2012

Hello readers.

So, it's been many months now since I last posted something. This poor little blog is feeling very neglected and unloved. I'm sorry blog, I ask for your forgiveness but know I don't deserve it. The truth is, I just haven't been bothered to write anything for a really long time. That's it. No fancy or decent excuse. Just lame can't be bothered-ness.

Moving on.

2012 has arrived at our doorstep, bursting with the promise of joy and adventure. On New Years Eve you may have made a resolution. Something that you are determined to do or change this year. I did not. This isn't because I'm trying to be an anti-conformist and rebel against the norm (which, admittedly, I do sometimes), but just because nothing sprung to mind.

AHA! My New Years resolution can be to bring this blog back to life. Wonderful. Glad that's settled.

On other matters, I actually have nothing to say, I just felt like writing something and I remembered I actually have an output to do that. Cheers blog! You're the best.

That's all folks,

Luna.

A Story (original title, I know)

Lately, I've rediscovered the greatness that is 'The Wizard of Oz.' Over the last few days I bought the soundtrack and re-read the book. Fun times. Then I started writing a story, which isn't a Wizard of Oz spin off, nor is it an original story that has nothing to do with the Wizard of Oz. What I mean is: I'm not trying to be original but I'm also not trying to draw parallels. Now that that's cleared up, there's pretty much nothing you can accuse me of! Enjoy:

- before you begin, please note that when I copy and pasted this story in, my wonderful paragraphing got messed up. I don't think it will make much of a difference though.

Eavely, although she was very dainty and small, often felt cold and hard. A little flitter inside her heart told her that she was not as kind as the other children, the flitter told her that she was not as pretty as the other girls, but worst of all the little flitter told her that she was not special, and that she would never do anything extraordinary or succeed in making others happy by her mere presence.

This flitter inside of Eavely’s heart was sometimes soft and sometimes hard, but it was always there.

One day Eavely’s mother and Eavely were talking at the kitchen table. The floor was checked with black and white squares, and the green walls matched her mother’s apron. Their house was not all together perfect, for it was too cold in winter and often there was no where for Eavely to hide when she was sad, but other than that it was as lovely a house as anyone could ask for.

Eavely’s mother was as sweet as any other mother she knew, she cared for Eavely when she fell ill, listened when Eavely needed her and made Eavely super every night. But Eavely’s mother was always tired. A blackness seemed to always hover over her, and enough of the time she blamed this blackness on Eavely.

On this particular evening, Eavely’s mother had cooked a most horrible pasta, which sloshed down Eavely’s throat and gurgled in her tummy.

“Is there something else I could eat for super, mother?” Eavely asked as politely as she could, though she knew there really was no nice way to go about it.

“You are naught but a black cloud, Eavely!” her mother spat back, “I should think you would be more grateful, after I slaved away to prepare this meal for you!” but Eavely’s mother had cooked this same pasta on several occasions before, and each time Eavely had timidly suggested a few mild improvements as to make the dish more bearable. However, Eavely’s mother never did head to her daughter’s suggestions but persisted to retort, by saying:

“Make your own super next time then!” which did not hinder Eavely one bit, for she loved cooking but never did have the time for it.

All this talk of Eavely being a black cloud, sent the blood rushing to her cheeks and ears. The flitter in her heart beat very hard indeed. She felts her face burning and burning, and tried very hard not to let the tears which were forming in her eyes drip down her face. Her mother went on and on for several minutes about all the terrible things that Eavely did, all the while Eavely sat in silence and fiddled with her fork and pasta, for she did not feel like arguing.

Once her mother had finally stopped yelling – she had built to quite a steamed rage by the end of it all- Eavely left the table without so much as a word, and slumped off to her bedroom before the tears would come.

Now, as you can probably imagine, being called a black cloud is not a pleasant experience, whether you believe yourself to be one or not.

“If she cannot see the love and peace within me, then either she does not know me or I do not know myself,” thought Eavely as she fell backwards onto her bed and gazed up towards the smooth, white ceiling. It was at this moment that Eavely decided to run away, far, far away, where she could delight in making a fresh start and meet new people who knew her not as a black cloud. All she wanted was to love and be loved by others. So, with an impulse of the heart, she took a small potato sack from the pantry and went back to her room to stuff it with everything she would need to survive out there.

