Screening

Alright alright, keep your pants on!
I'm still screening them and trying to find evenings I can actually meet up with people!
And I tell you it's hard.. you know what I forgot about dating? You have to go out.
I kind of hate going out. I would ALWAYS prefer to come home, or stay home.
In fact half the reason i want a 'someone' is so that i don't have to go out anymore, ever, and can mostly just stay in with them.

It's really hard. on line dating. not really hard like quantum physics or lifting cars, but it takes a lot of work. You have to do alot of fast mental configuring when you look at people's profiles. It is like a mish mash of socia-compatibility geometry and algebra, are my patterns and sets symmetrical to yours?

Picture (of course) comes first, because you see it first. But I don't discount men for being ugly, only if they are stupidly retarded ugly I do, but otherwise I don't. Because it is true that a good looking asshole, who puts you down and makes you feel unwanted, quickly becomes very an ugly creature, and a short guy with gappy teeth and a bad hair line, who makes you feel loved and makes you laugh alot, can become the hunk of the century, in your eyes. Personality talks.

This is of course unless they are full retard. Which cannot be eclipsed by roses and good jokes. Yes, i am going to hell.

Actually what I search a face for is kindness, First always, kindness, you can see it in a persons eyes. And then I look for the 'me-ness'. You know?
There are people who's face you can look at and know they're a you person, or not a you person.

Then I look at age bracket, religion, height and star sign! In no order of preference! Seriously. Seriously! Oh god it's true. And then you have to put that set of statistics into your compabitiligy computer and see what it spits out.

Oh and of course there's the message they send you. Which tells you how smart they are, and if you talk the same, and if you have an easy, interesting, exciting raport. Or 'other'. There are lots of 'other'.

Anyway so, the christian and the witch.

Usually, and always in the past, I would screen a christian person more quickly than you can say 'Hey Jesus! I can see my house frome here!'.
In fact, when I find out people at parties are christian, I leave the conversation.
If you could tell christians by how they walk, i'd cross the road... you get the picture. I used to feel totally within my rights to not tolerate people's christianity.

Until that is, I felt the brunt of date one's dissing out MY personal beliefs as if they were ridiculous.
And I realised something... I have come to my set of beliefs, spiritual and otherwise, due to all the experiences i have had in my life. Real, profound experiences that touched me to my soul, and have MADE me who I am.
And so those beliefs are really a part of who I am, not something I hold out away from me, temporary, or lightly adopted. I hold those beliefs because I BELIEVE them, and they somehow feel so integral to my person, that they almost ARE me, or at least, are coiled around the very centre of me.
And so when told those beliefs are stupid, actually ridiculously inane, and I a fool for holding them, I felt actually as if someone was trying to extinguish my whole being. And I wished for tolerance, for the right to quietly believe what I believe, and be left my dignity with it.

And I'm glad i know it now. Because here I have been thinking belittling thoughts about christians for years now, and their stupidity, and their stupid beliefs.
So, it was quite eye opening to realise, that if i felt I deserved to have at least tolerance for what I believed, and not by ridiculed for it, so did others.

I see a God, the older caucasian male one, sitting with one ankle resting on the knee of the other leg, in a white robe, slowly pulling on the long hairs of his soft and tidy salt and pepper bed, raising one dark furry eyebrow and saying
Touche, my dear girl, touche.

So long story long. I've opened the door, just a crack, to the christians.
HOWEVER!
Not all christians, not the type that robe their bigotry and smallness with christianity and think that makes it NOBLE.

Along came Yachtie123, religion: christian.
So I asked him 'how christian' he was.
and he said;
if you're looking for quick sex i'm not the person for you.
!!!!
Really, more to clear my name than anything else, i replied that i wasn't, but that i felt it was good for people to share their world view.. and that was why i asked.
And he said:
I believe you should treat others as you wish to be treated.
I believe in an honest days hard work.
I don't drink and I try not to swear.
I'm anti witchcraft, abortion, homosexuality and promiscuity.
Do you have any beliefs?

