Naivety - giant 'roos and little kids, "open sesame", and the fat man in red and white suit on the roof

Yesterday, as I caught the bus home from work, I saw two guys on stilts. They were dressed as giant kangaroos with santa hats on and were jumping along the street. Opposite me on the bus sat a man and (presumably) his young daughter. As bad as I am with guessing ages of kids, I think I'd be pretty safe in saying she was about 5 years olds. She sat by the window, while her father sat in the aisle seat closest to me, and as we passed the giant kangaroos (who looked more the sort of men who would fit right into a bikie gang), the father must have said something along the lines of "Look! Kangaroos!" because the little girl replied "They aren't real kangaroos!". Her father tried to convince her that they were real kangaroos, but, as young as she was (or looked) she stood her ground and said "They weren't real! I saw their faces!". Man, little kids are hilarious.

If only I was as logically minded as that little girl. I mean, I don't think, had I been in her situation 10 years ago, I would have realised they weren't real if my dad was convincing me they were real for a laugh. I say all this totally from experience, having been tricked numerous times. Once my cousins tricked me into thinking that the words open sesame and close sesame controlled the opening and closing of the garage, when they were actually pressing a button on the wall right next to me. I was between the age of 5 and 10 I believe, mind you, and if you saw a full demonstration of how it works and saw the garage door open and close at the commands of your lips, you'd be pretty conned as well.

When I was young, I had a relatively intense fear of Santa Clause, or a love-hate relationship, be it as you wish. It went a little like this - I would really want to go join the other kids in the mall (sorry, I mean "shopping centre". Christmas time turns you American and besides, mall is so much easier to say) and wait in the long queue to receive a small gift bag from Santa, however I was much too scared to sit on his lap and endure an entire photo being taken just for the gift bag (as enticing as it seemed). So everytime I went to the mall with my family (as you do when you are young and have no friends nor independence) they would all tease me as we approached Santa's throne 'cause they knew he freaked me out. My dad would tell me to go see Santa and get a present from him, and sometimes even take my hand and try to drag me in Santa's direction just to freak me out a little more. As much as I wanted that gift, I'd avoid Santa's eye contact (otherwise he'd give me a freaky wave, in which case I would most definately not return it and probably runaway), grab my mother's hand and drag her straight past him so I don't have to be tormented by the big fat man in the red suit, or by all the gleeful kids receiving their gifts from him. Not only was I scared of the real deal (or as close to the real deal as you can get - I'm sure Kris Kringle, if that's how you actually spell his name, wouldn't be very scary), but I was almost just as scared of the plastic santa that used to hang behind a door in our house during the festive season. I'm not quite sure why I was always so scared of Santa, but I think it must have something to do with my current fear of being abducted and so on. It must have been some sort of subconcious pre-setting to this fear, as if I have always (subconciously) been scared of unknown men that may hid me in a sack amongst all their goodies and take me away. Anyway, whatever it was, I'm glad I only sat on Santa's lap a couple of times before I developed my fear. If you ask me, he's always been a pretty shifty figure, and as confidently as I could approach, greet and sit on the arm of his chair today, I certainly wouldn't sit on his lap. Anyway (!), as much as you wouldn't think so, after all this rambling, this Santa story actually relates back to the topic of this blog. I was once also completely fooled (not to mention totally freaked out) by my sister and next door neighbour into believing that Santa was on our roof. I could have just said the point from the start, but I thought I'd fill you in from the start, since it is Christmas in two days. It's more fun this way :)

Anyway, to anyone and everyone who reads this blog, have a good one, 'cause I'm going away until new years, and probably won't blog until then, unless something interesting occurs during the next two days. I highly doubt that.

Reflections on my last blog

The weird thing is, at the same time as ignoring the warning signs and not really caring, I feel like I'm sometimes too scared to take the risk, to plunge into the unknown. Hmm.

Grey's Anatomy Episode #45: Even jols can provoke intellectual thought

Life is full of risks, some of which are blatantly plastered with enter-at-your-own-risk-warnings all over them, others not. Cigarette smokers are much too familiar (and therefore complacent) with the large block letters which read "SMOKING KILLS" on their cigarette packets (unless they roll their own...), whilst the much smaller block letters "Contains phenylalanine. Excess consumption may have a laxative effect" is also commonly ignored by those who love gum or jols. Those who watch Grey's Anatomy, or rather, are lucky enough to wind up in OR's with melodramatic - but quite cute looking - neurosurgeons and interns, will know that there is always some degree of risk (even if it's small) to any surgery. Unfortunately, one of the only things Grey's Anatomy has in common with real life is the fact that sometimes the risks of not going ahead with the surgery, metaphorically speaking, are equal to (or sometimes worse than) those of the surgery itself. And sometimes, the risks are unknown until you take the plunge down a (more often than not) no-returns deep well. But, if you think about it, it's often better not to be warned of the risks prior to taking the plunge and have that familiar voice singing "I told you so" in your head (or occassionally out loud) afterwards. 'Cause even when we do see the warning signs long before hand, we always ignore them. And on the rare occasion when you don't ignore the seemingly harmless block letters on the back of your second packet of extra for the day and are reminded "Excess consumption may have a laxative effect", the risks are never certain. So as I chuck out my empty packet of jols after only a day (and after having written this well refined blog, unlike my last) I really couldn't care less about what the side of the packet says - never have and never will. Not unless I stumble down that deep no-returns well. Until then, I'm off to start another packet of jols.

