TDoT(14): A hero that has let you down

Oprah. I love her, but she let me down. Not on purpose of course, but she promised me, oh, years ago now, that if I visualised and mantra-ed about something it would happen. And it sort of did, but then it didn't.

Dear Oprah,

I'm a huge fan, and please don't let this letter make you think I'm any less of a fan now, but I just must let you know that I feel a little let down about something. It's not huge, and I wouldn't ordinarily have bothered you with it, but I'm doing Thirty Days of Truth you see, and this one's on 'A hero that has let you down' and I promised to write on the first thing that came to mind, and that was you, and this.

Many, many months ago, you did a show on visualising what you want, and saying it to yourself first thing each morning. You and the expert on your show that time (sorry, I can't remember their name) promised that, if I did this, it'd come true.

Well, I thought very hard about it, and created my mantra, and repeated it each morning for many, many moons. Then something happened, and I thought it'd worked. Then something else happened, and I thought it hadn't. Now, though, as I write this letter, I realise it did, but perhaps just not in the way I'd thought. Makes me think of the saying 'Be careful what you wish for.' Except that I'm not sad that this is what I got.

Oh, blast, I just talked in a complete circle. You're my hero, you let me down (in a very roundabout way) but now I see maybe you didn't.

Hope you're having a lovely weekend.

Lots of love,
Shiny x

Sex tapes

Honestly, how stupid are these people? That’s what I found myself asking myself while watching Oprah the other night. She was interviewing the mistress of a US politician (since divorced, cheating bastard) with whom she had a baby. They also made a sex tape, which, surprise surprise, landed in the wrong hands, about which everybody was oh-so-terribly upset. Idiots.

Now I can possibly understand how she might think it was a good idea, being a small-time actress with no huge prospects and no paparazzi following her (of course only while the affair was still secret) and perhaps wished for some publicity, but what on earth was the politician thinking? I can just see the conversation:

BlondeBimbo: Oh, honey, you’re looking so hot. Why don’t we record ourselves so I can watch it again when I’m lying here alone and you’re with your wife?
CheatingBastardPolitician: That’s a great idea, sweetcheeks. We can make a copy, which I’ll hide in my Treasure Box under my bed, along with my Star Trek card collection and my ostrich egg, so that I can watch it while my wife takes the kids to school.
BB: Ooo, it’s making me hot just thinking about it.
CBP: Me too!

Mumble, mumble, sheets twisting etc etc. Ten minutes later:

BB: Oh, my handsome stud, you’re such a demon in bed. Shall I turn the camera off now?
CBP: Yeah, you might as well. Take the tape out, though, it’d be terrible if it fell into the wrong hands, especially if I want to become president.
BB: Don’t worry, I’ll be sure it doesn’t. I’ll just store it safely here, amongst the other tapes. My friends-of-friends who’re housesitting while we go away to the beach and pretend to your wife that you’re on a business meeting are sure not to look at it.
CBP: No, of course not! Maybe just name it something unassuming, like BB/CBP Sex Tape or something, my little muffin of love. Then they’ll definitely not look at it. Aren’t we just so smart?
BB: Yes.

And they’re all over the place, these ‘famous people’ sex tapes. Can somebody please put an IQ minimum on people in the public eye? How stupid can you be, knowing the world is watching you, to make a sex tape? It WILL get out you twits, so don’t come wittering and crying when it does.

Flying, tiling and happiness

I take it back. My whinge about the self actualisation and positive thought mantra-saying. My house is, indeed converted - the bricks are made of chocolate cake, the roof is covered in wafers, the door handles in the kitchen are Jelly Tots, and the chocolate spring flows into a meandering stream through my garden. And I'm flying.

It's a good place to be. I know I'm being all cryptic again, but it's just that I'm not quite there yet. You know the 'there' I'm talking about? The one where you're able to blurt it all out and make it all public. I'm getting there, at the speed of light, really, what with my new wings and all.

The good news is that we will all be moving back into the House in the Middle of The Street on Saturday. The floors are in, the walls are painted, I just need to choose tiles for the kitchen (walls - at the sink and stove). You'd think this'd be a walk in the park. It's not. Finding red tiles? Like trying to get hold of the original hotpants worn by Axl Rose in the '80's.

You amble happily into tile place (after tile place, after tile place, getting less happily ambly exponentially, as the number of tile places increases) and ask to see their red tiles. Smiley Salesperson enthusiastically says: "Sure, we have a whole range!" (Why do sales people have to talk in exclamation marks?) Said Smiley Salesperson then rushes off and returns minutes later with a range of orange tiles. They're all bloody orange.

Anyway that's a long, gripey story which I will deal with (some more) over the weekend. In the meantime, I must fly around the office a bit, looking busy.

I wonder if my colleagues can see my wings?

Mantras and desires

Sometime during last year I watched my friend Oprah on the television. She had some friends around to chat about visualisation and intent and affiirmation and all that airy-fairy stuff. They had some people on the show who had big pieces of cardboard onto which they'd stuck cut out magazine pictures of things they wanted to happen in their lives and they looked at them alot. And got them. Or something like that. I'm not very good at paying attention and tend to lose concentration and chat through TV shows, or so I'm told (and that above description of the show seems to correlate).

Now, to me, the point of the show was to get people to pull out their scissors and glue and cut up old magazines to make pretty collages, thus taking them back to nursery school days, and possibly the simple joys in life. I could be wrong though. Perhaps there was more to it.

Okay, okay, obviously there was more. Like Oprah would ever just do a show on cutting and pasting. The whole thing was about positive affirmation so, despite my feelings on self-help books, I decided to try it. Dedicatedly. Because, after all, Oprah is never wrong.

I created my own little mantra, to be said in my head each morning on waking, sometimes even twice. I thought long and hard about this (admittedly while half-watching TV. It was a programme on lizard reproduction and how they're cross-breeding with lemurs. Hmm, maybe I wasn't concentrating on that either. Anyway, back to the point) and came up with a sweet little ditty to say to myself each morning, while thinking positively.

I must be honest though, I have not always found it easy to muster up the positivity in the early hours of the morning. Some things are too difficult, even for Oprah. But I did my best. And I did say it (nearly) each morning.

It's been over six months now and, each morning, I mantra myself while grinning (possibly slightly maniacally) in bed, then slowly open my eyes to see if my desires have been fulfilled, as Oprah promised. I tend to open one eye at a time, not to overwhelm myself on the day it happens, because it will, of course.

And yet, each morning since I started, after going through this whole process (and, no, it is not just an excuse to get an extra five minutes in bed), I open my eyes to find that my house has not been magically converted into the one in my mantra - the bricks are not made of chocolate cake, the roof is not wafers, the door handles in the kitchen aren't Jelly Tots, and the chocolate spring flowing into a meandering stream through my garden is just not there (there is more, but I'll stop there, I'm sure you get the picture). It's disappointing.

Then I turn around to check if my last little mantra-request has been granted... No, still no wings. Sigh.

I wonder if I'm doing something wrong?