1. Had a dream probably inspired by my Hulu experiences.
I'm listening to a video with Julian McMahon being Ben on Home and Away. He's talking and then suddenly he stops.
Maybe something more happened. I can't remember.
When I watch Hulu on my computer, it often pauses. Although it's different from my dream, because the talking continues as the picture freezes.
2. Wondered if I had a dream about Olympia Valance. I'm not sure. There's a woman who has her face on a t-shirt. I tell her I want a shirt with her on it too.
The woman MIGHT have been Olympia Valance.
I'm thinking though, if it wasn't her, but I woke up thinking it was her; doesn't that still mean something? Either way, she was on my mind—either in my subconscious AND conscious mind or just my conscious mind.
3. Started watching an episode of Neighbours.
4. Learned that the new woman (Ra Chapman) appearing on my Neighbours episode today is also from Wentworth. She plays Kim, who, I think, is the woman that has the relationship with Franky (Nicole da Silva).
5. Saw that Ra Chapman is on ten episodes of Neighbours. She's involved with the new villain, Dimato (Steve Sammut).
Or maybe he's not the new villain. I see from IMDb, that he's only going to be on seven episodes.
6. Wondered if I will keep getting fooled by Neighbours into thinking recurring guest stars are going to become main characters.
7. Tried to figure out who was the last actor to appear on Neighbours, and then become a regular.
I think it's Nate (Meyne Wyatt).
I'm watching episodes from February 2015 though, and it's June now. There might be new actors that have become stars of the show in the meantime.
I'll catch up to the current episodes eventually.
8. Figured the new guy that showed up at the end of the episode, IS going to be one of these new characters I'm referring to. They've showed him in the end-of-the-episode previews in a manner that makes him seem like a big deal.
I see in the credits that his character name is Tyler Brennan. He must be related to Mark Brennan.
9. Clicked on Travis Burns, the actor playing Tyler Brennan. IMDb says he's in forty episodes of Neighbours. And that might be just so far. He could be in more in the future.
10. Started watching my first no-Claudia Karvan episode of The Secret Life of Us. I think I'll be okay. I like her, but she's not my favorite person on the show.
11. Saw that Claudia Karvan has been erased from the credits already.
Miranda's (Abi Tucker) new love interest (Nina Liu) has been added.
12. Saw that Nina Liu's birthday was a couple of days ago. She turned thirty-eight. She's a few months older than my younger sister.
13. Thought that Kelly (Deborah Mailman) looks beautiful here.
Maybe it's the purple shirt.
Well, of course it's her that's beautiful. But certain colors make people look better than others.
Some colors make people look horrible. My bad colors are gray and light blue. Unfortunately, I found that out AFTER buying t-shirts of that color.
14. Loved Evan's line on the show. Kelly offers him a cup of tea as a response to his sadness about no-more Alex (Claudia Karvan). He says yes. Then, in a voiceover, he says, Cup of tea. What would we do without the mending beverage? How do people who don't drink tea or coffee have proper emotional lives?
I don't drink coffee. I do drink tea but not during emotionally difficult moments. I don't think anyone has offered me a cup of tea to help me feel better.
It does seem helpful to have a go-to comfort offer.
What do the people in my life do when someone is upset? I think we sometimes say, Do you want to talk about it? And like I've said before, I don't think talking about it often helps.
I think tea or coffee would be better, because it's a simple nice gesture.
15. Figured we sometimes offer hugs. That can be nice, but also sometimes a bit awkward.
16. Realized we sometimes say, I'm sorry. But then that gets awkward, because the crying person will often say something like, It's not your fault. Well...yeah. Duh. I know I'm not responsible for your grandmother's heart attack.
17. Wondered if it's the caffeine in tea and coffee that gives people the comfort and emotional boost.
In that case, would it be helpful to offer someone a Red Bull? Or would that be taking things too far?
18. Glad to see that Rhys Muldoon is going to be in this episode.
I like him a lot.
He's kind of adorable.
19. Wondered what's going to go wrong with Marnie (Alexandra Davis), Kelly and Evan's (Samuel Johnson) new roommate. I see on IMDb, that she's only on this one episode.
