I’ve also just started a digital hoarding/wonder cabinet blog at Portal314

I’m smoking. Just the one packet, I swear it. It’s a slippery slope though, so I’d better stop it properly, right after I finish this packet.

The love hate relationship I have with smoking confuses me. Nicotine is harder to kick than clonazepam. And it costs so much money, money that is better spent on books and evil retro salt & pepper shakers. I shouldn’t have bought a packet at all, but I was getting so sick of chewing gum. I looked like a feral horse munching desperately on grass after a period of near starvation.

I’m feeling a little lacking in confidence regarding photography too. I sit here with a cigarette in my hand glaring at photoshop. I don’t have the confidence that allows me to believe in what I’m doing, especially if what i’m doing seems to be unpopular or uncommon. I’m working on that by continuing with my extreme photography regardless of that sinking feeling in my gut. Sometimes I suspect I shouldn’t engage in anything that is remotely subjective. Other times I suspect that coping with subjectivity is a challenge I have to face or just curl up in a pink fluffy ball and give up.

Do I sound depressed today? I’m not. I’m actually feeling rather good tonight. I bought the perfect jacket and the new Sookie Stackhouse book today. I have creme eggs to eat tonight, while I ignore my ever expanding girth. I’m warm! At the moment being warm is awesome. The only upside to a rapidly approaching winter is that warm and cosy feeling I get when I’m eskimoing it and the heater is successfully giving the cold a beating.

Oh my, I’ve run out of things to say. How about another photography experiment, or two, to assault your eyes?

You’re more than welcome. After all there’s nothing quite like visual assault on a Thursday evening. Well that and Project Runway, but that isn’t on for another hour.

Last night I smoked some weed and instead of watchlisting literally everything I find interesting on Trademe I decided to experiment with extreme photoshop. My mind was in that happy weird mad place made just for playing like a child. The results are pretty full on and probably not suited to 99.9% of peoples tastes, but I’m liking my dismissal of accepted techniques in favour of extreme play.

Yesterday my therpist suggested that I have a psychologists mind. She also suggested it would not be a particularly good idea to write to Clayton Weatherston regardless of my interest in how his mind works. She did help me come up with a potentially useful method for curbing my misanthropic tendencies. Apparently she knows someone who essentially collects interesting friends. I’m thinking adjusting my attitude to focusing on interesting aspects of all the people I meet may help me to be a bit less judgemental. I don’t particularly like being judgemental, but sometimes I really am.And I don’t want to become a bitter old gradma who snarls like a starved zombie anytime another human being attempts to interact with me.

The good news is that my therapist agrees that the icky depressive episode from last year has passed. Now I’m just a jumpy people phobic whackjob. I much prefer anxiety to depression. I understand it, I’m used to it, and it doesn’t fuck with my ability to laugh or be interested in things. When I’m depressed I’m a blob of smelly suicidal apathy, which annoys me as much as it does anyone who has to listen to it.

The absence of depression has allowed me to go back to my usual scatterbrain head in the clouds self. I’m currently obsessing over Steampunk, among other things. So now my sleepy fantasies have shifted from creating my own little zombie apocalypse world to creating a steampunk world as I curl up under my blankets. What I lack in focus and commitment I try to make up with variety. And now I really wish I could sew and make gadgets. I want a fabulous steampunk outfit with the appropriate gadgets, but i’m far too poor and picky to go buying stuff so I wish I’d learnt some practical sewing, woodwork, jewelry making, and metalwork skills back when I was young enough not to let apathy get in the way.

Here’s some steampunk eye candy. I want aspects of it all. Though I think I’m generally most interested in steampunk explorer garb, the gadgets, and less full on aspects of Victorian fashion.

Insanely fabulous binoculars.

Those pants make me swoon.

The Hat! Enough said.

Fabulously cute steampunk plane.

Why yes, I do appear to be obsessed, if only briefly.

I’ve become quite taken with photographing reflections. I quite like shadows too. So what is better than wandering down the stairs in the library to find shadows of people reflected through one of the library windows onto the building opposite? I think I’ll be back at the library creeping people out by hanging out on the library stairs with my camera pointed out the window sometime in near future.

Today I’m so grateful for my fluffy hooded bathrobe. I intend to wear it all day. It’s the first day of 2011 that I’ve felt like winter is truly on its way to making my hair frizzy and encourage my homeless eskimo look. I like to call it warmth is more important than looking good chic.

Anyway, since I’m pretty much of the opinion that 2011 will be a reclusive year for me I’m quite happy to wander around looking like a homeless eskimo this winter. To be completely honest I’m not hermitting properly, as I have not holed myself up completely alone and it’s more self-indulgent than a challenge. I also live with people, have a boyfriend, and there are a couple of friends I will take the time to hang out with. What I have done is cut off contact with a lot of people while I spend more time in my head, often fussing about getting my grubby litttle hands on various animal skulls. It’s not a bad thing though. I’m an introvert by nature and I think I need the time-out to work on myself and indulge in my interests. And what’s so wrong with being a little self-indulgent anyway? It’s not like I’m going to be bugging other people, I’ll be avoiding them. So it’s hardly like my self-indulgent reclusiveness is really going to effect anyone else. I did a similar thing in 2002 and it helped me a lot, so here’s hoping my semi-hermit tendencies of 2011 yield similar positive results.

