If It Wasn't For You Meddling Kids...

*Shakes fist at Great Dane and stupid hippy children wearing exceedingly bright items of clothing*

It was about 3 years ago, when I was going through my ultimate 'THERE IS LIFE AFTER DEATH' phase when I found myself in the audience of one of Derek Acorah's live shows. For those of you that found themselves living under rocks or in damp cellars about 3 years ago, Derek Acorah called himself a 'spiritualist medium'. Loosely translated, he claimed to have the gifts that enabled him to hear, feel (creepy), smell (ew) and see the spirits of dead people and was able to communicate with them. He has since been proved to be a fraud, but that isn't the point here.

My point here is the suggestibility of a human mind. Back to the show (I need to paint a picture here, settle down kids). For those of you who aren't stupid enough to have paid to go to one of these things, basically, a medium stands on a stage in a room full of people and waits. Then, if they are feeling generous (and just happen to be following around their loved ones everywhere they go) the spirits of the audience's dead friends and relatives give the mediums CLUES as to who they are. These clues are then relayed to the audience, who speak up if it's their relative, and they have a little chat. Of sorts.

I roared with laughter the entire evening due to the stupidity of the whole set up. It's clear to see that the mediums are quite literally stabbing in the dark and relying on some poor old bat sitting in the audience to cry "OMFG that's my dear GEOFF!!" or else they would find themselves standing in silence, performing to crickets and tumbleweeds. Quite literally, some of the clues given were "I have a person here... Of the male sex... Whose name starts with a letter of the alphabet" and almost immediately you could see men and women alike begin to mutter amoungst themselves and actually CONSULT NOTES that they'd brought about their loved ones (yeah, you loved them soooooooooo much, didn't you??? So much so that you knew sod all about them!!!!!). The following conversations that these poor saps then had with their 'loved ones' were so vague and could be applied to anyone - "You're having money issues." was a popular one as well as "I'm happy and at peace."

Even though I was laughing hysterically the entire time, I felt so sorry for these people who genuinely believed that they were talking to their loved ones. They obviously missed them so much that they were willing to try anything to be able to talk to them and could have taken even the slightest hint from the medium and applied it to their relative. It's sad. It's very sad.

On that note, my mother and I are going to a psychic evening tomorrow night. Tee hee hee.

Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll

There comes a point in everyone's life when you wake up in an obscure location, clutching the last remaining can/bottle/random object from whatever happened the night before and think one of two things: either "Hmmm... Things got out of hand FAST! When can I go round again?" or "Omg... OMG is this my LIFE?!? Jesus, I gotta get a new one. Fast."

I mysef experienced this situation only on sunday morning - I awoke in a friend's bathroom, topless and clinging on to a tube of toothpaste as if my life depended on it. My initial thought was not "Jesus Christ, where is my crucial article of clothing?" nor was it "Woops, my shift started 2 hours ago." It was infact "I think I might allow that cat to finish licking my hair, I don't have time for a shower." And it was only then that I thought to myself something that made more sense - me being me, it was the first thought.

I'd like to think that I'm one of those people that does not do things in moderation. If I'm gonna drink, I'm gonna down that entire bottle of vodka and then eat that damn fish food. If I'm gonna try weed, I'm gonna smoke that stuff until 5 in the morning and spend at least 10 minutes laughing hysterically at a damp rose bush. If I'm gonna practically eat the face off that bloke I've known for only a few hours, I'm damn well gonna grab the next taxi back to his and fuck his brains out all night. If I'm gonna get a piercing, I'm gonna get as many as I can in the most unusual places I can find. I could go on, but I think you know what I'm talking about.

It is with this revelation that I consider myself truly to be living life to its fullest. Yes, blackouts are extremely frightening and memory loss can serve as either a fear-inducing drug or as a God send (in my case, my memory loss has still not returned and is a God send. I do not feel the shame I should feel about eating fish food and puking all over some guy's living room simply because I do not remember doing it.) I've come a long way since my days of only being able to drink half a glass of cider (or so it seemed) before people would find me weeping in the corner over the fact that I realised that my curtains and bed sheets clashed. No, I am not kidding. 13 is an age at which you are much too young to drink, as I keep telling Christian, but I'll be damned if he ever so much as considers listening to me.

Where was I? Oh yes *Ahem* Yes, people may consider me stupid for drinking until I black out, or dangerous for mixing alcohol and drugs, or slaggy for sleeping with someone I am not in a long-standing relationship with, and to these people I say "Fuck. You." It's my life, I will make my own decisions and mistakes, and I'll bloody well enjoy myself while I'm at it! I don't want to grow up to ANY age and look back at my teenage/early adult years and think "My God, what a boring arse I was." This is the way I'm choosing to live - I'm immature, spontaneous, rude, crass, crude, and dare I say it, sexy to boot as well?

You may wonder where this sudden revelation came from - after all, I'm not really known for such deep thought unless required but it may sometimes take an emotional knock to encourage such thoughts. I learned about a month ago that a family member had been told that he had throat cancer - not pleasant, but sometimes survivable. Something I could easily cope with. I am not naive - I was quite aware that he could die. I even prepared myself for the eventuality that the cancer had spread and it was indeed terminal, but you always have that hope, don't you? That stereotypical 'it won't happen to me' thought process? It was in vain. Throat and lung cancer. An eventually lethal combination. A 4 month sentence given to a man in his 60s, whereas his parents will still be alive and kicking in their late 80s.

Safe to say I shut down emotionally for a while, continuously weeped internally and externally and refused to speak to people for ages. Well, minutes. Life is unfair, and short. As shitty as some of the situations I have found myself in have been, there have been many, I don't intend on wasting any more.

I've never really been one to care about what others think about me, fickle words don't bother me, but after an emotional shut-down of sorts, even more of the once subtle 'fuck you' attitude tends to surface. Don't like it? Well, I believe you might already know the answer to that question. :) In all seriousness though, live life while you can - you never know when it can be taken out from under you, like a table cloth expertly ripped from a laden table. Only death doesn't leave the settings quite as neat for the people left behind.





^^^^^^^^^^^ Goddamn, who knew I was so poetic?? ^_________^