On avoidance and apologies

First and foremost, I’M SORRY. Some of you (much to my surprise) have noticed my absence and have queried it. Here is an explanamation:

I started reading a few other blogs and I don’t know, I began to doubt my writing ability or something. I love to cook, but I would never want to be a chef because that would make it work and I would have to slave over a hot stove and cook for a gajillion people for hours and then have to clean unless I had a dish dude… I digress a little but what I’m trying to say is that I love writing in much the same way and when I started reading other people’s blogs and seeing what they did with them I started to compare and then there was pressure and even though I kept writing I hesitated to publish because I didn’t feel like I could compare BUT now I got over it thanks to a silly little goofy artsy fartsy smart friend-non-friend of mine who made me realise I shouldn’t give a shit and I should keep doing it for ME.

So here I am, folks! Clearly that was an unedited post, super long sentences and all, but I just wanted to get it out before I changed my mind!

They say the first step is always the hardest, and while I wrote and rewrote a gajillion and just didn’t want to publish them, I feel that I made it now. Done being sappy, I made like a Schwarzenegger and I’m back!

LAHV YOU!

On little me and good intentions

So when I was little (and naïve), I was really good friends with this one chick. We were BFFs (at least, until she went and told her parents that I called her pregnant and then we weren’t allowed to chill anymore. For the record, I had NO idea what pregnant even meant at that time and I most certainly did not call her that!)

Anyway, she had a birthday, as people do. And a party for it, also as kids do. I couldn’t find anything to get her for her birthday,

My mum was really busy that week, so we didn’t end up having the time to get her a birthday present. Being the wonderful person that I am, I didn’t want to go empty-handed. When I love I love fiercely, and I didn’t want my bestie to think that I was a shitty friend. So I put all my favourite pencils together and proudly took them to show my mother. They were really cool – holographic and stuff. A couple of them were kind of scratched up and about halfway to being finished, but I had the best of intentions. I showed my mum and she was admonishing to say the least, telling me I couldn’t possibly go to her party and present her with that. But I was convinced that it would be the perfect present, and even at a young age, when I wanted something I went after it and nothing would stand in my way. So determined little me wrapped them in blue tissue paper and hid them about my person.

Holographic pencils. Mine weren't even placed in a scary chicken foot formation. But I suppose they were used, lovingly or not.

 

When it was present-opening time, I drew them out with a flourish and gave them to her. She looked at the crumpled blue tissue paper for a few seconds, and then opened it slowly. Pulling out the bundle of pencils, she had a not-so-impressed look on her face, to say the least. Everyone else tittered and/or gave me disgusted looks, and that was definitely the first time I ever had that terrible heavy-as-hell-stone-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach feeling. Little crushed me just stood there for what felt like an eternity. Brb. I think I need to deal with my ptsd symptoms.

Back. If Friend Sped had witnessed the event, she would have said Aw, bless!  which would probably have helped to make me feel a little bit better, but she wasn’t.

The End.

On stressure

Okay. This is a post on STRESSURE. Life is so up and down and it’s apparently impossible to have an amazing day/evening without the next day/evening being, to put it mildly, fucking sucky.

I posted a while ago on taking on too much and what an amazing thing that was, and apparently (again) I was SEVERELY mistaken with regards to how much I could actually do. I’m pretty sure it could have worked out, except Murphy (inventor of this stupid thing), went and made something go wrong in every project that I have so it all got delayed and now everything needs to be done AT THE SAME TIME.

EJOFIAWEJOFIAQQAA.

Maybe time management is my problem, or, digging deeper, the lack of care! I put everything I have into something until the next thing comes on, and when that happens the original things begin to bore me and really, how much can you care about something that doesn’t excite you?

Normally, I make like an ostrich and put my head in the sand and just deal with the consequences when I have to, but apparently I’ve become an Adult somewhere in between and am now actually trying to get it all together and deal with everything head on. Unfortunately, doing this is leaving me feeling like a Smart Car. They’re cute, so it would be okay, except I feel like one that is currently colliding head-on with a 2893084230-ton lorry.

