Day 162: aggro all round.

Not sure what it is about right now but I'm copping it from all sides. Today I wasn't feeling pissed off in the slightest. Yesterday's news of the loss of an old friend put some of my petty issues in perspective and made me rethink my approach of greater selfishness as the way forward. More selfishness is not what the world needs now. So I wasn't feeling angry today. There's a possibility I was feeling a little bit sad. But whatever it was, it hasn't agreed with some of the people around me. One co-worker heckled me for not walking the halls with a constant grin plastered on my face, while another repeatedly accused me of being negative when I patently was not. I just seem to be a shit-magnet right now. It's enough to drive a girl to drink. Not this girl obviously, but it would be understandable if a girl in similar circumstances might reach for a cuddly glass of red. Oh well, what can you do? Go to yoga, try and chill the flip out, and hope you'll be less misunderstood in future (or curl up into a ball and suck your thumb. That always worked when I was little.).

P.S. This is the current theme tune of my life, by my favourite band of the moment, The Soft Pack.

Day 161: oh man.

Today I found out an old primary school and family friend my age committed suicide over the weekend. He was a really cool guy, one of my very early boyfriends in fact (so early in fact that I never even kissed him. I think we were eleven, and the thought of kissing really freaked me out at that point). He was also always really funny and happy and up, and smart and a talented swimmer. All of which makes it even more appalling that such a bright spark of a boy would take his own life. It certainly puts my stupid party in perspective. I seem to remember my Mum had him pegged out as a husband for me. Now she's gone, and so is he. As Dad said on the phone, it is a part of life. This mental, difficult, painful, punishing, awesome, beautiful and constantly amazing life.

Day 160: positive steps.

As you may have noticed, I was pretty bummed by my party throwing experience. It left quite a lot of my inner pictures of friendly niceness shattered, with splatters of the sauce of human kindness on the wall (ew!). But today I decided that feeling bummed was not the way forward. From time to time we have run-ins with people being foul, selfish shits. It doesn't mean they have to bring us down with their low behaviour. So, I have resolved to withdraw a little from those repeat offenders, and learn a little from their shittiness; from now on I will not put myself out to accommodate them, I will put my own needs first. Being an astute bunch, you might have spotted that this approach is flawed, in that it perpetuates the very behaviour by which I have recently been so appalled. However, I don't plan to be selfish towards everyone, just a little more choosy with whom I go the extra mile for. Or invite to parties. Or probably in reality I'll get over this latest mortification and slip back into being nice to everyone and get done in by the same bunch of inconsiderate dicks, or another bunch, a few months down the track. Whatever. At least I'm not the one getting a reputation for being horrible. And until I do get done over again, I will be focusing on making other positive progress, with fitness, with my vocal training, with my band. So there. Step it up. Let's keep moving.

Day 159: reflecting on humanity.

Events of the last few days have given me cause to ponder the state of my surrounding humans. After my Mother died, I discovered that the person who genuinely cares about others and who acts compassionately towards them on an ongoing basis is an extremely rare, perhaps even imaginary, individual. No matter what state of warranted distress you are in, people apparently can only manage to help you out or cut you any slack for a very limited period of time before they forget what you're going through and become demanding again. I particularly noticed it in the workplace. And at the time I accepted it as the way of the world and a lesson in toughening up. Yesterday I was reminded of people's enormous capacity to put their own needs before anyone else's, regardless of what hurt that might inflict. Again, it's one of the ways of the world. If you don't look after yourself, who will? But then again, if we don't look after each other, where will we be? From my recent experiences, I'm not sure humans are in the best place. Or is it that I'm not in the best place to find good humans? Is Sydney an emotional graveyard full of feeling-devoid zombies going greyly about their very important personal business? Are there other societies where being courteous and caring towards others is an expected minimum of respectful and respectable behaviour? Or is it simply that, as someone famous once said (oft quoted by my Mum), "there aren't very many good anythings in the world"? I've kind of been entertaining a private fantasy recently, that somewhere in the world there is a pocket of awesome people who just get it, people that not everyone would love but that I would, and it's just a matter of time before I find them and live happily ever after. Or maybe I just have to travel around slowly collecting the scattered people of quality and somehow gather them into one place. Hmm. Smacks of a cult. And I can't really be bothered forming one. For now then, I will continue to ponder, and try and remember to treat the good people I do know as I myself would like to be treated; with just the tiniest bit of caring consideration.

Day 158: party fail.

Warning: this entry may be offensive to some readers. It contains untempered judgements on people's coolness and quality of character. Read on at your own risk.

I'm not joking. I'm about to lay some shit down. Because last night's party revealed some things about much of the company I keep, my so-called friends and family. It's not easy to write because it also reveals things about me; how I feel about people I know and how they behave, but more painfully, how people evidently feel about me.

