I Like Lists

For instance, currently I have a list of things I need to do tonight:

1. Mop my bathroom floor
2. Vacuum my entire house
3. Clean my kitchen
4. Clean my fridge

What I don't like is that lists often reveal something you'd prefer not to think about. For instance, this list above reveals that:

1. I don't clean my house often enough.
2. I care more than I ever thought I would about the state of my domestic surroundings.
3. I'm contemplating cleaning on A SATURDAY NIGHT.
4. There's nothing to put IN my fridge once it's clean.

But these assumptions don't take into consideration the fact that:

1. I am going on a cleaning binge because I know I am coming up to a busy and hopefully very fun week.
2. I haven't previously cleaned because I have, you know, a job and a degree and friends.
3. Sometimes, you just need a night of mundanity.
4. And doing grown up things like cleaning...well, they kind of make you feel like a grown up. And that can be cool.

From my bed

I can see, on my desk (left to right):
Pile of books, including but not limited to: Jewish Wry: Essays on Jewish Humor, books on Leonardo Sciascia, Good Weekends Away, The Actor's Handbook, Trinny and Susannah's Survival Guide, possibly an Italian dictionary
Un-given 21st birthday present for a close friend
File stack
Picture of self + high school besties
Stack of ancient CDs recently relistened to, topped off by empty money box
PAU Graduation paperweight
Very very very very very lovely anniversary present(s) from even more lovely boyfriend
Rosehip oil
Two empty wine bottles holding candles
Pen holder matching money box
Green clutched gifted to self by generous if stylistically questionable mother
Rarely used enormous old iMac
Vitamins: B complex, C, Multi, Omega3
Earring display rack
Oil burner holding all the keys except the ones I actually use
Pile of stickers from work topped off by actual keys
Eucalyptus oil

Meanwhile, I'm doing my readings in bed, with waterbottle, tissues and today's shirt in grabbing distance. Reckon that tells you lots of what you needs to know.

Some Things On My Mind At The Moment

1. Looming exams and lack of preparation for said
2. Increasing expansion of waistline and lack of activity to counteract said.
3. Exploding wardrobe
4. Disappearing bank balance due to exploding wardrobe
5. What to do during the summer holidays
6. Moving out - yay or nay?
7. The fact that the ability to predict the future would greatly resolve much of this anxiety
8. The fact that predicting the future is impossinle, thusly leaving me to my own devices --> increased change of fucking up and making Wrong Choices.

During high school I think I struggled with decisions less. Maybe I knew what I wanted more. Actually I think I was just less aware of my options. These days I see options spread around me in every aspect of my life, from what to wear in the morning to what cleanser to use to what to do on my holidays to what to do with my life. It might seem like a quantum leap from fashion to life-path but I think it's the same attitude both equally stressful. It's a lack of ability to distinguish combined with a plethora of choice. It's the inability to prioritise combined with the impatience of youth. It's the desire to experience combined with the desire to get it right the first time round.

I seem to labour under the delusion that I have limited time. I mean, I do. We all do. We are mortal. But what I mean is, my life, my choices, my chances, my options, my development physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, professionally, sartorially - it doesn't stop at 23 or 25 or 30. But then I don't want to get to those ages and feel I've missed out on doing something important.

I think this choice anxiety is couple with the knowledge - or perhaps the misguided belief, who can say - that to make it as an actor - as a female actor - you have to get in there young. And I don't want to me that person who sits around for how many years talking about a dream without actually going out to do something about it.

I guess the scariest part is that it's usually not until you've made it that you can see that the choice was the wrong one. I think I am congenitally afraid of failure. But not doing something because you might fail is but a short step away from not doing anything at all. I believe the Chinese say we must not be afraid of growing slowly, only of standing still. I agree with that in sentiment but I think in practicality I probably often choose to stand still for fear of getting chopped down altogether. It's that old attitude that I used to have such disdain for - that trying nothing and therefore going nowhere feels less damaging than trying to move and moving slowly; because at least if you're not trying you can futilely cling to the belief that you could be going somewhere, you're just choosing not to - thereby allowing yourself to believe you're still in control.

This attitude really only holds up until everyone else around you gets their act together enough to start moving, leaving little old you feeling drastically and embarassingly left behind.