Well.
What could I say?
My toes curled with delight!
And I in return said:
I also believe in treating others as you wish to be treated, and beyond that, in not judging people for their actions so long as their actions hurt nobody.
I think swearing can be used for great effect, and occasional heavy drinking can be medicinal.
I am pro witchcraft, pro choice, pro all types of love including same sex love, and believe that promiscuity is a patriarchal term used mainly by men to oppress women who enjoy having sex, the concept of which, to add, heralds from biblical times when every act of intercouse could result in a child, which is of couse is redundant concern now with the (thank god)invention of contraception.

And then just said that I hoped he found love, but clearly, not with me.

Gifts from strangers.

Seriously.
This guy is probably crazy, but check out this fucking cool poem I just got sent:
Bear in mind, he has sent me one message, and I him one, only to tell him thanks for the message but you are too young for me and you live in wellington. Then he sends this poem. I hope this doesn't seem disrespectful to him, i'm sharing it cause i think it's awesome.
Sorry no funny here.
Poem:

I arrived Auckland yesterday. I thought of you last night as this is what happened:

Yesterday it was the night of the full moon
The night was filled with your talks
Some said it was the moon while
Some said it was your face

I was also present there
Everyone asked me what I thought
I simply smiled, I simply kept quiet
I accepted the mask you have

In this city of yours who am I supposed to meet
From me the gathering left
Every person took your name
Every person is crazy over you

In this night of full moon
My heart was aching for you to at least come and wave to me
They are saying that this is a nice poem
Your admirer, your insult, your poet, your Will

Leaving your path
I may become an ascetic
Your jungles, your mountains, your villages, your deserts
If you have heard from the heartless then come and see me

!!!!
I mean, not the best poem ever written, but something cool about it no?
And what a nice thing, to write someone a poem.
It's amazing to me that this complete stranger is being so nice to me, while the person i really wanted wouldn't open his mouth to say a single word to make me happy.

My profile pic really must be CAPTIVATING. LIke the moon people! like the moon!
And clearly my real face, not worth poems!!!
I"m joking. I'm fucking awesome and we all know it.

That's all folks.
Sorry no funny.

Tomorrow i'll tell you about the witch and the christian.

Be good.
Santa is watching.

The Great Flood (of divine retribution)

There are so many messages in my collective dating website inboxes that I think I am going to have to take on staff.

I imagine this is how Obama's life is. Except with more hate mail. So far no hate mail for me.

All my messages are very nice. A recurrent theme is 'you have great energy'. Which I like. I've been told I come across intelligent (who me?!) and one nice man said mine was the standout profile in a hundred 'vanilla' profiles, that I clearly had a personality and what's more, a pulse. Bravo!
One man though drastically too young, said I had given him faith that the site wasn't filled with all robots, and 'who wants to date a robot, they are metal and have claws'. Despite unbroachable age gap I replied to him for the robot comment alone.

I have been invited on a killer sounding date off the bat with no chitchat! And been sent a poem!!! Written for me, about me!!! One kind messenger messaged simply to tell me I was a beautiful woman. Nothing more. No questions. No nothing. Just you are a beautiful woman. God bless you Dave.

I AM rather rolling around ungraciously like a pig in flattery mud, and it is likely to come biting me on the ass like a bed of humility flea's, vanity, the don't call it a deadly sin for nothing. But if I am it's because it's just what the doctor ordered for my little human ego after three months of date one taking me apart like I was a car for parts with comments like 'your skin looks old' and 'you have ugly hands'.

And most of these men sending messages are actually attractive, witty and CLEVER. Ooo do I love a clever, witty, attractive man.

There is the Good Doctor, who does peace and disarmament work (stop) and recently climbed Kilamajaro (no stop!), the very handsome american professor of education and politics.. no, not a yawn! very funny and astute. There's the handsome irish/italian/hawaiin (i'd go on a date with a man simply for that exquisit racial mix alone! And a quiet and thoughtful looking (but cute, with a mop of curly brown hair) student of contemporary music, who is taking me out for a cocktail to ask me about natural therapies and tell me about Jung (!)

Of course there are the forklift drivers who don't read books and main hobbie is that he likes animals...hmmm And the tall handsome builder types who make you want to straddle something, but misspell and don't have a volume of questions beyond 'what are you up to?'. And the obvious veto's such as the profile name hashcake, all those in the 42 and up age bracket, and the man who describes himself as 'you lonely, you meet me, 18-65 ladies'. Oh bless. There's someone for you! But I aint the icing on your hashcake honey.

