On Dating the Wrong Guy

Eliza Skinner says it perfectly in her blog post:

“Sometimes you meet someone who fits together with you perfectly, who makes you want to tell secrets and eat popcorn and be a better person. And sometimes you meet someone who makes you feel like you’re slamming your head in a car door, on purpose. You can just feel how self-destructive the relationship is. It feels like the difference between ordering a glass of wine and grabbing a bottle of jager - you just want to get fucked up.”

For the rest go here:   http://www.elizaskinner.net/2008/09/26/the-deal

Relate much? I heart this woman! 

Silent Screaming

Ada Halpern didn’t sleep last night.  Instead she haluscinated solidly for 10 straight hours and for most of the next day. Sometimes in English. Sometimes in Polish. There was nothing we could do. Sleeping pills had no effect.

“Polsk polki polski Bastards” she yelled.

I was vaguely aware that I drifted in and out of sleep, but at 4am I couldn’t take it any more. I thought about strapping my ipod to her head and playing soothing music, to calm her down, and then it dawned on me: Why don’t I put my headphones in my ears to calm me down?

My glands were swollen and I already had a mild fever. As soon as I pumped up Pacabell’s Cannon, to over-ride Ada and the nurses screams, I was gripped by a very clear memory… Of lying in bed at the age of 12 one night, when my parents were still together. Spiritual music was coming from the living room, and being turned up so incredibly loud, that I couldn’t hear myself think let alone sleep. And it just kept going, it didn’t stop, for hours.

I was furious! How inconsiderate of my parents! How dare they! They would have never let me listen to my music this loud this late at night. But instead of confronting them, I just lay there angrily getting night-sweats.

It never occurred to me why they had played their music so loud, nor why it happened more frequently in the months to come. But later I realized it would have been to cover their screams. In their entire 14 years of marriage, my brother and I never saw them fight once.  Not once. 5 months later, they announced their divorce.

Name Choice - Ally Kay

There is a pornstar out there, who has chosen the same name "Ally Kay" for herself, and now all sorts of peops are googling "Ally Kay Feet" and accidentally clicking on my Feet Fetish post.

Sorry to disappoint you people!

We have a ten year age gap, and I'm brunette, AND I'm also not a pornstar, even if I dance like one.

What's your real name Ally Kay? Isn't it funny that we both decided to give our selves a new identity and embark on creative careers in 2009? All the best to you. May we find our own purpose in this life.

Bollywood Dreaming

One day, I want to throw a huge Bollywood themed Party!

Any ya’llz are invited!

On arrival, women / divas will be given a bright Sari to get changed into, and a red dot will be placed on your forehead. Boys will be given a lay of edible, orange flowers and a turban.

Trays of exotic Cocktails will be served, with a real orchids placed delicately on the rim of each glass.

The room will look enchanted and magical - lit by hundreds of tiny fairly lights and candles. 

(Lotuses will also feature in the décor.)

People who like to dance, will arrive 1hr earlier, to learn the amazing choreographed dance sequence, that will spontaneously happen later in the night.

There will be a henna tattooist in the corner, painting people’s hands all night.

There will be loads of delish finger food.

Some of the most pumping bollywood beats will be playing by a dj, so your body will have to choice but to move, you face no choice but to smile!

Shoes are not permitted, but the ground will be clean and soft. Possibly outside, under the stars.

People will most likely want to leave the party and engage in the Karma Sutra straight after.

It will be a night to remember

Mmmmm. Maybe for my 30^th???? 

ps. how do you get blogger to stop doing such weird line spacing?

The Meaning of Life

“I want you to write down three goals you have for this year,” said my year three primary school teacher, handing out black sheets of paper.

As an unusually serious and highly inquisitive eight year old, with very spiritual parents, I already had a very clear goal in mind: To find out the meaning of life.

I just knew that all I had to do was find the answer to this one simple question, and then everything would makes total sense. Then, I could happily go about living the rest of my life.

So while other kids wrote that they wanted to learn their times-tables, I wrote (in complete sincerity) “To find out the meaning of life” and left the other two goals blank. Any other goal failed in comparison to this one.

Our goals were collected and nothing was ever mentioned of it. I’d expected as much. My teacher was way too unhappy to possibly be enlightened on the true meaning of her existence. My parents didn’t seem to know either. Although mum did try to explain it:

“You see,” she said, one hand holding a crystal and the other giving reiki to her left breast. “In your past lives, you may have needed to learn something…” - And then she lost me. Listening to her talk in new age speak, sounded vaguely like tearing up cotton-wool balls  and stirring them into a jar of honey. It just didn’t make sense to me.

I needed a real answer, damn it! I wanted hard evidence and proven facts.

Why were we here? What happens when we die? Why are some people born into terrible circumstances, and others spared?

Such questions have plagued me for as long as I can remember, and as a result, I never cared too much for small talk. If someone asked me about the weather, I’d draw a blank. “Tell me about love!” I’d have shouted back, if I wasn’t so shy.

