Monday, April 30, 2012

To Love Me Is To Love My Pickle.

It's funny what people will bet on.
I once knew a couple in a relationship so flawed, so disastrous, that on the night of the Engagement party a Tote was produced wherein every one's estimate for the marriages demise was duly noted.
The cruelty of the betting was only offset by the hilarity of the moment, as we one by one tried to second guess which of the partners would kill the other first.
In the end, the couple themselves had the last laugh by quietly disassembling their foreverandeverandever vows in record time whilst both remaining alive and with their limbs intact.
No one won any money.
It was both disconcerting and sad.
Recently, I have been embracing new things.
Since I first heard the phrase at the age of 12, the truism that 'if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten' has haunted me.
So, having found myself in a mental and physical rut, I decided I would put on my big boy pants( yes, I'm a girl, big girl pants sounds fat) and get out of my comfort zone.
I went to a beer festival.
This may not sound like much, I like beer, and the people were nice, but a beer festival is not a place I would normally go.
I went to a networking event.....if you think I sound socially retarded celebrating my breakthrough beer festival, you would not believe how much the words 'networking event'  make my skin crawl.
But I went, and yes, I networked.
It was held in a private members bar, so it was more drink and talk bullshit than let's make a deal, but then this may actually be the sum total of networking events in general.
I don't really know.
I tend never to go to them.
I even ended up in an acting workshop, and given that the last 10 of those I went to were run by me, the idea of learning performance from a very much younger, albeit highly experienced and disarmingly charming, thespie was somewhat challenging to say the least.
However, there again, I went with an open heart and clouded mind to break out of my self imposed 'leave me alone, I just feel like rotting from the inside out' personal exile.
I am not sure I learned many things, other than the word "ACTIONING" but I enjoyed the process very much and I faced the fear of standing amongst a group of peers with my dick in the wind whilst whistling Dixie with as much courage as I had 'in the moment'.
(Once again, and before we go any further, yes I am STILL a girl, it's just that boys get the better analogies.)
Of the 3 events I have forced myself into over these past 5 days, the one that has woken me up to myself the most, was the 'card swapping is the new butt smelling' soiree.
It had nothing to do with the 400 late-to-the-party-yuppies and their omg-so-retro-eighties-buzzwords, or the 200 or so hangers on who were looking for a life partner based on the cut of a suit or the height of a pair of Jimmy Choo's, it was more something a friend said to me on the night.
This lady, who is all things graceful and positive, reminded me - after  I told her that I had no idea what the fuck I was doing at an event so riddled with irony that my hair was rusting- that the first thing to do was SMILE.
Sounds simple doesn't it.
Just smile Wendy, and people will come up and chat to you.
Now, I love this lady.
She is a genuinely good and open person, highly regarded and very respected.
I looked at her as if she had run headlong into the special needs bus riding a donkey and not wearing a helmet.
But, fuck it.
I'd paid my 90 bucks, and I had a stamp saying two free drinks and so I would stay.....and I would smile.
And wouldn't you know it, within a heartbeat, I was chatting to an exacerbatingly irritating peachy keen young Canadian who was here teaching English at a 3rd rate International school.
He loved EVERYTHING, this guy.
And rather than mentally thrust him into the 'I can't talk to you because you are stealing my oxygen' category, I found myself warming to his enthusiasm and his general happiness.
I SMILED at him, and he smiled back at me, and within seconds I had established that I would never require his services, but I certainly was in need of his felicity.
After all, I wasn't really there to network, just to jump start my well being, and THAT he had in buckets.
It was an epiphany.
I spent another two hours SMILING at people, and chatting about this and that, and deliberately shutting down the Doubting Thomas that lives permanently in my frontal lobe.
I leaned a valuable lesson that night.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
It's not a terribly original concept, but it was one I had let go of.
Much like that 'Wedding of the Blink-or You'll Miss It'.
At least they had a nice party.
I am certain that the time has come to fling myself from a perfectly working aeroplane, or some other such midlife crisis....no doubt I shall embark on a set of hopeless lost causes -like my youth, or the perfect body, or tantric sex- over the next couple of years.
Be patient with me, I walk this road but once and I am a shit navigator.
In the mean time, keep smiling, and remember....you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you'll get what you need.


Finally, as a footnote only:
So, back to the betting.
From now on, for my life, I'm going to have a ratings system for things that appear 'simple, but amusing'....to 'complicated, but irritating' and everywhere in between.
The name of this ratings system is to be called 'The Gerkins'.
This is how I will decide whether or not things require my time.
One Gherkin is a 'don't bother'
Two Gherkins is a 'only if you are out of AAA Bateries'
Three Gherkins is 'you have done worse, suck it and see'
Four Gherkins is 'go for it, and remember to smile'
Five Gherkins is 'You Bloody Beauty'
I think this will help me remain out of my rut, I am a visual kinesthetic learner, these Gherkins are part of my process.
When I go to see things, or do things, or wish to embark upon new things, I shall first visualise these Gherkins.
The more Gherkins that appear in my mind, the more I will embrace these new, and old, events.
I reckon it will work.
They say you attract more bees with honey than with vinegar....but I am prepared to put my money on the vinegar just this once...
And if I win this bet, I KNOW it will have worked.
And if I lose, well, I shall be in a bit of a jam, but not a pickle.