So i better stop writing this blog and get writing clever, funny, intelligent and thoughtful replies!

I've been thinking how this blog frequently diverges from it's title, and how i hoped it might actually because i would like to have a whole long exhausting list of GOOD dates thank you very much! And so it should perhaps be re-titled Cinderella and The Great Quest For True Love Or Something Close To It: A girls expidenture into dating with a romantic, sometimes cycnical, perhaps irreparably broken but hopeful and optimistic heart.

If you are wondering about 'expidenture' it is a word i made up that is a cross between expenditure and adventure. Which is a bit what dating feels like.
Think about that.

Wheel of Fortune

Fear not! This is not going to be another long winded diatribe about my musings on the intangible! With no real dating, action or sex and nudity! Okay. it is actually void of dating, action, sex and nudity. But wait, wait, read on!

So it turns out... date one was kind of a really stink guy! And believe me that is the PG version of what I want to call him.

I'd love to write a long, and it would be long, list of incidences and qualities to justify this claim, but it would be only for my own sick satisfaction, as you couldn't possibly be interested.

However of note was how he liked to keep making me feel insecure and unwanted by constantly putting me down and putting down the things i was interested in, beleived in and liked, and by constantly reminding me on at least a weekly basis that he 'wasn't sure if he wanted me'.

I classically stay in bad relationships with losers WAAAAAY Too long, Even my mum says it about me now like it's just a fact. When I say oh he yada yada and he yada yada and mum looks at me square in the face and without flinching says, yeah well love, you do stay in bad relationships too long, so maybe don't do it this time?

I do it anyway. And it was all getting to look a bit like the sixth instalment of a b grade movie in terms of BEEN HERE GET A NEW PLOT LINE when.... in a piece de resistance type of move, he lead me to believe that he might be chatting to women on line... on a dating website...flirting with them, and that this would be totally fine as long as he wasn't meeting with them, and besides i should understand because he isn't sure if he wants me and so wouldn't i RATHER he looked around and chose me because he wanted me and not just be stuck with me 'against his volition'(!?!?!)
WOW.
And then when i asked for clarity on whether we were exlusive or not, he just refused to answer, on some sort of sick and twisted 'principle' that i was being 'demanding' and 'a bitch' for asking. Wow. The depths to which people can plummet.
The depths to which you can NOT know a person! I feel like I've been sleeping with the devil and only just woke up to find that that pain in my side was the fucking sharp ends of his pitchfork.

Anyway, glad to be rid of him. It was a bit like when you have that piece of clothing, that favourite tshirt say, you know the one... didn't it start out as your favourite? mmm yes i can remember some good times, the day at the beach when it was just the right weight for the weather that day, wasn't that a good day, and you felt carefree and beautiful in that tshirt, you did! oh it did get a bit cold though, and the tshirt didn't do much to try and help.

Ahh but then you remember how it looked in the shop when you tried it on and you were having a skinny day... but humph, over time it's gotten sort of, pulled out of shape, the hem's come down on the sleeve and ... maybe there's a funny smell about it, something you should investigate but choose to overlook...

Oh but no yes! yes you do like it, you love it, the fabric is just your favourite, and the colour, you like that colour don't you? You used to... but now it's sort of making you look washed out. Oh no that's just your haircut, silly you for blaming perfect tshirt (you know tshirt is perfect because tshirt tells you it is perfect, yes, perfect, and never does anything wrong).

You put it on, you remember the good times you've had, there were good times weren't there? But you have to admit it just feels scratchy now. Hang on what DID you like about this tshirt in the first place?

Your friends, your dear friends, they've let you wear this bad tshirt around for a couple of months now you know, they wanted to like it, but they heard how it let you down, they couldn't justify away it's letting you down the way you could, until finally they've seen enough tears and look you in the eyes, with all that delicious and perfect best friend love and say: dude, i just, that tshirt is a DISASTER. (actual quote). You deserve ALOT better.

