Bad Luck.

Bizarrely, it always seems to happen this way. I find myself in a place where I seem to be buffeted by one displeasing situation after another, and I assure myself that things must be taking a turn for the better soon. Surely that’s enough now. And then something else bad happens. It gets to the point where I give in to it and start assuming a pessimistic attitude. Until, completely unexpectedly, everything suddenly works out. Usually all at once. I will have several strokes of luck in the one day, and circumstances that I was unable to imagine any solution for are not only solved, but improved beyond what I originally wanted.

Before I go on, let me clarify. I am being somewhat melodramatic. I am a melodramatic person. When I talk about having an extended run of bad luck, I’m talking about the frustrating sort of bad luck that hampers one’s comfortable existence. The sort of bad luck that, were it just one instance, wouldn’t be so bad, but weighs you down when you are accosted by it ten times in one week. The sort of bad luck that leaves you feeling defeated and wailing “Why isn’t anything going right?!” at a glass of wine. The sort of bad luck that could have been avoided by thinking ahead or approaching a situation differently (and is most likely, if you’re brutally honest with yourself, all your own goddamn fault). The sort of bad luck that you are able to laugh about a few weeks later. Not the sort of beyond-your-control bad luck that destroys you. I’m not about to make light of that.

So anyway. I was recently victim of this inconvenient-but-ultimately-bearable-in-small-doses kind of bad luck. Until today, apparently. And hopefully this upswing will continue, because I don’t enjoy being pessimistic. Being cranky prevented me from being distracted by the random quiet beauties of the world. I am renowned for being a frustrating companion for walking down the street, because I will occasionally meander to one side of the footpath or the other, depending on what catches my eye, then inexplicably disappear from your side because I stopped twenty metres ago, to stare intently at a leaf or a cat or the clouds. But when I feel tense, I focus inwards instead of outwards. I allow myself to get caught in the current of people striding to their destination with their heads down. Being stressed is not my natural state of being. Some people can work very well under stress. I am not one of them, which is actually slightly surprising, when you consider how much I procrastinate. You’d think I’d be better able to handle feeling under pressure by now, but in fact I’ve become quite adept at ignoring how stressed I should be and continuing to move in a leisurely manner. This largely explains why all of my essays, exams, projects etc from my time as a school/university student were either late or “not reaching her full potential”. I am a master of coasting by with little effort when I can’t be bothered.

But now! Now promise is back in the air and the world is once again full of wonder. You’ll find me outside, staring at the side wall of my house, intrigued by the tiny brown lizard clambering up towards the roof. I’ll be with you in a moment, but right now, the lizard is much more fascinating.

Dear oh dear..

That was a lot of words in those three posts. So here's a picture of a duck.

I do like ducks. Comical, friendly looking creatures. Always sound like they're laughing at a really good joke. That great, uninhibited, unflattering kind of laugh. Ducks are great.

Wisdom Teeth.

I recently had my wisdom teeth removed. All four of them. At once. It’s during my month of mouth madness, in which I also had four sessions of root canal therapy and am soon to have crown placed on a tooth. I’d known all of this was coming for a while, my dentist had told me that the root canal and the wisdom teeth would have to be dealt with but “don’t worry about it yet”. He was saying this to me for about two years. I think that’s why I keep going back to him – I appreciate having a medical professional who makes my procrastination look tame. Then one day he looked in my mouth, sighed, and said “We’re really going to have to do something about this now. I’ll write you a referral.” I was taken aback. He’d told me it wasn’t urgent so many times that it’d become part of regular conversation:
“Hi, how are you? How was your weekend? Nice weather outside isn’t it? You don’t need to worry about your wisdom teeth yet. Did you see that documentary on meerkats?”
I’d gotten so used to it, that it no longer registered that something actually would have to be done. I’d started to assume I’d always be in a state of dental limbo. It was like the time I saw celebrity vet Dr Harry Cooper walking down the street – I’d grown up with him on the television, telling me the pros and cons of different pets, so to see him full sized, in three dimensions was bizarre. He couldn’t be real, he’d lived in the television for the last twenty years. I couldn’t have to get my wisdom teeth out, I didn’t need to worry about it yet.

