I must write

All children, it seems, want to be distinct from their parents, and every child, it seems, ends up discovering things embedded deep within themselves that inextricably link them to their parents anyway. Like an unbroken chain of genetic information stretching back to our origins, we carry with us the unmistakable imprint of our ancestry, whether we like it or not.

It makes sense to me then that my father once wrote the simple phrase “I must write”. Writing for me, like my father, is something I have to do. For me, writing is a part of thinking, it’s a way of organising my thoughts and in fact most of my writing never even escapes my own head. I review conversations and events as though they were scenes from a book, revising and refining the experience: good or bad. A character in my own story, I explore my motivations thoroughly and do my best to understand my life itself.

As Anne Morrow Lindbergh once wrote: “I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.” Anne herself is an interesting character, having written some rather controversial stuff in support of the Nazis in the 1940’s. That said, I don’t think her other writing detracts from the sentiment: writing about life is being conscious about life and for me, is as important as living itself.

I love writing, its cathartic and a great way to deal with stress for me. Maybe that’s why I have neglected my blog for three whole years: I’ve been quite happy lately, even with the usual stresses of work.

I’d like to change that. No, I don’t mean I want to become more stressed, I have just decided I would like to do more writing and that means you, gentle reader, are going to see more happening on this here little website. I don’t know why it’s better to write and then publish my thoughts to the world at large. It does seem rather self-centred to me. I have considered making a private journal but for some reason it just doesn’t feel the same. I think the difference is that writing for an audience sharpens the thinking, you focus more on trying to convey a meaning or a feeling, rather than just trying to note down a thought or an idea.

People say there’s no risk to blogging (what a silly term), but that’s not entirely true. Every bit of information you publish about yourself on the Internet is available for all to see, potentially for all time! It’s important that you recognise that your audience includes people who may like you, people who may dislike you and people like intelligence agencies, rifling through all our personal information to unspecified ends.

Anyway, this post marks a conscious effort on my part to write more and post more. I can’t promise any frequency or quality, but I promise I will do my very best.

Do What You Want

Beach at Browns BayI was complaining to a friend of mine the other day about all the things that I had to do: a deluge of responsibilities at work, a torrent of administrative stuff for church. I’m inundated by events I’m supposed to organise, events I’m supposed to turn up to important family commitments. You know, sometimes life gets that way: where you feel as though you’re so busy doing the things you have to do that there’s simply no time left to do the things you really want to do.

My friend then said the strangest thing: “oh, well, at least it’s all good stuff”.

Good stuff?

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Changing

ClothingThose of you who know me will know I’m a big fan of Billy Joel. So much so, that when I was given the opportunity to choose a song to practise for voice training, I picked one of the best I could think of: “Just the way you are“.

It’s a nice sentiment: don’t go changing, you’re not too familiar, I won’t leave you, I love you just the way you are. Great words to hear from a lover or a friend. Those who aren’t Billy Joel crazy will probably be surprised to hear that it’s actually one of his least favourite songs. He wrote it for his soon-to-be ex wife after all. I remember watching an interview with the piano man where he said he now addresses the song more to himself than to anyone else.

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Beca Ball 2009

Stephen & Theresa“You should come to the Beca Ball” Sam insisted in that demanding, almost pleading way he has about him. I rolled my eyes. “It will be fun, and you can have us over for drinks beforehand”.

“Oh, all right.” I conceded reluctantly. “I suppose I could convince a guy to dress up in drag…”

“Or you could invite Theresa, I’m sure she’d love to come”.

Thus began many weeks’ worth of cajoling before Sam could convince me not only to buy tickets to my work ball, but to ask Theresa (a mutual friend) to come along as my “date” and to have everyone over to my place for drinks beforehand.

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Prang

Well, every now and again you have a new experience. Yesterday was one of those days. I had left work on time for once in a rather chipper mood: I was meeting up with my friend Rick at Sylvia Park to go watch a movie. It was his only evening off for quite some time so we decided to make hay.

It was about 6:10 pm; I was travelling on Beach Road towards the motorway and had come to a stop behind a car waiting in a queue at the lights on Parnell Rise.

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Tapu

Apologies for the dry nature of this post.

Last month there was a big to-do about a student who left a communion ceremony without having consumed the communion bread he had in his mouth. He apparently wanted to show it to someone outside the church who was curious. When they realised he wasn’t playing by the rules, people even tried to compel him to eat the bread but he “escaped”. He kept the bread for a week before returning it because he had received death threats.

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Rangitoto – Lunch on top of Auckland

Lunch on top of the WorldMy friend James is in the territorials (New Zealand’s volunteer army) and has been away in the Solomon Islands for a while, doing good peace keeping work there. Out of the blue on Friday, I got a text message from him asking me to go see a movie. The movie was a little lacklustre (10,000 BC, don’t watch it), but the company was excellent: I met up with both James and V (Viren), friends from uni that I haven’t seen in ages. After the movie, they invited me to go with them for a “tramp” up Rangitoto Island.

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Exercise in Frustration

priusbackWell, you all know by now that I fell in love quite some time ago: to hybrid car technology, of course. In particular, I fell in love with a specific model: the Toyota Prius. I loved how small it was, I loved the way it could run (briefly) without any petrol at all and I loved the possibilities it promised for the future.

I diligently saved up a whole year to buy mine, so when I unexpectedly found myself in Texas I saw no reason why I shouldn’t continue my plan and just buy one there, so I did. This worked brilliantly and I have been more than overjoyed with the outcome. In every way, this car has exceeded my expectations. Still, all good things must come to an end, so about a month before I was due to leave the country I started trying to sell my car.

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Tailgating

Pony UpAt first, when my colleague Tricia told me that one of her favourite things to do was to “tailgate”, I imagined that she would probably get on rather well with my good friend Doug, who (in his early 20’s) was known for his proclivity for attaching himself to the preceding car’s bumper. It turns out that “tailgating” has a very different, slightly safer connotation in the US than it does in New Zealand.

I was fortunate enough to join Tricia and a few of her friends from her university Southern Methodist University (SMU), to watch a football game. Part of the whole college football experience is the pre-game socialising, of which, tailgating is an important part. The image here is of me, wearing SMU colours (red & blue) and an SMU cap, proudly performing the “pony-up” hand-sign. Hopefully, all this “pony” business will make sense in time.

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