Naked and laid bare. AKA Mrs Sparkly's Ten Commandments Award

Amy and I.

Hello! I won an award! I won a sparkly award!

A Mrs Sparkly award to be precise!

And what did I do to earn this honour? Bugger all. Except keep churning out the same old drivel.  However, it would seem that some people don't mind it so much, like my lovely friend Amy, who nominated me for this. So you lucky devils can in part thank her for my continued bloggage.

In all seriousness though, it never fails to amaze me that people read the things that I write. It's very rarely insightful, or profound and I don't think I've ever helped anyone in any way through it. Primarily, this blog exists as a kind of diary for me, something for me to look at when I'm feeling a bit ungracious, ungrateful, or cabin fever has set in.

Once upon a time, I had a boyfriend who was a little older than me and I would get so jealous when he'd regale me with stories of all the things he'd done. I would compare my life experiences and adventures to his and feel as though I was lacking, somehow. After a while, he got a bit peeved at my whining and told me that;

a) I did plenty of fun and interesting things; and
b) I had plenty of time to continue to do fun and interesting things, so I'd be better off focusing on all the things I was going to do, instead of all the things I hadn't done.

As much as it pains me to say it, he was right.

I started out with this notebook, into which I glued all my cinema tickets, train tickets from big adventures, tags from gifts, reciepts from locations, etc. This notebook was a kind of scrapbook of my life. And it was only the beginning. As the book grew fatter, so did my wealth of life experience. So did my desire to branch out more... I don't just want to see a film, I want to be in one! Getting on a plane for an adventure is amazing, imagine how much fun it would be to jump out of one!

So I've been an extra in a film, I've done a skydive. I've grown.

Now I have folders, I keep everything. It all gets glued down onto card and then filed away in my big, sexy lever-arch folders. I annotate things. I take photos compulsively. As self-indulgent as it might seem to others, I keep these logs of my life because one day I won't be able to do this stuff anymore. Or I'll be dead. These things exist as testament to a life lived as fully as I'm able to. They exist to remind me in my darkest times that the world is a strange and beautiful place. They exist to drive me on to explore and dream and dare and try. They are my memoirs.

To cement my winning of this award, I have to answer the following questions and then nominate some other blogs, which I consider deserving.

Job done.

Describe yourself in seven words
outspoken, loyal, whimsical, cavalier, ambitious, obnoxious, sweet

What keeps you up at night?
Fear. Fear I'm going to die alone. Fear I'm going to fail. Fear I'll be poor and homeless. Fear people don't really like me. Fear no-one cares really about me. Fear that I'm repulsive. That I'm worthless.

My closest friends know just how crippled by self-doubt I am. I will analyse everything to the death. It only takes the tiniest thing to make me feel truly shitty about myself and then I will sit and catalogue every single one of my failings and use them to metaphorically beat myself bloody with. There's being sensitive and there's being me.

I'm not just saying this stuff. There have been nights where I've lain paralysed in bed, certain I'm on the road to nowhere and that in ten, twenty years time all the people I love won't even remember I existed. I'll be in some shitty council bedsit, staring out at a concrete jungle, hoping death comes soon and that I'm not lying rotting for too long before the neighbours report the smell.

I genuinely have anxiety issues about people hating me and I'm, in the dead of night, convinced that one day everyone will leave me and I'll be alone with my ugliness.

Whom would you like to be?
Despite the above, most days, I quite like being me. There isn't a whole other person I'd just like to be. But I wouldn't mind taking bits of other people and making a new, Frankenstein's monster-esque composite me. I'd like Michelle Dockery's face and figure. I'd like my friend Kylie's beautiful soul. I'd like Emilie's joie de vivre, Amy's determination, Caitlin Moran's wit, Joanne Harris's ability to weave a tale. As Amy said in her blog, I think most of all I'd like to be the best me that I can be. Maybe I should spend some time 'modelling' myself on the traits I admire in others and perhaps I'd be less likely to have a midnight meltdown. I may try it.  

