Things I am learning

On Feeling Good

• I am very good at feeling happy, I am just not very good at staying happy. It seems to be a very transient emotion. I would like to know how to hold on to it a bit more.
• The days that are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ have very little to do with what actually happens on that day and everything to do with how I feel.
• This is a good thing. Because I can’t control what happens but I CAN control how I feel.
• I have not figured out how to do this yet.

On Friendship

• It is very hard to know who your friends are, but as a rule the ones that consistently make you feel good, make you feel worth something, make you feel like it’s ok to be you, are the one’s worth listening to.
• The ones that make you feel confused, uncomfortable, paranoid or feel like you need to change yourself to make them like you, probably aren’t people you should try and be friends with anyway.
• Best friends, the really good ones, are the ones that inspire you.
• They will usually be the ones proffering wine and cake.

On Inspiration

• Sometimes life has a way of giving you exactly what you were looking for, just in a completely different form than the one you were anticipating.
• Wine is very good for inspiration. We should all drink far more of it. I have decided.
• Getting drunk is a good way of knocking out all the stupid negative “can’t do” voices for a while. We all know, as the helpful advertisement tells us, that when drunk we shouldn’t climb to the top of buildings and think we can fly, but sometimes a feeling of a little invincibility is a good thing.
• Interesting things can be found at the bottom of a wine bottle. Big juicy, wordy things.
• Like books.
• I am going to write a book.

On Writing

• The beginning stages of growing a book are a bit like the early stages of pregnancy in that it involves:
  - a general, lingering feeling of nausea
  - a need to sleep a lot
  - a desire to read every book ever written on the subject accompanied by a irrational terror that you won’t be able to do this unless you read the RIGHT book, right NOW.
  - being completely overwhelmed, excited and terrified all at the same time
  - lots of internal stretches and twinges as your brain makes space for this BRAND NEW THING
  - a complete paranoid fear that you will miscarry this fragile thing and it will all go horribly wrong and that you will never get over it.
• When thinking of writing a book it is Very Useful Indeed to pick a genre that your best friend happens to be writing a PhD on.
• Chances are she will be the best friend that got you drunk and started the whole crazy idea in the first place.

On Blogging and the Internet

• Not blogging is great. We should all blog less, I have decided.
• I do not have to time to live/wash/eat/write/be happy AND comment on a lot of people’s blogs. Despite what I may think some days, living/washing/eating/writing/being happy is definitely more important.
• Twitter is better in small doses. Or not at all. I haven’t decided which yet.
• People you worry will forget about you if you aren’t around as much, probably aren’t people you particularly made an impression on or are worth worrying about.

On This Morning

• I am going to be late.
• I smell a little.
• That probably means I should turn the computer off.

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