1. Dreamed again about my Australian friend, Tracey. I'm riding in a car with my parents, and we pick Tracey up. It's the first time my parents are meeting her.
What would our world be like if we
16. Went to Random.org to pick what I'm planning to watch on Wednesday.
It's Holy Smoke.
Is that the one with Kate Winslet?
17. Saw from Netflix that the answer is yes.
18. Felt a lot of admiration for Australian teenager Essena O'Neil. Despite being very popular on various social media sites, she's quitting social media, because she's come to realize how empty it all is.
Writing this is kind of ironic for me, because the other day I felt that recently-deadened desire to be popular rising in me again.
The smart part of me thinks it's all stupid and soul-crushing. Then there's that small part of me that thinks it might be satisfying to have a huge number of Twitter followers Retweeting every trivial thing I mention.
It's not always fun, though. Or I'm guessing it's not. I've been obsessing over JK Rowling the past few days. First I was angry and hurt by her. Now I'm feeling sorry for her and worried about her.
She involved herself in the Israeli-Palestinian situation and is now receiving hatred from both groups.
19. Felt social media has it's good and bad parts.
The good is people meeting like-minded people and having stimulating conversations. I think it's exciting that people from vast different backgrounds and belief systems can discuss things on Twitter—even if they hate each other and disagree. At least we get to see the different opinions that are out there. We can see that there are different sides to the same story—even if we don't believe the other side of the story.
The bad parts are the fakeness, the bragging, the exaggerations, the feelings of inadequacy.
Essana O'Neil talked about struggling to look perfect in her Instagram photos. That's one thing.
But there are other things as well.
When I look at Instagram, I feel I'm not pretty enough; I'm not a good enough parent; I'm not a good enough housewife; I don't travel enough; I don't do enough interesting things; I don't eat enough awesome organic raw chocolate.
Now envy is mostly the fault of the person feeling the envy. But if you only take photos of the super awesome stuff in your life, that's a bit unfair.
20. Went to Instagram to see if my account is of the bragging-type. I can't see the photos, because my account is private. I have to log in, and I've made a rule that I can only log in every three months. Why? Because I became too addicted to Instagram—more with viewing than posting.
I do Flickr, though, and in that case, I think I sort of have a balance.
In fact, yesterday I uploaded an ugly photo of myself. I hesitated. Why do I want to share that? But I think I did it, to avoid being one of those people who only put their idealized self on display.
That being said, I'm guilty of rarely putting any selfies on Instagram, because they looked so bad.
21. Felt that Instagram is different than Flickr because there's more of a look-at-me-and-judge-me mentality.
I think Flickr is more about having a place to organize our personal albums, and if someone else wants to take a look, that's cool. Although some people do use it as a validation exercise.
For me personally, though....
With Flickr, it's more just about recording my life—preserving memories.
When I posted on Instagram, I did feel a need to impress people or at least attract attention. I wanted people to notice the cool books I read; the cool TV shows I watched, the cute things I noticed at Disney World, etc.
22. Thought about my blog.
It's definitely not balanced, because I mostly talk about the Australian parts of my life. For example, someone might read my dreams and get the idea that I dream only about Australian. I actually dream about a lot of not-Australian stuff. I just don't share it, usually.
I don't think I present myself as being better than I am. Or if I do, I have balanced that out by embarrassing myself here many times.
No. You know what. I do think I'm pretty honest here. I think I've been real.
Not that I'm going to confess every naughty or demented thought, wish, and deed. I don't think I'm obligated to do that. But I think I have opened up about some embarrassing stuff.
I've shown my ugly side along with my super, wonderful, not-humble, gorgeous side.
23. Meant to go to palg1305's Flickr account, but wasn't thinking straight and instead plugged palg1305 into Google.
Now I've gotten a better idea of who I've been kind of stalking.
And now I feel like I'm really stalking him.
Here's his Twitter. His bio is in Spanish, which makes me think I was right about him being a Mexican guy that's going to school in Queensland.
24. Worried I never mentioned my suspicions, and I'm going to sound like I'm false-bragging about figuring something out.