What am I wearing right now?
I am wearing a mint green tea dress with a purple and blue pattern on, purple tights and no shoes (see left). I bought this dress for Florida last year. I'm always a little sad when I realise a special occasion dress has become an everyday dress, but this one will always be special, as it's a UK size ten, which was the result of some intense cheese and cake denial last spring so I wouldn't make myself sick in a bikini. 

What scares me?
Aside from thinking everyone hates me and that I'll die alone, poor and miserable in a bedsit?

Dinosaurs. Genuinely. I'm not trying to be quirky or cute, dinosaurs, or more specifically, the idea of them coming back, scares the pants off of me. 

Imagine, if you will, a small, eight year old me. I have recurring dinosaur-based dreams. In them, I wake in the night, convinced something is wrong. I go to the bedroom window and look out into the night. There is nothing. I watch until my eyelids start to droop and begin to turn, reassured, back to my bed. It's then that the Tyrannosaurus Rex rears it's head above the house opposite. I freeze in fear and then I see them. Skittering down the road to the side of the house, heading toward me are two, adult human sized dinosaurs, each with a huge, sickle-shaped claw in the midst of each foot.

Imagine then a short while later when a film called Jurassic Park is released.

It was as if Spielberg had mined the design for them from my slumbering little mind.

Still now, I treat Jurassic Park the way other people treat [REC] or The Ring. I read Jurassic Park and The Lost World, and Conan Doyle's The Lost World the same way other people read Stephen King. The fear that one day they might return terrifies me.

And I still have that dream every now and then.

Other than that, I fear ignorance. Racism, sexism, homophobia, bigotry, the mining of the natural world without replenishing its resources, anything that humans do without care or consideration for the people and the world around them. That scares me.

What are the best and worst things about blogging?
The best thing is putting down all these thoughts and ideas I have and compiling them into this space where I can get to read and then re-read them. And hearing other peoples thoughts and feelings on them. I love that. I don't think there is a worst, for me. It's a wholly personal thing, the way I blog. So if I thought it had elements that annoyed or upset me, I'd probably find another medium in which to document this stuff.

If I could change one thing about myself, what would it be?
I'd be more patient. And tolerant. I have such a short fuse for things which annoy me, particularly rudeness. I wish I had the grace to accept that sometimes, people will be unkind and that blowing up about it solves nothing.

Slankets, yes or no?
Oh hell yes. My parents got me one a few years back and at first I was deeply unimpressed. Thanks, guys, for this zebra-print monstrosity. They didn't help by screeching 'AHHHHHH - YOU LOOK LIKE CAT SLATER!' when I tried it on.

Cut to a month later and I'm reading at home. It's cold and I pull out the aforementioned monstrosity. I slip my arms in and OH MY ACTUAL GOD. WHAT IS THIS MAGIC?! IT'S A BLANKET WITH SLEEVES. I AM WARM AND ENSCONCED IN THE MAGICAL FABRIC HUG OF A BLANKET, BUT I HAVE ARMS!

Not to mention the fact if you put it on backwards it's like wizard's robes. Trashy, zebra-print wizard robes. The kind of thing I imagine Rita Skeeter or Madam Rosmerta would swan around in in their boudoirs.

Tell us something about the person who nominated you:
She is one of the kindest and most generous people I have ever met. And she manages to combine this with such strength of character. It's very hard to be both appropriately hard and soft in this world but she is. And with grace.

My next step is to nominate 10 others:
This is going to be tough, as I dip in and out of blogs. But here we go, I can at least do seven and will add more if I remember them:

My friend Liv is on an adventure in Japan. This is her blog of how it's going:   http://herroyalhobbitness.blogspot.co.uk/

James blogs randomly but it's always a joy to read: http://wyatthaplo.blogspot.co.uk/

Leanne does regular and lovely YA book reviews: http://districtya.blogspot.co.uk/

Robin also writes insanely good, funny, witty and honest book reviews: http://redbreastedbird.blogspot.co.uk/

Amy. Does it all. http://turntothemusic.blogspot.co.uk/

Jamie writes about television and films and writing and pretty much anything else interesting. http://jamiekrakover.blogspot.co.uk/

Genny is lovely. I love her. http://cheeseymusings.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/my-big-black-cat/