Lie baby lie, disco inferno

Je déteste les mouchoirs.

I’m not saying I’m completely opposed to a little embellishment here and there for the purpose of a good anecdote, or for a little good natured trickery – even though said trickery is often directed at me…. the problem being, I trust a person until they give me a reason not to. I’ve always started with the assumption that one is more likely to tell the truth and be honest rather than lie and be deceitful. Hence, to the seasoned trickster, I can appear extremely gullible.

For example, when I was about 10 years old and had just sat down in class eager and ready to learn, the teacher, who I will call McChief-Trickster, announced we had an impromptu test. Queue all the kids slumping into their chairs and yelling, “Nooooo sir, that is so unfair!” – the exception being me, proclaiming an excited, “YES!” and resisting the urge to do a little happy dance.

After 3 or 4 questions, all relating to recent course material [i.e this test seemed legit], McChief-Trickster asks, “Please write down the name of the boy or girl that you like at the moment.” I was utterly confused as to why this was a question in the test, but I wasn’t about to risk losing a mark, so without too much hesitation, I wrote the name down of one of the boys from class whom I thought was cute and one of the least annoying ones. Of course, most of the class started shouting out: “You’re kidding right?!” or “I’m not doing that!” Until McChief-Trickster yelled, in his chiefy trickstery way, “April Fool’s Day… pencils down class!” His belly wobbled a bit at the result of his proud laughter at having tricked a bunch of 10 year olds.

Laughter also sets in amongst my classmates at the realisation they had all been fooled and then there was a unison sigh of relief at it in fact not being a real test. Meanwhile, I was completely outraged firstly by the latter point, but also by the fact that I had been undoubtably tricked by McChief-Trickster – at which point the shoeless kid [I went to primary school in north Queensland] next to me yelled, “Oh my god, McAwkward wrote her crush down!”

This resulted in about 3 or 4 boys trying to grab my fake test paper to see who they could tease me about. I was so above crushes and boys, I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone reading the answer. So… I ate it. Yes – I ate the piece of paper.

However, despite that fact that lies for the purpose of good natured trickery has on occasion caused me to eat test papers, I can still see the purpose of bending the truth every now and then for amusement or entertainment.

But not including these types of situations, where the act of lying  is purely for amusement, trickery or for anecdotal purposes etc, why has society progressed in such a way where sooo many people insist on lying!

Of course, everyone has lied at one point or another (and on a daily basis according to google). None of us are perfect, and even the best of us have done it… that’s right, even I have lied – which I guess makes me a hypocrite.

There are three lies I have told that haunt me to this very day (testament to the fact that telling lies will EAT YOU UP PEOPLE – I’m pretty sure that my stress pimples are a result of the guilt I suffer on a daily basis from the lies I am about to divulge):

1) I stole $2 from my Mum’s purse because I desperately wanted the final egg person from the toy coin dispenser to complete my set and when she queried where I had got the money from, I told her that I found it on the front lawn of the next door neighbour. She then made me go next door and give them the $2 I “found in their front lawn.” – so not only do I feel bad for stealing and then lying to my Mum, but I also feel bad for then giving her money away to the neighbour to keep my lie covered up.

2) I arrived at school on a Monday morning and a boy in my class told me he saw me on Saturday night sitting next to my letter box, pretending to be a wolf by howling at the moon, and I told him, “As if that was me you loser! It must have been one of my freak sisters, they do immature things like that all the time because, you know, like, they’re immature babies.” To this day that loser must think it is in fact one of my sisters that is insane, and not me. Oh the guilt – who’s the loser now.

3) One sunny Sunday afternoon I went to the park to play with the neighbourhood kids (aka meet my best friend and discuss adulty things and point out all the other kids acting immature), to be greeted by my best friend saying, “Your sisters just gave my brother [who was in year 7 and two years above us] a love letter they said you wrote to him!” Being so embarrassed by the fact that I had a crush on her brother and wanting to desperately deny the fact that I had spent 3 hours the night before writing a love letter and drawing little pictures all over it of her brother and I being a couple, I again blamed my sisters – telling her that they obviously wrote it themselves as a cruel joke to both myself and her brother. My poor sisters, who were only trying to bring true love together, must by this point have been certain I would do and say anything to protect my own reputation [oh yeah – that also reminds me of the time I used McCool as a shield to a charging dog that looked like it was going to attack us… and then it bit her, but on y va].

And so, because I am a kind person (although that doesn’t guarantee I won’t use you as a shield if my life depended upon it) and I don’t want you to have to suffer with the guilt of having told a lie, I’ve set out below, what I can only assume are common situations in which we are all likely to find ourselves in where one may be prone to lying in, and then show how easy it is to just tell the truth!

“Yeah, I’m just around the corner and I’m totally not hungover.”

You’re due to have brunch with your friends at 10am on a Sunday morning and you wake up to a text at 10am saying “Hey, I’m here – are you close?”.

• Resist the urge to text: “Yeah, about 5 minutes away!” Whilst jumping out of bed, grabbing your keys and running out the house in last night’s clothes.
• When in fact the truth is: “Oh bullocks! I just got to bed like 2 hours ago and I was fast asleep! I look like hell so give me at least 30 minutes to try and turn this around.” Then 5 minutes later, “In fact, make that 45 minutes, I just stood up and I’m still drunk.”