First, she packed her favourite picture book – the colours and magical worlds within its pages reminded her of a happier life that knew not of- then, she sharpened her best pencil and shoved it into the sack along with a small notepad. Eavely was unsure of what else she would need, but luckily remembered not to forget her collection of toys:

An elephant made up of grey and brown patches, sewn all over his stubby body with large stitches. His button eyes shone a brilliant blue and his little tail was made of a single strand of brown string, frayed at the bottom. Eavely loved her elephant dearly, as he was always the best to cuddle at night.

Next was the tiny wooden clown, who was no taller than her pinky finger. His stripy jumpsuit was painted orange and blue, as was the collar around his neck. His big shoes curled around at the toes and were painted orange with a little blue dot on the very tips. Eavely was very fond of her wooden clown, for his cheerful grin always made her giggle.

Finally, Eavely placed the toy her mother had knitted for her, into the sac. It was a floppy red owl with enormous, thoughtful, black eyes. Eavely thought everything about him was perfect, and did not think twice before bringing him along.

Now, with a sac full of everything Eavely imagined she could possible need, the little girl nervously, yet determinedly, crept passed her mother (who had fallen asleep), and snuck out the front door into the night.

Writing Your Own Life

I've just spent the past half hour reading through a few of my blog posts. Why? Because I've just started a subject at uni called 'Writing Your Own Life' and I thought, 'hey, I already write about my life on my blog!' and so came to check it out. I felt like I was a reader, reading someone else's writing, it was odd how disconnected I felt towards my own writing. I noticed that I have a rather consistent and noticeable writing 'voice' but I'm not really sure how I came about achieving that, I really just type words as they pop into my head and hope that they sound ok to other people.

But yeah, I'm learning how to write autobiographies at the moment. At first I thought, 'how can you teach someone how to write about themselves? Don't you just sit down and write whatever comes to you, whatever's important to you?' and now, after a couple of lectures and workshops, I think, 'now that they've told me to be myself in my writing and to write about what's important to me, what's left for them to say in the remaining 13 lectures?' They can look at my writing and tell me which sentence flow nicely, which parts are probably unnecessary and if they enjoyed reading it, but I can't see how they can teach us much more in lectures than they already have. I'll just have to wait and see.

Anyway. I know I disappeared for a little while, sorry about that. I feel I use a lot of blog space apologising for my absence. You wait months for a post and then all it says is, 'sorry I've been away, now I'm back. Goodbye again.' But I think this time I'll stay. I have to practice writing about myself.

I'm having trouble typing at the moment because my fingers are about to freeze off. They're so cold they're tingling. Our gas bill has gone up recently and so we're not allowed to turn the heater on anymore. It's 11 degrees! I should buy myself a jumper. I will buy myself a jumper. Yes, that's what I'll do! I'll buy a jumper!

This post hasn't really been about anything, but I think I've written enough to happily press the orange 'PUBLISH POST' button below, and go warm my fingers above the oven.

Whatever Vs Judgemental

Wow. What a wide range of layouts I was just offered. Simply too much choice. I hope you enjoy the layout I've chosen, I guess I thought it was the 'most me' out of a vast selection.

It's 1am and I'm really, very tired. I would be asleep but everyone's out in the living room watching the soccer at an insanely loud volume, too loud to sleep through. Why aren't I watching the soccer with them? You may ask, and if you did I wouldn't have much of an answer.

Oh and hello there, I'm still alive, I know it's been a lifetime since I last posted something. Everything has changed so much since then. It almost seems like another life time.

Anyway, today I was thinking about people and how everyone is much the same while at the same time we are all vastly different and individual. I've never understood how you can dislike someone without actually knowing them, but when is that point of 'knowing' someone actually achieved. Is it once you've shared in something big together? Is it once deep secrets have been swapped? Or is it when you can make a fairly accurate judgement on how they feel or what they're thinking, without them actually saying it aloud? Or maybe, it's never. Sometimes you can 'know' someone and then, rather suddenly, you don't 'know' them at all, maybe it's because they behave in a way you would never have thought they would or because they betray your trust or because there is no longer anything holding you together. Just like I think you can stop 'knowing' someone over night, I also believe you can 'know' someone after years of separation.

It seems silly to me that people can dislike a person and then begin to like them once they know more about them. Should you not be neutral towards a person until you know them well enough to inflict judgement? That, to me, makes much more sense.

I'm also noticing that there isn't much of a balance between people who care too much and people who don't care enough. There are so many who take a 'whatever' approach to life, and I'm beginning to think these people may be the happiest of us all. Then there are those who criticise and (mostly negatively) judge everything. Perhaps these people are very thoughtful and live the happiest lives because they know what they like and what they don't.

