30day challenge: 26.

Day 26: What do you think about your friends?

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My friends are awesome.

 

Again, resisting the urge to write “The End” here because that’s what I think about my friends – they’re awesome. You. Are. All. Awesome.

 

Instead I’ll tell a story.

 

Once upon a time, a girl – recently adrift in the world of friends (owing to unfortunate incidents already discussed), started forming connections online with people she found interesting and entertaining and inspiring.

 

When they asked her to come outside and play in the real world, she did, deciding to be brave and follow her nose to see what adventures appeared.

 

They all proved to be the most magical and amazing people who would jump without hesitation to her or anyone else’s aid, lending ears for listening or shoulders to cry on or stories for laughter or hugs for the hell of it.

 

They opened their homes and their hearts without any hesitation. They accepted the girl and all her quirks without question.

 

And now, the girl, when she sits and marvels at what has happened over such a short time, can’t help but shake her head in disbelief at the workings of the world and the amount of totally awesome people in it.

 

The End.

30day challenge: 25.

Day 25: What’s in your bag?

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Not sure how this is going to be in any way fascinating, not sure if I can even spin any story out of it, but you asked for it so here goes.

 

The best thing in my bag is the lining. It’s super cool. I love this bag. It’s an Olga Berg, my favourite bag making person.

 

On the outside it’s pretty nondescript, a very low key but stylish black leather jobby; on the inside it’s a pretty pattern of flowers and leaves – not as naff as it sounds. It cheers me up anyway.

 

The only thing I hate about this bag (or any bag) is that when I put my hand in to find something I end up touching every single other thing in the bag first before I reach what I want, no matter what it is I’m looking for. It’s some sort of glitch in the matrix, I swear. Sometimes after searching for ages for something I will swear black and blue that it’s not in there at all only to suddenly see it sitting in there later in the day. Damn dirty bag tricks.

 

I feel a little like Ally Sheedy in Breakfast Club right now. Here goes nothing *empties bag onto floor*

 

At the moment it’s holding… (Drumroll)…

 

• half a packet of Coles brand paracetamol (gotta love generic),
• roll on deodorant (Nivea pure invisible if you must know – smells lovely and stays away from your clothes… I really should be sponsored for this shit),
• Vaseline hand cream AND a tube of L’Occitane acacia flower hand cream recently purchased in Vegas (for when I feel like being a little more upmarket about my hand cream application),
• a little pot of paw paw cream for the lips,
• Sennheiser earbuds in their little bag,
• another empty Sennheiser bag – I have no explanation for why I’m carrying it around,
• a little purse pack of tissues, only in there because of my recent foray into the world of snot,
• a packet of chewies with only two left,
• my wallet (my poor, overworked, wallet),
• black Moleskine notebook with dirty edges, two thirds full of scribbled ramblings on the run,
• pen,
• a citrix chip for work (you know, a password generator thing-a-me-bob that lets me log in off-site),
• one plastic spoon (?),
• digital camera (I like to carry it around in case I see something snapworthy),
• black eyeliner pencil (thrown in yesterday to take to work for halloween in case anyone wanted to draw black things on their face. They didn’t),
• a green jade happy buddha all the way from Vietnam, given to me by my last boyfriend,
• Transperth smart rider (a misnomer),
• spare rubber thingamys for my earbuds,
• a printout for my cut and paste micro festival ticket (GET YOURS NOW),
• one lonely tampon,
• one black hairclip.

I don’t know how your day could get any better than reading all of that. I mean, the fascination and awe! The excitement! How can anything else top it? I for one am overcome.

 

Feel free to tell me what my contents say about me for I have no idea.

30day challenge: 24.

Day 24: A letter to your parents.

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Fffuuuuuh…

 

Ok.

 

Like a bandaid.

 

Dear Dad,

 

Thanks for bringing me into the world. You were pretty young yourself. I can’t remember the last time I saw you. My favourite photo is of me as a teeny tiny baby in your arms while you sat in your fire truck. Hope you’re having an awesome life. Very nice taste being into Harleys. I don’t thank you for my chin – I’m not very partial to my chin. Or my freckles.

 

Dear Mum,

 

Thanks for bringing me into the world. You were pretty young yourself. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Thanks for trusting me through my teen years – it really made a difference and influenced my decisions. Thanks for sticking up for me when I needed it. Now I really really need you to look after yourself. Don’t be the martyr. Your health is important.