“Yeah, I’m too busy with world peace tonight, sorry.”

It’s Saturday afternoon, your friend knows you have no plans for the night and asks you if you want to go out.

• Resist the urge to inform them: “Actually, there is a terribly important problem going on somewhere in the world, people are dying, starving and cold, and I feel I must stay in tonight to devise a way to fix all of this and to also make world peace at the same time – I couldn’t possibly go out and have fun when I know there are problems like this going on in the world. Peace man.”
• When in fact the truth is: “I can’t be bothered putting on clothes tonight and I want to stay home and watch movies and unnecessarily eat an entire bag of sultanas on account of the world being a terrible place to live due to the few kilos I’ve put on and my stress pimples. Woe is me.”

“I have to run now and save some animals, and also, I’m a ‘real lady like type’ lady… this is why I made you this roast and I’m wearing make-up.”

You’re at your new boyfriend’s house and you realise that failing to mention you are gluten intolerant at lunch so that he wouldn’t think you’re annoying was a bad move, because now you can feel the onset of fartingitis (and you know they won’t be silent), and you are trying this new thing with said boyfriend, where you act like a proper lady, so you start to freak out.

• Resist the urge to: pretend you forgot to feed your rabbits and must immediately leave to go and feed them, otherwise you will start to cry over their hunger pain, and say as you’re running out the door, “I just care so much about the animals, it’s an emergency!”
• When in fact the truth would be to tell him: “I’m sorry, but I can’t actually eat gluten, and now my insides are dying because I was trying to be impressive to you, but eating whatever you do, and I’m sorry, but there are about to be some horrible noises if I am to continue hanging out with you.” Then fart like a mo-fo.

I can guarantee you that opting for the truth option will ensure that you will never be doubted and always trusted, perhaps on occasions at the cost of your dignity… but I would prefer to live in a world with undignified truthful people then dignified deceitful people. Just saying.

Our friends are really important to Insane and I

Every now and then I get a little overwhelmed by how much I love my friends. Seriously – just thinking about them or reminiscing over times spent together [totally just got Graduation by Vitamin C stuck in my head when I wrote that – note I also had to google the lyrics to find out the name of that song… who the heck is Vitamin C?!] makes me shed tears of happiness [I have to distinguish between the types of tears I get, because I get a lot, and for very different reasons].

My friends are really important to me and my sanity – although not sure if “sanity” is the most appropriate choice of word, since I actually feel insane majority of the time… so perhaps what I should have said is, my friends are really important to me and my insanity – not that my friends make me insane, but my friends are important to Insane and I [see what I did there – because I’m insane, I’ve actually turned my insanity into an actual separate entity that also appreciates my friends… so really I should say, our friends… therefore, in summary, what I should have said is, our friends are really important to Insane and I].

I imagine Insane looking something like this if he was to take a physical form. I think he’s cute.

Anyway, without meaning to dedicate an entire paragraph to analysing my own sentence, I’ll move on.

I feel incredibly lucky to have the particular friends that I do. One of the great things about getting old, is that you really do have the choice about the people you award friendship status – not just any jerk can be our friend, because, you know, we’re a couple of pretty awesome entities, Insane and I. But in all seriousness, my friends aren’t my friends as a result of me believing I’m freakin awesome, but because they’re the awesome ones.

Anais Nin put it beautifully when she said, “… there were no words by which to possess each other… but only one ritual, a joyous, joyous impaling of woman on a man’s sensual mast.” Granted, that has nothing at all to do with friendship, I just really wanted to write out the words of one of my favourite sentences written by Anais Nin… However, she did also write something beautiful in respect to friendship:

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

How beautiful it is to imagine that each friend represents a world within us – a world not born until their arrival. My experiences would generally equate friendship with happiness, but to say that my friends help me to find happiness in life, is a huge understatement of the role my peeps actually play in my life. My friendships mean more to me than simply happiness.

This is partly from my view that happiness shouldn’t be dependent upon other people in your life – I’m not saying that we can’t obtain happiness from friendships, but I don’t think the former should depend on the latter – but it is more to do with the fact that my friendships go deeper than just bringing me happiness. My friendships have contributed to an array of emotions, at differing ends of the “emotion spectrum”, which have by that effect contributed to my memories, experiences, growth and enjoyment of life. They have contributed to me.

I treasure the feeling of happiness, but I have learnt to also treasure a full spectrum of emotions – since I’m going to get them whether I treasure them or not plus I would prefer to have the ability to feel various types of emotions than none at all. Of course, when I am feeling sad, lonely or numb, for example, I’m not necessarily always appreciating those feelings at the time, but one of the things I have learnt about myself is that I do go through periods or moments of being consumed by these feelings, so I may as well see the positives that come from that. For example, knowing and appreciating when I am feeling happy, or using those feelings of sadness, loneliness or numbness to motivate me to change something for the better in my life. But I’m digressing from my initial point that my friendships mean more to me than simply happiness.

