Reality leaves a lot to the imgination*

Italian Job 2 has such sexy moments. [Spoiler alert. If you haven't watched it yet: what was the weather like on that middle star of Orion's belt?]. Stella's introductory scene where she drives a Mini through London traffic captured my heart wholesale. At some point in my life I will own/rent/borrow/run off with/hug and refuse to let go of one of those. Don't care that they are overpriced. It's absolutely the perfect city car if one is gutsy enough to drive suicidally like she does, couldn't find a youtube clip *gasp!*

Anyway! One of the things that got the drowsy brain buzzing was the villain's Achilles heel - a lack of imagination. Specifically how this was expressed through his inability to spend the kazillion million dollars he stole. It is quite a common question, the 'if you won a million dollars/ had three wishes/ could rule the world etc what would you do?' line. Good for random conversations with possibly dodgy people on buses. If you think about it though, how many entirely unique responses have you heard to that?

The conversation early on in the movie, where they each describe what they intend to spend their share of the money on is interesting because it manages, in just a couple of minutes, to sketch a reasonably vivid image of each person's personality. Handsome Rob's drool-worthy Aston Martin is a player's car; a pantie dropping, super cool adrenaline rush. The geek speak with which Napster describes his sound system immediately assigns him the nerdy techie's place in the team, and Left Ear is for sure the cultural one with his beautiful Spanish villa and leather bound first editions, etc etc. All done in just a few cleverly picked phrases from each of the characters.

Steve Frazelli [baddie] couldn't come up with even one thing that he wanted, he borrowed off everyone else. It is roll on the ground hilarious when they realise he has very literally bought their ideas. The catch though, is that he can't possibly enjoy the spoils because they aren't 'his'. The kick-ass tv, stereo, car, house, library have nothing to do with his personality or tastes. It's like the joke about the art dealer who sold a white canvas to a multi-millionaire, assuring him that this was the newest art movement. Luxury is an experience, and therefore entirely relative. Ferrero Rochers, enjoyed infrequently, would be absolute heaven regardless of whether I'm driving a Rolls or living in a leech infested ditch. He is admittedly a one sided character, for storyline convenience, but that aside, he hasn't figured out what is uniquely extra special for him, which is not scarily not uncommon in real life!

Right now, I don't quite know what I would do with a few million dollars. There are the obvious ones I'd want to do like travel all over the world, enjoy all those currently light years outside budget experiences like cruise around the world first class, sky dive, learn to fly and then buy a plane, a boat, eat in funky, ridiculously expensive restaurants, buy into a formula one team, watch a kazillion plays and concerts, build up a massive library and art collection and generally run riot with all my friends.

There isn't any focus to all that though. It's to do with not having an overwhelming passion for any one thing in particular. Having strong opinions and an interest in a variety of things is not quite the same. Those people who have found that Something [with a capital] they cannot live without, I envy them. I like music, but don't turn pale or feel ill at the thought of a couple of months without it, unlike probably Confab and RD. Ditto with any other interest except perhaps to a certain extent human rights related things and psychoanalysing everything. Right now, if my bank account balance unexpectedly grew several extra zeros [before the decimal point], I'd probably invest it so that until I finally do figure out what I want to spend it on, it'll be sitting there, getting fatter. To be fair, I reckon its also an age and experience thing, this knowing what you want.

So what would you do with say, 10 million dollars. It sounds like a lot, but it actually isn't that much. What would you spend it on?

* John Lennon

There is an awful lot of breathing room

So, I have all these drafts hanging out in my blogspot account: some random, some reflective, some stressed out, some are actually more panicked neurons on the rampage than coherant thoughts, but they're all chilling in there, wondering what the next step is. Ideally, I would like to write them out and post them, but I've gotten to that apparently inevitable point where worries about people figuring out who I am become relevant. Damnit. Unfortunately most of my rants might be recognisable, and although most of my friends have comfortingly appalling memories it is quite posssible they will connect the dots. Bummer.

Theres no point in having a blog if you can't release what you think, what you feel, what you wish you didn't feel, feel you shouldn't think or think you shouldn't feel. And then there's the whole if a tree falls in the middle of a forest and no one knows, did it actually fall? I know now what drew me to blogging again is, more than anything else, the actual act of writing. Putting words together, taking them apart, refitting, streamlining, adding, replacing, playing. Its like dabbing at a painting for me - little strokes of the brush, enjoying the rush until it looks good, feels right. I'm not a serious writer, just an entirely selfish one. I write for me, to make sense of my little, sometimes painful world.

