Thursday Thirteen #10... Me, Myself and I...

This is my 100th post, and for my 100th post I wanted to do the 100 things about me, but it so happens it's also Thursday 13, so I've fudged a bit (I am nothing, if not creative!) and come up with 13 categories, that include 100 things about me...

ONE: WE ARE FAMILY...
1. I am the middle child of three with a younger sister and an older brother

2. I am 11 months younger than my brother, and 15 months older than my sister

3. Yes, this meant my mother was almost permanently pregnant for 3 years

4. My mother met my father when she was 8 and he was 11, when her sister married his brother, though she doesn't remember him being around much till around her 17th birthday

5. My parents were married at 19 and 22, with a ready made family by the time my mother was 23

6. My parents divorced when I was 23

7. My sister is the only one of us kids to have married, she met her future husband at 17, married him at 20, had 2 children by the time she was 25 and was divorced at 33 - she almost replicated my mother's life...

8. My father died 4 years ago unexpectedly, from the complications from a cold... which is odd, considering he'd survived multiple suicide attempts, tuberculosis, hepatitis, liver and bowel cancer, alcoholism, a broken hip and 3 major surgeries to relieve pressure on his brain.

9. I had divorced him... breaking off all contact with him after he'd asked to be left the f@#k alone, 18 months prior to his death...

TWO: YOU MUST HAVE BEEN A BEAUTIFUL BABY...
10. I was born on a Friday, and Mum chopped a load of firewood, left my brother with a neighbour and took herself off to the hospital in a taxi on her own. She didn't have a visitor until the following afternoon

11. I was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck and was taken out of the delivery room and my mother didn't see me again until 5 hours later... she thought I had died!

12. My Dad didn't see me for almost 3 days, as he'd gone on a bender with his mates and didn't come home till Sunday, to an empty house and a note on the door to tell him where Mum was

13. I was allergic to my mother's breast milk... as well as most types of formula

14. At 6 weeks old my mother propped me up in my high chair, surrounded by pillows with pantyhose tied around my waist to hold me in, as I screamed blue murder if they tried to place me in another room... I needed to be where all the action was... nothing much has changed

15. I walked at 10 months, long before my almost 2 year old brother... he only walked because I used to steal his toys from him

16. I never talked baby talk, going from silence to full words... and I haven't stopped talking since

17. I had a mop of blond curls, blue eyes and dimples... and by all accounts was a pretty, happy baby... smiling more often then crying...

THREE: YOUNG AT HEART...
18. I went almost 12 months eating nothing but plain boiled rice and spaghetti and baked beans... I still love all three...

19. Watching a TV program where a man stuffed cotton wool in his cheeks and up his nose to disguise himself, I attempted to do the same... but instead used the beads from a broken necklace of my mothers... and managed to have one bead lodge at the top of my nose, close to my eye, that had to be extracted by a doctor

20. At 3, I dressed up in my mother's hat and gloves and an old handbag, and told her I was off to the doctor. She went along with me, and only realising after an hour of quiet that I had actually learnt how to unlatch the front door and had disappeared. We lived in a street that backed on to Ripponlea Mansion and the back gates and had been left open, so a search party was established, fearing if I'd wondered into the grounds I might be lost for days. Instead, I'd walked up to the main road and had walked across the pedestrian crossing. A driver starting off from what he thought was a clear crossing, felt a slight bump and got out to find me on the ground in front of his wheels.

21. I won the Kindergarten fancy dress competition, dressed as Mavis Bramston, in a black chiffon shirt, a black wig, Jacqui O sunglasses, and a cigarette holder... I won a picture book of The Three Little Pigs.. I was 4

22. I used to wet my pants... not because of some nervous affliction, nor because of any medical condition... I just used to get engrossed in some activity and forget to go to the toilet until it was too late and then I'd have an accident... don't pee my pants anymore, but I often forget to eat and drink because I'm concentrating on some fancy

23. My mother always knew when I had pee'd my pants as I would take them off and put them in the laundry hamper, wherever we happened to be, and go bare-assed for the rest of the day

24. I had an imaginary pony, called Tony! He lived under the kitchen table and ate pretend carrots...

25. An aunt trying to coax us into bed one Christmas Eve took us to the window to tell us if Santa came and we were still awake he wouldn't leave presents. What must have been the tail-lights of a plane had us convinced it was Santa and Rudolf... so we scurried into bed, but I stayed awake peering through my lashes for half the night, not wanting to miss seeing Santa come down the chimney... but we didn't have a chimney...

FOUR: STORY OF A GIRL...
26. I could add, subtract and multiply double digits before starting school, because my uncle set me homework every time he came to visit, but interestingly enough, I couldn't read before I started school

27. I made up for that with a vengeance, by reading the entire 1st year reading material before the end of 1st term, and then the 2nd year material by midway through the year. My teacher encouraged my mother to get me a library card!

28. My mother talks about me coming home from my first day at school most indignant, as only the children who cried got sweets, whereas those of us who were brave were not rewarded at all... my sense of justice was well and truly in force already

29. I was one of those nerdy kids who loved school... I used to cry if I couldn't go.

30. I was a clever clod, but also very friendly, so apart from being pushed down the stairs by a boy in my final year of primary school because I won a student scholarship, I managed to straddle the divide of popular and nerd reasonably well

31. My mother allowed us to be exposed to a variety of religious experiences, we went on Methodist picnics and to Greek Orthodox Sunday School

32. My father, on the other hand, blew a gasket when a note came home from school with suggested dates for my first communion... we were not Catholic

33. The nun who provided Catholic studies at school thought I might have had a vocation, why else would I have passed myself off as Catholic. She was very disappointed to have me tell her it was because the Junior Catholic Bibles had lovely coloured pictures in them

34. I was and still am a clumsy clot... totally unaware of my physical self... so spent most of my childhood covered in bruises and scabs

35. I've never been very sporty... totally uncoordinated, though I have danced on and off for most of my life. At school I was part of a group that used to learn a traditional folk dance, and then we would teach the rest of the school... I love Zorba the Greek to this day...