What I don't like about the 'whatever' people (and I am, for the purpose of this post, popping them all into one group, even though there are undoubtably many levels and varieties of 'whatever' people) is when you're trying to have fun and you say something like "I've got a great idea! Let's go to the candy shop over there! It'll be great fun" and they say "yeah, whatever. I don't mind." I would rather they say "I'm not really in the mood, sorry. Let's do something else." A person from the judgemental category would say "ew! A candy shop? That's so weird, I don't want to do that." I guess I just wish they'd all say "YAY! Candy shop! Let's go."

There's nothing wrong essentially with 'whatever' people or with 'judgemental' people, they also don't really exist because we tend to have days when we're 'whatever' people, days when we're 'judgemental' people and days where we're somewhere in between. You have to really a know a person to tell which of these moods they're in.

Evil Driver

I think my bus driver may have a touch of actually evil in him... or maybe not, I don't really know the guy. Today: the bus arrives right on time so I get on and take a seat, it's fairly empty (seven or eight other passengers.) A boy gets on, he's wearing jeans and a back to front cap:

Boy (to driver): does this bus go to La Trobe?

Bus driver: *taps his earphones as if to say "can't you see I'm listening to music" and tries to shoo the boy away with one movement of his hand.

Boy: does it go to La Trobe?

Bus driver: *nods reluctantly.

Boy: can I get a two hour concession, zone two ticket, please.

Bus driver: *shakes his head and pulls his Ipod out of his pocket, presumably turning it up, he slides it back in.

Boy: *pulls coins out of pocket and tries to hand them to the driver.

Bus driver: No ticket, no ride.

Boy: well, can I buy a ticket?

Bus driver: no.

Boy: *almost stands his ground but evidently decides it's not worth the trouble. He gets off the bus and sits back on the bus stop.

The bus driver then picks up a packet of cigarettes and a flask of soup and stands on the pavement, eating, smoking and listening to his music. This wouldn't have been a problem if the bus were early, or if it was driver change over time, but neither were true.

While he was standing outside a couple of plastic blonde girls approach him and ask something, he nods and gestures at the bus, the girls get on without validating or buying a ticket. The bus driver does nothing.

The driver gets back on the bus, takes a seat and settles himself in. A little old lady climbs up onto the bus and sweetly talks to the driver:

Lady: excuse me, do I need to pay to take this bus?

Bus driver: (*angrily whips his ear phones out) you need a ticket.

Lady: I haven't got one of those, could I just pay you with coins?

Bus driver: You need a ticket.

Lady: do you sell tickets?

Bus driver: what ya want?

Lady: to visit my grandson, just a few blocks away. How much will that cost?

Bus driver: I'll give ya a two hour zone two ticket. (*he gets a ticket and holds it out for her, she goes to take it but he snaps his hand back) $5.80!

Lady: oh dear, I only have $3... I'm only going a couple of blocks away.

Middle aged man: you're charging this woman for a zone one and two ticket! She's not going that far!

Bus driver: *takes the old ladies money and hands her a different ticket.

Lady: *takes the ticket and looks around for a seat.

Bus driver: oi! You have to validate that!

Lady: oh dear, I'm sorry. Just in here? (*she tries to validate her ticket in the cash register)

Bus driver: (*pushes her hand off his register as if her shaking old fingers might destroy it) NO! In there!

Lady: (*validates ticket and takes seat.)

A few more people get on the bus and sit down, the driver sips his soup and stares out the window for what feels like a life time. He looks over at the validation machine, gets out of his seat and addresses all passengers on the bus,

Bus driver: Someone has an invalid ticket! The machine says one of YOU validated an EXPIRED ticket! Everyone come up here and show me you tickets!

We do so. One of the plastic blonde girls stays in her seat and calls out,

Plastic blonde: I think my ticket is invalid, yeah, it was a two hour but I think it's been, um, like, more than two hours or something.

Bus driver: ah, I see. That must have been the problem. Don't worry about it, dear.

And finally the bus was off and moving! He sped around corners and ran a red light. As soon as he passed the stop just before mine, I pressed the button and headed over to the door (there is less than five seconds between the stops.) He stops at my stop because there is a red light, but he doesn't open the door.

Me: could I ... (*points at door)... please get off here?

Bus driver: *shakes head.

Me: please?

Bus driver: *reluctantly opens the doors but starts moving before I'm fully off the bus.

Evil.