It was a Monday, a sunny, sparkling day because it had rained in the morning, and all the trees were a happy deep green. I had homework to do for that afternoon [of course]. Usually a last minute essay is a smooth, oft practiced process, but that day I couldn't get a line off a Norah Jones song out of my head. It wasn't boyfriend trouble, that kind of stuff actually doesn't get to me too much, it was a complicated non-melodramatic incident involving a boy I loved as a part of me, one of those quiet things that you can't really pinpoint at the time, which makes it difficult to analyse. I remember feeling restless, and uneasy but not depressed or anything like that. And then, sitting there in the library overlooking the mango tree, I started to write and write and write. A poem four pages long, I just couldn't stop myself. No idea where it was coming from, these weren't thoughts that I had consciously, feelings I was completely oblivious to. Once it finally ended, sitting back, exhausted and reading it over was such a shock. It was so wierd to be reading something composed by me, but totally new to me at the same time. At that point I realised this is what makes up for my tendency to live in denial and then be overly rational. Its the outlet that quite literally keeps me sane.

To conclude: Don't guess. I'm not that person. Seriously.

This is hypocritical of me because I love trying to figure out who the blogger is. Perhaps thats partly why I'm so paranoid, but anway, since this is my space where I get to be a brat, its shameless denial till all the animals of the ark come home.

Survival

So, four straight nights of alcoholic mayhem, one bone drenching rainstorm, one small teeth chattering hailstorm, and a ridiculously inadequate quantity of sleep later, my immune system is still happy and relatively strong. A little tired, but hanging in there.

Can I just say, I'm kinda impressed?!?!

One more big one to go :D

Shades of awesomeness!

Commitment phobic, independent spirit, its all a matter of perspective really. All I know is that at this moment in time, I am without a doubt thoroughly addicted to being single. The last couple of nights have been shades of awesome!! :D A heady, exhilarating mix of fun music, crazy theme parties, tequila, vodka, pineapple juice, funky friendly people and general mayhem. Total spontaneity is such an adrenaline rush. Made lots of friends! Including one particular boy *grin* who besides being cuuute, with a damn good body, also had the impressive ability to carry on a hard core politics/psychoanalysis/history conversation at the bar of a club with music blasting out of speakers a couple of feet away. I think I'm in like. So huggable, he was. Anyway, in typically me fashion I disappeared without saying goodbye so he has probably vanished into the universe, but it was nice :) To be honest the highlight of that night was just the dancing, laughing and going crazy. The theme was 'bright and tight' [dodgy, I know] but wearing wildly contrasting bright red, green and orange made the hippie in me so happy. Trust me, the net effect was not as bad as that sounds :D

Really need to work on flirting signal recognition. Its terrible the extent to which I really do not notice all this implied rubbish. Partly because I cant be bothered, partly because c'mon, Aussies are just all friendly and outgoing. Its tough to distinguish between 'hey I think you're fun' and 'hey you might potentially be really fun' [drunken hookup signals are irrelevant]. Plus if you dont know the person that opens up the entire avenue of personality - some people are just really really outgoing.

Anyway, while recovering from severe lack of sleep, overdose of chemicals and the morning after torture from cruel but sexy heels, it hit me that I dont want to give up this freedom for a very very long time. Not just in the partying aspect of life but just generally, the space to do entirely random things, whatever I want, whenever I want without having someone go all sulky on me. It applies to friends too, cant handle clingy people who need to be babysat. *shudder*.

Ok have to continue battle with sheet to turn it into a toga for tonight!

Did I mention, o week ROCKS?

Poor old Saint V

Ahhh V day. I guess Love with a capital is always a touchy subject, so the amazingly emotional reactions makes sense. Anti valentine rants like Kaiser's are so much fun to read, plus anti valentine's day cards and cartoons are so creative! Loving it!

On the other hand, feeling rather sorry for Saint Valentine because he seemed to have been a good enough bloke. As far as the - apparently unsubstatiated but convenient, probably fairy - tale goes he was just a soft hearted priest who couldn't bear to see marriage being banned and therefore performed the ceremonies in secret. If he were alive, he'd probably be stunned at the extremes of animosity and.. cant think of a suitable adjective actually.. sentimentality? enthusiasm?

I for one firmly believe it does not deserve much attention because there arent enough chocolates on sale either before, during or even after the 14th of Feb. Quite disappointing. [Penniless chocoholic student here]. Easter on the other hand is a totally different, very yummy story.