25. Saw that palg1305 lists his locations as Brisbane/Helsinki/Mexico.
26. Noticed his name is Pablo. I think that definitely sounds more Mexican than Australian or Norwegian.
27. Googled Helsinki. It's Finland's capital; not Norway's. Shit. I get those places confused. Remember, though. I'm American. As dream-Tracey understood, we're bad at geography.
28. Used Google Translate to translate Palg1305's Twitter bio.
It says, I opened my Twitter account to burn in society. I leo my TL when I have nothing better to do.
Huh?!
I'm hoping that's a lost in translation kind of thing.
29. Looked at palg1305's Instagram.
There, it says he's a biologist.
And he's traveling around the world.
30. Glad to know a little more about the guy who's taken the photos I've been looking at the past few weeks. But I'm going to stop Googling before I know too much and feel like a bona fide stalker.
31. Started to look at palg1305's Nimbin album on Flickr.
32. Decided maybe it wouldn't be bad-stalking to look closely at palg1305's Instagram and Twitter. Because if you put something up online, it's there for people to see.
It's like if someone reads many posts on my blog, I don't see it as bad-stalking. I think of it as nice, actually.
If they spent hours on my blog everyday for a year; then I might get a bit worried—probably more for them than myself. That's never happened to me, though. If it did, I might actually be dumb enough to be more flattered than concerned.
33. Wanted to say that although I think it would be okay for me to spend a few hours looking at palg1305's Instagram, Flickr, and Twitter; I'm not going to. Why? I'm not that interested.
But I do want to continue looking at all his Australian albums in small doses.
SO...back to Nimbin. I don' think I've heard of it before.
It's in New South Wales.
34. Looked on Google Maps.
Nimbin is about an hour and half south of the Gold Coast.
35. Liked this photo of a rainbow building.
I wonder if it's a gay thing.
Rainbows usually seem to be about gay and lesbian rights these days.
36. Learned there is a Rainbow Cafe in Nimbin. That's probably what's in the photo.
37. Learned some sad news from Trip Advisor.
The Rainbow Cafe burned down.
But I think maybe they got it back up again?
38. Looked at the dates. It is back up again.
The cafe burned down in August 2014, but there are reviews from September 2015. I guess they rebuilt or did a lot of repairing.
39. Saw that palg1305's Nimbin photos are from September 2014. So this was soon after the fire.
I need to look at more of the photos. Maybe I'll get some insight.
40. Did not get insight about the fire from the photos.
41. Found article about the fire.
The cafe burned down, along with a museum. The police labeled it as suspicious.
42. Learned from article that Nimbin is known for it's drug and alternative culture.
43. Looked again at Trip Advisor, and learned from ManBearJordan's post that the cafe moved. The burnt one was on Main Street, and the new one is in what ManBearJordan thinks is a better location.
44. Confused.
I still don't know if that rainbow building in Palg1305's photo is the Rainbow Cafe or not. I didn't see a similar photo on Trip Advisor.
It might just be another rainbow thing.
In the car, Tracey is quiet, kind of stand-offish. I'm thinking that she's probably feeling shy and will warm up when she gets to know my parents more.
My parents ask her something about her life (Forgot what) and the answer is Mexico. But it's not the Mexico we usually think of. When my parents realize this, they admit that, at first, they were thinking of Mexico in North America. Tracey says something along the lines of she's glad (or impressed?) that they didn't say the Mexico that's overseas. I get the idea she's making a dig at our American geography skills. I say (or just think) that if they were talking about Mexico in reference to Tracey, it would be overseas. I'm also thinking that maybe sometimes flying to Mexico from one of the states would involve going overseas.
Florida, maybe.
Hawaii, definitely.
2. Started watching an episode of Tangle.
3. Liked dress worm by Kat Stewart.
4. Learned an important lesson from Tangle. If you're going to cheat on your spouse, don't do it in a car on the street near where you live.
5. Started watching another episode of Tangle. It's the last one for season two.
6. Regretted not buying muffins at the grocery store yesterday when I saw muffins on Tangle.
But then I remembered that I do have muffins. A few weeks ago I bought these frozen banana, chocolate chip, zucchini muffins, and I kept forgetting to eat them.
