Being Neglectful, Being Pushy, Ed Oxenbould, and Sydney

1. Dreamed I was a somewhat awful person.

I'm staying with my Australian friend Tracey. She leaves to go somewhere. I work hard on my blog. Then, when she returns, she tries to help another woman who was left at home with me. This woman is in some kind of horrible pain; and for some reason, I failed to try to help her because I was too busy with my blog.

I don't actually remember hearing her and ignoring her. But when Tracey returned and was trying to help the woman, I felt guilty for not helping.

2. Dreamed that I have an Australian guy with me who is seeking my help in planning a future trip to the U.S.  I'm quite pleased to have an Australian by my side, and I enjoy showing him off...just to my parents, really. (Don't remember anyone else in this dream)

I try to figure out whether the Australian should go to Disneyland or Disney World. I'm also wondering if it would make sense for him to fly into DFW rather than LAX.  

He's planning to go to Atlantic City, and doesn't seem too thrilled about it. I try to tell him it's actually pretty cool, because you can see the Monopoly Streets. (I think, in the dream, Atlantic City was somewhere out west rather than the north-east).

Later I get a video message from him politely demanding that I make him videos promoting the places I think he should go. He wants me to sell him a plan.  I'm not pleased with this. First, I'm disappointed that it seems we'll no longer be working together in person. Second, I don't like the idea of having to try to sell something.  

3. Wondered if I dislike selling things. I don't mean literally for money...but promoting things.

I like sharing things I like, especially on this blog.  I have hopes that I'll lead more people into liking what I like. But I don't like pressuring people to like something.  I also don't like it when other people try to push me into trying something...even when it's not actually directed at me personally.

The other day I quit reading a Disney Blog, because in a restaurant review, the blogger talked about food that people HAVE to try.

I prefer when people say things like, I'm a huge fan of this. Maybe you'll like it too over saying, You have to try this. You'll totally love it! 

I'm also a believer in the fact that some people might dislike what I love, and they might love what I dislike.

4. Wanted to say that I don't usually quit reading a blog as soon as they get pushy about recommendations.

This one annoyed me, though, because, in the intro post, the woman talked about having unique opinions about Disney things. She presented herself as an off-the-beaten path type person—not always liking what's popular. So I felt, in that case, she should be sensitive to the fact that other people might have their own unique opinions about things and might not like what she's recommending.

Also, the items she was pushing were not off the beaten path at all. They're actually quite popular and well-known among Disney Foodies.

5. Thought about the dream—the one where I'm an awful person.

I don't think I'd ignore a person in medical distress to work on my blog.  But I do think I get uptight sometimes about taking a break from my routine.

I'm the type of person who gives myself daily assignments. It's not easy for me to say to myself, well something very important has come up. I need to spend time on that. It won't kill me to lose an hour of homeschooling or not write a blogpost.

Yeah. It won't kill me. But it will make me anxious and stressed.

6. Felt a need to defend myself. Yes, I'm a bit anal. Yes, it would be bad to ignore someone in acute, severe pain, because I'm busy with my blog. I hope I wouldn't do that in real life.

On the other hand, some people go in the opposite direction and exploit their problems (And sometimes other people's!) to take a break. I wouldn't want to be that type of person.

7. Decided I maybe feel guilty for opting out of a family medical thing. I felt stressed out about losing homeschooling hours. Well, I didn't actually opt out. I just didn't say yes. I didn't give a yes or no. I decided to wait until I was asked again, and when I wasn't, I was kind of relieved, and I didn't feel too bad about not being there. But now I feel I should have been there. Because if it was me in the situation, I'd probably want other people to be there for me.

The good news is someone WAS there for the person in need. So the story is more about me being a bad family member than someone in my family being neglected.

8. Started watching an episode of Underbelly.

9. Saw that Ed Oxenbould, the little boy from Puberty Blues, is in this episode.

Oxenbould is also in the recent American movies The Visit and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

In the latter, he's an Australian pretending to be an American who wants to move to Australia.

It reminds me of something I learned yesterday.

We've been watching The Mindy Project. There's a British guy on the show, and I thought he was faking it. I mean I thought the character was pretending to be British in order to impress the girls. But then I found out the actor is actually British.

It made me remember the storyline on Nip/Tuck where there was an American guy pretending to be British. I wanted to find out who the actor was, and I learned he's actually British.  I thought that was pretty funny.

