Not So Much a Big Whoop

I should have continued on with my last post, because it seems I wasn’t finished. Which I knew, but over 1,000 words and I start thinking “I’d better wrap this up”. Plus it was getting late.

I let my sister know I was posting the last post, because I didn’t want her to come across it by accident. Just in case. We weren’t raised together - she was adopted, and both she and her mother expressed support and love when they read that infamous blort on my escutcheon*. Which I wasn’t really expecting. Colour me bemused (which I think is a kind of teal blue with possible hints of purple-to-red).

* I don’t think it is a blort on anyone’s escutcheon, but given that I usually aim silly, it was an eye-opener. A blort is not quite a blot, in case you’re wondering.

I wrote it because of the articles on Peaches Geldof, true enough, but also a way of clearing my deck. I write best when I’m telling the truth (or as near to it as I can get, since my perceptions are a series of contingencies, with every apparent shade of grey). I feel like my past, the early part, is a neon sign over my head anyway, so what difference does it make if I tell people? Husbandly was a little less sanguine about it, because it’s private. He’s right on that, but he’s also wrong. If it’s out there, it’s out there. I don’t have to worry about it.

I tried for a while not telling anyone I knew. It’s my story and I can do what I like with it. Fair enough, but sometimes there are confusions when trying to explain my sister, foster “family” and how I had two mothers. Maybe I’m not as good at exposition as I think. And I’d worry about what “the truth” meant in someone else’s head.

I worked for someone I wouldn’t have trusted as far as I could throw her (which wouldn’t have been far, the big fat cow), who I was afraid would make this thing into a big deal. Would believe that my beginnings meant that I was untrustworthy, a sneak, a dead loss. Epithets aside, I might have been doing her a disservice, but too late now.

So, I didn’t tell people. But after all this time, it doesn’t feel as if it matters anymore. I have some bad days here and there, and I’m scared green that writing will bring some memories up to the surface. But meh, enough. It was something that loomed so large when I was younger, that it seemed to define me.

I look around the internet and there are lots of stories like mine, lots of people who we interact with as they tell a story like this, but often we never see or hear from them again. So sometimes, yes, that big problem or thing or set of issues can be definitional, and now I am regretting not putting all of this into my last post. Damn. Splinter.

I’m not anything special, or at least no more so than the next person. Sure I have something, but everyone has something. Every single person. So my thing might be big for me and something my opinion of, my feelings about, my handling of may change until the day I die, but it’s…like a birthmark. That itches.

I’m important to the people who are important to me, I’m loved and I love. That’ll do, space cadets, that’ll do.

I read an article about process and purpose. My foster mother made a big deal out of purpose, that you should live to find yours, but I don’t know whether she achieved hers either. But in my case, according to her, it was to not turn out like Mum. At least. Which is harsh, and reductionist. I’m a bit harsh when it comes to my foster mother - now a mother myself, I haven’t done and won’t do some of the things she did to me to make me a functional human being. That she managed that, credit where credit is due, is a tribute to her, but wowsers, negative reinforcement is a pretty crappy way to go.

The funny thing is, I think in terms of what I’m not, rather than what I am. I’m not mean, not horrible, not awful, not dumb. Writing all of this out has made me realise that I think of life as a moment-by-moment balance, where you try to do more of the right things than the wrong. Maybe I undervalue some of the nice things I pull off - at least to people looking on - but…it’s a team thing. I’m me, and there isn’t anyone else like me - but I’m part of a family, a group of friends, a society (if you like), and what I want is for my balance to come out right. Or write. Ba-doom tish. The one thing I do think of as something I have rather than something I’m not is the engine I have in my head. I think it’s for writing. So here I am.

If that’s my purpose, yeah righteo. I think it might be process. I don’t think you find out your purpose until you die, if then. If your work means you do something that fulfils you, then maybe that’s your purpose, but that seems very small to me. I’m not just at work, or at home, or making jokes with random strangers (which I do a lot); I’m all of those things put together. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because I damn sure can’t see everything about myself, or the results of how I interact with the world. I’m content to wait, and maybe I’ll find out, maybe I won’t.

For anyone who read the last one, and this one, aside from having a few moments of thinking “crap! It IS out there now!”, I hit a fragile peace around two minutes before posting it, and it’s lasted. I’ve been at home for the last two days, so maybe I’ll get wound up (again) going into work, but meh. Enough.

Love and peace, peeps.

I don't mind Sundays

It's Sunday, and if I were on a submarine at the bottom of the ocean cataloguing the world's great art treasures, I could burst into song and spend the rest of the day loathing my existence. Since I'm not, and I've been awake since one a.m., I'll natter away on the page until it's time to get up. It's currently 6 a.m. in the neighbourhood, but daylight saving ended this morning, so I've been lying around for six hours, not five.