I think this is why I particularly like the way Anais Nin writes about friends. We are our own person, and we can function perfectly ok before a friend enters our life… but upon the meeting of this person, new possibilities are presented, new experiences occur, and new memories are formed – we function not just perfectly ok, but perfectly discovered. Each friend, past or present, represents a world within us, ignited. Each friend of the future, represents a world within us, yet to be discovered.

Group hug guys.

Having ever been liked by Foe was a calamity

I have a book.

Inside said book are essays on various poets from history, followed by some of the poet’s works.

Over the weekend I was reading poetry out loud to McCool – one of us likes the sound of my voice, take your guess at which one – and we stumbled upon Marianne Moore’s, To be Liked by You Would be a Calamity. I loved it purely by title alone. The poem in its entirety goes:

“Attack is more piquant than concord,” but when

You tell me frankly that you would like to feel

My flesh beneath your feet,

I’m all abroad – I can put my weapon up and

Bow you out.

Geticulation – it is half the language.

Let unsheathed gesticulation be the steel

Your courtesy must meet,

Since in your hearing words are mute, which to my senses

Are a shout.

c’est ma copine, Marianne Moore

I wish I could insult as poetically has Marianne – both wit and subtlety do not by any means constitute my list of fortes.

“Attack is more piquant than concord” is a quote taken from Thomas Hardy’s novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes. The context is where a lady receives a romantic letter from a guy who proclaims her to be his future wife at the same time that she sees an article in the newspaper written by a man, who sharply criticises her book. The lady falls to sleep that night, loving the writer of the letter, but thinking of the writer of the article and ultimately the newspaper guy ignites her passion. Basically, what Hardy seems to be suggesting through this work, is that a man who uses words aggressively is more stimulating and exciting to a lady than a man who uses harmony and courtesy.

In Marianne’s poem, being up against an attitude of aggression, Marianne employ’s gesture to refuse to engage in the violence. It’s brilliant. I love the line, “Since in your hearing words are mute, which to my senses Are a shout” (almost as much as I love the title). Why waste words on people who choose to engage with an aggressive attitude, seemingly incapable of using courtesy, tact or creative words that seek understanding or reconciliation? Not only are words sometimes a waste on aggressive people, in a way, it could also be considered unfair to them (as the old saying goes, “Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.”) – either way, Marianne refuses to engage in violence through her depiction of bowing her foe out, using gesture as a sword and shield instead of words.

Marianne is my new best-dead-and-from-the-past-friend [i.e. Don’t worry McBestie – your position as best-friend will only be jeopardised once you are dead]. I couldn’t possibly relay to you in written words, just how much I love this poem and Marianne for having written it. I’ll try with a swear word… I fucking love it. Nope, still not quite there. I feel like the only way I could portray in a real and genuine way how much I love this poem, is to do so by writing about a part of my past I normally like to keep packed away in a tight little jar, out of sight.

a blank space, depicting the amount of time it took for me to start writing the next paragraph – a fucking long time (Sorry for swearing – but if you were offended by my swearing, then I’m not sorry)

Ok. breath. Even though I realised just before writing the paragraph above why this poem has resonated with me, and that I need to write about this one particular part of my past that I normally keep hidden away, doing this is actually quite difficult. I actually feel slightly awkward, the way I do when I’m talking to someone and I need to bring up something that I feel slightly weird about doing so (or have just overanalysed the shit out of leading up to it) – I get awkward as shit and get the other person all worried over nothing due to said awkwardness. Anyway, I feel that awkwardness right now… and feeling pretty talented to be able to get awkward when writing [there’s no one even around dude!]. I guess that’s why they call me McAwkward… wait, that was me that calls me McAwkward.

Right. Once upon a time, there was a naïve, eager to please 14 year old girl with low self-esteem and who still believed in god, that fell for a 21 year old guy at youth group. Let’s call the girl, well, no need to come up with names, because we all know it’s me. Let’s call the guy, Foe. I thought I was in love with Foe. I know I did love him and care for him on some kind of level, but I also know that I thought he loved me, and that I thought I was therefore lucky because no one could ever love me and want to be with me [ridiculous I know – I’m actually pretty hot to trot]. Anyway, I ended up marrying Foe when I was 19. Partly because some days I thought I loved him and wanted to be with him forever, partly because I thought no one else would want to marry me, partly because we had an engagement party and I didn’t know the etiquette on giving back gifts, partly because a lot of my close friends were getting married, and partly because we had had sex and therefore I had to marry him so I could try and get rid of the guilt.

I say it that way because it wasn’t only post marriage that I realised Foe was my foe. I knew pretty much as soon as we were dating, when I was 15. I knew when he proposed. I can remember knowing this on certain days. Yet, I stayed with him, and said yes to his proposal because I was an expert at making excuses for him and justifying his behaviour. I remember I tried to tell Foe several times that the things he would say to me, and the things he would do, were really hurtful, but he would say, “Well, you’ve put on weight since we first got together and that’s hurtful to me. So if you’re going to treat me with no respect, then I’m not going to treat you with any.” Of course, because I thought I was fat, I would think, oh my gosh, he’s right, I’m showing him no respect looking like this. My verbal sword was clearly always going to be waste on Foe. I was also too preoccupied by not wanting to hurt him.