I ate one with my lunch today. It was quite good.
7. Had the Tangle theme song running through my brain.
8. Looked for the Tangle theme song on YouTube, and instead found "I See the Light" from Tangled.
I love that song.
9. Thought that Gabriel (Matt Day) is being a ridiculous jerk. His girlfriend, Sophie (Fiona Harris) starts talking about spontaneous combustion. She believes her friend witnessed it and then asks Gabriel if he's ever encountered a patient who experienced it. Gabriel gets very angry and says, There is no such thing as spontaneous combustion. It doesn't happen. It never has happened, and it will never happen.
He's so stubborn.
The thing is, there's no way anyone could ever prove that spontaneous combustion has never happened, and we especially can't prove that it won't happen in the future.
What scientists CAN do is debunk individual cases. But even if they disprove one hundred cases of spontaneous combustion, there can still be a true one out there...somewhere.
10. Wanted to say, though, that it seems Gabriel isn't truly angry about spontaneous combustion. He's angry, because he's dating Sophie, and he'd rather be dating Ally (Justine Clarke).
I think he's starting an argument, so he has an excuse to break up with Sophie. Well, because before I paused to write this, I heard Sophie asking if they're going to break up.
11. Thought about a storyline on Tangle.
Ally finds out her dead husband has another child and deposits money in a bank account for that child every month.
I imagine I'd be okay learning my husband has had an affair. I don't think I'd be very okay knowing that he has another child he dotes on and one he gives money to. Well, I would try very hard to forgive and open my heart if it wasn't kept a secret from me. I think I'd be in a bitchy mood, though, about having to share our finances. I'm stingy that way.
I'd have a hard time forgiving a secret child.
12. Bothered by the attitude of Tanya (Jane Allsopp), the mother of the illegitimate child. She doesn't act at all apologetic when Ally confronts her. And when Ally shows a little anger about the whole thing, Tanya orders her not to be rude. It's like, yes, I had an affair with your husband for two years; and yes I've been taking money from you guys, but you have no right to express any grievances about this.
13. Annoyed by Max's (Blake Davis) attitude. He caught his mom Christine kissing the wrong man—not his father. He's been incredibly angry and abrasive about that. This would be understandable, except he himself is the result of an affair. I've never seen him give his father grief about the affair; nor his birth mother, Kat. In fact, he gives Christine a verbal slap in the face by telling her that he wants to move in with Kat. He does this in front of Kat, so Christine gets to feel both rejected and embarrassed by the woman who has caused her so much pain.
14. Felt very bad for Christine.
First she has to deal with the fact that her husband fell in love with a woman. She has to share his affections with Kat.
Then she also has to share her son with another woman—a woman who has abandoned Max for most of his life; then returns as a cool celebrity.
There was a similar story on Coronation Street. Anna raised Faye since she was a little girl. Then Faye's birth father returned to the picture. In Faye's eyes, he could do no wrong, and her mother was kind of worthless. That situation seemed a little less awful, though, because Faye wasn't a result of a betrayal that hurt Anna.
The thing with Christine is, she has a very generous heart. She could have been hateful and resentful towards her husband's child, but instead she took him on as her own son. It seemed she really loved him. And here that's thrown back in her face.
That being said, I think the love of all/most mothers is stomped on by teenagers whether they're biological, adopted, stepchildren, etc. It's not 100% all the time—hopefully. But I think in most cases, it's happens at least some of the time.
15. Finished watching season two of Tangle.
I got a little teary-eyed towards the end.
Though I was bored and depressed by the first episode; I thought the rest of the season was quite good.
13. Annoyed by Max's (Blake Davis) attitude. He caught his mom Christine kissing the wrong man—not his father. He's been incredibly angry and abrasive about that. This would be understandable, except he himself is the result of an affair. I've never seen him give his father grief about the affair; nor his birth mother, Kat. In fact, he gives Christine a verbal slap in the face by telling her that he wants to move in with Kat. He does this in front of Kat, so Christine gets to feel both rejected and embarrassed by the woman who has caused her so much pain.