2007 - A Year in Review

Things I Learnt in 07

1. That to love someone and leave them anyway is hard.
2. That to live your life for someone else's benefit is wrong.
3. That long haul economy flights are, simply put, slow painful torture that we pay a lot of money for.
4. That daylight as a source of happiness is not to be underestimated.
5. That living with strangers is a gamble which does not always pay off.
6. That the amount of money you spend on your child's education rises in direct proportion to how spoilt, ignorant, boorish, bigoted, poncy and unaware of the real issues in the world they will turn out in the end.
7. That I was blessed with quite extraordinary friends throughout high school, the likes of which do not always exist in large groups in the real world.
8. That London is a truly amazing city.
9. That the Oyster card is a truly amazing invention.
10. That red wine can give you a TRULY awful hangover.
11. That family are your greatest blessing and curse.
12. That who you were friends with in high school is irrelevant.
13. That a lot of the stuff you thought defined you in high school means nothing to complete strangers.
14. That children are the greatest source of humour and wisdom.
15. That if Italy were any more Italian, it would have to explode with the sheer post-modernity of itself.
16. That I speak with my hands for a reason.
17. That I am an Italian citizen.
18. That independence and loneliness are only a frozen pizza away from each other.
19. That I want more out of my life than mediocrity.
20. That I will not be deterred despite naysayers.
21. That I am actually quite proud of Australia, despite its many, many faults.
22. That MSN is a hugely inadequate medium for communicating emotion. Actually, you would have thought I had learnt that in 2006 but apparently not.
23. That you can only offer a drowning man a raft - he must grab hold for himself.
24. That Paris is NOT always fun, OK?
25. That I love Shakespeare and it's probably just as well he's dead or I would be one of those creepy literary stalker-crush girls.
26. That all-female workplaces are a health hazard.
27. That normally reasonable people turn into bizarre monsters when they have children.
28. That one must confront life, rather than shrink from it.
29. That a companion makes the most mundane things enjoyable.
30. That if you want something badly enough, you can ignore any manner of disastrous weather conditions.
31. That all Scandinavians are cool.
32. That trains are fabulous places for reading, thinking, talking and eating, but generally NOT for sleeping.
33. That if Europe were a giant playground, all the cool kids would be in the sandpit, building their own little world.
34. That you should pack nothing in a suitcase for an overseas trip, as you will merely want to buy doubles of everything you already own, simply because it is from overseas and therefore much cooler.
35. That I am an emotional spender.
36. That I am an emotional eater.
37. That most Australians who one meets in Europe in Summer are twats.
38. That even when you think you're over it, you're probably not.
39. That you should SLEEP WITH YOUR FUCKING VALUABLES UNDER YOUR FUCKING PILLOW. For God's sake, how stupid do I want to be?
40. That Amsterdam is the best place in the world to forget your troubles.
41. That you can be anyone you want to be.
42. That true friends will not be fazed by who you become.
43. That you can know a person five minutes and feel you've known them a lifetime.
44. That you can know a person for a lifetime and feel you don't know them at all.
45. That you should reach out to people with whom you have seemingly little in common, BUT
46. That if you have reached and reached and reached repeatedly over six months and still gotten nothing back...it's probably because you actually do have nothing in common.
47. That five girls in a room can be fun in a STRICTLY NON-PORNO way.
48. That six months is long enough for a place to become a home.
49. That six SECONDS in New York is long enough to decide you want to give up any previous intentions in life and decide to move to some brownstone in Greenwich Village.
50. That BANKS FUCKING SUCK.
51. That people in New York are all extras from Friends or Seinfeld or Sex in the City.
52. That you do not have to like your extended family.
53. That LA is sort of surreal.
54. That you can never come home.
55. That things do not freeze in time, and that people will move on with their lives without you.
56. That this hurts, even though you know it shouldn't.
57. That you can put the past behind you and move on.
58. That dull work and overactive imaginations do not mix.
59. That when opportunity arises, you must seize it.
60. That old friendships never die.
61. That simple pleasures are the best.
62. That I might possibly have a substance abuse problem...with clothing.
63. That I want the whole world to be spectacular.
64. That I believe in the possibility of better things.
65. That no one can take that away from me.
66. That you should take true friends' appraisals of your personal faults very seriously.
67. That Sydney is a beautiful city, with an appalling public transport system.
68. That it is too easy to fall out of contact with people.
69. That the term "catching up" is evil and is used as a substitute for having actual, continuous relationship with people you used to see every day.
70. That when you arrive people will leave.
71. That with privilege comes responsibility.
72. That all people are deserving of our respect and hospitality.
73. That I write too many lists.
74. That it can only get better from here.