Okay, so where to start?

I began this blog with gusto, had lots of ideas, began a list and then.... got a wee bit of a freak out. Am I cool? I asked Friend #1 and his pause was a whisker too long and left me pondering.... Who am I to determine cool? Am I able to discover this and follow through with this crazy project I have given myself? I have since begun speaking to people about 'being cool' and have become baffled as to what it means.

Wikipedia tells me that cool people have three things in common, they are confident, unique and friendly. I want to run and hide under the bed right now: thus I am not confident. I tend to like what everyone else likes: thus not unique and although I would love to think of myself as friendly: I am shy and can be a bit aloof (thanks again Friend #1). I guess the whole point of me pursuing coolness is to push myself out of my comfort zone to become the person I should be.

But really, who am I to assume that I am cool? I don't own a Hermes handbag, I don't wear Lancome lipstick, I cannot walk in high heals (let alone afford Bally shoes), and Louis Vuitton reminds me of Chinese tourists and the black market ring in Paris (one day I may tell you the full version of this cool travel tale). The things I think are cool, others may not. The things others think are cool, I may not. So where does that leave me and my blogging dream?

A friend I spent some time with recently shared her thoughts on my blog about being cool. She thought it was cool to write a blog about persuing coolness, saying that this was daggy in a cool kind of way, which is in itself cool. Another friend said that there are some things that are just universally cool, like Converse sneakers, but I am not sure about whether Friend # 386 thinks these are cool, and she is cool.... (please note that I do in fact have a pair of silver Converse sneakers). My mum laughed when I mentioned my ideas and asked 'why can't I just try to be 'normal' for once?'

It has taken months of agonising and deflecting questions about my next instalment, and I still don't have an answer as to why it has taken so long to add more to my little blog about not much. But, here I go, into the unknown... I just don't want to be a choker. A choker who may end up telling a heavy breathing counsellor in a dingy office in a deserted inner city building that I once began a blog and live with the regret as the only thing I end up following through with is keeping homeless hairless cats and sending love letters to a man in jail..... No, I must pursue coolness... My own version of cool. Stay tuned and watch this space, something cool may just happen to me soon.

Madly trying to be cool....

I have always wanted to be cool. As a child I used to dream of leaving my life, moving to somewhere glamourous and returning to my roots .... cool. You know the 'right' sunglasses, fabulous shoes, just the right haircut and clothes that made others wish bad things against you. Unfortunately, I was raised by parents who by their own definition thought they were cool and I really thought they were cool. I thought it was cool that my dad wore scuff sandals with long socks to church, I thought it was cool that my mum used to wear tartan trousers...... Where is the foundation for hope for someone who dreams of being cool?

Some of this tale is true... I did leave my home town, moved to the Sunshine Coast (pretty cool) then moved to London (very cool) and then returned to my hometown. Was I glamourous? Was I hip? No, I was pregnant.... A lovely friend described me as a Walvus Vrouw, he kindly looked up a Dutch dictionary to find just the right words to call me a Whale Woman in my parent's native tongue. Not cool, at this point.

I have since been on a journey of discovering who I am, again. Things do change once you have had kids... Size changes (down for me, ha ha ha), budget changes and of course, fashion changes. I am trying to work out how to not only be cool, but happy and how to make this contagious. Thus, this blog. I want to share my quest for coolness and how life turns one's best intentions a-about.