 

This image is simply a representation of what can happen to a Smart Car in a similar (but nowhere near as rough) circumstance. Please empathise with my lorry situation.

 

Luckily, I am feeling like that Smart Car in just a figurative sense. As long as I continue being a workaholic until this is all over I should still be alive! Anyway, the point of this post was to implore you to be patient and let you know I’ll be around more after the next two weeks of hell are over, and hopefully sooner!

Peeeeeeeeeeeeace! :)

P.S. I also just found out my cousin is pregnant and I’m going to be an aunt… again! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (See, good comes with the bad!)

On change and being MAD

[I'm MAD. So I don't know if this post will be even remotely entertaining or if it'll even make sense. But here you go anyway. I apologise in advance if you hate it, but you are here for my therapy... remember?!]

Okay. So I like spontaneity. I like change. In fact, I like to think that I positively thrive in dynamic environments. But there are definitely some situations in which I’m so wtf’d out and get so frustrated I want to castrate a cow. Which isn’t something I’d actually do nor is it something I have an interest in. But I read an article on cow castration an hour ago so it was kind of the first thing I thought of. Again, not on purpose.

Random changes-of-mind that result in expectations not being met and mood swings without valid reasons are what I just cannot take. It maks me argh and grr and EIOFJAOEIWFJOAWIEFF like nothing else. Here are a couple of scenarios to aid your understanding:

1. Unmet (for stupid reasons) expectations that you were justified to have to begin with.

You are soooooooooooooo excited to go on your first road trip. You’ve spent weeks planning it with your super good super awesome friend from childhood that you haven’t seen in ages, and you think ooh, we’re going to get to bond, eat lots of random food, listen to silly songs in the car with the wind blowing through our hair while singing at the top of our lungs, yippee. But then kaboom!

The road trip of dreams. (I drew a dashed line through it to represent dashed plans but it ruined my drawing so I deleted it.)

 

Your plans are dashed. She texts (not calls - texts), to let you know that she has broken her toe/fought with her significant other/eaten a shrimp and that’s against her vegan principles so she has to freak out and repent by not going on a fun road trip. You become dismal. No reason could justify this breach of friendship in your eyes (okay, maybe death or a fall that resulted in guts exploding out). You’ve built up expectations… and now your hopes and dreams are far away in a desolate thought bubble, floating further and further away with every minute. DEPRESSING. And anger-inducing.

2. You have a psycho parent/friend/cousin/customer.

They are all ooh and nice and excited and generally going with the swing of things and even complimenting your work or something. And then kaboom!  Their emotions get the best of them and stuff they’ve been holding inside without you even knowing is all of a sudden unleashed on your pretty little head and you’re just standing there in shock. You didn’t realise they had all these feelings or thoughts or emotions, not because you are a non-caring person, but because they are store-inside-until-they-burst assholes or some little thing feels out of their control and wham they explode. You are the poor innocent victim of their misdirected lava-like rage through no fault of your own. A mood swing at its worst. They were so happy-go-lucky and so were you and then it all just went away. Not because there was a real reason to be upset, but because some avoidable internal struggle just came to a head. (Their head. And out of their mouth. Only to erupt on you.) Because they just are not the type of people to be able to relax and take out-of-the-ordinary things in stride.

So anyway, those are the kinds of change I can’t stand. Now that that’s off my chest, p-p-p-peace homies!

UPDATE: I’ve compiled a list of some things I’d rather do than castrate a cow when I’m mad so that I never get so mad that I actually look for a cow to castrate only because it’s the first thing I think of. Everyone knows you can’t think all that great when you’re MAD. Here it is:

Animal abuse bad. Find other things.

