It's a Road Trip

I promote myself as a writer, right? So why's it taken me so long to get my shit together and blog along with the rest of the universe? I guess because as a writer, I have been following some really talented people. Funny, witty, incredible intelligent people that have a hook for their blogs - a theme if you will - that ties their posts together with a kind of conversational red thread. Usually it's their particular passion, their hobby or their cause.

So I've been trying to figure out what my hook will be. Problem being I don't have a hobby, a particular cause or a particular passion. I am generally interested in many things, generally passionate about a lot of stuff, less inclined to get involved in much of the things that do interest me because I have three kids and work for myself, so I can be selfish with my time. Which is probably another reason why I haven't started blogging.

But I might have finally worked it out. Over the past few weeks I've been grappling with many things.  A lot of change in my family circumstances - my kid started school (we're a blended family), one of my besties got a metal plate in her head as some kind of 'solution' to the crippling migraines she's been having ever since her hysterectomy (she doesn't see the connection but I wonder...), a woman I love and admire and barely know in this lifetime but am sure I have adored in many others, is in hospital following a minor stroke, I'm organising a wedding in another country (my own, Fiji) and trying to figure out how to make enough money in my business to meaningfully contribute to the family without having to work 60-70 hour weeks.( I actually know the answer to that and have acknowledged my own time management is half the issue but)...

the point is, there is just all this shit in life. There's funny shit, and sad shit. Crazy shit and amazing shit. Generally speaking, sometimes you're gonna fall in it, sometimes you're gonna get stuck in it, sometimes you'll avoid it and a lot of the time you'll just trip on it, have a brief stumble and roll on happy that you saw it in time to avoid the worst of it.

This is the stuff that gets me going. Just the every day kind of stuff I see going on around me, from the politicians (of course) celebrities (oh puleeze) experiences at work and with the people I love.  Sometimes it makes me laugh my arse off and wry, sartorial and even funny observations will result. Sometimes it makes me angry as hell and I'll go on a ranting bender (quite often at my long suffering and bewildered fiancee.) Sadness is a common reaction although it may take me days to work out what has caused the bout of pouts.

I'm not a funny girl but I greatly admire those that can write with such acerbic wit that it literally makes me cry from the pain of laughing so hard. I don't have a specific bee in my bonnet about any one thing but can frequently host entire hives of them when the mood strikes me. I'm not such a political tragic that I spend my time pouring over the media to address the issues of the day but I'm never shy about getting up on the soapbox when I think politicians are being arsehats (which is a lot of the time). My reading material is lightweight in the main although I can at least honestly say I haven't read a Jackie Collins novel in about ten years so that's an improvement. Food is something I eat not something I hold up as an art form. Art is something I occasionally exclaim over (and when in Paris recently, actually cried as I viewed) but is not something I typically get off my bum to go and see. My life has thrown me challenges that other people may not have coped with but certainly not as many as others I know, who show a great deal more grace under considerably more pressure than I ever did. I'm bloody ignorant about a lot of things and incredibly opinionated about others.

So I guess this is a welcome to those of you that decide taking a few minutes out to read a bunch of self-indulgent carry ons is a worthy exercise.  We're all on the road and maybe we'll share a few laughs and conversations about the kind of shit that we nearly tripped...