story. No? Well, of course I had to clean the same bowl twice, anyway, so what’s the difference? But in my mind it was more work to clean two different bowls than it is to clean the same bowl twice. Also, when I went to sit down at the table with my dinner, I was just about to turn off the light in the kitchen when I realised that when I do that, my brain tends to think that the dishes I’ve used to prepare my dinner have magically vanished, which often makes me put off doing the dishes ‘till the next morning, and that is not a fun realisation to wake up to. So what did I do? I left the light on, of course. And you know what happened? I did the dishes the moment I had finished eating. I like to think that it was because of my awareness of the mysterious ways in which my brain works. I don’t think it had anything to do with me manipulating my own mind.

 

Guess what I’m doing tomorrow? Oooh I bet you are excited now. So am I, by the way. I am going to a pre-screening of the movie Going the Distance, which is a new romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, and is about the trials and tribulations of a long-distance relationship… I got free tickets from the very awesome Sony NZ (I don’t get paid to say that, honestly), and I am going to make it into a big night – that includes the 30 minutes it takes to travel (by train) to where the screening takes place, which is in Lower Hutt. I’ve never been there before, so that’ll be interesting. At least I’m going with someone who seems to know the place (better than I do, anyway). I’m also going to feast on unhealthy foods, so there will be no breakfast, lunch or dinner tomorrow.

What I’m loving this week: The weather. I spent an hour sitting in the sun down by the waterfront on Monday afternoon, and I got some colour on my arms as a result! Would you believe it – technically, if we go by the rule that the seasons are the complete opposite in New Zealand compared to Norway, it’s still only late winter here. Not approaching summer, or even early spring. Late winter. And it’s possible to get a tan from sitting in the sun for as little as one hour. I love it.

Another thing I love is the decaffeinated coffee I got from the supermarket today. Last weekend I consumed over a period of 72 hours more coffee and various other energy drinks than most coffee-drinking people probably consume over 2 weeks. It really messed me up, in more ways than one, so now I’ve put myself on a strict low-caffeine regime, and today I’ve only had one double-shot and one single-shot cup of coffee. Yesterday I had one triple- or quadruple-shot (is there such a thing?) and one double-shot. I am finding it really hard to cut back on coffee after the hard weekend, and suffered from a horrible headache most of yesterday. Today I really felt like just chewing on some coffee beans or something, and so when I went to the supermarket I spent about 10 minutes in the coffee section, trying to pick a decaffeinated coffee but always finding myself back in front of the normal ones. Eventually I picked up a bag of decaffeinated coffee and ran for the exit (well, not literally, but almost). Since I returned home I have had 3 cups of it. I love how it tricks my body into believing that it has got its caffeine kick, because it tastes like coffee, but I don’t have to suffer any of the side effects (plus, I can drink it all day and all night long – my life is complete!).

 

(There will be no more of this for a while.)

Chocomania

 

Every woman knows that it’s her very own best friend and worst enemy – the chocolate bar.

I confess that I’m a huge fan of these blocks of divine goodness, and I don’t care how “bad” they are for you – I eat my fair share of chocolate, and as long as it’s just every now and then, and I don’t indulge in every other unhealthy food that money can buy, I don’t see a problem with that. I’m also very active, so a bit of chocolate just keeps me from becoming too skinny (although my clothes are telling me that that has already happened – either that, or all my clothes have suddenly expanded two sizes).

 

If you ask me, the best accompaniment to chocolate is, first and foremost, coffee. As I have recently purchased an espresso machine, I can now make those delicious coffees you normally get at cafès in the comfort of my own kitchen, which has infinitely improved my daily life. A good book and some instrumental background music really tops it off. For however long those “ingredients” last, I’m in my own personal heaven.

I’m all set to write an(other) A+ essay, with these things at hand. (There will be no dinner tonight, by the way.)

Sunday silence

 

Sundays are great. Especially when you haven’t been out drinking the night before and can appreciate every second of the last day of the weekend. And when Wellington surprises everyone by providing nice weather instead of the heavy rain that was predicted, it gets even better.