 

1. Eat Menchie’s fro-yo with strawberries and chocolate krackle. YUM.
2. Eat an Oreo ice cream cookie in a park. (Weather permitting. Or not. Doubt it’d matter if I’m THAT MAD.)
3. Eat Baskin Robbins/Haagen Dazs chocolate ice cream with one of the little spoons instead of the big ones. It’s just more satisfying that way.
4. Lie down and listen to angry music. Not like Marilyn Manson or The Pretty Reckless, but more like music that has a beat that suits the angry racing heartbeat I’d have in that situation.
5. Eat cheese and onion or potato pasties from England. Or potato burekas from Tastee’s since those are the only comparable thing where I live.
6. Jump into a pool and submerge myself under water. (Only for a bit, I’m not suicidal.)

I’m not usually the biggest fan of ice cream, so I’m not sure why I’d turn to it when I’m MAD necessarily. Perhaps I subconsciously succumb to the ‘logic’ that angry = hot, therefore ice cream = way to cool down the hot.

UPDATE #2: I was MAD when I unleashed this post onto Notepad. (Yes, Notepad. It’s awesome.) This is what I actually ended up doing instead of castrating a cow (below). It involves the consumption of yumibles (yummy edibles). (In case you didn’t guess that it would after my list above.)

Monsieur Félix & Mr. Norton

Double chocolate, milk chocolate, and ménage à trois. Jealous? (Hi. I'm the cookie. Click me. I'll make your mouth water. That's right. ;) Baby.)

 

On taking on too much

<therapy session>

Okay so I’ve been having a little bit of writer’s block. I’ve been so busy with so many projects that sometimes I just sit there ready to write from having a ginormous spurt of inspiration and it just disappears because my mind goes onto something else I need to be doing.

I call you a smartypants later in this post. But do you know what this is?

 

This is the phenomenon that we will be exploring today. It’s called Taking On Too Much. This may seem like a not-so-creative term for the concept, but it just goes to prove what I’m talking about re: my writer’s block.

Since this blog is supposed to be therapy for me, I decided to try and use it for that and perhaps it will help! On television, therapy is usually when someone pays a lot of money to talk about their own stuff and figure things out all by themselves with the occasional breakdown. So here goes. I won’t be paying you lots of money, but I hope you have your tissue box and your armchair ready, because I’m lying on a couch and about to unleash. (It’s a figurative couch. I already said I’m busy, I clearly don’t have time to be lying on a couch.)

My whole life I’ve been the kind of person to get super excited about something and go crazy… and then something else and go crazy even more, and on and on. I would copy and paste that repeatedly, but I’m sure you get the idea. (See, I think you’re a smartypants. Feel special!)

In elementary school the idea came from somewhere to start a school-wide advice column called Advice Device. Pretty sure it wasn’t my idea, but I like to take the credit, because I took it and ran with it, and then implemented it in every school I went to after that (4, in case you were wondering). That was the time I learned that I enjoyed Doing Things, and I haven’t stopped keeping busy since.

More recently, and mainly because school was getting boring and LONG (I am an instant-gratification-desiring type of person), I decided I should start a business. Mainly to be able to say that I have my own business. And then I got funding. And I realised it was actually something I liked doing. So I started another one. And then got involved in a few more. So now I am a serial entrepreneur. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m super successful (yet) but I will be Very Soon. (I am sure of this because I am working so hard I haven’t posted in a week on something I’ve discovered I love! Also I’m an optimist.)

This is a cereal entrepreneur. Although it sounds the same, it is not what I am.

 

A friend suggested that I probably suffer from depression or something and am scared to be left alone with my thoughts. But then he took it back because he knows I’m a really happy person. (And then he said I was too happy. And that it’s probably some other mental disorder. I do have ADHD!)

I know I often take on too much. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I learn lots! Especially time management. Kinda. The hugest plus for me is that I get to learn so much about so many things, and about myself. I love when I can take something, ingest it, and regurgitate it with my own juices and leave people impressed. (That’s not something that happens often with regurgitation! Like the couch, this regurgitation is also figurative. I take no blame for you imagining it.)