 

Dear stepdad,

 

Man, you had some issues. I guess you did things the best way you knew how. I hope you’ve grown, matured, refined your decision-making process, learnt from your mistakes. I still don’t think my actions through all five years of high school warranted me being grounded for 90% of the time. If you think about it, I was a pretty good, straight down the line kid. But thanks for it all anyway, because it made me get out and walk on my own as soon as I could, vowing never to come back.

 

Dear parental figures in my life,

 

Thankyou all, warts and all. I turned out ok regardless.

 

Hugs,

Me.

30day challenge: 23.

Day 23: Something you crave.

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Cravings are fickle things. One day I’ll crave sweet, the next, savoury. One day noise, the next, silence. One day company, the next, solitude.

 

I don’t have a constant craving. But now I do have k.d lang in my head singing like a dog howling, or air escaping a balloon: “cohhhhhhhhnstaaaaaaaant craaaaaaaaaviiiiiiing”. Blech.

 

If I absolutely must come up with something it would be close companionship. I crave a soul mate who can hang with me when I want sweet or savoury, or noise or silence, or company or – ok the last one doesn’t work, but you get the picture.

 

Yeah. I’ll go with that. Well, that or pistachio nuts.

30day challenge: 22.

Day 22: What makes you different from everyone else?

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Duh. Everything. There is no other me.

 

I’m really fighting the urge to follow that sentence with, “The End” because this is a writing exercise and it would defeat the purpose, but seriously, that’s all there is to it – everything about me makes me different from everyone else. I AM a beautiful and unique snowflake, so there.

 

Sometimes the enormity of our uniqueness will hit me and I’ll walk through the city or sit somewhere watching everyone go past and just marvel at our total and utter individuality.

 

It’s such a dichotomy though: sure, we’re different from everyone else, but we all still go through the same experiences, and in that regard we’re all exactly the same.

 

We all struggle with love, death, taxes, religion, loneliness, family issues, waking up in the morning, overindulgence, health, jobs, and trying to dress ourselves properly after a night on the turps (or maybe that one’s just me). We all laugh, cry, eat, shit, die.

 

No one else wears my eyes though; no one else sees things the way I do, and there is no way for me to see things the way another person does. I can’t feel what another person feels, I can only imagine what they’re feeling.

 

That’s our point of difference, and that’s what makes me different to everyone else – the place I stand in the world to observe and try to understand it.

30day challenge: 21

Day 21: A picture of something that makes you happy.

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I love seagulls. That’s right, their only fan base seems to be little kids who like to chase them, and I. If my adoration marks me as odd, I care not.

 

Look at them long enough when they’re quietly standing on the sand and you’ll start to hear their silence; their contemplative nature is infectious.

 

I’ve watched them stare out to sea with what looks like a sense of longing – for what, I don’t know, they won’t tell me. When they drift off to sleep and their head starts to nod, it’s adorable. When they fly low overhead their grey/white bodies against the aqua blue sky look amazing.

 

They’re much maligned. Admittedly they don’t have the dulcet tones and cheeky moves of a willy wagtail, or the grace and beauty of a swan, or much more purpose than cleaning up dropped chips and shitting on your car, but they still make me smile.

 

Dedicated to the wisest of gulls, Mr Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

30day challenge: 20.

Day 20: Someone you see yourself marrying or being with in the future.

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Today, mid morning, after nothing extraordinary occurred, I felt a wave of utter loneliness smack into me. I deflated like a sad balloon.

 

It’s been too long since I’ve had a proper relationship and every now and then I give up the daily struggle to be ok about that; I tire of waiting patiently. I get sick of hugging myself.

 

There are only so many times you can tell yourself you never know what’s around the corner, you shouldn’t give up, that the world works in its own time frame.

 

If I could see my future it would save me a lot of angst. I wouldn’t keep worrying about never finding a lover to share my life with and being alone for the rest of my life.

 

I refuse to settle; I still believe that I’ll know love when I see it and there will be some sort of inner recognition that ‘this is the one’.

 

So, short answer is I don’t see a particular someone. The fog has rolled in over my future and I can’t see anything. I just have to keep hoping that under the fog is a man who loves me and who I love back, and wants to hang with me and watch me get wrinkly.