Of all the physically abusive behaviour of Foe, his hypocrisies and chauvinistic attitude, it was his words that hurt the most, and still affect me to this day. There is no need for me to set them out here. They are words that don’t deserve the privilege of appearing here, never mind having ever been uttered out of a human being’s mouth to begin with. I was always really confused by the fact that someone who would say he loved me, could treat me like he hated me more than anything else in the entire world. It’s like his behaviour and words were of a world I wasn’t born into and could never quite understand them, or at least the reasoning behind them.

When I thought I loved him and that he loved me, I stayed with him anyway (also not wanting to disappoint god). Not long after I realised that I didn’t actually love him, and that if there was a god that wanted me to live the rest of my life with Foe, that I would prefer to live my life not according to such a god’s rules, I left him. Of course the depression that eventually came to really embed itself in after marriage also definitely helped in making that initial step of leaving Foe – I recognised how unhappy I really was and that even if leaving him meant I would be single forever (still believing no one could possibly want to be with me) I preferred the idea of being single and having the chance to be happy and to be me.

I have been Foe-free for over five years now and feel like the person who married him is not at all the person I am today. Honestly, when I think about memories from that time of my life, it feels like I’m thinking about someone else’s memories. I am a much stronger and confident person to who I was then, think for myself and started figuring out who I really am as soon as I left Foe. I never wanted to waste much time at all dwelling over it, feeling sad about it, regretting it or feeling angry at Foe, because that all seemed like a massive waste of time and energy.

However, it’s the times when I feel like not leaving the house, because I think I’m too fat and ugly to be seen, times when I keep my opinions or thoughts to myself, because I think I’m too stupid and the occasions since then when I have managed to have real feelings for someone, but I end up just shutting down and feeling nothing… it’s those kinds of times  that sometimes cause me to get really hurt and angry at Foe and feel incredibly stupid for ever having been with him and marrying him. Sometimes I have felt like yelling at him and telling him all the horrible things he did and said, make him realise how much it has affected me, in terms of still hearing in my mind the ridiculous things he would say to me and the fact that I find it difficult to let myself fall in love with anyone, to tell him that what he said isn’t true and to try and teach him all the aspects of his personality that are entirely rude, aggressive, sexist and stupid.

Having ever been liked by Foe was a calamity. For a really long time, as you can tell, a part of me has felt the need to have to tell him just how much of a calamity it was. I have dreams sometimes where I do exactly that. However, through Marianne’s witty and sophisticated words, I have realised that it’s not important at all that I ever have the chance to use my words against Foe, in fact my words would be wasted on him – he clearly lacked intelligence and if I couldn’t understand his behaviour or use of words then, then my guess is that the case would be no different now or in the future – so rather, I will be satisfied with bowing Foe out. In fact, the day I left Foe was me bowing him out – the steel that his “courtesy” met and my refusal to engage with his aggression.

Cause I’m a croissant eating criminal

I was recently having a good old chin-wag with a friend, McPerfect, in relation to what we would do with our lives if money was no object, and whenever I am involved in a conversation that has a “if you could do anything, be anything or be anywhere” undertone to it, I will inevitably mention Paris.

My lover, Paris, and I

One day I WILL live in Paris – I know this for certain. However, what I will do for work in Paris, I am not so certain about on account of indecision over whether I should continue with my “career path” whilst living in Paris, or whether I should take a break from said career path to pursue other interests (and even though Paris is awhile away, I am the sort of person that gets fixated on ideas and will think about it A LOT).

Currently I am preferring the idea of not taking a career break, and to continue with other interests on the side. However, I know that will be a lot easier said than done, considering that I am not fluent in French and come from a common law, not civil law, jurisdiction. Anyway, I digress. So I was talking to McPerfect about wanting to live and work in Paris, and he mentioned that one of his friends managed to get a legal job and didn’t speak French, but was extremely lucky to do so. So at that point I proclaimed to McPerfect that I will instead sell croissants to make a living in Paris….

Fucking, so amazing. So amazing I need to swear.

The mention of croissants, drew us away from our conversation on life and our dreams, and we became focused entirely on croissants. Who wouldn’t be? Fresh, buttery, flaky, layered doughy goodness… Worthy enough to distract any normal human – even McPerfect - from any important subject… even world peace. In fact, I’m pretty sure if we made croissants for everybody and had an abundant supply of them all over the world, we would have world peace. Yes, I definitely think this to be accurate – I should probably seriously think about getting a patent over the idea and then sell the right to supply croissants for world peace (I’ll call it the “World Peace through Croissants Model”). But I wouldn’t sell the right for money, because that would make me slightly evil, trying to make money off creating world peace… No no, I would ask for macarons in exchange. Salted caramel or pistachio flavoured macrons. But I digress again.

The discussion of croissants caused me to remember the last time I actually ate one. And I remembered that the last time I ate a croissant corresponds with the time I became an outlaw/ gangsta/ party animal. It was just over 3 years ago [I’m gluten intolerant so if I personally eat croissants, it doesn’t lead to world peace, it leads to World War III].

It was on a weekend trip to Melbourne, visiting McCool. There were a number of things that occurred that weekend that provided me with enough street cred to last me at least 5 years [and the state of my iphone’s screen also gives me 5 years of street cred, thus I am a real life gangsta until at least 2020].

