you learn something new everyday, I guess…

So. It’s been 15 days, and I realised I haven’t checked in an awful lot, as had been my intention.

Initially I felt very bad about this, but one of my best friends pointed something out that I hadn’t really thought about.

She told me about how most of the time when you sit down with the intent of keeping a diary/journal, it’s when you have a quiet moment with nothing else to do. Usually, unless you have some kind of major situation to deal with that involves an awful lot of pondering on your part, when you sit down to write a journal, that’s often when it’s hardest to imagine what you’re actually going to write about. But on the other hand, if you are out living and doing stuff – the kind of stuff that when you’re doing it you think momentarily how you want to remember how good it was – you’re doing so much that the last thing you have time for is writing it all down, which sucks later because that’s the stuff you want to remember.

SO. Here is me trying to sandwich the best of both worlds, and let you in on a few things that I’ve learned about myself in the process of going social networking free.

1. I love jazz. Specifically the kind played live underground when you’re sitting next to a good friend celebrating both having just quit your jobs. I can’t believe it’s taken all this time for me to realise this. It also means that all the Facebook quizzes I’ve ever done on ‘if you were a famous song, which one would you be’ are probably completely out of whack.
2. I love drinking mojitos on the boardwalk by the Opera House, right on dusk when the sky’s dark violet, and the stars are mingling with the city lights over your head and across the harbour. I don’t appreciate my city as much as I should. Or I didn’t until now.
3. I can drink eight vodka and lemonades before my head starts moving faster than the rest of my body and my face goes numb. Discovered by accident, but still – good to know.
4. Bear ‘Man vs Wild’ Grylls is ADDICTIVE. He’s the only man I can see eat raw spider, turn a sheep inside out and wear it, or use a snakeskin as a water bottle (amongst other things) and STILL find him utterly attractive.
5. I could spend every Saturday with my friend Melle, eating pad thai and watching Guy Ritchie movies. She is my kindred, wise, selfless, funny, smart, brave, bleak, beautiful, Robert-Downey-Jr-Jason-Statham-Simon-Pegg-high-octane-action loving soul sister – spending a day with her reminded me all the more how much I have to really, truly be thankful for. I absolutely adore her, and not just because she owns a Blockbuster card with a rental history to rival mine.
6. I write better when I don’t tweet for a while. Maybe because I’m actually pouring my creativity into sentences longer than 140 characters.
7. I rely too much on other peoples immediate reactions to gauge the success of my decisions or validity of my thoughts when I express them. I learned the value of discerning and digesting both for myself – how other people react isn’t nearly as telling as my own gut reaction.
8. I had a closet gym junkie I had no idea existed. I went from doing not a hell of a lot at all to doing 2 boxing classes, 3 sessions with a trainer, yoga and pilates, 5 days a week. I have this horrid feeling that I may wake up from this fit person dream at any moment and discover I’ve actually put on the body weight of a ten year old. As it is however, I’ve chucked out 18 bags of clothes, shoes and accessories since March. Please note this has nothing…okay, well…not a lot to do with the fact I will be snuggling with two Georgian vampires and a werewolf in less than a month. (Ian Somerhalder and Mike Trevino – if by some miracle you are reading this, please note that your abs are not exempt from the Paul Wesley treatment. If I count his – and like a Santa I’ll be making that list and checking it twice – Equal Opportunity legislation states that yours too must be examined. It’s only fair.)
9. Keeping in contact with people – like actively making the time to communicate with them – can be really hard work!
10. I have flirting skills. I mean, I actually own a working set. I eyelash-batted a DVD down from $19.95 to 5 bucks on the weekend (start small – always a good plan). And don’t even TALK to me about the wiles I used on that 3 mobile sales guy. I’m not exactly Jessica Rabbit, but as it turns out, I got game…well…just a little bit anyways. Maybe just the game up til half time…not counting the HT entertainment…or orange breaks.
11. I LOVE Alexander Skarsgard. Okay, it didn’t take a social networking freeze to discover this about myself, but still. It earned a mention here. All of a sudden my Swedish roots (no kidding, I really do have them) seem VERY worth revisiting. Oh Alan Ball, I could bear hug you for a month for how much justice you’ve done the character of Eric Northman. Deeeeeee-licious.
12. I still don’t like beer.
13. I like reading books, and handwriting things, more than I like sitting in front of a computer.

And to think. That’s only part of it.

As of this moment, I feel like I’m a really long way from the girl who became a temporary twitter quitter some 15 days ago.

I quit my job, got a new one, got really angry with some people, was really happy with others, learned more about the people around me, discovered a little more about who I was, and learned that a lot of that is made up by the kinds of relationships I have with people around me. Every person you have a relationship with – good or bad – forms a little part of who you are, I think. It’s the learning how to deal with it that’s where the rubber hits the road. If anything, I have things less figured out now than I did before. I realised just how much I don’t know, but in that…I don’t know…I feel like there’s a first step that’s been taken there somewhere. And it feels really good.

Oy, look at the time. I have a date with a pilates machine and an instructor who I’m not entirely sure didn’t eat Gumby for breakfast.

Have a beautiful day/night/evening/afternoon wherever you are in the world.

Til next time ;) xo