Anyway, this time around the plan was to first of all manage to remember the blooming day [check! erm.. sortof], spread some of the love, msg the good friends etc [check! doing well] and thirdly, try to build a bridge with a particularly difficult friend. Sigh. Its going to be painful, I can tell, probably should have stocked up on m&m's for the ensuing drama and depression. There is ten minutes of v day left, I know I'm procrastinating on purpose... what if he's on some romantic date :D Heh.. that would be interesting. Akward.

Ok here goes.

Knuckling down. Kindof-ish.

The Hippie nose is not happy. Its being firmly held to the grindstone, and told it has to stay that way for the next two weeks. Sigh. I've actually never properly 'studied' for an exam in my life. Always the crazy last minute cram session where normality is abandoned, sleep is a unknown concept, massive quantities of chocolate is consumed and adrenaline keeps the system going. Good times. Fear is by far the best motivator, especially short term. Rather enjoyed the high, especially since it was a shared experience, pre exam nights full of panic stricken phone calls usually because someone couldnt find/didnt have the textbook/notes/anything related to subject. Home science was the 'didnt have anything' subject for me at local O levels. A few scraggly speciman cloths with random stitches was about all. Without exaggeration, everything written down for that paper was learnt about 3 hours in advance. I miss what a bludge those exams were!! Now its all about analysis and application of theory, which of course presupposes that in 12 days, I will know this theory to apply it.

Bummer.

Poor nose.

Happily ever after

Fairy tales are overrated. Perhaps I'm just hard to please, but the standard gorgeous prince saves helpless docile princess and makes her blissfully happy for ever more is just mind numbingly dull. The brothers Grimm ones were quite funky, but a little too dark for my taste, perhaps I was too young cos they fired my hyperactive imagination and caused some crazy nightmares. So I gave up and switched to proper books, until Princess Florizel came my way.

Its a pretty obscure book, haven't found anyone else who has read it, but its the perfect fairytale and should, I firmly believe, be read repeatedly to all little girls during their impressionable years. Florizel is all a real princess should be: fun, easygoing, full of energy, down to earth and game for anything. Too busy riding her horse and being upto all varieties of pranks to waste time on dresses and gilded mirrors. Freckles, boy short curly hair.

Theres a prince of course - handsome and only heir to the large neighbouring kingdom, nice enough guy, immensely relieved to meet Florizel who compares well to all the stick thin, self obsessed princesses that shudder at the idea of having anything other than dry toast and water for breakfast and turn pale at the thought of being in the sun.

At The Ball [the one where the prince chooses his princess, for any lacking fairytale education] Florizel tells him in her usual firm friendly way that he's quite nice but she has no interest in getting married thank you very much and would he like to do something interesting such as go on a hunt instead.

Her parents are horrified, being of the follow the fairytale template generation and lock her up in her room [with food, they have quite a good relationship going]. Her mother waits eagerly for the prince to climb the vine that she planted when her daughter was born.

Then comes my favourite part: the prince climbs into the tower and proclaims [quite chuffed] that he has come to rescue her. Florizel asks him how he got up there, and he replies that he used the vine. She then points out [in a 'speaking to idiot male' tone] that if he used it to come up, she can obviously use it to go down can she not, and she doesn't need rescuing, thanks. HAH!!! Awesomeness. He climbs down the vine alone, quite deflated, presumably feeling his little fantasy world is rather topsy turvy.

There is of course a scene with a dragon, where the prince gets trapped and Florizel out on a ride finds and rescues him, tearful scene with the parents who cant understand where their daughter is coming from and a couple more humorous twists that I cant remember anymore. The conclusion however was that Florizel and the prince decided to be firm friends and got on very well, I don't think there was anything about a Forever.

And no, she's not a lesbian :P Maybe they got together later on, if her hormones kicked in and she decided she wants to settle down, its all open ended and realistic. There is no creation of impossible expectations for a handsome knight on a white horse to make a breathtaking entrance, swish his sword a few times and solve all the princess' problems. No magical kiss which, being from the 'one true love' overrides all evil.

This is the root of the high divorce rate. Little girls and boys are encouraged to think even subconsciously that perfection exists. That there is the happily ever after where all food tastes divine, there is no stress and the weather is miraculously perfect. The scary thing is that once you've gotten to them before about 5 years of age, its ingrained in their consciousness, and they can only rationalise it to a certain extent! ARGGHH. Plus the whole extravagant wedding stuff is just an adult continuation of a children's story. Think about the adjectives that are used to describe weddings - magical, fairytale etc etc. Watched 27 dresses yesterday and everything looked so pretty, I actually contemplated thinking about wanting one for a whole tenth of a millisecond. YIKES. Of course BirdBoy got all happy taking it as a sign that I might be less of a commitment phobic someday, but I don't think so!!