And finally, you look in the mirror and you see yourself standing in the ugliest fucking tshirt you have ever seen, and it dawns on you that you do NOT love this tshirt, this tshirt is oppressing you, it is making your life worse, and it is holding you back from being your true self and having real happiness with a really, REALLY good tshirt. And it has been left in the washing machine too long and it fucking stinks like vomit. And you feel like a sufragette, like joan of fucking arc, like Ripley in Aliens, tearing that motherfucking tshirt off and setting it on fire.

Sorry, where was I?

So the upside to that, well, the other upside, because it seems to have only upsides, is that I am officially back on the DWOF!!!

That's right: The Dating Wheel Of FORTUNE!!!!!!

I can feel the hot babes just waiting out there to be plucked
the hot, intelligent, emotionally grown up babes, who know how to treat a girl right... hanging from the ripe on the tree of singleness (in a nice, non scary-film sort of way)
I can see lana cocroft in her pretty shiny dress with her hair just so nice smiling at me as she spiiiiiiins the wheel for me, and that fated wheel spins, and those flacky flaps go flackety flack... and i wait to see what prize will be mine!
Wow that sounds like it needs a muahaha and a dracula. heh. heh.

So if any you'se fulla's gotta a sweet mate with most of his teef, can you flick him my celly digits cuz i'm keen for a root and a stubby ahy cuz.

Fuck. i'm kidding but i have to leave that line in cause i like to not really edit.

My Adonis awaits me...

:D

A Great Love?

Ahh so you see....

I keep wanting to write another dating blog entry, but i just can't tell y'all what's been going on!
For one because, what's going on keeps changing. And for two because, I came here to laugh at my dating foibles, not divulge the really personal dirt on me, and certainly not on someone else, who didn't sign up for this.

As date one said to me yesterday, to misquote: "it's better if people like you and me don't have the internet, to show everyone how crazy we are".

It is tricky. In this age of exposure we have to be constantly asking ourselves, what to keep secret, what to reveal.

So instead I want to tell you that I am thinking about love lately.
Just that little topic, that is all.

Right now, my cat is sitting in my lap, she will climb any body and surmount any obstacle to be in my lap, or as close to me as possible. She is sitting in my lap purring her heart out, and periodically cranes her neck and tips her head right back so she can look at me, eyes squinted into a smile, and the look, I tell you, it is the look of love.

Pet love. It's so mutual. Me and moosh... we gotta good thing going on (not in a weird, beastiality, jazz song sort of way!) I believe in it, it's predictable and entirely untroubling. We are happy together. I supply the biscuits, she supplies the cuteness and softness. Last night she woke me up at 4.30am meowing outside the window, this i dont' love. She's getting into the habit of it so I have to figure out how to stop her doing it, I am a BAD bad personwhen i'm sleep deprived. So last night i opened the door, grabbed her, smacked her bum :( and growled STOP MEOWING. oh my moosh. i hate doing it. i really hate it, i think it will be the last time. Well... today i got home and lo, there was the tiny little body of a dead, entirely beheaded mouse on my doormat! I opened the door and moosh rushed in purring and saying did you see? I swoop her little rag doll soft purring body into my arms, press her fur to my face and say yes, i saw moosh, thank you for the mouse! And we are friends again. A simple love. A love I can understand.

But the other kinds of love? I'm just not sure...

Primarily because people get married, AND divorced.
I am the first person to say people are complicated... but seriously...
You love someone and you say get everyone you know together and spend $30,000 on one day just to say you PROMISE you will stay with them forever! You buy lots of things together, big things like houses, you have children together! Holy shit! What is there left to give to a relationship!?
And then two, five, twenty years go by and here you are and you hate them, the ways you hate them are twisted like twine into a rope as thick as the arms of gods down into the furnace in the centre of the eart. You cheat on them. And you leave them. This probably happens a million times a second world over or some impressive statistic.
So WTF happened??? What is love, that it can completely perish, completely.

When I hear about middle aged or old couples who are still together after all the years, i admire their tenacity. When i hear of middle aged or old couples who are still IN LOVE, I MARVEL. I AWE. They are a strange, freaky, mystical thing, like fairies.