36. Though I was a mean Wing Defence till a fall, splat, straight on to one knee, ended my netball career, and resulted in my wearing a knee brace and having a walking stick for almost 6 months. The knee is still a bit dodgy... and aches when it's damp...

37. My mother talks about the time I told my brother to get f@#ked... I was probably about 7 at the time, and I was told not to say that word... so asked my favourite question - Why? Cause, you shouldn't say words if you don't know what they mean, to which I replied - but I do know. Mum called my bluff... "ok, smartypants, what does it mean?" she asked, to which I replied "its when a man and a lady get stuck together!"

FIVE: TEENAGE DIRTBAG...
38. I was a bit of a good girl, but had my moments of rebellion... was always getting into trouble for completing my work and then distracting the other kids by talking

39. My high school was very progressive, so instead of being in a class with students my year, at the end of the first year they assessed students and placed them in one of four units... Unit One, being the most relaxed and informal going up to Unit Four, which was predominantly traditional class room style, though Years 7-9 together - guess, which unit I ended up in? Yep, one...

40. Imagine about 100+ kids roaming around a huge open room with half a dozen teachers, and you've got an idea about 3 years of high school for me... we created our own language with it's own written and oral rules in English class, developed our own societies, experimenting with a variety of governing styles, built cubbyhouses, fiercely debated everything that came out of our teachers mouths and generally created chaos... I loved it!

41. Of course, when I got to the equivalent of year 10 and they started prepping us for exams etc. it was a major shock... what do you mean I have to produce written material?

42. Consequently I failed my HSC ... and was so miserable my last two years of high school it took me over 20 years to go back to study... and even now I struggle within the confines and restrictions of formal education

43. I got drunk for the first time at 16 during the lunch break, on Southern Comfort, and then fell asleep in my English Literature class, which was taught by the principal

44. My first trip to a pub at age 17, sitting in the beer garden of the Yarra Hotel in Collingwood, the place was raided by the cops, with underaged girls flying off into the toilets, only to be hauled out and away. An older guy, said to me, "go up to the bar and buy a jug of beer", which I did, and then casually brought it back to our table. My friend and I and he were the only ones not spoken to. And when the cops left and I expressed relief, he floored me, but saying "yeah, me too - I've got a baggie of pot tucked into my underpants"

SIX: I AM WOMAN...
45. From my mid twenties till about 35 I was invisible... I had friends, most of whom are still around, but I would and could be introduced to someone multiple times and they would not remember me

46. I went away on my own on holiday the year I turned 28, and did not speak to another living soul for a week and for the first time discovered my need to go into hibernation in order to survive

47. While away I made a list of things I wanted to achieve before I was 30 - the first and only time I have ever made such a list. I promptly forgot about it, until I found it at around 32 and just mentally adjusted the timeframes to 35, then 40 etc.

48. The list primarily was focused on having a place of my own and a child of my own... but makes no reference to having a partner

49. I'm obviously a late bloomer, or a late rebel... getting a tattoo at 38, around the same time I started tap dancing, and now joining a choir at 46

50. A friend wanted to know what was I going to do next.. and I said.. I don't know - stand up comedy? To which she replied, "actually that wouldn't surprise me at all"

SEVEN: DO YOU THINK I'M SEXY...
51. My first proper french kiss was a guy called Burkey... it was horrible... and worse, he told everyone, and I didn't kiss anyone again for a number of years

52. I had a major crush on a guy in high school who referred to me as Blob... I used to call him Shithead... he once said to me "What are you going to be when you grow up? You can't be an elephant in disguise all your life!" starting me on my path of being fatally attracted to sarcastic, clever bastards!

53. I mooned over a boy through primary and high school and only discovered at my 20 year high school reunion that he'd had a crush on me too...

54. For most of my teens and 20s, I thought I was not attractive as a female... an 'honorary boy' who used to hang with the guys, talk to them, but they rarely tried to grope or kiss me. It is only now looking back that I realise quite a few of them were probably interested in me, but I was totally oblivious and clueless.

55. Flirting is much easier when I'm a bit liquored up... now that I rarely drink, I find it difficult to really flirt... I miss it!

56. Because I am naturally curious about people including all things male, I've often found myself having the weirdest conversations about men and sex... and it confuses men no end, just cause I'm happy to discuss sex doesn't mean I actually want to have it... well, not with you, anyway!

EIGHT: WORKING FOR THE MAN...
57. I started working part-time in gift/record/lotto shop at 14, earning the princely sum of .75c an hour. Within a month, I was doing all the lotto bookwork and continued to work part-time until I left high school

58. I left school and went straight into a full time job, and I've never been unemployed since

59. I have been a mail sorter (specialising in postcodes - almost 30 years later I can still remember most Melbourne suburban codes), receptionist, secretary, reception clerk, book-keeper, payroll officer, office manager, executive assistant, project officer and now, an OH&S advisor

60. I have worked for hotels and motels, a major arts festival, an independent economic research institute, a disability support service, an architectural practice, a major cultural institution, a TAFE college and now a local government

61. I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up...

NINE: A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME...
62. I moved into a share house at 19, my room was a hexagonal room (former dining room) with lime green and yellow flock wallpaper so bright that sometimes I could still see it on my eyelids with my eyes closed.

63. The one guy who lived there (married to one of the women) was caught with his eye to keyhole of one of the other girl's bedrooms (his wife's sister).

64. I was the only person who worked full-time, the others all students with waiting jobs, so I would come home to discover they'd used up all the milk and bread and taken the 'kitty' money to buy fish and chips.

