I don't know.

I haven't been blogging lately. I wasn't really sure why, but I realised that it was because I have something real to blog about. And I'm afraid to write about it. I'm afraid of the conclusions that I'll reach. I'm afraid of questions that I desperately don't want to ask. I don't care if no one reads this. I don't care if everyone reads this, although I would be embarassed if everyone I knew read it ...

I'm procrastinating.

Lately I have been really worried about my relationship. I've been with Nathaniel for almost 3 and a half years now. Its been great. Its been shit at times but mostly its been shit.

The thing that people need to know is that when we first got together we were both like "NO COMMITMENT" and now we've accidentally got into a long term committed relationship. Although Nannal is terrified of marriage... What's that Amanda? Aren't you terrified of it too?

Actually, now - no I'm not. On a lot of levels it makes no sense. Its a government thing. Its a religion thing. But on a personal level, telling everyone that you love and care about that you love this person and want to be with no one else, is a touching thing. Yes its cheesy. Yes its overdone. Yes a lot of people do it for the wrong reasons with the wrong expectations...

But that doesn't mean its flat out wrong. And it doesn't mean that I don't want it.
I was never this girl. I was never the one to say that I want these things. But if I am totally honest with myself, I want it. I want someone to say "I love you" in front of everyone and not have to qualify it, or follow it up with a joke. I want someone to legitimately want to spend their life with me, and not wonder about what else is out there seriously.

But Nathaniel doesn't want that. I know that, and have been aware since day one. Unlike me, he hasn't changed his mind. In fact, we've spoken about these things and he's told me point blank that he doesn't think this can last. He wants to be with other people. And I guess I kind of bury my head in the sand.

I love him.
I really, really love him. So this is incredibly hard to think about.

But do I really want to stay with someone who doesn't think that I am worth it? Do I really want to stay with someone who, by his own admission, will one day break up with me or at least be unfaithful?

I don't know. And that is the answer that bothers me most. It is not as easy as a "no". And it is not as easy as a "yes". Either answer does not sit, because I don't know. If someone said this to me though, and I was the outsider, the answer "I don't know" would probably mean more no than yes...

What the fuck do I want then?
Practicality dictates my life. What would it mean if it was all to go to hell? I would have to move out. But where to? I don't have any money to do that. I don't have a job. The best I could do would be to move home. To my old room. And that would kill me. Back to Saddleworth, to my teenage bedroom...

And what did 3 1/2 years mean then? If its all for nothing... If he doesn't love me quite enough... What have I given up for him? What have I become for him?



I don't know.

I guess that sums everything up doesn't it? I just ... I just don't know.

In an ideal world I would tell him all this. And we would cry and he would tell me what he thinks. And then he would tell me all the things I really long to hear. No, not "Will you marry me and be with me forever?" Not that. He would tell me what I mean to him. He would tell me why this is hard for him as well. I want passion and painful love that is so hard to talk about. I want that feeling that people write songs about.

But all I can imagine him saying is "I don't know".

And I would break.



But this is all speculation. This is all ... this is all Amanda. I'm just sitting here alone. He is 50 minutes drive away. Probably fast asleep.

Is this just one of my famous moods? Is this just because we've been together for 3 1/2 years and things have changed. Our relationship has changed. And I really crave that falling feeling, that passion when its been replaced with comfort and steady love. Is this just because we have been together so long that we both have changed and we need to reevaluate what we want from eachother?

Or is it more. Is it because our relationship has changed for the worse? Are we fizzling out after all this time? Has he fallen out of love with me? Are my expectations just too much...

I have to laugh ... because of course the inevitable answer is "I don't know". It comes down to that doesn't it? And what do I do when I don't know something? I find out... So ... Inevitably I will have to bring out that doozy of a cliche - "We have to talk".

House Sitting Fun Times

I am presently house sitting in Saddleworth!

It is ... well it is kind of fun, but I am struggling with what to do with myself. I have been reading a lot but it isn't very productive.