Uncut

I still remember the first time I was allowed out alone (without the supervision of my parents, that is). It must have been when I was in Year 4, I think. About 7 years ago, while our house was still being built and we were renting. A friend came over and, at the time, we were living half a block away from a park. After braiding parts of our hair and putting colourful beads in with one of those strange hair braiding/beading machines that every girl in school owned and thought was the next big thing after barbies, furbies, tazos, and tamagotchis, I pleaded with my parents to let us go to the park without them coming and, fairly leniently, they said yes. Overcome by a sense of independence, maturity and emancipation, we skipped the whole 2 minutes to the park and enjoyed about 15 minutes alone until my sister came walking towards us after being sent to check on us.

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is. I guess it's just one of the many stories that doesn't have a moral. One of the many stories that has disjointed sentences and abrupt endings. Oh well. I'm tired (after working 10 hours today) and not bothered to fix it up. I just wanted to get this down because I suddenly remembered it today, after driving past the park (which, mind you, I drive past every day almost). So I will leave this memory raw for the moment, and perhaps forever - some things are better left scrappy rather than over analysed.

Rain, rain go away, Come again another day

The other day when I was walking home through the rain, thunder and lightening, I was quite paranoid (as I am) about getting struck by lightening, or abducted and not being heard over the raging thunder. I walked briskly - umbrella held close to my body, not wanting to be drenched by the end of my walk - occassionally glancing over my shoulder whilst thinking to myself "I like the rain" (by "rain" I meant the whole lot - thunder and lightening) over and over again.

Today when I was walking home through the rain, thunder and lightening, I held my umbrella loosely and had a sudden urge to not use it at all and dance in the rain. So I did just that. Well, I didn't dance. But I took down my umbrella, held it my side and walked on the road. It was very pleasant and refreshing I must say. It made me feel free. The thunder and lightening didn't freak me out much, and I was even wishing the rain would get heavier towards the end of my walk home. As it is, when you actually absurdly want the rain to get heavier, it doesn't - and when you don't want it to get any heavier so you can run to the car without your straightened hair going frizzy (or any frizzier than it already is), it does. Disappointed by this rule of life, I didn't want to go inside when I got home, I just wanted to sit on the curb of my street and listen to music or keep walking, perhaps through a nearby park. But I accepted the fact that I would have to go inside at some point and so I left the calm atmosphere that the rain created and became dry again.

Paradoxes are confusing.

Blast to the present?

The concept of time is quite bizarre. When I think about it too much, it confuses the hell out of me. I cannot grasp the term "forever", nor can I understand why it is that if you could go back in time, you wouldn't be able to change anything. Let's start with "forever". Forever seems so openended. So long, so never ending. It doesn't have any closure. If you unravel a ball of wool, you will eventually stop unravelling. Or if you counted every single person in the world, there'd be an end to your counting 'cause you'd eventually die (or the world would blow up from global warming, who knows). I wonder. If you travelled out into space, where does it end? Would there be some sort of cliff - a void that you can't enter perhaps - that forces you to turn back, or is it just never ending. I am trying to picture the shape of space (if you were to draw it on a single piece of paper) and I cannot create it's shape. Hmm. Anyway, I'm confused enough about time to be worrying about space.

OK - to my second difficulty. Why is it that if you were able to go back in time, you wouldn't be able to change anything? I mean, it's impossible to go back in time anyway, so how can you even start theorising about what you would and wouldn't be able to do if you could? If it were possible to go back in time, then I'd say it'd be just as easy to change something. Unless we can already "go back in time" so to speak. Revisiting places and situations through our memories. Then I suppose you can't change anything. Except your perspectives on the place/situation. Well, technically you could change things, you could alter things in your memory. But I think the theory refers to going back in time as a more literal sort of thing.

Another thing that confuses me about time is simply (or not so simply) how it works. I mean, right now I can think "In no time at all it'll be holidays and I'll be bludging". But then I still have the whole of this week to live through. And yet, when holidays come, I'll be thinking "Wow, it felt like only a minute ago that I was dreaming about the holidays". I don't get that. I don't get it, especially when it's on a much larger scale of time. I don't get how it is that 5 years ago, when I was 11, I would have been stumped when asked the question "What will you be doing in 5 years time?". But I would have thought that one day I would be 16. And now here I am. I have lived through those 5 years. But where did the time go? I remember the time between now and then, but at the same time, it feels like I clicked my fingers and here I am in the future, 16 years old. That's a scary thought. Time is a scary thought. 'Cause sometimes I think of the things I may encounter in the future like going to uni, working full time, getting married ecetera. And then I think how weird it'll be when I am actually in uni or working full time or married or whatever and I think how I'll look back to times like these when I thought about the future and wonder where the time went. Wonder how suddenly I had went from a 16 year school girl to a 26 year old full time professional. And it feels like I could just click my fingers and I'll be in an office typing away on some high-tech computer (which reminds me, I got a new phone but it feels like just yesterday when I was playing snake on my brick phone 4-5 years ago, the first phone I had) in office clothes instead of here at home in my pjs. Bizarre. I don't get it. It seems like someone is holding the remote control of my life but they decided to make my head spin in circles by pressing play-stop-rewind-play-fastforward-pause-play-rewind ecetera. *Sigh*