65. I hated it so much, that I started going home on weekends, supposedly so that I could do my washing, that gradually extended in to staying 3 to 4 days a week, and I discovered I'd slowly moved most of my belongings back

66. I moved back temporarily, and agreed to take over the mortgage with my brother when my parents separated so that my Mum didn't lose the house, and ended up staying for almost 20 years

67. I moved out 5 years ago... after agonising over having the conversation that I wanted to live on my own for nearly 12 months, and did the big blurt and was gone in less than a month

68. I live with Gertie and Gracie, two tortoiseshell cats... Gracie spends most of her time hiding under furniture or under the doona sleeping, only appearing briefly to eat, and occasionally when she's really tired, have a cuddle

69. Gertie, on the other hand, is my girl... wherever I am, she is... or at least she makes sure I am in eye contact... she is curled up on a beanbag at my feet as I write this, occasionally stretching out to give my foot a nudge

70. I never realised until I moved out on my own how much I crave silence and my own company

71. I don't think I will ever willingly share my home with someone again...

TEN: WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS...
72. One of my closest friends sat next to me in prep class... apart from family, she's the person I've known the longest in my life and I love her to bits... a single mother of 4, she's off doing a "Shirley Valentine' in Greece - away on her own for the next 3 months, the first time since she was 18... I am so proud of her

73. My friends are my family... and while different people move in and out of my life, I have amassed the most amazing group of friends, who make it possible for me to be me...

74. As I get older I find that what male friends I had have, for the most part, drifted away. A lot of them finding it impossible to maintain a friendship with me once they have partnered up or married.

75. MFL is one of the exceptions... I have been in love and now loved him for over 25 years... and while we don't see each other often, I know if I need him he will be there for me, as I will be for him

ELEVEN: DAMN, I WISH I WAS YOUR LOVER...
76. While there have been men through my life that I have been attracted to, there are only 3, possibly 4, that I think of as being important

77. If I like you, then we can be friends, but I need to more than like you to be your lover

78. Boomerang Boy told me that from the beginning, there was nothing casual about me, which is ironic really, as I never placed any expectations on him or a future together, other than I wanted to be with him... for how ever long it seemed right

79. I'd like to think that there is one more 'great love' out there for me...

80. If I can't have one more 'great love' than I guy who makes me feel lust in my panty region on a regular basis would do...

81. Oh, and he has to live within a 10 klm radius, be available to satisfy that lust whenever I want him to, and fete me as the goddess I am...

82. And cook too...

TWELVE: SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS...
83. As previously stated, I haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up yet...

84. Though I always dreamed of owning a bookshop and/or being a writer

85. Through this blog I've discovered that maybe I could be a writer, though I've yet to determine in what forum

86. I'd find it difficult to write full time, my style is anecdotal - I am a storyteller... a participator rather than a spectator... in order to write, I need to interact with others

87. It has been suggested, more than once, that I would make a good therapist... as I am interested in what motivates people, and that I am a good listener, this might be a good career choice for me

88. I, of course, scoff at the notion - with echoes of "physician heal thyself" flashing through my mind

89. That's not to say that I wouldn't be interested in doing some study either in transpersonal therapy or psychology

90. I dream of making a difference... even if that difference is just that I've impacted in a positive way on those people I have met and allowed into my life

91. I've also dreamed of accepting an Academy Award - triple award winner - for writing, directing and starring in a fantabulous movie... oh and singing the theme song!

92. Of course, my Oscar date is my friend with benefits... Mr Clooney...

THIRTEEN: THE FUTURE'S SO BRIGHT I'VE GOT TO WEAR SHADES...
93. I am eternally optimistic... a glass half full, Pollyanna type of girl

94. I have to believe in basic human decency... though I realise that the world is a scary place these days

95. But on a personal level, these days are, for the most part, good...

96. I'm still a 'gunna' - gunna do this and gunna do that... but I'm happy to be that way... for the first time, genuinely happy with my lot.

97. I feel like I am still at the beginning of my life, though my physical self occasionally has to remind me that that is in fact, not so.

98. It is the journey that is important to me, not the destination...

99. And my fervent wish is that many of you will continue to share my journey with me as I bumble along... singing out of tune, dancing like a dork and laughing like a loon...

100. To be continued...

Not the Monday Poetry Train...

"We write to taste life twice,

in the moment and in retrospection" – Anais Nin

I have always been an avid reader, reading all of the 1st and 2nd year school readers before the end of first semester, my first year of school, and my teacher suggested to my mother that I join the junior library, something to which I am forever thankful as it opened me up to the world… literally. Even then I loved fiction… the stuff of imagination.

And I have written stuff and nonsense almost since I was first able to form letters and words. Usually, some fantastical story, with a wry twist in the tail that had a character that closely resembled me. There are some examples floating around the house somewhere, I should find them and relook at them. They are probably awful, but I suspect they are not that much different in style to how I write now, even though the subject matter was I hope, very different!

As a young child, I used to make up skits, that I would bully coerce my friends into performing around the neighbourhood, a fledgling Jo March... who I dreamed of growing up to be, sitting in my garret, with ink stained fingers, writing books and plays about her life and the people in it.

I thought about being a journalist in my final years of high school, which I would have been terrible at, I now realise. But it seemed to be a career that would allow me to write. And I started a Professional Writing and Editing course, six years ago, that I quit after completing two subjects, partly because my father became ill, but mostly, as I didn't care for the rules, and being told how and what to write.

There are lots of incomplete stories I’ve started over the years, with a female protagonist, who is an awful lot like me, but with all the rough bits smoothed away. She is prettier, and funnier, and taller… as I told the Nature Boy today, what’s the point of writing fiction, if you can’t embellish on it… but these women, these versions of me, still struggle to be heard, and understood and loved.

I wonder if the reason why these stories are unfinished, is because my own story is… I don’t know what the ending will be yet… so how can I write of endings for them, my better halves.

None of these tales have been shared with anyone… they sit, in notebooks and on loose sheets of paper shoved into drawers that are rarely opened.

"The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say,
but what we are unable to say" – Anais Nin

My friend, Nature Boy, is a constant source of encouragement, by providing a willing, and sometimes not so willing ear and eye for my stuff and nonsense… laughing at my whimsy, and empathising with my woes…he makes me smile, and think and ponder…probably cause he’s so generous with his praise and tells me often how much I make him smile, and think and ponder…

He has an interesting and engaging writing style of his own, though he’d be unlikely to ever admit that he is a writer and storyteller, he has the whole self-effacing, modest shtick down to a fine art, which in itself makes me smile…

We are very different. It’s why I enjoy our written stoushes so much. He, with his neat, tidy but incredibly evocative words that convey such a strong sense of feeling, and place and time, and his total disdain for capital letters, conjunctions and punctuation battling my dense, verbose, fanciful waffling, I’m the girl who uses capital letters, and full punctuation in my text messages.