If most relationships transpire into ... a rotten mess... isn't it then more accurate to think of 'love' as a fleeting, albeit mentally and physically overwhelming bout of passion, like hunger, or lust?
Why do we make so much more of it then than these simple cravings? Do we just so badly need something to believe in, in this dry, often bleak, predictable and short life?
Isn't love to people, what god is to the religious: just a very comforting thought?

So to add to that sentiment.. why do people, with few exceptions, want so badly to be IN LOVE? They do don't they? Don't you? When it seems to me, that being in love, is like being very hungry, and someone else holding the kai.

It reminds me of that saying: no news is good news. The blandest way of being happy about your circumstances, just acknowledging that it could be worse.

Do we just send ourselves out to find love, and form relationships, because the alternative is mildly less appealing?

Sigh.

Do I sound like a woman burnt? Scorned? A jilted lover?
It's true, I am.
I need to hear some good news.
I would like to believe in love, to be comforted, and I am struggling.

I facestalked a person I met recently to discover they and their fiance entered a competition to win the wedding of their dreams so they could bring the brides family to NZ from Brazil for the wedding, which they otherwise could never afford. The facebook profile called x and y's wedding wish outlines the events of their meeting, the dogged determination with which they maintained a long distance relationship, the age gap the traversed, the romantic proposal, dotted with photo's of the truely happy looking couple... and i got tears in my eyes.

Why tears?
It was like seeing a fairy.
No, I don't believe in fairies, but when you get a glimpse of something you think might be one, you look, and let yourself beleive in them just for a moment, because deep down inside we alll do want just to believe.

Hangriness

Hello. Two blogs in rapid succession, due to the fact that I have just read the most interesting thing I have read in ages. And that is saying something because I read alot of things.

Have you heard the term 'hangry'? This term was coined, as far as i am aware, by the increasingly fabulous Amber Harrow nee Connolly and her substantially awesome husband Mr Pete Harrow (www.cockneytokiwi.blogspot.com/)

Hangry describes, as you can garner from the term, the intense, unpleasant emotional and physical sensations that one experiences when subject to a lack of, well, food.
The kind of feelings that can make you snap at your boyfriend, snap a blunt pencil, or just plain SNAP.
Titchy, short, snappy, angry, flustered, unable to think, moody, depressed even... when was the last time you ate?

I have been a sufferer of hangriness for as long as I can remember. I have also been a sufferer of poorly regulated blood sugars, for as long as I knew about human physiology and just what my symptoms (brain fog, irritability, heart palpitations, weakness, breathlessness) could mean.

I can recall hundreds of instances of losing my shit, due to hunger. One small instance: I remember coming home from a lengthy gym session and feeling sure I would hit my flatmate hard with the metal spatula she had left dripping grease on the bench with a wildlife of other dirty dishes, should she walk in the room. However post consumption of dinner, felt entirely more relaxed about the matter and able to smile blandly at her as she passed.

WELL! This article:

http://carlo-hamalainen.net/stuff/Gailliot%20Baumeister%20-%20The%20physiology%20of%20willpower:%20linking%20blood%20glucose%20to%20self-control.pdf

is the first scientific mention I have read of the underlying physiolgical explanation for HANGER.

Psychologists, including Freud, have known that self control, or the ability to override one's impulses, such as controlling attention, resisting impulsitivity, regulating emotions and refraining from criminal and AGGRESSIVE behaviour, relies on some sort of interal energy source. Previously, this energy source has been described by the 'folk notion' of 'will power'.

It is now becoming increasing clear (currently 50 studies) that the brain activity required for self control requires not just a 'metaphorical' well of energy, but hard core, physiologicaly, chemical energy in the form of GLUCOSE.

For those with little nutritional knowledge, glucose is the smallest chain of carbon and oxygen molecules that can be taken up by the cell and used for fuel in energy production. Most will know, glucose = energy. And the body needs energy to run every organ and system, and to no small degree the brain. Whilst only consisting 2% of body mass, the brain consumes a whopping 20% of your calorific intake. Hungry, hungry brain.

Today I Learned that whilst most pyschological process have relatively low energy requirements, self control is unusual in that it depends on relatively HIGH demands for energy, i.e.: glucose!

A further fascinating point is that acts of self control leave the body energy (glucose) deplete, and this impacts later acts of self control (for some reason I am seeing strung out parents refraining from yelling at/smacking their petulant children)...