I arrived in Melbourne around 11pm on a Friday night  – and back in those days, I was often in bed by such an outrageous time. But since I was only in Melbourne for the weekend, we wanted to make the most of every hour, and planned on going out both nights. So I arrived, we put on our party dresses, went to a cocktail bar, and… I started to fall asleep – queue espresso martinis! After a couple of those and having made it past that threshold of either falling asleep or continuing until the sun comes up, I was on fire and good to go… We continued to sit and drink cocktails. We planned on staying until the bar closed: 6am. I had never stayed up that late before! I was excited. If I could make it, then I could officially consider myself a crazy party animal and have something to write a facebook status about that would make me look cool.

And, made it is what I did. McCool and I stumbled walked out on closing. The sun was almost coming up. It was too much for me to handle – the excitement at being an official party animal was simply too much to handle on my own. I text messaged McBestie: “It’s 6am and I am still out! I am such a rebel!” McCool laughed at me.

But my newfound rebelish ways did not end there. It was 6am, we were not ready to go home and we were craving oysters. So off we went to the markets where bakers, fishermen and fruit people were getting ready to sell their amazing fresh produce. Nothing was open yet, so we knocked on the door to a fish stall and asked if we could buy some oysters. We received 24 oysters in exchange for 2 kisses. Kidding. They exchanged the oysters for our money. We sat down and demolished the oysters, one by one. I can still vividly remember them to this day. They were the fattest, juiciest, most fresh oysters I have ever had in my life. They hit the spot. Or so I thought, until we walked past a tray of freshly baked croissants.

They were basically glowing, sending out a beam of light so bright, no one could ignore it. And the smell. Oh my god. They stopped us in our tracks. We looked at the croissants. We looked at each other. We looked around. No one. So, obviously, we each quickly picked up a croissant and despite no one being around to witness or chase us, we legged it. The excitement of having just stolen a croissant and the energy from 12 oysters and several espresso martinis flowing through our blood, caused us to run like the wind, giggling like a couple of mad women.

The excitement was again too much to handle alone: “OMG! I still haven’t been home and I just ate 12 oysters and stole a croissant! I don’t even know who I am anymore, but I like it! We totally have to go out until 6am when I visit you!”

McCool and I hailed a taxi and stuffed our faces with the croissants. Words cannot describe how amazing the experience was. Of course it wasn’t long until I ruined all the fun for my sister when my body started to reject the croissant… But I’m pretty sure the farting just added to my new gangsta identity. I’ve heard they fart a lot.

And that my friends, is the story of my last croissant, that I STOLE, and why I should probably seriously consider legally changing my name from McAwkward to “McBandit – a gangsta on the run”.

A photo taken of me recently – look how gangsta I am.

It was also the first of MANY, MANY nights ending at 6am.

We’ve all thought someone cut off our leg at one point in time or another…

Disclaimer: whilst reading this, you may find yourself at times thoroughly confused (a consequence of the state of mind I am currently in). So don’t say I didn’t warn you… Now you can’t sue me. Sucker.

Imagine yourself walking through a green grassed park – a fairly sparse park, with a perfectly flat ground.

Now imagine that literally within a fraction of a second you have collapsed to the ground, unable to walk, one leg in front of you and the other not in sight.

A perfectly sound and logical thought process would then instantly cause anyone to reach the following conclusion… “SOMEONE JUST CUT OFF MY LEG!!” Right?

McLogic might reign in and say something along the lines of, “Oh yeah? Well then where is your leg now?”

“THEY RAN AWAY WITH IT!”

“I can’t see anybody for miles, never mind somebody running with your leg.”

…. Then that awkward moment when you realise you fell into a massively long and skinny hole – exactly the right size for your entire leg to be consumed by. “OH, WAIT, MY LEG IS JUST DOWN THIS MASSIVE HOLE. I’M OK… AND NOT SURE WHY I AM STILL YELLING.”

I am guessing everyone can relate with that little scenario – what with all the random leg sized holes everywhere and the perfectly sound belief that someone could cut your leg off in less than a second and then vanish into thin air… Well now that I have made you realise that we each have at least one similar life experience and thus have you hooked by the feeling of being able to relate to me… I want to talk about holes some more.

Holes. They are funny things.

Apparently they are good for hiding dead bodies in. I learnt this little piece of information after explaining to someone what Coober Pedy looks like (a mining town in the middle of Australia) – like a naughty dogs back yard… Dirt, holes and piles of dirt. I was advised that if I ever wanted to hide a dead body, one of the many holes on the outskirts of Coober Pedy would be perfect as it would be almost impossible to find someone, and even if the authorities were tipped off, it would be too hot and horrible for anyone to be bothered to go searching.

I also once thought I could make a pool using the hole in my backyard. I imagined that once I had finished filling in the hole with water, I would be having parties like this:

… except we would all be 10 and drinking cordial

Instead, what resulted was a mud bath for one:

:… yes, I looked like a [insert name of whatever animal that is] when I was 10

The reason why holes have been on my mind this week, however, is not because I’m planning on cutting someone’s leg off, figuring out where to dump the leg, or where to have a bath to clean off all the blood of my victim. No. It is not. These memories of physical holes were triggered by the metaphorical hole I feel like I have been on the verge of falling into on and off for the past few weeks. I’ve been in that hole several times before, so I know what it is like just before it happens, and I also know how hard it can be to get back out of it. So this time, when I realised I was standing dangerously close to it, I started to try and think about how and why I was there (is there just a simple explanation that I am over analysing?), what I can do about it, and whether I should even be doing anything about it (instead this time, trying to utilise it and to just “go with it”).