A recent example of the Short Response King took me immediately to every grungy laundrette that I’ve ever been in, which is why I praised him in my comments on Rhian’s Monday Poetry Train yesterday.

"laundrette…washing clothes…old mags… last weeks Herald Sun… disgruntled student… a hair in the washing machine… not mine... cute blond traveller… what am I doing here…(Nature Boy, 2007)

And in asking permission to include the above on my blog his email response below had me spitting coffee out all over the keyboard.

all good
short responses rock
look out gore vidal
I rock
look out Tolstoy
you rock (Nature Boy, 2007)

What a goof! Everyone knows if they’re going to compare me to anyone it should be (fill in the blanks)…though that might be a less than subtle crack about my verbal diarrhoea…

It is because of him, that I started this blog in the first place, and in the short time I have been writing here, I’ve hit the publish button 69 times.

Some of those times I’ve published meme’s, silly quizzes and more recently my unconscious mutterings and Thursday Thirteen, but the majority of times I’ve hit that button I’ve been sharing some aspect of my life.

In my first blog, I talked about taking baby steps into sharing my thoughts with the wider world, and I’ve certainly done that, to the shock/horror amazement of some of my other friends in RL.

And it is through this process that I have realised that I too have a voice, and a style, that is uniquely my own… that I am a writer, a storyteller…and always have been…it is just that now the planets seem to be aligned, and for any number of reasons I am gaining confidence in speaking and sharing my voice with others.

Well… a little bit… the reason I started to write this post is despite a yearning to do so, and cajoling and pleading from Rhian, I have found endless excuses to prevent me from posting something for her Monday Poetry Train.

I’ve enjoyed reading all of the other contributions, trying to get my mind to grapple with the subtle and not so subtle imagery conveyed with their poems and prose… but I have yet to be able to post something of my own… and I’m left wondering why.

Is it because my stories, my fiction, really is not so much fiction at all… but is about me, my dreams, my thoughts, my wants and needs. And while I can share some of this, as I blog away contentedly on my own, I’m not yet ready to put these out there. To deliberately post something, with a flourish, of here it is, read me, hate me, enjoy me, condemn me, love me…

Though I’m tempted…sigh…

"I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy. I am a neurotic -- in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself." Anais Nin

Snapshots of childhood...

Today, would have been my Dad's 71st birthday, if he was still with us. I have been thinking a lot of trying to put down on paper my father's story. But I realise, I never really knew him. I knew the stories he told, but it's sometimes difficult to determine what was fact or fiction. But I have memories, mental snapshots, and I wonder whether it is his story or my own that I need to write about...

Sitting outside of the old mansion in St Kilda, converted into apartments, that was home. My brother, Dad and I sitting on the front verandah watching the world go by, Dad telling funny stories about the people passing. And my yelling "there's Father Christmas, Daddy, there's Father Christmas" and wondering why he tried to shush me, as a heavily bearded man, in a black suit and a big hat walked down the street. It's only now looking back I realise why he was so embarrassed, the man was an Orthodox Jew walking to the synagogue and here was I calling him Santa!

Dad yelling at us, cause we'd brought home a kitten found in a derelict house, that we wanted to keep. "There will be no animals in this house" he roared, and then we found the kitten asleep on his lap that night. He cried when he buried Dirty Dora in the backyard years later. And for every animal we had, we'd hear the same roar, and then he'd love them and they him.

Driving in the furniture truck with Mum and my baby sister, with my brother and Dad on the back to the new house in Thomastown, only to arrive and find the house has no walls or windows, and the builder's done a bunk with our money and we are homeless.

Curled up on his lap, watching Little Women, and the two of us sobbing, as Beth dies.

Telling me to shut up or I'd be sorry, while I sobbed quietly lying on the top bunk of the room I shared with my sister, not understanding why I'd been sent to bed in the middle of the afternoon in punishment for some unknown misdemeanor. And then crying even more, as he closed the door and said to my brother and sister, who wants an icecream?

Sitting on his shoulders at a grown up fancy dress party, when I'd sneaked out of bed to see every one's costumes, and him insisting I be allowed to stay up, much to my mother's disgust. He was dressed up as Herman Munster, and he kept losing the bolt of his neck so he araldited it to his head, and it took weeks before it fell off.

Hiding under the covers, with my hands pressed to my ears, as he crawled drunkenly along the hallway, crying for his mother, after an alcoholic binge that lasted days.

Screaming through the hallways and alleyways around the apartments we lived in on a hot summers night, while Dad and the other grown ups threw buckets of water at us, as we raced around in our summer pj's.

Being bundled into my parents bed in the wee small hours of the night by a neighbour, and seeing the flash of the ambulance lights against the windows, while we were told that Daddy's had an accident, and has cut himself shaving... and my brother whispering to me, I saw him, why would Dad be shaving his wrists?

Watching a neverending stream of boys pile in or out of his Volkswagen Beetle as he drove them to football practice... the only father on the block with a car. He was also the defacto ambulance when we had an emergency, when Brian upstairs fell and broke his arm, or my friend Karen set her skirt alight while jumping over a bonfire.

Dancing around in his underwear, singing I'm So Pretty, oh so Pretty... and hamming it up for the camera.

Sitting at the kitchen table the night of my sister's wedding, and reaching out to pinch me at every opportunity, until a friend asked him why he was being so mean, and him saying "Cause I hate her"

Walking up to wait for me to finish work at the local gift shop on a Friday night, and sweeping up and helping out while he waited, and then holding my hand all the way home and telling me how proud he was and how much he loved me.

Terrorising the teachers, and amusing all my classmates at every parent/teacher night he ever went to. One of the boys said "You're Dad is so cool, you are so lucky" and I said "You can have him if you like!"

True Confessions ... eight things about me...

Rhian/Crowwoman tagged me to do this meme...