I look kind of young and that, combined with my (occasionally noticeable) hyperness and the fact that I am a female, often leaves people I meet in professional situations for the first time doubtful of my abilities. Especially with old grey-hair-having businessmen. (The older version of the common businessman tends to be a know-it-all.) All the things I learn from sticking myself in all these different situations and doing a whole bunch of different things allow me to often shove their doubts back in their faces, but in a nice way. It’s wicked.

Well, there we go. Just letting things flow ended up in a post! Thanks for listening.

</therapy session>

 

 

On Esme(s)

I like gadgets. I also like to name my gadgets. Usually, I like to name them Esme. Unfortunately, my gadgets tend to die in weird ways. If there was a 1000 Ways To Die television show for gadgets I’m pretty sure my gadgets would make up at least 800 of those unique ways. That could be an exaggeration… but considering my luck, perhaps not.

So I’m a klutz. I do crazy things to myself all the time, and not on purpose. Although sometimes I like to say that I did whatever klutzy thing on purpose as a means to an end just so that people don’t think I’m as much of an idiot. I don’t know if they believe me, but it makes me feel better.

When I’m at Friend Asskicker’s crib, I tend to embarrass myself the most. I cutely hop over the doggie doorways that they have in place… but when I try to cutely hop back over (usually with a plate or something in my hand at that point), more often than not I knock it down with a resounding crash. My other disaster-ridden experiences usually go unnoticed, save for the band-aids all over my body… or so I thought. Her parents took to making subtle humorous comments about my lack of co-ordination within just a few times of meeting me, so it could be entirely possible that I’m just fooling myself. Whatever, ignorance is bliss.

[On the plus side, I did try waitressing once, and shocked many - I only dropped a single knife the entire eight hour shift - and it wasn't even a sharp one! Definitely one of my proudest days.]

So I just returned to the first paragraph of my post and it appears I digressed somewhat significantly from the intended topic of said post. Esme!

The first gadget of mine lucky enough to be bestowed with the name Esme was my pink GPS. It was a Garmin (they’re WAY better than Tom-Toms!). I have an affinity for cleaning products (that I never really use), and one day I came across one that smelled divine AND was environmentally friendly. Naturally, I had to buy it. I also have an affinity for sizeable handbags so I can fit in everything I could possibly need for a day out… and if you were to ask my friends, probably everything I don’t need as well.

One of (this version of) Esme's many identical siblings

That day, I bought the heavenly-smelling cleaning sprays and placed them in my aforementioned sizeable black leather handbag with everything else and went about my day. By that I mean I went to Ikea to furniture shop for my new apartment. I made it through safely – didn’t bang into anyone or anything, didn’t spill my frozen yoghurt cone on my clothes or anything of the sort. As I paid for my purchases and thanked my lucky stars for the calamity-free shopping experience, I felt a gush of liquid shoot down my leg. I couldn’t possibly have peed myself… could I?

I sniffed (subtly) and I smelled the heavenly cleaning spray smell from earlier. Thank heavens, I hadn’t peed myself. That smells yummy, is all I could think. And then my brain clicked into gear and I went straight into panic mode and took back all the thanks to the Higher Being I had offered seconds before. I left my cart where it was, boxes and all, and rushed over to the nearest bench and placed my bag on it to make sure none of my belongings (all of my belongings? I definitely don’t pack light) were ruined. I pulled out some work papers, nailcutters, a pair of scissors, a stuffed toy, an empty Kids Meal bag from McDonald’s, a pill box… and then out came my beloved pink GPS.

That was the first Death of (an) Esme, and the one that sticks with me the most. I had even set my virtual car to a pink one I had downloaded to match… and it was all gone, just like that.

The End.

 

P.S. My current Esme is my Playbook, in case you were wondering! Iloveit.

My masterpiece

I’ve started an album for my shitty artwork. I posted this today, an (accidental) masterpiece I was very super proud of. But then…

My MASTERPIECE

Friend Asskicker: and what the hell were you attempting to draw in the picture you posted
Me: nothing i was scribbling
and then it was a bird
no?
u can’t see it
a peacock
or something
flying
no?
Friend Asskicker: LOL
something sure

You guys like it… right?