The forms of behaviour that deplete and rely on this same pool of energy include emotion regulation, attention control, impulse control and performance optimsation (like telling a good joke well).

One last point that goes straight to the marrow for me is that one of the self-regulatory behaviours that has been studied and shown to be impacted by low glucose levels is accomodating behaviour in romantic relationships.

Re: my 'turn's out i'm crazy' post... I can think of more than a few occasions where the statement 'you're being crazy' could have been replaced with 'you're acting hungry'.

The paper itself goes into so much interesting detail, if you have an hour or so to digest it, you will have the joy of seeing the word 'parsimonious' used, probably for the first time.

To conclude, my word to the wise, get your blood sugars in control, and conquer your dreams, save you relationships, quit those bad habits, and refrain from criminal, amoral behaviour.

Banana anyone?

Remembering Losing You

When I was seven my parents took me and my two brothers on a round the world trip for the best part of a year. This was 1987. As I age my memories of this trip fade, mostly what sticks with me are emotional memories, feelings, like sensing magic prickling on my skin in the lime green light of Sherwood forest.

On this trip we went to Singapore and to a busy market there. The market sold foods of every kind, and none that I had seen before. The stone paved floor laquered with a crust of hardened sweat, dirt and fallen food crumbs that could not be swept from the spaces between stones. A cacophony of market noises pressing up against the skin thick in the soup of humidity, the smells of foreign asian foods, pungent, salty, rotten and sweet. Up to that point in my life I don't think I would have ever even have seen an Asian person. Singpore was a world of strange. When I see this market in my mind, I am waist height. Remember when it was easier to see peoples knee's, shins and feet than their faces? It was back then.

Dad was in charge of me and he was holding my hand. Remember the days when when you went out, someone was in charge of holding your hand and making sure you didn't get lost? I miss those days, i'd have that back in a heartbeat.

Mum had put dad in charge of me that day, dad is usually quite conscientious about his children... but then something caught my eye, asking for closer inspection. It was a tank of water containing several large, live crayfish cramped in a small freshwater tank, inert in their orange spiked armor except for the slight opening of a claw, a small movement in one black eye. The tank and it's inhabitants drew me closer, I leaned in, as my confidence grew I placed my palms on the side of the tank and my eyes poured over their encrusted bodies with curiosity and strange sadness.

After sating my curiosity I remembered my family, and turned around and looked into the market. The market was an ant hill of activity, and everyone of those people were short, singaporean people, in shorts and tshirts with black hair and skinny legs.
And everyone of those people, was not my family.
My eyes scanned and scanned the throng of people, sweat prickled on my palms now dangling at myside on limp arms, a thud of my heart picking up pace in it's chest.
Gone.
I'm seven years old and three billion light years from home and everything I know and my whole family is gone. I am saturated for the first but not last time in my life, in the sensation of being entirely alone in the world.

I imagine I took a large volume of air into my lungs first because then I began to bellow and cry and after not too long a voluptuously overweight American woman came over, swept me up onto her hip, and took me the few paces to her table where she was eating a large volume of oily food. Oil was everywhere, on my skin, on her hands. I reeled with the texture of this experience, her fat cushiony sweaty lap.

She sat me on her lap like a handbag dog or a doll, and said 'there, there', and 'have something to eat', 'it'll be alright'. This stupid fat lady with NO idea of the intensity of my situation. Or perhaps at seven, lost for the first time, I had no idea what she knew, which was that my parents would come find me. To me, this was it, and 'it' was me, lost, alone forever.
Not like when you run away from home with a bandana full of sandwiches, properly lost, and no way back to all that you love.

I couldn't regard her with anything but that sick contempt you have for people who are NOT your mum or dad, and who are trying to tell you what to do or how to feel when they clearly have no authority in the matter.

Finally - and it can't have been long, but being lost is too long - my dad appeared out of the crowd. And with hot wet tears on my cheeks, and a stirring of resentment in my chest, I went back to being found.

When I sense a relationships end, now, as an adult (sort of)the feeling of being lost in the market that day returns to me. Sticky and sick.