Here are the rules according to whomever likes to makeup rules (not me):
1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves. (blah, blah blah)
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. (Duh.)
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. (See item 1 below - if you want to do this you can, but I ain't gonna tag you - probably cause I'd struggle to find 8 people to tag!)
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog. (Duh, again)

One... While I am usually very amiable, I can be mulish and obstinate, and don't cope very well with being 'told' what to do... and will often surprise people if they dare me or goad me into doing something foolish... as most people will say while I can be a bit madcap, I am usually sensible... but while I am aware of the need for rules, I will often then disregard them if it suits me, and it harms none... particularly if someone 'expects' me to react sensibly... contrary is my middle name!

Two... I am completely left side dominant... left handed, left footed. My 1st grade teacher tried to make me write with my right hand, by making me sit on my left hand all through class. I was utterly miserable for weeks, but didn't want to tell my Mum what was happening, as the teacher said that left-handedness was a freak of nature... I was 5 or 6 at the time. My best friend told her Mum that I'd cried at recess, and her Mum told mine, and I saw my Mum for the first time in all her Mama bear fury descend on this woman. Apparently, the first time I ever reached for something I used my left hand and I've been doing it ever since. Being so left side dominant has meant that I cannot march - instead of stepping with my left leg, swinging with my right arm, I swing and step from the same side... hence I fall over a lot!

Three ... for all of my brazen, out there persona, that means I can talk a mile a minute to almost anyone, I get terrible stage fright if I have to speak in front of others in a more formal setting, like at a meeting or training session. Literally sick with fear... and in the weeks prior to every Tap concert every time I walked down a flight of stairs I'd have this mental thought - "maybe it won't hurt so much if I throw myself down these, cause if I break or sprain my ankle I'll have an excuse to get out of having to go on stage" Of course, the incredible rush afterwards that I had gone out there and conquered my fear was fantastic, even if I was probably dancing the routine perfectly, just 3 beats either ahead or behind the others

Four... have you seen The Truth About Cats and Dogs? Do you remember the telephone scene with Ben Chaplin and Janene Garofalo? I've done that, but instead of him convincing me, I convinced him... I liked it.... a lot... a real lot.... geez I'm turning myself on just remembering...

Five... I can't wink... and I can only click my fingers with my left hand... my right hand makes no sound. Nor can I curl my tongue, wiggle my ears or raise only one eyebrow. Though I can cross my eyes like this... taught myself to do it by staring at the tip of my nose.

Six... I am and have always been a 'good' girl, a 'good' child, a 'good' friend, a 'good' worker etc. and deep inside I yearn to be 'bad'... I'd like to break some one's heart, trash the office, have wild and wanton sex in public places with the 'wrong sort' of man... and do things not because I don't know better... but because I can...(actually I wouldn't want to break some one's heart... )

Seven... as a little girl I used to lie in the darkness of my bedroom with my eyes open wide and slowly blot out all visual and sensory stimulation and imagine that this is what it felt like to be dead... this feeling of blankness and nothingness ... and was sometimes so successful at emptying my head of all conscious thought that I would literally terrify myself... even now I live almost exclusively in my head, often forgetting my physical self, until my body reminds me, usually by getting ill. Except now my brain is rarely restful, even meditation only slows the revs down a little, but never makes them completely stop... I wonder if I've convinced myself if I stop thinking I'll die...

Eight... I spent most of my teens and twenties being invisible, playing the role that was assigned to me. That good girl thing... though I obviously showed my true self to some, those people that I've loved and who have loved me during and since that time. I'm pretty much over being invisible, and sick of being afraid... you may not like me, but I'll be damned if you'll ever forget me... and if at the end of my life they say 'she was a bit out there, but gee she was fun, and she made me (laugh, cry, mad or horny' I'll be happy...


I got my name in lights with notcelebrity.co.uk

Wow... that was weird...as for the name in lights... I got it from Savannah's site, and it seems to fit with item eight... so...

Dazed and confused.... ponderings of the terminally single!

This is going to be a bit of a ramble, as I've had conversations IRL and been following some thread conversations in blogland that have me asking lots of questions, about myself, where I'm at, where I'm going and whether I'm going to get there.... So bear with me ok?

Boy Talk???
I have a friend, Peter Rabbit. We sort of dated(see next question) briefly, before becoming really good friends, who go out a lot to movies, or singles things, and talk to or email each other regularly. I would include him on my list of really close friends.

Over the 3 plus years we've known each other he's told me a lot about his friends and I’ve told him a lot about mine and told my friends about him. In fact, he’s met a lot of my friends, to the point that some friends say “if you want to invite the Rabbit Man along, he’s more than welcome”.

So it came as a surprise to me earlier in the year when he told me, apart from the guy who knew that he had a date with this strange girl# way back when, he's never mentioned me to any of his mates.

And when I expressed this surprise and wondered why, he said it had nothing at all to do with not wanting to discuss me, just that generally he and his mates don’t talk about women… well not specific ones anyway. They might lament how hard it is to find and keep a girl etc., but they don’t as a rule talk about the women in their lives specifically, and even less so now, as he is the only single guy left of his small group.

This isn't the only time I've had conversations with guys, who have expressed similar opinions. Actually once had a guy tell me, that the more a guy talks about you to others, the less serious he is....???? What do others think?

What is a Date?
A friend told me about a conversation with a guy who asked her out a couple of times for dinner and/or movies and his announcing that they were not dating, as he defined a date as someone he intended to have sex with, and he only had sex within a relationship and as he had decided he wanted to forgo relationships for the moment, that meant their semi-regular outings were not dates!

He then went on to ask her did she think they were dating, to which she replied, what difference does it make, as you've already decided that we aren't?

If I used the definition as used by this guy, I almost never date! Or as Miss La De Da keeps telling me, I am a serial first dater!

I've met a fair few guys over the last 8 years or so, mainly through the various experiments at the personals and internet dating##. Not that many, compared to the number of responses I received - both times I advertised in the personals I clocked up over 100 responses (that just shows I'm good at marketing, not so great at sales). I spoke to lots, but probably only met about 10 of them all up, before I usually got a bit feed up with how hard it all was, or Boomerang Boy bounced back for awhile.