Most of all, I feel really outwardly disgusting (a horribly superficial issue to have – but honestly, it’s one of the things that consumes me) and lonely, or at least I am afraid of feeling lonely.

I’m not afraid of being or feeling alone – I think that is something different, or at least different to the loneliness I am talking about. I’m afraid of feeling lonely – left to the will of my mind. I think a lot of any unhappiness I have experienced has come from loneliness – loneliness that stems from spending time on questioning aspects about my existence or the world; questioning whether I should be asking those questions; questioning whether the answers to those questions mean anything; and, if upon deciding that they do, agonising over what I can do to make a difference anyway. WHY? All the time. It’s, “WHY?”. This makes me feel lonely, and to a certain extent, also incredibly selfish, being so wrapped up in my own thoughts and thinking that I actually have something unique and special to offer.

Maybe I shouldn’t be scared of loneliness – if loneliness leads to unhappiness, then I guess it is important because experiencing unhappiness means I know what happiness is when I experience that, and also unhappiness might cause me to make positive changes or action. And perhaps loneliness is inevitable anyway – where would we all be if no one ever stopped to question things – even if the answers are negative, isn’t that where a lot of ideas and insight stem from? Who am I to think I have some unique burdensome challenge to overcome by dealing with this feeling of loneliness?

So should I embrace the way I feel or completely extirpated it from my mind? I think to the extent that it makes me question important things in life, then sure, embrace it… Just because certain questions may result in negative answers, well, that’s the reality of life, and they may cause us to come up with new ideas or to make positive changes in our own lives or even in a more broader way. However, how do we decide what are important things to question? If I ask myself, “Why am I so fat?” – who decides whether that is an important question or not? What’s wrong with deciding you are fat and then working out what to do to make you less fat? Is it only ok if society sees you as fat? If thinking about the answers only makes you feel down, is that worth it if you end up becoming less fat and therefore physically healthier – or is anything that makes you feel so shit about yourself never worth it? There are no easy answers on how to deal with feelings of sadness, loss, or anxiety, except maybe to just accept them as valuable and necessary to a meaningful life.

“The vanity of existence is revealed in the whole form existence assumes: in the infiniteness of time and space contrasted with the finiteness of the individual in both; in the fleeting present as the sole form in which actuality exists; in the contingency and relativity of all things; in continual becoming without being; in continual desire without satisfaction; in the continual frustration of striving of which life consists.” Arthur Schopenhauer, “On The Vanity Of Existence”

Schopenhauer sees the very nature of existence as vain and meaningless – obviously a pretty pessimistic view, but perhaps a pessimistic view is important to gain different insight into our world. Is it the world around us that is “screwed up” or the will of our own minds letting us down? Am I on a search for meanings, reacting to my social surroundings and situation, or is there something wrong with my mind? OR… am I just simply overcomplicating and over analysing what in actual fact is a perfectly “normal” feeling of sadness and anxiety over something in particular, and thus just need to let myself feel it and then force myself to “snap out of it” if it carries on too long? (i.e. Am I just sad about McCool leaving because I will miss her, and since I got myself into a state of sadness over it – completely justifiable and understandable – I just started to feel sad for other reasons too – not so justifiable and understandable?)

I think I need to distinguish between states of my mind that are rational and objectively warranted, and those that are not. Easier said than done. It seems odd that the same mind that I have no free will over that causes me to be in a state that is irrational and unwarranted, is the same mind that I will use to have firstly decided my state is irrational and unwarranted, and subsequently attempt to “exert control” over it by deciding this and therefore attempting to ignore it or snap out of it – as opposed to embracing it as something that could be worked with and that has great potential; a necessary for a coherent and meaningful life.

I think if we all shared our feelings of loneliness more, this would deepen our understanding of each other and help us not feel so overwhelmed by our own loneliness – hence why I am writing this (I already feel much better). I guess that is where being alone can also play a factor in this piece, because if we aren’t alone, then we have someone to talk to about these things and share our thoughts with, and thus help us not to get so bogged down in our own personal loneliness.

Bound for the big rock…

If the idea of experiencing the vast, remote, arid area of Australia along with its poisonous snakes and spiders, crocodiles, crazy serial tourist killers and cancer giving sun rays (“the outback”), scares you… Well, it shouldn’t. Despite the fact that you may die from one of many causes – one being that you may run out of petrol, on account of petrol stations being a rare commodity within the outback (and not having the foresight to pack your own emergency cans of petrol), then go walking for help, but because there are no signs of existence for miles, the desert and the sun as a dynamic duo suck the life out of you – this definitely does not mean that you should fear the outback.

As my great great great great great great great grandfather, Michel de Montaigne, once said [anyone who talks so much about farting, toilets and bottoms so much must be related to me]: “A man who fears suffering, is already suffering from what he fears.”

