I don't think this would happy to a real adult...

Three years ago I was doing a little play called A Midsummer Night's Dream - it's possible you may have heard of it, apparently it's quite famous. I don't want to mislead you though. It was amateur theatre, and although a lot of people came to see it I'm reasonably sure that's only because it has a large cast, and most of the people in the cast have family and friends. Also, a lot of the cast were pretty inexperienced so their family and friends were actually still keen to see them in a show. But I digress...

The director of the show had big ideas for the costumes and it happened that one of the cast members makes jewellery out of the ring pulls from cans - "Perfect!" said the director (probably - it was three years ago, how good do you think my memory is?) and then asked all of us to collect as many ring pulls as we could. Because I'm an awesome and enthusiastic team member I dutifully implored all of my friends and family to keep all of their ring pulls and give them to me. Which they did. And then the director changed his mind and we didn't end up using them.

I am still finding ring pulls everywhere.

The real moral of this story though, is that I don't think this would happen to a real adult. You know, the kind of adult that actually keeps their house tidy instead of only cleaning up when the mess is starting to get out of control. The kind of adult that drives to a Christmas party knowing that they have to work the next day and does not get talked into drinking roughly thirty seconds after they arrive. The kind of adult that sees something that needs to be done and actually does it then and there instead of thinking, "I should probably do that tomorrow" (note there is no actual commitment to do it tomorrow). I don't actually know any of these people. But I'm sure they exist. I've seen them on TV.

I haven't posted anything here in three years, and to be honest, I thought I was done with it. I thought that blogging was yet another thing I got super excited about, and then just gave up. Then I received an email to say that someone had commented on one of my posts, and I thought "wow, people are still reading my stuff - maybe I should get back to it". So thank you Indigo Byrd - you have inspired me to come back.

To be fair, I've made a lot of changes in the last three years and my head has been spinning quite a bit, and most of the time I'm simply too exhausted to write. But writing is what I really love and, in all honesty, I'm finding that although I've made a lot of changes, nothing has really changed that much at all.

And another reason I decided to come back - I'm still finding those damn ring pulls everywhere.

WRITER'S GUILT IS A REAL THING

I haven't written anything on here for awhile, and it's actually mostly due to the fact that I haven't had anything to write about and not because I'm lazy (though it is a little because I'm lazy, since I have about six partially written blog posts that I could have finished if I'd really wanted to). Which shouldn't be a problem since no one's forcing me to write anything, and frankly it would be a little weird if they were, considering the type of babble I usually post. Although, if someone was holding a gun to my head and making me write about plots to kill dolphins and being ganged up on spiders, then that would absolutely be something to write about.

But it is a problem. Because I suffer from a scientifically proven condition known as Writer's Guilt*. I could blame it on Catholic Guilt, based on the fact that I went to Catholic schools, but to be honest, my lack of guilty feelings were the biggest obstacle I faced when I went to confession so that I just ended up inventing things that I probably did but couldn't remember and definitely didn't feel guilty for. I also didn't feel guilty about lying to the priest, though if I'd thought about it I probably could have used that for my next confession to save me from making more stuff up. So even if I wasn't an atheist I was probably never cut out to be Catholic.

Whatever the cause, my Writer's Guilt is very real - I've even written about the profoundly terrifying effect it can have - and it extends to every writing project I undertake. I go through phases where I'm inspired to write and everything comes so incredibly easily that I can't actually not write to the point where it distracts me from anything else I attempt to do. Then it passes and I am left with unfinished projects that taunt me with all their lack of posts or dangling plotlines and I feel like I should be working on them even when trying to work on them just leads to me staring at a computer screen and checking Facebook and email every thirty seconds so that I'm at least doing something. And fiction is the worst. Because then there are characters who are stuck in limbo, waiting for me to send them on their way and for some unknown reason that is definitely no reflection on my own personality, many of my characters tend towards the violent and if I ever found myself in a situation where one of them came to life then I really don't think they'd be all that happy with me, especially since I seem to abandon them in the middle of unresolved and often stressful situations that can't be good to be stuck in for long periods of time. Really, it has to bad for their mental health and I am COMPLETELY RESPONSIBLE because I'm not writing them out of it.

So anyway, I wrote this to alleviate my guilt because it's easier than rescuing a fictional character from a bad situation.

*There's a 99.99% chance that it is not really scientifically proven and I did, in fact, just make it up, capitalising the first letters so that it looks legitimate. The .01% is to allow for the possibility that I accidentally named a real condition without knowing it was a real condition. I could do a quick Google search but really, that seems like a lot of effort to go to just to write this post.

I SHOULD PROBABLY GET OUT OF THE HOUSE SO I HAVE MORE TO WRITE ABOUT BUT, ON THE OTHER HAND, IT MIGHT NOT BE SAFE

I have a friend who keeps hurting her back through no fault of her own. She'll be going along fine and then she'll just move ever so slightly and bam! she's thrown her back out. Then it'll start to get better and she'll have a good couple of days and then bam! out again. What's worse is that every time it happens she can't work and she's currently trying to save for both a wedding and a house and doesn't get sick pay because she's only employed on a casual basis. It's almost enough to make me believe that there really is a god and he really fucking hates her.

Basically my point is that every time she hurts her back she has legitimate cause to ask 'why?' and there doesn't seem to be an answer. I, on the other hand, tend to cause injury to myself through my own stupidity.

A couple of weeks ago I tried to pry an e-tag holder from my windscreen with my fingers. A plastic holder. That's been exposed to the sun through the windscreen for about five years and could therefore be reasonably expected to perhaps be a bit brittle. So probably to no-one's surprise, rather than managing to remove the holder from the windscreen, I instead broke the plastic and took a chunk out of my finger that still hasn't completely healed three weeks later and that didn't stop bleeding for about twelve hours. Also, I didn't actually find the missing chunk of finger so it's possibly still somewhere on the floor of my car. I wonder if I should warn passengers before they get in?