Of the men I met, Peter Rabbit is the only one still around. He responded to the 2nd personals ad I placed, and we had a long, funny, interesting telephone conversation and a long, funny, interesting dinner (we closed the restaurant) and I liked him immediately and though I'm very glad to have met him, he's not the one for me, something I realised almost from the beginning. Though I've told him he's going to be one of my bridesmaids, if I ever get married.

So, was that first evening a date? When there was the possibility of there being an attraction? And once, the possibility of attraction is gone, anything else is not considered a date?

Knowing what you want and being prepared to say it...
On Saturday, my tarot teacher organised a lunch with current and former students that she thought might connect. Six of us met, and I for one, had a lovely time, and would happily meet these women again. Unlike, Peter Rabbit and his cronies, we talked about all sorts of things including men and relationships...as all of us, ranging in age from early 30s to 57 are either single or divorced.

One of the women told the story of a friend, dating a guy, after both had been divorced. Early on, on one of their first dates he announced that he had no intention of ever remarrying. To which she replied, really - I have ever intention of getting married again. And she said, it's ok that you told me, now I know how much energy to put into this relationship with you, as despite the fact that I like you a lot, I definitely plan to be an old married lady, obviously not to you though. They were married two years later!

She said, that you need to be clear about what you want, and make that clear to men###. If you're happy to be friends with benefits, then say so. But if you really want to be in a committed relationship, make that clear from the beginning.

At some level, I understood what she was talking about but I also found the conversation unsettling. I should just come straight out and tell people what I want... sure... once I work out what the hell that is!

Do I want to be married? Will admit never did do the whole dreamy playing bride thing as a little girl, though I did get hitched to George#### behind the shelter sheds in Grade 3 in a mock wedding, but as my friend Kazz was the minister, I don't think it counts, does it. Maybe that's why I can't imagine being married to anyone else, I'm betrothed already!

Isn't the question more do I want to be married to you? Whoever, you happen to be... But I don't think in those terms. I think about do I want to spend time with you, do you make me laugh, do you turn me on, can I imagine my life without you in it? Whether we are married or not, live together or just visit on occasion is just housekeeping isn't it?

That blasted switch!
Boomerang Boy used to tell me that I had a flashing light on my forehead that used to say 'take me, take me' - actually he was a bit cruder, when he talked about it, but that was the gist. I don't think that's what the flashing light said, but I am aware of sometimes flicking on a switch, that kicks me into another gear, where I find myself responsive and open to the interest of men.

We talked about this at lunch on Saturday, as FBG, wise woman that she is, keeps telling me I'm the keeper of the switch, I get to turn it on and off. But as we discussed at lunch, it's hard to keep the switch on if there isn't someone to flash it at... and it's very easy and often much simpler to just turn it off. We all agreed that there have been times, in some cases years, were we shut down the whole idea of any form of relationship, and consequently, you become invisible. At those times, my flashing light says don't even think about it...

That damn switch has been on for months... as I've been open to the possibilities of what the world has to offer, finally putting Boomerang Boy in the past where he belongs. And it shows I guess, which is probably why I've got friends trying to set me up with people, left and centre. And it was shining brightest when I've been playing with the Nature Boy over the last few months, despite the fact, that our friendship was mostly silly stuff and nothing overtly sexual in any of it.

And since my little meltdown of the other week with him, the light hasn't gone out completely, but it's wavering and flickering a bit and would take very little to snuff it out. But I don't want to snuff it out... want to keep the momentum going but am not sure how to go about it.

Suggestions people?

# not strange in a woo woo way, just strange, as in a stranger. He waited till he got to know me to tell me I was strange, in a woo woo way... actually that's what he likes most about me...

## As to the internet, have had lots of emails and the odd phone call, but have only met one guy through rsvp - met for a coffee, he invited me to stay for dinner and then said he'd like to call me sometime. Rang me a week later to say that he was meeting another couple of women, but that he'd like to stay in touch, which I took to mean that I'd maybe made the team, but was sitting on the interchange bench!

And then out of the blue announced that he was very attracted, and found himself aroused by our conversation at dinner, and was confused, cause he wasn't sure if I was trying to arouse him deliberately - ah -that would be a no! And then asked me, if I had been aroused... ah - that would be a no! Never heard from him again!!!

### Reminds me of a friend telling me that when asked what did she want to get out of the internet dating experience on a first date with a guy, replied - mindless sex - to which he swallowed his tongue! She followed him home on the 2nd date and has been with him every since.

#### He actually remembered... when organising my 20 year school reunion I spoke to George, and he remembered that wedding ceremony, and we had a quiet laugh about it. Was actually looking forward to seeing him, any boy that remember that about you when you were 9 is worth a check out I reckon, but he didn't show...

Lights, camera, action....

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Don't you wish sometimes that your life could be like a movie? With all things resolved satisfactorily at the end of the final reel...

I love the movies, it's only recently that I've realised that not everyone else is as obsessive about them as I am... well apart from ... that is.

Have been a movie nut since childhood, probably cause my Dad was, though we only went to the movies once a year when I was little. My aunty used to send us all $1 for Christmas, and we'd go into the city and see a movie over the holidays, and have a choc top each, and then go to Coles Caf for a pie and peas, and if the family was really flush with cash and Dad was in a generous mood, maybe waffles and icecream and then walk up to see the Myer's windows. The movies were either the latest Disney film or the latest musical, so we saw Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Oliver, The Sound of Music, Cinderella, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, The Love Bug. We stopped going at Christmas when we all got the age that we wanted to see different films, though from that point on, I went to the movies a lot with friends.

At High School (1975-1976), we had activity day, were kids could pick some activity they wanted to do, i.e. basketball, horseriding etc. My gang of mates went to the movies, pretty much every week! I saw Sunshine, The Way We Were, The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, The Trial of Billy Jack, Rollerball.