Well, I do already see some potential problems.
She's overly enthusiastic and positive. That can get annoying at times.
She also rejected an offer for tea. She didn't even want herbal tea or hot chocolate. She doesn't drink any hot beverages.
20. Realized judging a woman for not drinking hot beverages is not very different from judging someone for being vegetarian.
It seems to me that vegetarians and vegans are usually portrayed, in fiction, as being overbearing and judgmental losers who have cloudy morals.
21. Decided we sometimes make assumptions about people's personality based on their food choices and declarations.
I don't eat meat.
I don't eat carbs.
I can't eat gluten.
I don't drink hot beverages.
I don't eat raw vegetables.
I eat only organic produce.
I'm allergic to peanuts.
I'm betting most people prefer people who are able and willing to eat everything. Well...unless you have restrictions and the person you're with has the same restriction.
I'm not sure it works if you and the other person have different restrictions. I'm a vegetarian, but I get annoyed with my mom for being preoccupied with weight loss and limiting calories.
22. Decided there are two levels of being annoying about food.
The first is simply having a diet difference. Yeah. I know it's not always the person's choice. People can't help it if their intestines go horribly dodgy from eating gluten. They can't help it if they have a peanut allergy. And sometimes diet choices are healthy and/or morally superior to the mainstream thing.
But yeah. It's annoying. Since I'm vegetarian, the person cooking the meal is pushed to put that in consideration. When we go to restaurants, we have to make sure there's something for me to eat. I also cause grief with the whole sharing of food thing. People are willing to eat my food, but I'm not willing to eat there's. So it can get complicated.
The second level is pushing your choices on other people. This can range from making comments at the dining table to sending website links and pointed emails.
For example, my mom made multiple comments about how our new fruit juice popsicles are just as bad as the sugar water popsicles, because they both contain sugar. She reminded us that it doesn't matter the form of sugar. Sugar is bad no matter what form, because it has calories. Calories are evil. Never mind that not everyone in the family is obsessed with calories like she is.
I have made anti-meat comments in the past, but I do so much less now. I think I usually only say things if asked. For example, I might get graphic if someone asks me why I try to eat only humane certified eggs.
With that in mind, I imagine it will be somewhat annoying to Kelly and Evan that Marnie doesn't drink hot beverages. What will they offer her if she's sad? An orange juice, perhaps?
If Marnie pushes her views on hot beverages on Kelly and Evan, it will be even more annoying.
23. Wanted to say that I am feeling a bit uncomfortable reading Anthony Dillon's stuff. He's very right-winged about things. He writes things that goes against what I've sometimes believed. But then I read his viewpoint, and find myself agreeing with him.
The thing is, I guess I do believe in all his self-determination stuff. I think people should get their shit together and try to pull themselves out of their problems. Even though I don't always do that with some of my own problems. Well, I often try. But then I fail and sometimes give up.
The thing is, some shit is super difficult to get out of. I'm not sure yet if Dillon is the type of person to recognize that.
Well, I think he is actually. I think he believes in helping people but believes less in blaming people for your problems.
I'll use the example of an obese person. I know that, even without an underlying medical condition, it is hard to lose weight and keep it off. It can be incredibly challenging. So if I know an obese person, I have a lot of sympathy for them. I don't judge them for their body size. I might judge them, though, if they used blaming other people as an excuse not to try to get healthier.
I'd be okay with I am having trouble sticking to this calorie restriction, because I'm so hungry! Or it's hard for me to exercise because I have asthma and my legs hurt every time I walk.
I would not be okay with someone saying, Well, I don't exercise because my parents never pushed me to do it when I was younger. We just watched TV all the time. We never went running, played sports, or took walks.
I think it's okay to be angry at your parents for not pushing you to exercise and to think they're pathetic for being couch potatoes. But it would be really foolish to use them as an excuse not to make changes in the here and now.
24. Wanted to confess that I sometimes don't deal with my problems out of spite, because I feel other people don't care enough. If they don't care enough, I don't want to care enough either.