A life of suffering from what you fear may not only cause a lot of anxiety and concern, but it seems highly likely that it would also hold you back from experiences that may turn out to be some of your best! Despite a probably quite rational association of a threat of harm, even to the extent of death, to the outback, I am here to tell you… Fear not little one, go forth and tackle the outback – I did. I survived. I conquered. I had the time of my life.

McCool and I decided that we would go on an outback road trip, leaving from Adelaide, up to Alice Springs via Ayres Rock and back down to Adelaide. We picked up our hire car, a small Holden Barina [our first mistake], and with a “Of course we won’t drive on any dirt roads” reassurance to the hire company, we were off!

The only plans we had were to make it to Alice Springs for New Year’s Eve – that being the middle of our trip – to swim in as many water holes as possible and write poetry. We did none of those things. Instead we made it to Ayres Rock for New Year’s Eve, found only dried out holes with no water to be seen anywhere and wrote a couple of new year resolutions (most of which I have already broken) and a list of things we would do if we had many lifetimes to live (including buying the pub at Carrieton – a town with about 5 houses from memory – and selling martinis and amazing meals made from local produce).

That’s not to say though that we didn’t have the time of our lives and had we been more prepared then we would have missed out on all of the following:

-          scaling the rocks of a sacred canyon;

-          being rescued, which eventuated into a private guided tour around Arkaroola, a wildlife sanctuary in the Flinders Ranges, where we also got to hold tame wombats and have a private sitting with the managers in the restaurant discussing all of life’s stories over food and a bottle of red;

-          attending a rodeo that ended in a dance party under the night sky, followed by an after party in the back of  utes in a paddock (where we also learnt that outback guys like to pick girls up, literally… they make the men extra strong out there – it’s great);

-          sprinting down the middle of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere wearing only our shoes and underwear (seriously you have to try it – revitalising); and

-          bringing in the new year singing “I come from the land down under, where women glow and men plunder!” with a group of sweaty random tourists at a dance party near Ayres Rock… followed by climbing over a pool fence with a couple of random French guys and swimming in our underwear.

Proof…

And that’s not to say that we didn’t almost die. You see, as it turns out, there is a reason why we were told not to drive on any dirt roads and it wasn’t just because the hire company didn’t want a dirty car returned to them. No. Apparently, little cars that are only 20cm off the road don’t like to be driven on dirt roads, and if you do, they like to create two little holes in their little oil tank holder things and drip oil all over the place. Unfortunately you need that oil to drive the damn thing. Not only that, apparently there are hardly any petrol stations in the outback and if we had read the map properly, we actually would have realised that the little petrol symbols on the map were literally the only locations you can get petrol – and sometimes you can go 500km in between petrol stations (a full tank of petrol in a Barina will not get you that far, hence the need for carrying extra petrol).

Without realising all of these ‘apparentlies’, McCool and I thought it safe to turn off the main road, onto a dirt road and head towards Innamincka. We even worked out that we had just enough petrol to make it to Arkaroola, a town we saw on the map which was on the way – we were sweet. However, when we reached the final turn off to Arkaroola (a final 30km left), we came across a sign that said “Arkaroola closed until 2 January” – 5 days away. “Um, what the fuck! How can a town be closed!”

Since we only had one bar of petrol left, we didn’t want to risk driving the rest of the way only to find the petrol station that we had assumed to be there, closed. So we decided not to turn off, with the next town on the map only about 20km away. Queue continuing to drive down the dirt road and then approaching this sign:

430km!!!

Queue slightly delusional behaviour, hysteria in the form of uncontrolled laughter and slight panic over the sudden realisation that we were literally in the middle of nowhere (we had passed no car or houses for hours – hence the running down the dirt road almost naked situation I mentioned above – it had been fun up until that moment, feeling like we were the only ones around for miles), with no phone coverage, barely any petrol left, one box of rice crackers for food and less than 10 litres of water… which sounds like a lot, but not when it is 40 degrees minimum and all the water holes are dried up.

We decided to continue driving to Arkaroola, thinking worst case scenario, it would be closed, but that people would return on 2 January to help us. We imagined people finding us 5 days later and either both being dead from starvation, one of us being dead from cannibalism, or us both having gone completely wild, dressed in nothing but rags and holding sticks as spears, which we would have used to kill wildlife to eat. That was worst case scenario. So I decided not to panic.

As it turns out, Arkaroola was in fact a wildlife sanctuary, and yes it was closed, but fortunately for us, the managers, a lovely couple that I will forever love, were still there – AND THEY HAD PETROL WE COULD USE! However, just before we were about to put petrol in the car, I noticed the black stream of fluid running from the bottom  – that stupid precious thing called oil that cars so conveniently need to run – which was caused by a hole most likely caused by one of the “floodways” we drove through (i.e. no water, but just dips in the road not suitable for Barinas). At that moment I panicked. It wasn’t the thought of turning wild, or being murdered by my sister and subsequently being served on her dinner plate… it was the thought at how much this was going to cost and the strife we were going to be in with the hire company.