I like looking after the cats. And seeing Teeni and Charlie so frequently is awesome. But it would be nice if I could combine this things with my boyfriend.... I miss having him here. He is a major major part of my life and I feel kind of useless without him there. Well, not useless exactly. But he does give me purpose. :-) Not in an antifeminist kind of way either ... its just nice to know there is someone to talk to. Someone to comfort. Someone to interact with.

Here I interact with virtual peoples and little peoples and occassionally my sister too... but not that often.

Oh well. Perhaps this is like a mini retreat...

Off to be ... all retreaty I guess.

Online "friends" ...

I feel like I've blogged about this before...

Nonetheless!

Online "friendships".

I was thinking the other day that it is a very strange phenomenon that occurs between a "fan" of someone online and that person. For example, I was trying to tell my mother about Kristina Horner from youtube/the parselmouths/italktosnakes blog, and I found myself wanting to say "my friend Kristina". Although that is not strictly true.

She actually only vaguely knows of my existence. And mostly that knowledge just places me as an anonymous number in her "subscribers" or "listeners" or "readers". But if this were offline, I am fairly sure that anyone who paid this much attention to what she had to say, and appreciated her creative outlets as much as I do (and the rest of the subscribers... I'm not the only one!), would probably be classed as a friend.

But because it is online its different. It is like a one-way friendship. I would kind of like to have a conversation with her - and anyone else that I watch/read - but I know it would be wierd because I would be at an advantage. I already know a lot about her and her life. But she would know practically nothing about me and my life. So it would be awkward probably. Or maybe I'm too selfconscious about that fact?

I think it would be similar to meeting a celebrity for the first time. Like I would really love to meet and talk to Amanda Palmer. She is my favourite artist of all time. I love her music. I love her blog. And I really admire her commitment to both music and creativity in general. She is a wonderful person. Yet if I were given the opportunity to sit down with her backstage I would feel really uncomfortable blurting out all these things because she does not know me! Sure I could think of some interesting questions to ask her and start a conversation but it is still wierd because she is the one that I know all about, and I am just fan number xy.

Anyways... Just thought I'd blog that. Its a thought that has been running around in my head for a while. :-)

Results, Insecurites, Complexities and Money

So far my plan to be more productive is creeping along ok. It would be good if I had some more palpable results, you know, like *poof!* I have $200,000 in my savings, a spotlessly clean and well set out house and 2 published books (one fiction, one non-fiction). Alas, I guess the whole point of this is so that this will eventually happen. Things, unfortunately, take time, effort and luck.

The equation probably goes TIME/EFFORT = (result x (LUCKx130000456) or something. But I think I need to remember that it isn't the results that I actually want. Its the feelings around the results. I want to feel productive. I want to feel like I'm doing something worthwhile, that I'm fulfilling some kind of purpose. And, naturally, I want to feel important. Not that I would say that out loud to anyone. Not that anyone, I think, would admit that to anyone, but its true. I want to feel that what I have done, or what I am doing is important ... and that feeling probably drives me more than anything else.

If you really think about it, I guess it comes from that old insecurity. "What do they think of me?". It isn't so much about myself, but what other people think of myself. And when I think that they think that I'm worth something then I will be worth ... something.

Of course that's bullshit. I know that. I intellectually know that. But that doesn't help me in my everyday experience so much. Its a feeling that is so deeply ingrained that even though I would counsel the same thing to anyone with the same surity that I would assure them of gravitational pull, I can't escape it myself.

Its like what John Green says so frequently. We know that other people out there are the same as us and we know that they are as complex and individual as we are, but we can't help but not imagine them with any complexity. At least, not with the same complexity that we regard ourselves. That's because we are trapped in these bodies, we cannot possibly know what it is like to be anything or anyone other than ourselves. We could imagine it sure, but we would not come close. Like when you are in great pain and someone says "I know what you're feeling" or something like that, and you could cry out and say something selfish like "How can you possibly know what I'm feeling!" because how could they? This pain is yours and no one has ever felt that before.

By the same token, how do we know that the pain we feel is unique. How do we know they don't know how we feel? That's right. We are selfish.