And then one year the principal organised a film festival at the Valhalla, when it used to be in Richmond. Some films were mandatory, some were elective...I saw everything, 26 movies in 5 days... Twelve Angry Men, Sunday Too Far Away, Chinatown, Henry IV, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Fearless Vampire Killers (aka Pardon me, but your teeth are in my neck), Paint Your Wagon, A Night at the Opera, Sleeper... I was as sick as a dog by the end of it with flu, but it was bliss...

I don't get to go the movies as often these days, but am still pretty obsessive, either borrowing DVDs or buying them... I've never paid more than $15 for a DVD but am amassing quite a collection of them, all films I've seen and loved. Last week I bought: The Sure Thing, 10 Things I Hate About You, Willow, Big Trouble in Little China and Pride and Prejudice.

I wonder what my DVD collection would say about me (a lot of the movies listed in the link on my blog are in my collection)? Maybe I need to do a Movie Monday, like Mez's Music Monday... a Froufrou review of a couple of films that I love and why...

Songs to Remember By...

On Wednesday night, following a recommendation from Jappa, 3 friends and I went to see the gala launch of the Choir of Hard Knocks at the Melbourne Town Hall, which was truly inspirational. They sang like angels, and we all found ourselves moved to tears and I'd heartily recommend you try to catch them if they come to your area.

I've realised that music is something that I can measure my life by, important and not so important moments, both good and bad times... there is usually some song that reflects that time or feelings, with songs capable of bringing back a time and place so vividly...

I love music, and love singing, though was told as a young girl in the school choir to sing 'quietly' i.e. mime, so was very self-conscious of singing for most of my life... and equally as self-conscious of dancing until I hit my 30s (would only dance when I was drunk before then and then I would dance on the tables!).

That doesn't stop music from being as vital as breathing to me... so here then are some of the songs that reflect me and my life...

Someday, One Day - The Seekers (people say your a dreamer, what do they know of what your thinking, if you believe in what your doing, then believe in what I say)- this creates the most vivid memory of first year at primary school, and being dropped off at a family friends house before school. I have never been much of a morning person, even as a little girl, so being bundled out of the house to go to a strangers home at the start of each day was a stress for me... but this song, which must have been in the charts at the time always seemed to be on the radio, and we got warm porridge and honey for breakfast ...yum...

Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime - Dean Martin - we had a turquoise VW beetle with a radio that didn't work, so car trips usually involved us kids sitting in the back singing songs to entertain my Dad. Invariably, he would warble this to us - but changing the lyrics to 'something in your kiss just told me, I've just kissed a cow!

Lullaby of Broadway - goodnight baby, goodnight, the milkman's on his way, sleep tight baby, sleep tight, let's call it a day - my first dance lessons, in a local hall with the daughter of a neighbour, we did a dance routine to this song, a sort of tap/ ballet fusion... I was probably 6 and already completely uncoordinated and had such a miserable time of it that I didn't dance on stage again until I was 38!

Lipstick on Your Collar - Connie Francis - this is one for Miss La De Da - her and my sister age about 10, learning the lyrics and putting on a show for the family. For some reason this song also has the visual memory of MLDD masticating a banana sandwich with her mouth open... yuk!

Slipstream -Sherbet, Living in the 70's - Skyhooks, High Voltage - AC/DC, Hard Road - Stevie Wright - the soundtrack of my teens, the first 4 albums I bought when I got a part-time job in a lotto/record/gift store. My first concert, Festival Hall, Buster Brown with Angry Anderson on vocals, Skyhooks just as their first album was released and Sherbet!

Turn the Beat Around - Vicki Sue Robinson - 17 years old, Collingwood Districts Football Club Disco - at a hall in Carlton North every Saturday night, $3 for chicks, $8 for blokes, as most of the chicks brought their Asti Spumante, and they had a keg of beer for the boys. I drank beer with the usual result of being totally rat-assed by the end of the night. A gorgeous (think young Robert Redford) boy used to pounce on me most Saturdays, put my hand in the back pocket of his jeans, and dance close, telling all and sundry I was his wife... and then completely blank me if he saw me on the street during the week, only to repeat the whole routine the following Saturday... talk about being confused... He gave me my first (and probably only) illicit drug, telling me it would make me feel better, and then had to spend the night wrapped around me in the backseat of a car while I screamed and howled my way down from the trip from hell. He spread the word that anyone giving me anything stronger than beer was going to answer to him, and then blackened his mate's eye when mate shoved a bottle under my nose, saying sniff this!

Counting the Beat - The Swingers - my semi-punk days, short peroxide blonde hair, with jet black wispy bits stuck to my cheek, a multi-coloured bomber jacket, tight black skirt, one aqua stocking, one red, covered by fishnets... thought I was really cool, but never wore the outfit again after we walked into the pub one night to hear 'OK, we can start now, the circus has arrived'

Walking on the Moon - The Police - giant steps are what you take, walking on the moon, I hope my legs don't break, walking on the moon - first full-time job, living away from home for the first time in a share house with 2 chicks and a bloke in Richmond. The band stayed at the motel I worked at their first tour out, and we saw them play at Festival Hall...

Gonna Fly Now - The Theme from Rocky - aah, liniment, smelly socks and boys... football club rooms and the big difference between juniors and seniors is that seniors like to walk around naked... oh my... I don't like football... I like footballers!

Rhiannon - Fleetwood Mac - My First Love sang this to me the night we met... both slightly intoxicated, sleepily sitting on Gossy's mum's couch close to midnight after he'd played in the winning grand final for his local team. He sang this quietly into my ear while he stroked my hair and then he kissed me... **

No Lies - Noiseworks - one of my groupie stages++ (no sex though drats!)... sent the guys a bunch of balloons while they were recording their first album in Melbourne and came home to a gorgeous message on the machine from Jon Stevens. Meet them after a gig at the then Bell Street Rock one Easter, and they put my name on the door for every Melbourne gig for the next few years. Even got an invite up to Sydney for the filming of an MTV special when the album was released.