14. Felt very bad for Christine.
First she has to deal with the fact that her husband fell in love with a woman. She has to share his affections with Kat.
Then she also has to share her son with another woman—a woman who has abandoned Max for most of his life; then returns as a cool celebrity.
There was a similar story on Coronation Street. Anna raised Faye since she was a little girl. Then Faye's birth father returned to the picture. In Faye's eyes, he could do no wrong, and her mother was kind of worthless. That situation seemed a little less awful, though, because Faye wasn't a result of a betrayal that hurt Anna.
The thing with Christine is, she has a very generous heart. She could have been hateful and resentful towards her husband's child, but instead she took him on as her own son. It seemed she really loved him. And here that's thrown back in her face.
That being said, I think the love of all/most mothers is stomped on by teenagers whether they're biological, adopted, stepchildren, etc. It's not 100% all the time—hopefully. But I think in most cases, it's happens at least some of the time.
15. Finished watching season two of Tangle.
I got a little teary-eyed towards the end.
Though I was bored and depressed by the first episode; I thought the rest of the season was quite good.
What would our world be like if we
knew for sure there
was life after death, and
we could easily talk to our
dearly-departed on the Internet?
The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts
16. Went to Random.org to pick what I'm planning to watch on Wednesday.
It's Holy Smoke.
Is that the one with Kate Winslet?
17. Saw from Netflix that the answer is yes.
18. Felt a lot of admiration for Australian teenager Essena O'Neil. Despite being very popular on various social media sites, she's quitting social media, because she's come to realize how empty it all is.
Writing this is kind of ironic for me, because the other day I felt that recently-deadened desire to be popular rising in me again.
The smart part of me thinks it's all stupid and soul-crushing. Then there's that small part of me that thinks it might be satisfying to have a huge number of Twitter followers Retweeting every trivial thing I mention.
It's not always fun, though. Or I'm guessing it's not. I've been obsessing over JK Rowling the past few days. First I was angry and hurt by her. Now I'm feeling sorry for her and worried about her.
She involved herself in the Israeli-Palestinian situation and is now receiving hatred from both groups.
19. Felt social media has it's good and bad parts.
The good is people meeting like-minded people and having stimulating conversations. I think it's exciting that people from vast different backgrounds and belief systems can discuss things on Twitter—even if they hate each other and disagree. At least we get to see the different opinions that are out there. We can see that there are different sides to the same story—even if we don't believe the other side of the story.
The bad parts are the fakeness, the bragging, the exaggerations, the feelings of inadequacy.
Essana O'Neil talked about struggling to look perfect in her Instagram photos. That's one thing.
But there are other things as well.
When I look at Instagram, I feel I'm not pretty enough; I'm not a good enough parent; I'm not a good enough housewife; I don't travel enough; I don't do enough interesting things; I don't eat enough awesome organic raw chocolate.
Now envy is mostly the fault of the person feeling the envy. But if you only take photos of the super awesome stuff in your life, that's a bit unfair.
20. Went to Instagram to see if my account is of the bragging-type. I can't see the photos, because my account is private. I have to log in, and I've made a rule that I can only log in every three months. Why? Because I became too addicted to Instagram—more with viewing than posting.
I do Flickr, though, and in that case, I think I sort of have a balance.
In fact, yesterday I uploaded an ugly photo of myself. I hesitated. Why do I want to share that? But I think I did it, to avoid being one of those people who only put their idealized self on display.
That being said, I'm guilty of rarely putting any selfies on Instagram, because they looked so bad.
21. Felt that Instagram is different than Flickr because there's more of a look-at-me-and-judge-me mentality.
I think Flickr is more about having a place to organize our personal albums, and if someone else wants to take a look, that's cool. Although some people do use it as a validation exercise.
For me personally, though....
With Flickr, it's more just about recording my life—preserving memories.
When I posted on Instagram, I did feel a need to impress people or at least attract attention. I wanted people to notice the cool books I read; the cool TV shows I watched, the cute things I noticed at Disney World, etc.