Referrals in hand, I no longer had my dentist as an excuse to put off the procedure. I had to put it off all on my own. I couldn’t possibly have the teeth taken out in January, because I was going to Adelaide. I couldn’t have it done in February, because I was starting a new job and it wouldn’t make a great impression to ask for a week off as soon as I started (despite the fact that my boss is incredibly understanding and in fact wouldn’t have cared). Couldn’t have it done in March, because I was going to Melbourne… And so on and so on. Then I ran out of excuses. In fact, I suddenly had every reason to get them out right away. The timing was perfect.

I am not an organised person. I am tidy, but I’m not organised. A lot of people seem to mistake neatness for organisation. Everything in my room has a specific place, but when arranging a time to meet a friend I’ll need them to repeat our agreement to me several times to reassure myself that I remember what we’ve said, then I’ll write it on a piece of paper and stick it on the door of my wardrobe. I’ll also put a reminder in my phone. I’ve given up on having a diary because I only wrote appointments in it after they had happened. And any appointment that I wrote in the diary in advance was bound to be cancelled. It was as though I was jinxing it by committing to it. So to suddenly be faced with making multiple dental appointments at several different locations was somewhat intimidating for a person like me. Not to mention warning my boss so that she could roster me to work appropriately and making sure that I didn’t plan to have my teeth taken out the day before a particularly awesome party. There were many factors to be taken into account. So of course I ignored them all, picked a date at random and hoped for the best.

It’s interesting that as soon as you tell people you’re going to get your wisdom teeth out, they feel compelled to tell you stories of it going wrong. Interesting is the wrong word. Perhaps unhelpful is a better way of putting it. Just like the best stories from travelling are the ones where everything falls apart, the same seems to apply to dental procedures. Sure they mean well, but the trouble is, regardless of how well the story is told, it’s not particularly amusing for the person about to undergo the surgery. I’d never had anything remotely surgical done to me before. Never been to hospital, never broken a bone, which is quite impressive considering how often I run into things. So in the days before the procedure, I was freaked. And my mother, of all people, was the biggest culprit. She told me stories of how her mouth wouldn’t stop bleeding, she fainted as soon as she got home, her mother and sister had to carry her up the stairs, and the same would undoubtedly happen to me since I had her genetic material. Great. Thanks mum.

For all the stress beforehand, I must say that the procedure itself was completely uneventful. I’d go so far as to say it was boring. One minute the anaesthetist was injecting my hand, the next I’m in a completely different room and the nurse is telling me I have to open my mouth so she can get the gauze out. What happened in between? I have no idea. And I’m glad of that. Now I’m minus four teeth, which honestly is a relief, because they were a damn nuisance. When I made the appointment to have my wisdom teeth extracted, I just wanted to get in there and have them get out. But after all the dramatic stories I heard, it was almost disappointing to have the procedure go exactly as planned. No horrific stories for me. Everything was fine and dandy. What a shame. Perhaps something terrible will happen when I go to get a crown on my tooth. Fingers crossed...

(Note: I don't actually want anything to go wrong when I get a crown on my tooth. That's just silly.)

Moving.

(This was written in January 2007 when I was in the midst of moving out of my parents' house for the first time and getting quite stressed in the process.)

You know what's stressful? Moving house.You know what's a great idea? Let's get to Ikea as early as we can and walk around for four hours. You don't need to have breakfast first. Of course it'll be easy to decide what to buy. Of course we won't buy anything unnecessary. Of course it'll fit in the car. Of course it'll be easy to assemble. We won't have to wait long for it to be delivered. Don't be silly, I'm not irrationally displeased about that bedside table being out of stock, it makes sense that they're out of stock, after all where could you put them, it's not like this store is bigger than the suburb I live in. It's alright, I wanted the shelves in that colour really, I just didn't know it. You've been VERY helpful. No really, I didn't mind running between the checkout and the shelves of stock 6 times, I needed the exercise. I can leave the store any time I like, it's not like I'm TRAPPED in here... (I find it disturbing to be walking through a store and see small, hidden doorways with signs like "Shortcut to Bedding". How many stores do you know that require shortcuts for a person to get through them alive?)