10. Started to watch Rake—season two; episode four.

11. Saw an incident on Rake that fits in well with what I was blabbing on about this morning.

Cleaver Green's (Richard Roxburgh) sort of girlfriend (Robyn Maxwell) has had a death in her family.

Cleaver is informed of the loss and offers to send flowers. He's quite reluctant to actually clear his schedule and be there for her.

I think that's unfortunately kind of like me. Or very much like me.

I'm fairly generous in terms of listening to people via email or text. I'll send gifts, maybe. But I'm lazy when it comes down to getting off my ass and actually being physically there for someone.

12. Looked at the cast for this episode of Rake and thought I saw Ed Oxenbould again. But no. What I saw is BEN Oxenbould. Lord Wiki says Ben is Ed's uncle.

13. Glad to see Barney Meagher (Russell Dykstra) call out his wife Scarlet (Danielle Cormack) on the fact that she's forbidding him to be friends with Cleaver Greene because she slept with Cleaver Greene.

Scarlet is the one who made the mistake.Why should Barney have to be punished for it?

14. Went to Palg1305's Flickr account.

15. Got the idea that the order of the albums changed.

Everything looks different from yesterday.

16. Started to look at Palg1305's Sydney album.

Here's a photo of some construction at Darling Harbour—lots of big cranes.

Flickr says the photo was taken July 2014.

I wonder what was going on over there.

17. Liked the photo of these trees in Manly.

I wonder what kind of trees they are.

Maybe eucalyptus?

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I don't know Eucalyptus trees on sight. I might be able to point out some in a crowd, but my accuracy rate would probably be about 75%.  Or maybe 35%.

The trees in the photo don't make me think of Eucalyptus trees, except for the fact that they're in Australia.  But...I really don't know.

18. Liked this photo.

I wonder what it is. Some kind of boat dock. There's a sign that says, Welcome to Station.

What station?

It's like having a city with a sign that says, Welcome to City!

It's a bit generic.

19. Thought the trees in this picture looked more Eucalyptus to me.

20. Wondered what percentage of trees in Australia are Eucalyptus.

21. Guessed that the tree in this photo is not Eucalyptus. I think it's one of those fig things.

What is it? Moreton Fig?

22. Googled.

Lord Wiki says it's Moreton Bay Fig.

It's native to Australia.

23. Thought of Water Rats when I saw this photo of Watson's Bay—cliffs to fall from and water to drown in.

24. Thought the ocean looked beautifully blue in this other Watson Bay photo.

25. Liked this photo of the Opera House. I don't know why. There are a zillion Sydney Opera House photos out there. But something about this one is special.  It has a 1970's feel to it.

26. Realized I'm making it sound like there is something particularly special about the 1970's.

It's not really that.

Maybe it's that it reminds me of the old movies they'd show us in elementary school—probably filmed in the 1970's.  You know, the one with the wooden boat floating about, or the Red Balloon thing.

27. Googled and learned The Red Balloon was made in the 1950's.

Oops.

Maybe I should say the picture reminds me of movies I SAW in the 1970's. They were probably filmed way before that.

28. Decided the picture probably reminds me of my old dream. I've talked about it here before. I had it sometime in my childhood—and remember close to nothing about it. But it gave me a good weird feeling when I'd think about it.  Then later, as an adult, I saw photos of Sydney Harbour and it reminded me of the dream.

29. Liked Bec's post about trying to fulfill a happiness challenge on a day she's feeling grumpy and snarky.

It's easy to do self-help, positive thinking type stuff when we're in a good mood. But what about when we're in a bad mood or life is shit?

I do disagree with her feeling she failed at her daily random act of kindness act.  She says:
This is probably a cop-out but in my introverted and selfish state today all I pretty much did was smiled at the bus driver and said thank you at the shops and to people who did stuff for me at work. Lame. I feel like I need to make up for it with something spectacular tomorrow.

I think smiling at someone and thanking people is quite lovely. It's small. But small things add up sometimes.

30. Got texts from my sister and niece.

They're at the Taylor Swift concert. Vance Joy is the opening act.

That's cool! Maybe my sister and niece will become Vance Joy fans.

My sister suggested I add him to our karaoke song list. I had to tell her I did and that we already sang his song twice.



How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online, a novel by Dina Roberts