Last night's party was a fail, and for a number of reasons. First, it failed because the theme was too cool for most people. It's an ugly thing to say, but it's true. The small handful of people who came and actually appreciated, understood and embraced the theme, now occupy a special place in my universe reserved for pure quality. Brains, a finely tuned sense of humour and the good breeding to turn up to a party when you say you will; these are qualities I admire. Second, the party failed because people are shit. Because on this occasion, and possibly for the first time in my life, I am not prepared to take the blame for our party fizzing. And neither should my other hosts. We put on a top notch party. The music was cool, the house looked amazing, the food was good and there was lots of it, the vibe and lighting was mellow, welcoming and pleasant, and, I thought, the guest list was made up of fun, quality individuals. Even our costumes were perfect. I'm telling you, this was a totally rad party waiting to happen, only none of my fuck-wit friends or family had the decency to show up. Actually, before I really offend every living soul I know, some people and factors need to be acknowledged. Those people that did show up (including exactly one brother) are awesome. That goes without saying. And I believe they all had quite a pleasant time. Those that didn't come but let me know why before time, either by RSVPing to that effect or with a simple, courteous phone call or text are also blameless. They did the right thing. But those who allowed me to believe they were coming through all my preparations, even talking on many occasions about costumes and saying "See you on Saturday", but then saw fit to simply give it a miss without a whisper of "Sorry babe I won't be making it after all", are people I now don't know if I really count as my friends. At least not ones I could rely upon for anything more than an air kiss on the street which, forgive me, doesn't represent a whole heap of friendship value to my mind. Evidently though too, I don't represent much value as a human being to any of them either. Not enough to put their own needs aside, even for a few hours at what would have been a fun event only a few blocks away. So yes, people I thought liked me don't give a shit. I am hurt, disappointed and saddened that what should have been the party of the year wasn't, because the people I know just weren't up to the job. On the upside, I do now know who my true friends are, and who to bother helping out in future or inviting to my next better than average party. All the other lame-os can seriously, go jump.

Day 157: self sabotage.

I think I've spoken about this before, perhaps many eons ago, and if I recall correctly more in the context of my old, bad, damaging drinking ways. It's a pattern I have recognised in myself, but had hoped was a feature of me+alcohol, as opposed to, well, just me I suppose. So today I say bugger, ironically because it marks a moment of enlightenment and discovery in this alcohol-free experiment. It was on Day one, the very first wonky and ill-considered step towards the sober light, that I wrote "presumably I will find out whether it is in fact the booze that's hindering my ability to get to where I want to go, or my own innate short-comings". Time to face a short-coming of the innate variety people. Actually, you don't have to, I do. It's become apparent to me that I have an inbuilt self sabotage reflex. It used to manifest in lawless drinking bouts. Now it just seems to take the form of anti-behaviour, things that are the opposite of what is good for me and the opposite of helping me make progress of the kind I might like. Things like not exercising even when I know exercise makes me feel and look good. Things like eating crap, when I actually feel much better eating healthy. Or not doing my singing practice, or stopping working hard on a project just when it might have a chance of getting somewhere. In fact it's almost like I have to do the bad stuff to an extent where it will actually take me backwards a little. So if I've been feeling energetic and healthy and thin, I have to eat chocolate and sugar and drink coffees and sloth about not exercising until I'm feeling fat and lethargic and angry. Or if the music's going well, I have to suddenly drop everything and discover a totally new hobby that will take my mind completely away from the task at hand. Why? Why can't I just help myself to be the best thing I can be? Why do I deliberately set myself up to fail? What kind of a psycho actively and routinely takes steps to make their own endeavours less likely to succeed? A me kind of psycho, even alcohol free. Well you can't blame alcohol for everything. Maybe it's more of an amplifier than the root of all evil; it just makes existing problems shout a bit louder. Yip, fine, great. But that doesn't help me with the little vandalism of my own happiness problem. At least if I can see it now a little more clearly, maybe I can do something about it? Is this one of those moments of clarity you hear people talking about? Don't know. All I can say is, not drinking just got hard on my arse.

Day 156: man how grumpy.

It seems regardless of drinking or not drinking, I am prone to quite violent mood swings. While changing my eating/drinking/exercising/whatevering habits will for a time give me an annoyingly unwaveringly sunny disposition, after a while my brain and body seem to adapt and eventually shift back to moody stormsville. Today is a case in point. After yesterday's excitement, and even with many fun prospects ahead (a party, international travel, life in general) today I managed to be pretty much consistently pissed off, dark and down on shit. Why? No reason. Except maybe having had a couple of days off vigorous exercise. But man, if I can't take two days off without turning psycho, well even that in itself pisses me off. And no, before anyone hazards a foolish (and today dangerous) guess, it's not PMT or any other bullshit scapegoat for people's bad moods. It's just that sometimes I get over it, "it" being absolutely everything that is familiar or hampering or saw it yesterday. Then my escape instinct kicks in, and because usually actual escape is out of the question, I get even more over everything. Boo. Not the best to be around. Just thank your luckies you're reading this from the other side of the internet. Now what to do of an angry evening? I'm heading to the magic shop in a last ditch attempt at finding some frickin white rubber mice. (A sprinkle of banish grumpy dust probably wouldn't hurt either.)