Ugh. There is a downside, I don’t have much to write about as a result of doing practically nothing worthy of mention. All I do is slap on nicotine patches and chew gum. I think I may become a gum addict. I’d rather be smoking but gum is cheaper.

I also spend an awful lot of time on Trademe watch-listing things I’m unlikely to ever bother buying. Though I did purchase a rosary last week, despite being not remotely in tune with the christian (let alone catholic) concept of god. I just happen to like some of the trappings of religion. My family is weird about religion. My Dad has been involved with the Quakers and the Bahá’i faith in recent years, but I’m not entirely sure if he believes in God. My mother is an agnostic who insists on only eating fish on Good Friday. And when my mother asked my Nana about her old rosaries she not only found out that they were burnt to a crisp around 40 years ago when my grandad died but then my Nana got all worried that I was going to turn catholic. My Nana is a lapsed catholic who still essentially believes in God and Italian Catholicism, but goddammit there is no way she’s going to support her grandchild becoming a crazy catholic. I wonder how she would react if I mentioned I was more interested in hoodoo? It’s no wonder I’m a big fan of agnosticism and apatheism but somehow manage to go off on wannabe spiritual kicks.

I also like the idea of altars, so I’m lurking around http://altars.tumblr.com/ making plans for when I finally have space and can get all of my stuff out of storage. I’m thinking my altar will end up as some sort of hodge-podge mix of religious imagery from various religions. I’m also guessing it will be more visual than practical. Practicality isn’t really my thing.

Have I ever admitted that I feel awkward ending posts?

Happy Monday! It’s raining here and I spent most of the afternoon sleeping, again. My results came back from the blood tests I had regarding my urge to take nana naps and I’m physically just dandy, so it’s either a new (and more pleasant) anxiety avoidance tactic or I’m just really tired for no good reason. I’m not too fussed about it right now though, at least the dogs get something out of it. They like to cuddle and sleep with me and that’s comforting.

Anyway, I’m not here to talk about how I like to drool on my pillow in the afternoons. I figured it was time to do one of those posts where I link to the things I find weird and wonderful. Though with me weird is oftentimes synonymous with wonderful. And let’s face it I spend a shitload of time online oggling interesting things, so I may as well share the things that make my mind feel like fireworks and rainbows.

I’m always floating around flickr making wide eyes at various photos. The above is one of my latest favourites.

In the world of loltastic I found What I Found At Work Today. My favourite so far is the Spooning Men post.

I’m finding Object Poems and Toy Boxes inspirational. Followed by The Julie Project. In fact I found The Julie Project incredibly moving and vaguely reminiscent of an old friend of mine and her lifestyle.

If you love weird photos like I do you might want to check out Mr. Digby’s Cabinet of Curiosities. Flickr groups blow my mind with their variety of fabulous imagery and I’m slowly working my way through this group adding favourites and admiring the talent that seems to be literally splashed all over the place.

How about an interesting article on feral children.

To make up for all the weirdness check out Jennifer Davis, a fabulous artist whose work made my eyes happy. She’s on Etsy too. Her work is expensive but beyond fabulous. If I had the money I would be buying, but instead I just ogle and drool. I’m pretty sure she makes many other peoples eyes happy too.

Speaking of happy, let’s face it My Little Ponies still rock.They’re just so utterly cute.

Sometime last week I noticed a potentially threatening spider on the toilet wall as I was doing my peeing business. Instead of making horrified faces and almost falling off the loo attempting to get out of there asap I decided to adopt said spider. It was a medium sized Daddy Longlegs and I’m trying to overcome my arachnophobic tendencies by not attacking every spider I see with flyspray, a shoe, or both. Logic keeps on telling me that the spiders are not laying in wait ready to ambush me and frighten me to death. So for the past year or so I’ve been making a concerted effort not to murder all spiders on sight.

This Daddy Longlegs only narrowly escaped execution because I initially felt it was too close to the toilet and too in my face. But while I was using the facilities I had time to reconsider, and I decided that it was now part of my mission to adopt the spider and allow it to go about its business despite being uncomfortably close to the toileting facilities. I watched it for days and even began to feel a certain fondness for my new eight legged baby. I made a household announcement regarding my spider adoption and laid down a new spider law that prohibited murdering my spider.