I love intelligent romantic comedies with happy endings as much as the next girl, but most of the stories out there are so darn unbelievable. Wheres the fun in having an entirely peaceful life? A few fights now and again are healthy and keep things spicy - after all makeup sex is apparently the best kind and all that. I'm not a cynic, I believe in love and a boy to be happy with and laugh a lot with. But I do have an innate suspicion of this love stuff, it is so often just heavily perfumed rubbish.

Gripes

Its so irritating when couples come for a dinner and spend the evening cooing at each other. Not necessarily to the extent where they need a room, but even just creating dead air in terms of conversation and interaction.

Went for a Curry party got stuck at the couples end of a table for a while, which was quite a painful experience. Is it that difficult to retain your individuality and ability to keep up a conversation with someone outside the cacoon? Pathetic.

Met several interesting people after making my escape, including a Sri Lankan who has been in Aussie all her life, visited once, but is more 'Curri-fied' than most of my friends back home! Twas hilarious, she's lovely as in warm, generous and caring but the whole grapevine/setting people up thing is scary. I was randomly chatting to this guy and suddenly he comes out with 'oh yea, K told me about you and said we should be friends cos we're both from SL'. AAARRGGHHH. 911. A terrifying majority of her friends are from SL, and looking at the slideshow of pictures from over the years, any Aussie influence is minimal. Of course the accent is there, and she does have 'white' friends but still, unsettling. I don't like the thought of being accepted so easily just because I come from a certain country/sub continent.

GNP to be royally screwed?

So Mahinda darling is at it again. Its amazing that his ego hasn't caused his head to explode. Yet. We live in hope. The village thug continues to casually flick away any who don't recognise that the red scarf means Royalty. A passport to an ongoing party for all obliging relations and bum sucking followers.

Looks like Peter Hill ignored the memo, good on him. So he's getting thrown out of his hut. All in all a rather good story to chuckle over since no one got hurt except of course for fair play, democracy, the reputation of SL in the eyes of the rest of the world etc etc and those things are on its way to extinction anyway right?

And then my mother pointed out a worrying connection. Makes me realise I should take her seriously once in a while. Peter Hill works for Emirates. Emirates is wholly owned by the government of Dubai.There is a scary math coming up here. According to the CIA World fact book:

"About 800,000 Sri Lankans work abroad, 90% in the Middle East. They send home more than $1 billion a year"

GOSL just gave the government of Dubai a back handed slap in the face. Whats to stop them from cancelling/ refusing to issue any work visas? Leaving aside the lack of any proper labour laws protecting all the migrant workers in the UAE and surrounding countries which is a serious but completely different issue, the fact is that we rely on them to an extent that does not seem to be recognised. I've got this image in my head of the GNP deflating with a thin whine, a sad little balloon with a rather large hole. If only that buffoon's ego would go the same way.

The only thing there seems to be to fall back on is that there WILL be a specially horrible place reserved for him in hell. Or all his afterlives will be absolute misery. Its difficult to understand how someone can live so entirely without regard for the future. Surely, at some point every thinking human being would stop and reflect? As much as its tempting to call him names and go on long tirades, he does have a brain in there somewhere [altho one does wonder sometimes].

In politics especially as with pretty much everything else, theres a give and take. Actions have reactions. You can't always get what you want. How can he be behaving like such a child? Leave aside the rest of the country, because thats perhaps easy enough to forget when on such a power trip but what about his individual future? Every religion, belief system has a balancing of the scales. If you do good, you get rewarded whether its in this life, the next life or the afterlife. There is punishment for causing suffering. What goes around comes around. Some level of his subconscious is not in denial and knows that he's plundering and exploiting things that do not belong to him. Surely he has nightmares. Even if its mainly from eating too much rich food.

All you need is love?

If I went all out hippie/bohemic crazy, would he still love me? He finds the hippie streak attractive, of course.. its different, its interesting, adds a small unpredictable element, but if I stopped squashing it, if I suddenly decided that today Im going to live in a cliche' brightly painted VW, spreading the love denying tedious reality, could he accept that? Loving someone 'just as they are' is flung around so much its just a blur. Thats the problem with finding a potential Person [with a capital] too early - quietly, oh so gently you start to pick and choose. The bits they dont like gets hidden, rubbed off. The bits they like are painted over, darkened, highlighted. And then suddenly you look back and realise you're still the same person, all the essential components are ticking along as always, just... shaded.