That's a really unhealthy and potentially dangerous attitude to have.
Will I ever get out of the habit?
Probably not. Unfortunately.
Maybe...someday.
An example is my leg issue. I know I should go to the doctor because of the no-hair thing. My mom offered to take me. But I don't want to take her up on the offer, because she was very dismissive about my worries. She made me feel like I was a big joke. I think my worry is I'll go to the doctor; it will end up I do NOT have a medical issue, and that will give validation to my mom's dismissiveness. And my sister's as well.
My sister is almost always very dismissive about any medical concern I have. She makes me feel like I'm a foolish hypochondriac. And she's right on one account. I am a hypochondriac. I just don't know if I'm a foolish one.
My sister is almost always very dismissive about any medical concern I have. She makes me feel like I'm a foolish hypochondriac. And she's right on one account. I am a hypochondriac. I just don't know if I'm a foolish one.
25. Wondered if my psychological issue could be applied to some people in poverty. Could some of them stay in bad situations, because it gives validation to past atrocities?
If a person, whose ancestors were hurt by white people, is happy, healthy, and financially comfortable, could this be seen as erasing deserved-white guilt?
I do think many, or most, people in poverty are there because it is too hard to get out. But maybe there are some who COULD get out but deep inside, they don't want to. They might want to suffer because that helps fuel their anger towards past and present bigots and discrimination.
The thing is, you don't need to suffer to feel righteous anger about things. I am at a healthy normal weight right now, but that doesn't mean I can't still be disgusted about how my parents and other people were so positive and supportive of my past eating disorder behaviors. I don't have to become a skeleton in order to prove that they behaved badly.
26. Realized that Alexandra Davies was the OCD woman from Reef Doctors. I saw on IMDb that she was on the show but didn't know who she played. Then suddenly, it came to me.
27. Learned that Marnie doesn't just avoid hot beverages. She's a vegetarian as well. She goes as far as not wanting to eat a vegetarian meal thats being cooked on a pan that once cooked meat.
It's kind of like very religious Jews who won't eat meat foods that are on plates once used for dairy foods.
28. Wanted to say that I personally wouldn't be against eating from a washed dish that was once used for meat. I WOULD be against eating from a washed dish that was once used for catching vomit. That's disgusting. I don't care how many times it's been washed.
29. Found out that Marnie is incredibly annoying. She took it upon herself to rearrange the whole flat, WITHOUT asking her roommates if they're okay with that. Then making things even worse, she lost her momentum in the middle of the project, and the whole flat is a huge mess. Poor Kelly can't even get in her room, because there's a bookshelf blocking her door.
30. Relieved to know that Marnie won't be around for long.
31. Liked a picture of a Japanese mountain on Eric Thompson's travel-in-Japan blog.
32. Learned from Thompson's blog that Japan tends to have slow speed-limits.
33. Learned from Thompson's blog that people tend to ignore the speed limits, so traffic doesn't actually go very slow.
34. Saw that Thompson's blog post has several photos that I like and not just one. I liked the first one on the page, but now that I'm reading the post, I'm finding a lot of pictures that I like.
35. Learned that Marnie wasn't a bad person. She was actually kind and had a fun sense of humor. I think the lesson I got from that episode is some people are lovely in small quantities and/or from a distance. But they're intolerable as roommates.
36. Started watching another episode of The Secret Life of Us.
37. Saw that this episode is the beginning of the Gigi Edgley episodes. I was introduced to her via Farscape. I looked at her filmography, when I was watching that show, and saw she was also on The Secret Life of Us.
38. Felt sadness when Miranda reveals she wants to work in the U.S
And I want to be in Australia.
Why are so many people not in the place in the place they wish to be?
The whole thing kind of reminds me of pregnancy. There are women terrified of getting pregnant and other women who'd do almost anything to have a baby.
Is that a bad analogy?
I'm just saying there are people who wish they had what we have while we're wishing we had what they have. Maybe this makes life more interesting.
39. Read Bec's blog post about bribing kids. She asks if we're for or against it. I used to be against it, but now I'm definitely for it.