22. Thought about my blog.
It's definitely not balanced, because I mostly talk about the Australian parts of my life. For example, someone might read my dreams and get the idea that I dream only about Australian. I actually dream about a lot of not-Australian stuff. I just don't share it, usually.
I don't think I present myself as being better than I am. Or if I do, I have balanced that out by embarrassing myself here many times.
No. You know what. I do think I'm pretty honest here. I think I've been real.
Not that I'm going to confess every naughty or demented thought, wish, and deed. I don't think I'm obligated to do that. But I think I have opened up about some embarrassing stuff.
I've shown my ugly side along with my super, wonderful, not-humble, gorgeous side.
23. Meant to go to palg1305's Flickr account, but wasn't thinking straight and instead plugged palg1305 into Google.
Now I've gotten a better idea of who I've been kind of stalking.
And now I feel like I'm really stalking him.
Here's his Twitter. His bio is in Spanish, which makes me think I was right about him being a Mexican guy that's going to school in Queensland.
24. Worried I never mentioned my suspicions, and I'm going to sound like I'm false-bragging about figuring something out.
25. Saw that palg1305 lists his locations as Brisbane/Helsinki/Mexico.
26. Noticed his name is Pablo. I think that definitely sounds more Mexican than Australian or Norwegian.
27. Googled Helsinki. It's Finland's capital; not Norway's. Shit. I get those places confused. Remember, though. I'm American. As dream-Tracey understood, we're bad at geography.
28. Used Google Translate to translate Palg1305's Twitter bio.
It says, I opened my Twitter account to burn in society. I leo my TL when I have nothing better to do.
Huh?!
I'm hoping that's a lost in translation kind of thing.
29. Looked at palg1305's Instagram.
There, it says he's a biologist.
And he's traveling around the world.
30. Glad to know a little more about the guy who's taken the photos I've been looking at the past few weeks. But I'm going to stop Googling before I know too much and feel like a bona fide stalker.
31. Started to look at palg1305's Nimbin album on Flickr.
32. Decided maybe it wouldn't be bad-stalking to look closely at palg1305's Instagram and Twitter. Because if you put something up online, it's there for people to see.
It's like if someone reads many posts on my blog, I don't see it as bad-stalking. I think of it as nice, actually.
If they spent hours on my blog everyday for a year; then I might get a bit worried—probably more for them than myself. That's never happened to me, though. If it did, I might actually be dumb enough to be more flattered than concerned.
33. Wanted to say that although I think it would be okay for me to spend a few hours looking at palg1305's Instagram, Flickr, and Twitter; I'm not going to. Why? I'm not that interested.
But I do want to continue looking at all his Australian albums in small doses.
SO...back to Nimbin. I don' think I've heard of it before.
It's in New South Wales.
34. Looked on Google Maps.
Nimbin is about an hour and half south of the Gold Coast.
35. Liked this photo of a rainbow building.
I wonder if it's a gay thing.
Rainbows usually seem to be about gay and lesbian rights these days.
36. Learned there is a Rainbow Cafe in Nimbin. That's probably what's in the photo.
37. Learned some sad news from Trip Advisor.
The Rainbow Cafe burned down.
But I think maybe they got it back up again?
38. Looked at the dates. It is back up again.
The cafe burned down in August 2014, but there are reviews from September 2015. I guess they rebuilt or did a lot of repairing.
39. Saw that palg1305's Nimbin photos are from September 2014. So this was soon after the fire.
I need to look at more of the photos. Maybe I'll get some insight.
40. Did not get insight about the fire from the photos.
41. Found article about the fire.
The cafe burned down, along with a museum. The police labeled it as suspicious.
42. Learned from article that Nimbin is known for it's drug and alternative culture.
43. Looked again at Trip Advisor, and learned from ManBearJordan's post that the cafe moved. The burnt one was on Main Street, and the new one is in what ManBearJordan thinks is a better location.
44. Confused.
I still don't know if that rainbow building in Palg1305's photo is the Rainbow Cafe or not. I didn't see a similar photo on Trip Advisor.
It might just be another rainbow thing.