My boyfriend tried to tell me the other day that we, as a race, are not capable of true empathy because of this fact. He peppered his explanation with talk of survival as well. We have to look out for ourselves etc. But I countered that yes, while it is virtually impossible to be truly empathetic with someone, to truly know how they feel, it is not impossible to feel empathy at all.

I think that I am an empathetic person. When someone comes to me in pain, I try to feel their pain too. Of course that comes with my instinct born of being an older sister, to protect that person and to fix it for them. If that fails though I just have to be there for them.

Then again that flies out the window when I'm driving in the city and someone cuts me off, or is driving 15kms below the speed limit. The person in front of me is not a complex human being who is flawed but ultimately good, rather they are an IDIOT who can't drive and obviously has no regard for anyone else, or (more likely, I think in the heat of the moment) great disdain for me personally. How amusing is that? Although I fuck up on the road with frequency (I'm sure) I don't regard myself as a horrible driver, do I? So why should this person be an idiot when I've only been shown one example of their whole driving career? It really makes you think. Or, it really makes you laugh. Either way...

Anyway. Despite all this I would really like to be given everything that I want right now. Or, if I have to be picky, the money to get me started. With $200,000 I could buy some land, go over seas, fix my car and be the best aunt ever and set Charlie up with a trust fund. Unfortunately ... this will have to stay in the dream basket for now.

Still... it is a good dream ... make everyone happy, have a solid financial investment (literally solid), be flying to London to Dublin to Seattle to Boston... all that good stuff. *Le sigh*


Better get back to reality. I have a story arc to figure out.
xo

Manifesto-ish

Inspired by nerimon/Alex, I have decided that my life needs to be more productive. In his last few blogs, Alex has been talking about purging his life and gearing his actions towards outcomes. He has deleted many of his subscriptions on YouTube (down to 8 I believe!), got rid of the RSS feeds he doesn't care about on Google reader, deleted his facebook and twitter accounts and that's just the online stuff!

I have decided to take his lead. I have been kind of trying to do this kind of thing all year, but I keep starting and stopping. So lets see if this sticks...

To keep myself on track I have written down a few short goals that I want to shape my day to day life with.

• Job and Financial Security - at the moment this means job seeking and working on the budget.
• Peace and Comfort - right now this means DECLUTTERING and CLEANING, although this could also mean meditating or showering etc.
• Creativity and Personal Expression - this is one I have been neglecting quite a bit. I want to start writing creatively and drawing, but it also counts as blogging because that's personal expression, often in its most literal form...
• Knowledge - I want to try and read at least one article a day. Or research something ... Or look into Universities and their PhD programs. I can't forget that this is the direction that I want my life to head. If I could combine this with the first point, and get a job in the area ... even better! Birds with stones and all that.

I've also written this in big letters "SPEND 80% of YOUR TIME WORKING TOWARDS THESE GOALS!" because Alex pointed out that usually 80% of our outcomes are achieved during 20% of our day. I want to turn that around so that I am productive not just for 20%. Also if only 20% of my day yields results, and often I am not doing anything at all productive during most of the day, then those 80% results we are talking about are not that significant. However if I spend more time doing things that are geared towards my goals, then I can change that. The results will be greater.

Then I've just got a little list of goals/ideas that fit under the headings so that I don't spend precious time trying to figure out what to do... because that will inevitably lead me to spend hours in front of World of Warcraft or playing Bejeweled on facebook.

Oh and no, I can't bring myself to delete facebook although it would be an excellent idea to cut down on the number of times I check the damn thing. Perhaps by limiting it to maybe 3 a day? Then down to 2? Who knows maybe one day I will spend a whole day without needing to check it (and not one of those days when it is infeasible to check it... a day at home so no cheating!). But I'm not there yet.

So there it is. My new productivity plan.

I realise that I frequently (ish) blog about my goals and my plans and how I need to get into gear. But that is because I am very good at not following through. I have fabulous intentions but then get waylaid. I find more fun things to do etc. But what I need to realise is that when I look back at this year I don't want to be ashamed of all the time I could have spent doing other things!