How Do I Live Without You - Trisha Yearwood, Easy - Faith No More, Throwing Cooper - Live - sitting on the swings at Fairfield Park at 3.00am talking to Angus Folly Boy on our first date, and his relief after about half an hour of debate in discovering yes, we did like some of the same music - he was a metal head, and I'm a musical theatre girl! I sprinkled these songs through mix tapes that I played at ten pin bowling and we'd make eye contact across a crowded bowling alley and smile at each other.

Big Spender - Sweet Charity - so let me get right to the point, I don't pop my cork for every guy I see - finally putting the past and self-consciousness behind me and belting this out at karaoke at a work Christmas Party without worrying about what I sounded like... the fact that I was 12 kinds of pissed probably helped... but singing the love song duet with my boss at midnight was probably a bad move...

Would you...? - Touch and Go -I've noticed you around, I find you very attractive, would you, um, um, would you go to bed with me? - I laughed out loud (it was either that or cry) when this was playing on the radio after leaving Angus Folly Boy's house the ill-fated night he planned the big seduction scene. I arrived to find him almost crippled with back pain, which was bad enough, and then his brother deliberately came home to check me out, when he'd been told to stay away - add a malamute that went for the crotch snuggle every time she came into the room and his bedroom walls covered with photo's of naked women in poses only their gyno should see and is it any wonder I said there was no way I was going to get naaaaked!

The Healer - John Lee Hooker - first time I got my feet and brain to work in sync at Miss Lou Lou's Tap Dancing Academy, age 38! Heah ma, I can dance!%% Went on to dance at the National Theatre to The MilkShake - The Village People dressed as a cow, Tijuana Taxi by Herb Albert in sombrero and poncho and a fake moustache that kept falling off, as a gold tinselly sausage, I mean, showgirl to Madonna's Hanky Panky, and my swan-song - Singing in the Rain by Gene Kelly dressed as a duck!

** MFL is still the kisser against whom all other kissers are judged...

++ Wrote to bass player of MiSex once, and we started a telephone/ letter exchange for awhile - he'd ring when the band were down and we'd chat about music and stuff, and again, my name on the door at gigs, but I never actually met him...


%% Well, actually I can't really... why a girl who spends most of her time dancing from the waist up, lots of hand gestures, not a lot of foot work, ever took up tap is beyond me. The first time I ever persevered with something I suck at big time! It was fun, but after 5 years you were actually expected to be pretty good!!!

It's not over till the fat lady sings....

Last night, my friend Sheila sent me an email after I posted my last blog:

little, fat, funny girl............If you don't change your title I will do something drastic......... well I will think of what I will do. You are not not not......... a little fat funny girl...... now come on....
how about le petite funny bunny....... smaller but larger than life........

She's not the only one who has mentioned my use of the word 'fat' and to be upset by it. I use that word a lot, often to describe myself, or I make reference to the 'fat girl' clothes shops etc.

I'm struggling to understand why everyone has so much trouble with my use of this term. I AM FAT!

Actually, the proper term is probably 'obese' but that's not funny at all...

According to the standard scale for these things based on my age, and height, and allowing for my 'big bones' (my bones aren't big...truly how big do you think the bones are of someone who is 5ft 2) I should weigh between 55-60kgs... the last time I weighed in that low I was probably prepubescent.

The year I turned 11 and those female hormones started to kick in, I chubbed up... I developed breasts pretty much from the get go, so I never got to wear all those pretty little bra's that young girls wear... Mum took me off to Myers and I was fitted for a proper bra (my, the embarrassment of a middle age woman with cold hands feeling me up in front of my mother!) in my final year at Primary School... and came back to school in the afternoon and showed all the boys behind the shelter sheds... but that's another story...

I'm not as fat as I've been, and certainly I've been thinner... we've all done the yo-yo of diets and I've tried them all... well most of them anyway... with varying degrees of success but I don't stay that way... or in order for me to stay that way I'd have to deny myself pretty much everything that I think is good in this life ... like butter, and icecream, and chocolate and wine and carb's - I could do a whole blog on the miracle of pasta, bread and potatoes!

So I stopped dieting quite awhile ago and as a result, I don't yo-yo anymore, if anything, I've slowly lost a bit of weight over the last 5 years, without even knowing why. I will occasionally rationalise my dairy and chocolate and alcohol compulsions, not because I feel fat, but that I feel unwell.

Though it's a cruel twist of nature, that when suffering from pms and bloat and fluid retention, the one thing I crave more than anything else is cookies and cream icecream...

I'm a big girl... well actually I'm not a big girl... I'm little... hence the Little, Fat, Funny Girl... as my Mum says - I'm not overweight, I'm under tall... but I'm also lush, and curvaceous, and voluptuous and womanly... and I sort of like that about myself now... though I didn't always... but I've learnt that often we are each our harshest critic...

When helping to organise my 20 year school reunion a few years ago, I caught up with a couple of boys that I knew at Primary School and High School, and it was interesting their take on me back then.

• One boy announced at the dinner that he can recall clearly his first sight of me, his first day at his new school, Age 10. He said "You were standing out of the front of the school and you were wearing an orange hot pants suit, and you had black patent leather boots on, and you had the chubbiest legs I've ever seen" (I can remember that outfit, I was in a public speaking competition and Mum had lent me her clothes... I had a funky Mum!) I was mortified that he would say this, not just to me, but to a table full of former classmates until he said... "I thought you were the cutest thing I've ever seen, and used to dream about you and your chubby legs..."
• And then another boy, who had been part of a group of boys and girls that had hung out together through most of my high school years, blurted out to me as I walked across the carpark of a local hotel to meet him for a drink 20+ years later... "I'm so glad you're not hiding yourself anymore" and when I raised my eyebrows at him and said what? Said "you used to wear all these loose smocks, and big, baggy jumpers that covered everything and all I wanted to do was know what was underneath all of that.. you have no idea the number of conversations that us boys had about you"

It was that and other experiences that have made me reassess who I am, and to try to gain a bit of comfort and acceptance about who I am... which includes all of me... including the outer casing...

As long as I am healthy, and that I continue to feel good about myself it should be my right to use the "F.." word as often as I want to... and I'm gunna... so there...

The Fat Lady singing... We are family, McDonalds, KFC and me...