My feeling is we should not bribe kids to do things they're already willing to do. For example, don't give your bookworm five dollars for every chapter book they finish reading. What's the point? You're wasting your money, and the child might start caring more about the money than reading.
Where I think bribing is a good idea is when you want your child to do something, and they could care less about it.
The big example is toilet-training. You might want your child to be toilet-trained by three-and-a-half. If they had it there way, they might wait until they're five or six.
40. Wished someone would bribe me to take out the trash each Tuesday.
I do it, but I don't enjoy it.
I would be much happier if someone gave me a prize every time I finished the job.
41. Remembered that I bribe myself, actually. I have a whole point system with the prize being time to watch my TV shows. So...that's good. But still. I think it's more fun when the prize comes from someone else.
42. Thought Kelly was being a bit unrealistic when she told her boyfriend Jake (Torquil Neilson) she didn't want fighting or drama. I think it would be rare to have a relationship where those things are missing.
I'd be more in line with her if she said she wanted less fighting and drama. Jake is a bit difficult and abrasive. His rude outbursts are too frequent.
44. Liked Kelly's response to the lovely romantic letter Jake wrote her after she dumped him. He showered her with compliments. Kelly says the letter was lovely, but she didn't see why they needed a huge drama to inspire him to express those kinds of things.
I feel that way about compliments. One of my sisters once told me all this stuff about how she admired me. We were in the midst of a dramatic fight. It was annoying. Why couldn't she just tell me this stuff before? Telling me these things during the fight felt quite manipulative and also somewhat dishonest.
I also don't like it when someone tries to cheer me up with compliments. I guess it's sort of okay if they've complimented me on these things before. But if they've never given me a compliment about that particular thing; and they're doing it when I'm upset...
NOT good.
It feels fake, and it doesn't make me feel better.
45. Started to watch another episode of The Secret Life of Us.
Don't worry, I took a break between episodes to do some cleaning.
Our house still looks like a disaster.
I'd have to take a break from all television if I wanted the house to look nice.
46. Delighted to see a reference to Doctor Who on The Secret Life of Us. Even though I'm not really into that right now. But still. It's nice to hear.
I miss being obsessed with Doctor Who.
Maybe I'll get back into it someday.
47. Decided I'm having Asian lesbianism synchronocity. There's the Asian lesbian (Nina Liu) on The Secret Life of Us. Then this morning I saw Ra Chapman on Neighbours. I don't know if Chapman's character is a lesbian on Neighbours, but she is a lesbian on Wentworth.
I also feel I'm having getting-wrong-Texts synchronocity. Twice today, two different people have sent me a text that they meant to send someone else. That's not something that often (or ever) happens to me. Well...a version of it does. I sometimes get a text from a family that was meant to be a private text, but they send it to the group instead. But today, I was the only one to get the texts that were meant for someone else. I wonder if it's just a coincidence. Or does it mean something? Is it a message from the universe?
OR maybe it's happening to other people? Maybe it's some kind of iPhone bug.
48. Noticed that Kelly wears the same shirts quite often. I keep seeing her alternate between the two shirts I've mentioned on the blog.
That's pretty cool.
I don't really understand the mindset of having to wear different clothes all the time.
I like wearing my favorite clothes repeatedly.
That being said, I have a lot of cute clothes in my closet. I'm trying to be better at remembering to wear the neglected pieces.
49. Noticed that Evan is wearing a shirt he wore in a previous episode. So, maybe it's not just Kelly. Maybe all the characters repeat their clothes.
50. Wondered about Neighbours. Do they repeat clothes a lot?
51. Finished watching the episode of The Secret Life of Us, and decided I don't mind the cast changes. I'm not missing the old people too much, and I like the new ones.
I think massive cast changes are scary when we're watching a show and get a glimpse of the cast from later seasons. It seems very abrupt. But if we watch the show through all the seasons, and the cast changes happen gradually, it might not be awful. There might not be many people from the first season in the last season. By then, though, we might have become attached to characters introduced in the middle seasons.
It's like Christian (Michael Dorman). He was new in the second season, but now, for me, he's one of the friendly, familar faces.