 

I stayed up way too late last night, though. I meant to be in bed before midnight, but that didn’t happen. As you know, I went to see Inception, and that finished at 11:15 pm, and I thought I’d missed the last bus home, which I was very unhappy about when I left the cinema and discovered that it was absolutely pissing down and windy and cold (at least it was a good night for a movie). However, as I started walking along Courtenay Place, I saw a bus drive past me, and it happened to be my bus, and I thought ‘Bugger!’ because there was no bus stop right there. But then I looked ahead, and there was one almost right in front of me, so I ran over to it, got on the bus and escaped the long, cold and wet walk home, which was such a relief. I can’t tell you how good it was to get home and take off my wet socks, wrap myself up in a blanket and just chill out. This was just before midnight, and of course I had to go on Facebook, and there one of my friends started chatting to me, so that kept me up even longer. Eventually it was almost 3 am before I went to sleep, so I didn’t exactly have an early start this morning, but that’s alright.

 

I went to the supermarket this afternoon. I wasn’t sure whether I should go or not, but when I had the last of my bread for breakfast this morning I decided I’d better do it. I’ve got three days to go until my budget for next month kicks in, and I think I’ve got just enough money left to make it. That’s quite surprising, and I’m really impressed with the effort I’ve put into staying within budget (and that’s the purchase of the espresso machine included!).

 

Now I’ve just had a late lunch, which consisted of ice cream and coffee. Yum. Going to try and do some more reading now, and just chill out with my music playing in the background. Totally relaxed.

I heart Sundays.

Nature’s poetry

It’s one of those rainy days today. Not one of those grey, dark and miserable rainy days, but one of those quiet days where the steady patter of rain hitting the ground is the only sound that can be heard. I love those days.

It also suits me perfectly, considering what plans I’ve got for today. I’m going to spend most of the day inside, reading stuff for my courses, while drinking delicious mochaccinos produced by my amazing new espresso machine. And tonight I’m going to the movies – I’m finally going to see Inception, which I’m sure you’ve all heard as much about as I have. I really wish I had someone to go with, but alas, that’s life. And I’m not one to stay at home because of it. I like to think I’m cool like that (or brave, stupid, sad; call it whatever you like).

I feel really at peace with the world and everything in it today. I’m not quite sure why, but I suspect that it has something to do both with the weather, and the fact that I watched my favourite film last night, In My Father’s Den, and there’s something about that film that just gets to me like nothing else does. It bares all my emotions, makes me feel vulnerable and sad, which makes me feel so close to the story it tells, and gives me a real sense of peace afterwards. There’s no need to tell (but I’m doing it anyway) that it’s my inspiration as far as filmmaking goes, especially scriptwriting. In My Father’s Den is subtly understated throughout, and emotions are expressed in the most poetic way without seeming fake or melodramatic; put simply, it all seems real. You have no idea what you’re missing out on until you’ve seen it.

I also feel very creative today. All I want to do at the moment is to sit down and focus on writing my screenplay (which has been in the making for several months now), but I know that I’ll regret putting off doing my course readings, because that’s what I did last weekend and it seriously ruined my entire week… So here’s the plan: I’m going to read as much as I can before going to the movies tonight – that way I won’t feel guilty. And on my way home from the movies I’m going to stop by the supermarket, pick up a bottle of wine, and then when I’m back at home I’ll allow myself to sit down with my laptop and a glass of wine and let my mind wander freely into this other, imagined world which I’ve become so well acquainted with over the last few months. I’ve grown so fond of my characters that you wouldn’t be wrong in calling them my imaginary friends… I know, how sad is that? But then again, how many writers have you come across that don’t empathize with their characters and act as if they were real, and not fictional? I don’t expect them to suddenly appear somewhere, or talk to invisible people around me, all I mean is that I can imagine their lives; their backgrounds, mistakes, fears, hopes, desires, and so on. They live in a parallel world in my head, and so far about one fourth of that world has been put down on paper, and I’m really anxious and excited about getting the rest of it out there, as well. I want to do them justice, and I want people to see them and know them like I do. They are real to me, like the characters in In My Father’s Den – I want to recreate that same magic in my script.

That’s one mocha down. It’s amazing what coffee does to me. It’s divine – the nectar of the gods. I better make another one.