Pretty Perfect

The other day I went and saw 'A Single Man' at the cinema, it was pretty good (perhaps excluding the shot where a little girl gently picks up a butterfly, and then continues to rub her hands together until the insect is a pile of crumbles) I'm not even going to say anything else about it, I think "pretty good" is a pretty good summary of it. Besides, it's more of a visual film, nothing much happens storyline wise. The reason I bring this film up, is because I was thinking about the final words spoken by the protagonist:

"A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be."

Don't worry, I didn't memorise them, I just copy and pasted the short speech from IMDB. Anyway, I was thinking of these final words this afternoon because the same thing happened to me (if you've seen the film then no, I didn't collapse to the floor, have a heart attack and see my deceased loved one before dying myself). I was in the kitchen, listening to a CD and sipping a cup of tea, when I suddenly thought: "life is pretty perfect right now." But then it dawned on me that no one was around to share the perfection of life with me, so I went and watched TV quietly by myself.

The End.

Another Dream and Stuff

Lately I’ve been thinking about Mark Priestley again. I don't know why his death has affected me so much and for such a prolonged period of time. It's not as if I had met the actor before he committed suicide, I wasn't even much of a fan... he was just the best character in my mum's favourite show, and yet I think about him so often.

The other day there was a boy in my Legal Studies lecture, a few rows in front of me and a dozen chairs to the left, who looked so much like Mark Priestley that I couldn't help but stare at him for most of the lecture. I think I almost cried. I should probably say that I don't have a crush on this boy at all, I was/am merely fascinated by his uncanny resemblance to Mark Priestley. Later that same day as I was walking to a tutorial, I saw him again. As we crossed paths, he looked and smiled at me... I think I may have frowned in response (a strange combination of surprise, confusion and wonder). I hadn’t noticed him around uni before that day and it reminded me of the dreams I used to have; for at least two months after Mark Priestley's death I dreamt the same kind of dreams every night. One went like this:

I'm walking through a park in Sydney that felt like home but I can't consciously recall the park as being recognisable. Mark Priestley came over to me and started talking.

Mark: Hi, Luna.

Me: Hi! I'm so glad you're here.

Mark: I have a scarf now, so I'm nice and warm for the time being.

Me: *notices green and brown scarf around his neck.

Mark: Thanks.

Me: What for?

Mark: For the scarf. It makes me feel better.

Me: I hope it's given you something worth living for.

Mark: I'm only alive here and now, soon this will just be a dream.

Me: Why isn't it a dream at the moment?

Mark: Because it feels real to you now, when you wake up it won't. I am speaking to you as Jesus speaks to his followers.

Me: Jesus comes to people in their dreams? Is that what this is?

Mark: If it offers you some kind of comfort, then yes.

Me: I'll miss you if you die. Please don't kill yourself.

Mark: You've given me the scarf, that's all you can do. You can't stop what has already happened, I must die. You don't understand.

Me: maybe I do! Maybe I can make everything better. I can save you.

Mark: *walks into the 'Bakery of Death' and I watch as his green scarf falls to the floor, a saintly halo forms above his head and then he is frozen like the familiar picture of Jesus my Grandma owns.

One other variation of this dream involves him running up an escalator which goes all the way to heaven with a gun in his hand saying, "you can't follow me up here or you'll end up in heaven as well, Luna" before shooting himself in front of the helpless dream me.

I don't know if my subconscious mind was just trying to comfort me or make me understand that his death was inevitable and out of my control, or if there was some supernatural or religious happenings going on while I slept those two months. Either way, I treated these dreams as serious nightmares and developed a phobia of ‘sleep suicide,’ which simply explained was an invented fear of mine involving sleepwalking to the kitchen and stabbing myself with the butcher knife as I slept. My dad assured me that my waking consciousnesses desire to stay alive would prevent me from committing sleep suicide. I guess it was a silly fear, but it’s hard to dream of someone dying every night without developing some intense emotions…. Or perhaps the dreams were a result of the emotions.

The other day I borrowed a book from the library called ‘Life of Pi’ because apparently it was Mark Priestley’s favorite book. The following excerpt reminded me of him:

“My suffering left me sad and gloomy… When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling. My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of the human condition. I mock this skull. I look at it and say, “You’ve got the wrong fellow. You may not believe in life, but I don’t believe in death. Move on!” The skull snickers and moves even closer, but that doesn’t surprise me. The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity- it’s envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.”

This section stood out because the rest is about the adventures of a boy who lives at a zoo (although I haven’t read more than a quarter of the book yet.)

That’s really all I have to say, I wasn’t even going to write about Mark Priestley, his favourite book or sleep suicide, I guess that’s what happens when you log into your blog and say to yourself “just write about anything.”