You know what's an even better idea? I'm not the slightest bit cranky after clawing my way through Ikea, how about we start moving some of the furniture I already have to the new place? Better yet, let's make it a family outing, and we can have completely rational conversations about how we're going to fit that chest of drawers in to the car, because it's not like we're driving each other crazy... Lift it this way! Can't you see? Lift it the way I'm pointing with my eyebrows which are largely obscured by a great hunk of wood as I stagger down the stairs. A suitcase full of books isn't heavy, what're you talking about? Yes, they are vital to my existence and I need them ALL. Yes, I feel perfectly safe perched on a folded down seat in the back of the car with no seatbelt on and a chest of drawers shuddering beside me as we tear down Oxford St to dump them in my new house. Yes, I know exactly how I want to arrange the furniture in my new room. No really, the louder you advise me, the better I'll be able to understand you.

Despite the frustration of moving, when I awoke the next morning it was satisfying to feel that the process was started, even though I wouldn't actually be moving out of my parents' house for another week. That calmed me until I started to get dressed and noticed I had nothing to wear. Where were all my clothes? They were several suburbs away in the chest of drawers we had moved the previous day.

I relent.

There have been a handful of worldwide phenomenons that I have deliberately avoided. One was Seinfeld. I never went out of my way to watch that show. I don’t know why, because on the occasions it happened to be on the television whilst I was sitting opposite it, I did find it amusing. Another was Harry Potter. I successfully blocked out all information regarding Harry Potter for years until one day I was embarking on a thirteen hour train trip and noticed the first book of the series sitting on the empty seat beside me with no one to claim it. By the end of the train ride, I had almost finished it and was ravenous for the next installments. Now, I am thoroughly converted, almost to the point of obsession (though I don’t hold a candle to some people I’ve come across on the web).

I’m not one of those people whose claim to cool is to scoff at the mainstream. Now that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy finding little gems that others aren’t aware of. I get just as smug as the next person when I’m the first to stumble across some cool website or shop. But I don’t dress or decorate based on what I believe will shock society and paint me as “edgy” and an “outsider”. There’s too much self consciousness in that approach for me, and frankly, too much effort. It’s more a case of wanting to make sure that I like something because it actually appeals to me, not because I’m being told that it appeals to everybody therefore I must like it. And so, sometimes, I deliberately ignore what’s trendy for a while.

Another thing that I have actively avoided for a very long time is blogs. My attitude to them was somewhat derisive, almost snobbish, at first. What makes you think that I’m interested in what you had for breakfast this morning? But, very suddenly it seems to me, blogs have become cool. People I find interesting are writing blogs. Artists I like are writing blogs. Bloggers, apparently, are becoming celebrities, getting invited to functions, being asked to write for publications... This caused me to reassess my attitude to blogs. Perhaps they weren’t all bad. Maybe I’ll give it a go. Maybe I should realise, again, just as I finally did with Harry Potter, that there could a reason for the worldwide cult following that goes beyond pack mentality.

However, my hesitation hasn’t only been due to trying to avoid the crowd. I confess, I like writing. Not just in the sense of composing words into prose, but the act of physically picking up a pen and putting it to paper. There’s something comforting in it. I’m sentimental about it. I am addicted to buying journals which I then never write in because they deserve something meaningful written in them, not just a list of groceries or my favourite films of that moment. Something I will still find meaningful five years down the track. Although I do enjoy typing, I was hesitant to give in to blogs because I don’t want it to replace writing for me. I am very attached to writing.

So why am I giving in to blogs now? My reason is a shallow one. I just got a new laptop. She is shiny and pretty and the name Betsy seems to suit her. So enamoured am I that I am looking for any reason to play with her, and I figure that writing a blog will be one of the many ways to dither around on the computer. It’d be nice to have a deeper reason for my relenting, but that’s it I’m afraid. It remains to be seen whether this blog with take on a life of its own or if my infatuation with Betsy will calm itself and I end up distracted once again.