I wrote a post a couple of years ago* about some of the dramas with hell woman. I feel a bit slow, but so it goes. It finally occurred to me the hell woman was (and presumably still is) a psychopath. Okay then. Glad I've settled that (and any lingering doubts about whether I might be one - yes, I did actually give that a whirl when hell woman was at her height of telling me and everyone else (who passed it along to me) exactly what kind of person I was). I feel slightly giggly - the kind of giggly where you realise something nice about yourself that is quite obvious (and small, really, in the scheme of things) once you see it.

*yes, yes! I have mentioned ex-workplace a lot. Probably still will.

After crowing about how terribly-gosh-darned organised I am with uni, I'm not. I have a fair amount of catching up to do. Today will be even more reading! To be followed by reading! As a break, I get to watch a film! And pull it apart into small pieces! Then write all of those small pieces down! After that, I may write a speech! Okay, not all of that is going to happen in one day - particularly not if I'm making a frittata for dinner (which won't take that long, but there must be some relaxation).

I've actually had a social life this week/weekend. Normally I don't get around much. My world is slightly small. Small lad and I saw The Lego Movie on Thursday. It was okay, but suffered by comparison to Clutch Powers (a different, much sillier lego adventure). That's an awful comparison, I guess, but I wasn't as enthused as I'd hoped. It wasn't as much unalloyed fun - which may have to do with the nature of the protagonist (ooh, look at that long word) and the cringing awkwardness of some of the situations he finds himself in.

That said, I'm in my groove now, and I have to say I LOATHED the switch to the somewhat mawkish live action towards the end. To be followed by the mawkish-clearly-we're-making-a-point-about-how-special-everyone-is-and-you-should-never-lose-your-childish-innocence-and-imagination. The Incredibles managed the special part better, and the rest felt like a tacked-on attempt to avoid being a boilerplate animated feature. Maybe so, but it didn't work for me, although small lad had no complaints.

I suppose I'm showing my own bias here, because a lot of comedy now seems to be contingent upon excruciating awareness of social situations not shared by a comedic character. Where the humour involves the stupidity of a central character, who persists in believing in their own ... rightness. The smart set remain just as right themselves. Which is all standard comedy fare, but the revelation of astute observation by the "dumb" character is often absent. On the most basic level, it's poking fun at the eejit, which is, regardless of how you dress it, mean in a three piece suit. There is no reaffirmation of the norm on laughing, or a "win" by an underdog, so that's unsettling. Like I said, my own bias, but I can't help but contrast Prince George in Blackadder the Third - clearly a twit, but completely loveable. Even the upper class twits of Monty Python were buffoons rather than identifiable people.

Anyhoo, on Thursday I went to Newtown for lunch with a friend and we blathered over our marvellous tasting plate sharing things. Dessert undid us both: you could feed a family of four on one of them, and we ordered one each. But I can recommend the sticky black rice pudding with toasted coconut flakes and some kind of stewed peaches (I want to say a curry motif on the peaches, but don't think that was quite it), also the saffron and cardamom creme brûlée with spicy caramel popcorn and fig jam. My mouth is watering.

Yesterday involved a Minecraft day with a bunch of other kids, Minecraft being one of small lad's current enthusiasms. It felt a little bizarre walking into the Room of Many PC's. I had a vision of both of us doing this over many years as small lad got taller and taller. He had an absolute ball, although the pocket watch from Paddy's market before we went home overshadowed the day a little. He had asked for one for Christmas, but I hadn't found any...and this way he picked one he really liked. When I looked at it properly, he picked something so very him. Yay for him to find something.

I wandered around the Powerhouse Museum while he was building a Rocket Mansion and then watched Shadow of a Doubt on my iPad. The plan was to read more things, but the mood lighting in the museum wasn't really conducive. Its a good film, but I had to wonder at one point: the villain grabs the heroine by the face in one hand, leaning in threateningly as he talks to her. Her soon-to-be-boyfriend (well he is by the end) just stands there while this is going on. Villainous uncle looks like he's trying to lift his niece off the ground by her jaw, and loverboy doesn't say so much as a "DUUUDE!"?

Don't get me wrong, the threat works in drawing out the tension, but it's a jarring behaviour fail - loverboy doesn't so much as twitch. Unless of course I missed it. I moved on to Rear Window after that, but it was my afternoon sleepy time from halfway through Shadow. So, class all the way, I fell asleep huddled on a lounge in the middle of the Powerhouse Museum. Not once, but several times. All in all, I spent about four hours next to the King's cinema exhibit, and at one stage I conked for about three-quarters of an hour. At the end of that catnap, one leg was asleep, and three staff members walked past in about five minutes, with a smile for me as they did...yep, class all the way. I only hope I didn't fart while I was out - because you just know that would be when someone was walking by.

So it's now 7:20, and I'm going to have breakfast. Probably not frittata, but there may be bacon. And muffins. Take care.