Luckily, outback men aren’t only really good at picking things up. They are also really good at fixing stuff, and effectively saving lives. While the husband fixed our car for us, the wife gave us fizzy, a packet of chips, a lecture about being in the outback so unprepared in a Barina, then she drove us around the sanctuary in a 4WD buggy to show us the scenery and the wildlife and let us play with the wombats she had been looking after. They also didn’t let us leave once the car was finished, and forced us into staying in one of the motel rooms (which was actually the only night of the whole trip we stayed in a bed – the rest of the time we slept on the front seats of the car) and eating dinner and drinking red wine with them. A few Wolf Creek jokes were also thrown around – it was hilarious.

The stories and adventures don’t end there but as Coco Chanel says, “Some things are best left to the imagination.” Also, as much as I want to continue, I know if I do you will probably get bored, lose interest and stop reading… So with that, you can either imagine the remaining stories that together form our outback road trip… or perhaps you should just experience it for yourself! If not to create your own near death adventures, but at the very least to experience an outback night time sky and a hoist from a local…

Shit McAwkward says

I like to think I’m pretty cool and not your typical “girly girl” (think being the operative word). Especially not the kind of girl portrayed in youtube clips such as ‘Shit Single Girls Say’ or ‘Boys will be Girls’, where guys pretend to be girls and say things like:

“Are there going to be any hot guys there?”

“Wednesday night girls night!”

“If I met Ryan Gosling in a bar, I’d hook up with him.”

“I hate love.”

“You don’t understand, you’re not single.”

“I could date that guy if I wanted to.”

“I think I’m getting sick.”

“I’m not gonna eat because we’re gonna go out later.”

“I digested a huge gust of wind.”

“My diet starts tomorrow.”

I have to say that I have a problem with people that assume the only things girls talk about is their hair, clothes, diets, boys and babies and who think we prefer to read trashy gossip magazines over novels, text books or peer reviewed articles. When I was still at university I was in a café one day with a couple of girlfriends studying for our upcoming exams. Two older men approached us and one said, “You ladies look like you’re working pretty hard there. What are you reading about there?” One of us replied saying we were studying for our Torts Law exam, to which one of the men replied, “You girls are too pretty to worry your little minds about things like that.” Ass hole. [“OMG - he thinks I’m pretty – but more importantly - Ass hole.”]

Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with talking about superficial things or enjoying reading trashy mags if that is what you like to do – I’m not even saying that I never do those things – however, the making assumptions about people based on their gender alone is what I don’t like….

“You’re a girl so you couldn’t possibly like reading the financial review!”

“Why study law when you can just marry someone rich?”

“Don’t worry yourself over this, go and paint your nails or something.”

… Seriously, they are all things men have actually said to me.

In fact, making assumptions generally, I think can be a dangerous thing to do. As Lemony Snicket said (The Austere Academy):

“Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make — bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake — if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble. Making assumptions simply means believing things are a certain way with little or no evidence that shows you are correct, and you can see at once how this can lead to terrible trouble. For instance, one morning you might wake up and make the assumption that your bed was in the same place that it always was, even though you would have no real evidence that this was so. But when you got out of your bed, you might discover that it had floated out to sea, and now you would be in terrible trouble all because of the incorrect assumption that you’d made. You can see that it is better not to make too many assumptions, particularly in the morning.”

Of course we all make hundreds of assumptions every day without thinking about it and many assumptions are probably quite sound and justifiable. Like me assuming that everyone thinks I am really funny and if they aren’t laughing at my stories, it just means they are stupid or not listening to me properly – that’s completely sound and justifiable on account of the fact that I am really funny. We also make daily assumptions which are necessary to navigate our way through the world. For example, you feel safe crossing the road with a flashing green man, assuming that the cars approaching the red light are in fact going to stop and not just charge through the red light. Or when you hear someone near you sniggering, you instantly try to cover your arse or walk up against a wall, assuming that the sniggering is on account of your massive arse or a hole in the arse of your pants (either way, it is obviously about you).

Many assumptions, however, are not sound nor justifiable. Not only can it be offensive to someone when you make an assumption about them, life is also so much more interesting when you actually ask questions of people and get to know them better, rather than assuming you know certain things about them or sometimes not even attempt to get to know individuals, or even entire groups of people, based on your assumptions.

Whilst assumptions are a central part of how we function as a species, we should make an effort to identify and challenge our assumptions about people and situations.

So, just because I am a girl, don’t assume that…

-          I couldn’t possibly take care of myself – even if I do walk into poles when no one else points them out to me.

-          I don’t want to eat just as much as you – even if I will then complain about being bloated and then spend the rest of the night feeling guilty about having eaten so much.

-          All I think about is babies – even if I often do get this weird unexplainable desire to make babies when I see cute children.

-          I want you to be my boyfriend as soon as we have slept together and see us spending the rest of our lives together – even if within 5 minutes of having met you I imagined what our kids would look like and all the places in the world we would travel together.

-          I’m stupid – even if I do like to say totes and use hash tags in general conversation [I can’t help it that I am hip and up with the latest lingo].

-          I’m weak – even if I can’t lift as much as the guys at my bodypump class and cry when someone flicks me.

-          My mind is of limited capacity and shouldn’t be wasted on learning about tort law – even if I am hot to trot…

Of course, you may assume that because I am a girl, and a single gal at that, I would totes hook up with Ryan Gosling if I met him at a bar… #hypocrite but #notthepoint.