Magical portals, giant otters, tortured young artists & other things I think about at 3a.m.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

When I am up at three in the morning, I have a lot of thoughts that seem very profound and meaningful. I am sure a lot of people have these sorts of thoughts. I wonder what they did with them before the invention of this magical thing called the internet? Think of all the wise words (and by wise I mean incoherent) lost forever! Thankfully, we are living in 2012, and even though I don't document very much of my actual life on Facebook (I find those 'so-and-so is at this place, come get me stalkers!' things to be incredibly creepy), I do share a lot of weird things I think about.

If I ever get amnesia, and forget entirely who I am, I hope that my various web ramblings will help Amnesiac Steph to conclude that she is awesome.

This is 2009 Steph Bowe:
She is so cool she wears sunglasses inside, possibly at night, and a tiara with foam letters that announce her profession. Also, I think I may have originally posted this on Myspace (I must've: visible arm self-portaiture belongs nowhere else). Imagine her reading these statuses to you.

In reverse chronological order, some highlights (usually dreams and thoughts that seemed very meaningful at the time) from the last three years:

Every time I hear a strange noise in the house, I look around for something I could use as a weapon. Then I imagine the headlines. "Tortured young artist bludgeons burglar with $4 keyboard from Woolies." Need to find a better weapon.

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I have many elaborate plans for when I am eighty. I have been respectful and made good decisions and worked hard so far, and plan to continue this way for most of my life, but when I am elderly I am going to become really obnoxious to make up for never being a foolish youth. I am going to get horrible tattoos, and start fights, and leave the water running while I brush my teeth, and possibly become a fascist dictator. It's going to be great. Only sixty one years and ten months to go.

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Had someone consulted me before I started existing I would've asked to be a giant otter or a panda or possibly a very big dinosaur. But no one asked and I'm a human, and human existence is terribly lame compared to giant otter/panda/dinosaur existence. I would've been the greatest giant otter. So much unfulfilled potential.

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I need a clone to answer email, and a clone to do schoolwork, and a clone to do speaking gigs, and a clone to write books, and a clone to edit books, and a clone to read books and tell me about them, and a clone to clean, and a clone to make me a cup of tea. And I will sleep, and occasionally watch videos of kitties being cute on YouTube. Of course the clones will all eventually turn against me and become Evil Stephs and take over the world, but during the brief period that they behave themselves, it'll be fairly glorious. For me at least. And it's okay, the Evil Stephs will be benevolent rulers. Or they might not be. You just can't tell with evil clones.

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Life's too short to complain about Facebook. Life's too short for Facebook entirely. Life's too short for anything but affirming how short life is. (Oh god, I've spent thirty seconds updating this unnecessarily. Half a minute closer to death. I'm going to carpe diem the hell out of tomorrow. CARPE DIEM.)

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On this day in 2010, my status was "When I'm meant to be doing other, important stuff, I get on Facebook and look at everybody's photos and imagine what it's like to be them. Because I find there's a massive disconnect between the way people see me and the way I feel about myself, and I wonder if that's true of other people." Oh Steph Bowe, you never change.

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Dreamt last night I could travel into the future through a magical cardboard box. I appeared in someone's apartment, but she was very good about it and let me stay. The future was very much like the present, except television was worse and everyone was very thin. I regretted I had only travelled ten years into the future instead of twenty, because everyone looked pretty much the same.

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I would very much like to hibernate through the entirety of winter. Life would be so much easier if I were a bear. I wouldn't have to worry about heating then. Or schoolwork. And I feel humans would be very impressed if I were a bear that wrote books. And if they didn't like me I would eat them.

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So apparently people who have Ned Kelly tattoos are 7.7 times more likely to be murdered than people who don't. Do you think this would apply to tattoos inspired by violent fictional characters, too? I mean, if I get 'Pity' and 'Fool' tattooed on my knuckles, will this affect the likelihood of me being a bad-ass?

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I dreamt the other night that I travelled to the future through a magical water portal. I was swimming, and a crappy 80s synth band played by the pool, and then I was in a motel room in the future. My parents who were not my parents had died in a bizarre industrial garbage disposal accident orchestrated by evil baddies. Some very suspicious government people needed my genes for the survival of the human race, and they wanted me to do something horrible but I'm not sure what it was. I agreed, because I wanted them to send me back to the past, because the future was that awful. Pretty weird.

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I've discovered one of my old notebooks. Interesting question written inside: 'When animals are cryogenically frozen and then brought back to life, where does their soul go in between? Does the same soul inhabit the body when the animal is reanimated?'

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Does anyone else worry they'll get a papercut on their tongue while they're licking envelopes?

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So, Snuggies versus Doona suits? Which is better? (Not because I'm going to buy one, I just want to know your thoughts.) I'm thinking doona suits are more practical, but Snuggies can double as Halloween costumes if you want to be a funky grim reaper or something. Or if you're in a cult. It's menacing AND cosy.

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I dreamt last night that I was in a botanical gardens/outdoor shopping centre type place, and my family were getting dental work done, and there was a sort of masquerade ball going on which I wasn't allowed into. So I was out on the lawn with all these characters from Harry Potter having magical duels. And then I went for a stroll with a guy called Thom Yorke (but it wasn't Thom Yorke of Radiohead), and he had an umbrella, despite it being night-time and not raining. We had an enlightening conversation about Julian Assange and realities not measuring up to expectations. He looked like somebody I knew, but I think it was somebody dream-me knew rather than real-me, so it must be somebody who isn't real.

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I like to put iTunes on shuffle and flashback to all my awful musical tastes back when I was twelve. Like the first CD I bought with my own money being the Justin Timberlake one with Sexyback on it (it was THE song of 2006, okay?). And singing that Panic at the Disco song very loudly at discos. And obsessively listening to that Teddy Geiger song. And being morally opposed to My Humps and everybody else loving it. And of course flashing back to my awful musical tastes makes me flash back to my awful dress sense - always wearing fluoro board shorts under my school dress and my horrific fringe and wearing my Paris Hilton sunglasses constantly for the entirety of (I think) term two.

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I think if I wasn't me, I'd have a strange and impossible crush on me purely for my adorable weirdness. But I'd never ask myself out. It'd be an admire-from-afar-and-never-let-anyone-know-you're-crushing sort of crush. Which is clearly the worst kind of crush.

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Every time I go for a walk and smile at everybody and say hello, no one ever replies or even looks at me. I have come to the conclusion that I have either a) died, totally unbeknowst to me, and am now a spirit sticking around because of unfinished business and with access to Facebook or b) do not exist and am just a figment of your imagination with access to Facebook.

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I like to go through people's Facebook photos and wonder what their lives are like. I get this funny sort of nostalgia about the memories they have there, which is weird because they aren't my memories. But it makes me feel happy and sad at the same time. Thank God I'm a writer and have being an artist as an excuse. Otherwise I'd just be creepy.

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And these are not exactly profound thoughts, but I like them (there are actually some good things about oversharing on the internet, like being able to remember little things like these):

Just got an email from my Grade Six teacher, who read my book and loved it. Legit, you guys, Mr Wilson thought my book was excellent.

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The ladies at the post office all oohed and ahhed over my book and it's sparkly cover. Just fyi, the ladies at the post office think I'm cool.

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I'm so hardcore I have a hot chocolate withdrawal headache.
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