Then on Monday I over-reached for a medicine ball and even though my shoulder was already protesting from my forcing it to turn into a go-go gadget arm without first saying, 'go-go gadget arm', I nevertheless used it to pick up the medicine ball. Because I apparently felt that if I was going to injure myself I may as well do a decent job of it. And then, perhaps because it was getting better, I decided the best thing for it was most likely to continue to do push-ups and a prone bridge and other exercises that would put extra pressure on the injury. You know, for fun.

I would probably stop injuring myself if I just gave my actions a bit of thought before blithely undertaking them. But if there really is a god and he really does hate my friend, then I've a feeling that I wouldn't be his favourite person either, so really, why bother?

I DON'T WANT TO BE KILLED BY MACHETE-WIELDING DOLPHINS, SO HERE

So I knew when I decided to start a blog that there was no way in hell I'd be able to post daily so I didn't even try. I did, however, think that a weekly post was achievable but - turns out - that's a bit out of my reach also. It's all right though - I'm used to having unrealistic expectations of myself so whenever my tendency to procrastinate stops me from achieving my goals I just put it down to that. I'm so good at convincing myself that I was aiming too high to start with that I don't even bother stopping to consider whether it's actually true. I'm pretty much the perfect procrastinator and, frankly, I think I deserve some recognition for that.

A big part of the problem is that I've been pretty focused on some other stuff for the past couple of weeks so I haven't had a lot to write about. I actually had a dream last night that I was back at school (a common dream of mine that I have yet to categorise as fantasy or nightmare as it usually seems to be a combination of both) and was assigned the task of writing something about myself. That's easy, thought I, I already write a blog. I've got heaps to say. But then I went to start writing and I had nothing. At all. Which basically means that I am now having nightmares about blogging.

Oh sure, it's not so bad now. Not exactly the type of nightmare that has me waking up in a cold sweat afraid to go back to sleep in case I find myself right back in the jaws of whatever death I woke myself to escape from. Yet. But just wait. It won't be long before I have the same dream again. Only at the same time I realise that I have nothing to write about, I'll also realise that I'm not wearing any clothes. And I'm on the toilet. And there are spiders. And then suddenly I'll be running down the street from an army of dolphins that have learned how to walk on land and are all carrying machetes and yelling at me in their dolphin language that this wouldn't be happening if I could just find something to write about only I won't understand what they're saying because I don't speak dolphin and even if I did it wouldn't help me anyway since having to run away from machete-wielding dolphins is probably the worst source of inspiration ever as well as being the worst time to try to compose anything that isn't "oh god, somebody help me, I'm going to die!"

But it's Christmas in a couple of days, and then New Year's Eve, so there'll surely be something to keep the dolphins away. I hope.

I'M NOT AN ALCOHOLIC. BUT MY NEIGHBOURS MIGHT THINK I AM.

I once went for a job where they wanted to know how many drinks I would have in a week and I answered three to four, which is a lie because three to four is just the number of drinks that I have on a Sunday when I go to my mum's for dinner.

Now I'm not embarrassed by how much I drink and I certainly don't consider myself to be a problem drinker, but saying that I have eight to fifteen drinks a week, or more if I have a "big night", kind of makes me sound like I'm an alcoholic. Which I'm not. Even though there was that one time that I tried to give up drinking for six weeks and only lasted two.

Actually I probably should have known that I was going to fail because it was only about a week after I'd spent the last few Saturday nights drunkenly informing everyone within earshot that I loved drinking so much that I considered it a hobby. This may also be why I drew a blank when I went for an interview for the aforementioned job and they asked me what my hobbies were.

Anyway, I'm thinking of putting the empty bottles into the rubbish because I think there's more in there to cushion them than there is in the recycling and at the moment every time I empty the indoor recycling bin into the outdoor recycling bin it sounds like we've had a party. Which would be fine if we ever had people over to the house. But we don't.

Actually, there have been a few times this year when I've had people over, but that resulted in even more bottles and having to make more than one trip out to the recycling bin so probably now they just think that all my friends are family are alcoholics as well.

So I guess what I'm saying is that the judgmental attitudes people hold towards alcohol are turning me into a liar. And they're also bad for the environment.

Or it could be that I'm worried I might drink too much.

But I'm pretty sure it's the first one.

I DON'T REALLY KILL DOLPHINS

Yesterday I had the doctor check out my ganglion since I was there anyway and because I wasn't entirely certain that I'm not growing a second head on my hand. He asked me if it hurt or if it had hurt when I first noticed it and I said that it didn't and then he looked at me strangely as though I were some kind of lying freak who wouldn't admit that her ganglion hurt so I felt compelled to tell him that it did hurt when I first noticed it after I poked at it and pressed on it for about ten minutes. But that didn't seem to help.

Today I sent a Facebook message to my friends asking them to save the ring pulls from their cans for reasons I refused to reveal to them. But then I realised they would probably assume I wanted them for choking dolphins, so I did tell them and then my friend sent me this

which I thought was so hilarious that I had to share it.

Then I thought I should probably explain that neither of us would actually feed anything to a dolphin that would make it choke (even though I don't really like them because of that one time when I was swimming at dusk and I saw a dolphin in the waves, but I thought it was a shark) and that, in fact, she's actually a vegetarian so she wouldn't even kill a dolphin to eat it. I probably wouldn't either, but that's mostly because I don't like seafood.



They're practically the same

Also yesterday I shared this post by The Blogess on my Facebook page and ended up accidentally implying that the reason I don't have Christmas tree is that I hang babies from them and my cats eat them. Which is much more interesting than the real reason so I decided to go with it.