Yearning only to learn about the deeper things in life, meant I found school rather boring.  Instead of listening to my teachers, I’d drift off into 'Ally world'… where I’d imagine the teacher jumping up on the desk and doing a disco dance! Then the whole room would join in! And I would be on a trapeze, swinging from the ceiling, and colored lights would be flashing!!!

It’s unfortunate I never learned to listen. It’s a skill that could have come in handy when conversing with people. It also would have made doing well in school a lot easier. (You can also see why I very much love the show Glee!)

As I aged, my search for meaning lost it’s vigor, and my goals started to resemble a sense of normality. Get a boyfriend, learn how to spell, exercise. Watching Oprah also helped, and on her recommendation - yes, I bought the book Eat Love Pray.

“Oh, I’m so tired of France!” a French girlfriend whined recently, in her beautiful French accent. “All they do is sit around and talk about the meaning of life, and love, and get depressed.” 

Heaven! 

I never did find out the meaning of life. And I never did make it through the India chapters in Eat Love Pray. But I did find some peace about two year’s ago, when it finally dawned on me that: Perhaps – no one* really knows the answers. Not even Oprah. What a relief! 

And from reading part of Eat, Love, Pray – it dawned on me that: Perhaps more than wanting to find answers / the truth, I much prefer to be wildly entertained!

(Glee!)

*Although my mum honestly believes she knows the meaning of life. Just this trip home, she happened to tell me that she knows “The truth about the universe – about everything - for sure.” My question to you mum is - then why are you so unhappy? Is the truth rather shitty? Because if the meaning of life is shitty, then maybe I don’t want to know.

What I’ve Learned On Fear:

As someone who has avoided fear most of my life, learning to embrace it has given me an “Ah ha” moment of late. Through doing stuff that stretches me out of my comfort zone I notice I go through the following stages:

1. Nervous fear “Why am I doing this? How can I get out of it?”
2. I hate this! Why am I doing this to myself!

And then, as long as I don’t quit, one of three things will happen:

A)   I will make a huge mistake, fuck up, feel humiliated, but learn something that I wouldn’t have ever learned if I hadn’t of failed, or;

B)   I will keep putting one foot in front of the other and get through it. Stronger for it, or;

C)   I will achieve something awesome. Something I never imagined I was capable of doing. A feeling likened to walking on water.

And the more I do it, the more I yearn for option C. It’s addictive! Like surfing!  [I imagine] Once you catch that perfect wave, it’s worth the wait, fear, sunburn, sharks etc. 

Also, there’s a point reached where a strange phenomenon can occur. Where I literally break through my fear. Is it surrendering? It feels like ‘letting go’. Whatever it is, it gives me fearlessness, freedom and an immediate sense of calm.  Like I’ve just entered the Matirx – and everything is easy. 

My "fear of choice", is doing improvised theatre. And while most scenes make my stomach churn, a good one will be when I crack the Matrix – and am living in my subconscious. If I try and recall what happened – it’s a total blur.  Every time I do this, I get a high that nothing else can touch on. Does anyone know what I’m talking about?

The thing I have to remember (which is so easy to forget!) - is I can’t ever reach that break through moment…. without feeling the fear before hand. So when ever I’m really scared – I have to realise, that unless I’m being chased by a cerial killer, then this fear is actually a very good thing. So without further ado, please always remind me, that in this life: Aim for the fear, instead of avoiding it.

On Fear

(Val Kilmer, My future husband, Shane Black)

"For most people, fear is daring to wish for something so bad that it matters to you, and then having that taken away.  Fear is, I'm not going to get the things I want, and I'm gonna lose the things I have already. That's what fear is, to me.  The idea of getting your hopes up? [When I was starting out] I would get my hopes up, and someone would say, What if they just smash you? And then you'll feel worse than ever! And I'd go: Oh, well, I know. I'd rather get my hopes up.”

"Here's what the fear does: it's something called 'The Jack Story.' Jack Story's about a guy who's driving and boom, his tire blows out in a rain storm.  By the side of the road, flat.  He sees a farmhouse in the distance with a light on, and he thinks, I don't have a jack, I can't change this tire - but maybe the farmer has one.  So he starts walking through the rain and the mud and after a couple of feet he thinks, Well, wait a minute, what if I get to the farmhouse and the guy doesn't have a jack?  Then I gotta walk all the way back and I'm getting rained on and it's murder.  And he goes, Calm down, it hasn't happened, see what happens, play it by ear, okay?.......”

To read the rest of the story, click here. It's from Billy Mernit's wonderful interview with Shane Black, screen writer of Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

 

If anyone else has ever had imaginary conversations in their head with people about future events that haven’t happened, then that post may give them goose-bumps too. 

As a wise person (who I pay money to, to make me feel good,) once said:

"What Ifs - are just anxiety. They are not helpful." Banish them!

Easier said than done.