All was going wonderfully well, until yesterday. Yesterday afternoon I went to pee and check on my spider and I couldn’t find it anywhere. It was gone, like poof. I was upset and offended. I had been so kind. Not only did I refrain from arachnid murder I also went the extra mile. I adopted that ungrateful Daddy Longlegs. I protected it, and sometimes I even talked to it. So what does the ungrateful bugger go and do? It leaves, without even a goodbye scare or anything. So now I’m left spiderless and wondering what I did wrong. What more could I have done to make my spider stay? Was I a bad spider adopted parent? Did it sense my unease and feel that I was not its kind of human? I just don’t know. I’d hate to think I did a bad job and that the spider was just ungrateful and failed to give me credit for not only refraining from murdering it but also going that extra mile and adopting it as my own. All that effort not to squish it dead and it just pranced off to greener pastures. That’s just plain rude.

Though I must admit I’m a bit more relaxed when I need to use the toilet now. But still, I can’t help feeling a little rejected.

The reason I’m so anxious is that I’m off to look at a rental property tonight and the idea of going through the moving process again hit all my anxiety trigger buttons. Although the move is inevitable and will be positive the idea of going through it again made my crazy protest loudly, until I told it to STFU with a lovely dose of calming clonazepam. So now I’m floaty and happy and abandoning an afternoon of anxiety for an afternoon of gratitude and love. And I don’t care one bit that it’s at least partially chemically induced, because that’s what my happy pills are for, right?

So today I’m listening to the likes of:

I cannot express how much I love the likes of Laura Marling and Leonard Cohen. But it’s a big hint to my level love that I’ve been on this musical kick for months now, because they’re just that good. I want to marry Leonard Cohens voice.

I’m also still in love with ideas. My mind is still generating ideas nicely, which is something to be grateful for. There’s nothing more exciting than ideas and last year when the crazy ovetook my brain almost completely I was all out of ideas and inspiration, so I’m super grateful that it came back. So far I’m focusing on Authenticity brainstorming and a new 365 project. I also have a lot of photography ideas floating around my head, which is quite exciting.

I’m grateful for my continuing photography Project 365. Sometimes it gets tiresome, but overall I’m not only gaining discipline but I’m often accidentally coming up with photos that inspire me to explore certain themes further. Never knock inspiration, it’s one of the things that keeps me interested and feeling like I might have something to offer.

In the world of materialism I’m grateful for oversized mens shirts, ordering The Land of the Painted Caves and Charms, Spells and Formulas, window shopping on Trademe, and my most recent curiosity find which is totally worth a post of its own once I get around to posting photos.

And then it all went kind of wrong.

Before I finished writing this entry I had to get my bum into gear and head off to check out the rental. It went badly. I was looking at it with three other people and one of those individuals decided to loudly throw a bit of a temper tantrum, in public! Well there went the clonazepam calm and good mood.One of my significant anxiety triggers is displays of negative emotion in public, which is why I never do that sort of thing regardless of how much the crazy is plaguing me. So when someone else does it my emotions range from uncomfortable to OMG ANXIETY MINDBOMB. Last night it was an anxiety mindbomb which immediately rendered all 7mg of clonazepam ineffective and as soon as I got home I cried. So I most certainly wasn’t up for completing my gratitude list. But this morning I’m feeling better and I figured I’d let the partially completed post stand, because it still counts, and that I would finish off the entry by explaining my anxiety mindbomb.

I’m also still grateful for a couple of things.

1) The emotional aupport I got last night was much appreciated

2) I managed not to run out and buy a packet of cigarettes, so I’m still quitting smoking.

I’m quite determined to finish this project though. I have less than 100 days to go and I know it will boost my self-esteem to see the project completed.

I think my attitude towards this attempt has also helped me somewhat. With my previous attempts I was much more focused on taking good photos, whereas this time around I’m simply focusing on completion. It’s been so much easier since I abandoned the idea that my photos should be good. That simple shift in focus has allowed me to simply take photos and not spend time fussing about them lacking skill or visual interest. Not putting so many expectations upon myself seems to boost my productivity, so I’m thinking I might work on that. Less perfectionism = greater productivity, at least that appears to be the way it works in my case.

Now onto some 365 picspam. Here are a bunch of recent 365 photos that I haven’t posted here already. I have more but I’m putting them aside for later posts. These are the shots I probably wouldn’t use in other posts.

As for the rest, I’m working on the procrastination and trying my ineffectual best to start making this blog what I want it to be.
But I’m guessing that it may be scattered and lacking proper definition for some time yet. I think that in some ways this isn’t an entirely bad thing because it honestly highlights my struggles and represents a lot of what I want to do regarding authenticity. I want this blog to be a representation of who I am, who I want to be, where I’m at, and where I’m going. I want it to be about the good things, the mundane, the bad, my flaws, my strengths. I want it to literally be about me and my world, despite some discomfort I feel about the potential for self-centered indulgence. But eventually I’d like to encourage other people into being fearlessly honest and genuine about where they are at and where they are going, so the ultimate goal isn’t just about me. I need to remember that and focus on it a little more and hope that will make me feel a little less narcissistic.

I wonder if any other bloggers struggle with worries about self-obsession and narcissism?