Its not like I am going to quit doing fun stuff all together. I have a vague idea that if I spend at least 4-6 hours a day in this mode I'll be on the right track and then I can veg out, or go for a walk or something. Plus, a few of the things on my list are actually things that I enjoy doing, and wouldn't feel like that much of a strain so that will help.

But now the test - how long will it take me to get waylaid? And will I use the fact that I got waylaid to give up altogether? Hm... We shall see!

Wish me luck!

Vintage Recap with bonus Lazy report

The vintage festival I mentioned in my last blog wasn't actually all that bad. Most of the time we sat in front of Nannal's grandparents' place on the main street, sipping booze in the shade and snacking on biscuits and mettwurst (mm... mettwurst). The parade itself was interesting and strange. There was one float that was playing the star wars theme, with star wars and star trek characters sitting on it/walking around it... AND on the trailer there was a Tardis... yes, Doctor Who's mode of transport was riding on a trailer. Then I even noticed that someone was walking behind the trailer with a long multi-coloured scarf and an afro ... OhEmGee old school Doctor Who. I'm sure most people had no idea what was going on but I chuckled.

Eventually (it was a very long parade) a truck came past that had "HERITAGE HOTSPOTS - Mit 'Otto' UND 'Frieda'" on the front and there, to our amusement, was our friend Karalee waving, wearing a veil and standing next to her "bridegroom" who actually happened to be her brother in law. ^.^

And that folks, was the reason we came! Haha... inadvertantly Nannal got drunk, so that was a bonus...

Anyway I am pleased to report that, for the most part, the parade was harmless and I saw no floating corpses as feared. Although there was this one float where a guy was wearing a really wierd mask and picking up dirt/sand and muttering something... I was thoroughly confused/wierded out by that, but hey... what's one creepy float?

In other news I have become a real internet addict. I have been steadfastly ignoring the mess that is threatening to take over the whole house while staring resolutely at my computer screen. I play a lot of online games, I incessantly check YouTube for new videos and check my reader for new blogs. I wish people had as much time as me so that they could update as often as I check but then I guess the whole world would grind to a halt, since I never get anything done, thus neither would they.

I think I am possibly the worst housewife ever. I did NOTHING this morning while Mister was at work. So to distract him from that fact I seduced him when he got home... and luckily he hasn't said anything about the state of the living room... or the kitchen... or the bedroom... or anything! For now...

Not that I seduced him for that reason alone... it ended up being an excellent mood lift too. And because I was so very happy, HE was so very happy because his ego just grew like 50 times thanks me appreciating his "prowess". He jokingly said I should tell all my friends, and while I wouldn't go that far, I HAVE blogged about it .. kind of... so that should serve to inflate his head more. Lol.

Aaaaanyway. Enough of that for now I think! Better go back and check my Reader... what if someone blogged in the last 10 minutes????

:-P

Vintage-esque

Today is the Vintage parade in the Barossa... This is a phenomenon I usually read about in the paper not actually attend. But this year I live in the heart of the valley and thus I thought I'd go. Plus, you know, one of my best friends is on a float and since I have neglected to see her for like, more than a month, I should damn well make the effort!

If you don't know, and there are high chances that you don't, the Vintage festival is an annual event in the Barossa where people get all excited about ... well, as the name suggests, the Vintage. Its a wine area - what do you expect? But in the Barossa there are all sorts of odd traditions, one of which creeps me out. That is, where people enter a scarecrow competition... so there are big life size dolls around the place dressed up in various costumes that I always have to look twice at because if you don't it kind of looks like a corpse... creepy I know.

Then there is the tradition in the Tanunda supermarket (which also has life size dummies at the entrance dressed in Foodland uniforms... hm) where the checkout chicks have to wear ye olde clothes. Like skirts and bonnets and aprons... Its cute... but still wierd. Especially if you just dropped in on your way through with no idea it was vintage and just thought that it was a very backward town/supermarket.

Still the big thing is the parade, so I'm told. So I'm going to sit in front of my boyfriend's Grandparent's house and watch. And snap photos. At least it will be an experience?

Oh ... and I'm sure there will be even more stupid doll/dummy/scarecrows involved which will just be even creepier considering they will be on floats... Floating corpses... I mean ... Eeep!