Our family have funny 'sleep things'. We walk, talk, sing, shout, and fight off imaginery attackers in our sleep. It's not all that funny. My eldest brother has it the worst and can't share a bed with his partner's. Once he woke in a violent defense against an attacker about to throw his clothes horse through a large glass window. He's taken the skin off his shins down to the bone fighting people in his sleep. I have slept in the room adjacent to him and heard him yelling and batting away flying bat/spiders. When you call out to wake him, his voice goes from yells of rage, to the docile, sedated sleepy voice of someone who has just woken. It is strange.

As a child I used to wake up standing up out of bed getting clothes out to get ready for school. I talk alot in my sleep and have woken myself up singing. That is when I'm happy. When i'm not happy, I come to consciousness with my heart pounding so hard in my chest that it aches for the entire day afterwards, gasping for air, stricken with panic, running my hands feverishly along the walls looking for a window, a door, or any way out, eyes wide open and unseeing in the dark, straining to see, straining to see and seeing only black. Blind and terrified.

I don't know if you've heard of this happening, but twice I've woken up paralysed, genuinely awake, but totally paralysed. You have to relax and go back to sleep and then you'll wake up able to move again. There's no describing this feeling. Films like My Left Foot fill me with terror.

Twice I've woken up without my memories.
It might only last a few seconds, maybe six or ten, but for those seconds you are staring at a world that has no names. Chair, window, bed, all those words are gone.
Earth, home, house, your address, the date. All gone.
I have no name, and the first question you ask yourself is: who am I?! That is the first thing you want to know. And the realisation that you don't know...it is a heavy one. What is my name? Who am I?!! But asking doesn't make it come.

This loss of memory means you have no childhood, no memories to make you happy, you have no parents, no friends, no siblings and nobody that loves you. There is just a piercing, unbearable nothingness.

When a relationship ends, this feeling returns to me. It is phasic, on and off throughout the days that follow that final conversation. I feel suddenly that I'm going to throw up.

Once, I had a dream, that when i woke up there had been an apocolyptic earth wide disaster that had wiped out the entire human race, every. single. human. being. Except me. I stood and stared over the devestation and I knew that I could carry on, find a way to carry on with my life, that there was almost a responsibility to carry on, but that in the absence of every other person, the loneliness was so extreme and acute, and I knew that I didn't want to go on. That it was other people that made life worth living.

Funny how it can seem so the opposite as we rush about our busy lives, must eat, must work, must sleep, get out of my way, must drive, must work, must have my hobbies, accomplish tasks so that i can feel worthy of this life I have, so that I can sleep tonight and not be kept awake by an internal itch that says I am not good enough I am not good enough. And all the while bush whacking people aside, especially those we love, because they are the closest, and so can seem the most in the way.

But the truth is if you woke up tomorrow and they were gone, you would not eat, sleep, work, drive or do anything.
You would fall to the ground with solace only in the hope that there will be grace in death, the only saviour from this terrible loneliness.

When you look at the end of a relationship, take it in your hands, shake it like a snow globe and watch the white gently fall, trying to decide whether to stay put or go forward, out of the snow globe into the unknown, I am reminded of this choice I ace in the dream, knowing you should go on but wanting to fall to it's knee's and be taken by grace.

When I had my car accident the windows on the passenger side of the car shattered. Much later that day after everything was said and done, I looked into the mirror and my face had a sparkling sheen to it like sea with the sun on it seen from far away.

I reached up to brush my face and there was a coarseness to my cheek. I peered into the mirror and realised the glass had shattered into such fine particles it had landed on my face like a dust that was invisible unless it caught the right light, and even though it was that small in size it was still sharp.

I think this is what happens to the feelings inside a relationship, the interest, curiousity, attraction, affection, desire... those feelings don't die, they are obliterated, by the words you say in the heat of anger, by the pushing away you do when you're steeped in fear of rejection.. those feelings are exploded into miniscule pieces that cover you, and yet it is not possible to pick up a single piece, to turn over in your hands for joy or press to your lips for comfort.

And even then you do not want to wash the abrasive, glittering sheen from your face.

Death Metal

I promise to keep this one as short as I can. Beauty is in brevity.

So we picked one guy to move in. Mike. He seemed down to earth, smart, studying ethics and ecology at University (but more of a grown up student than a couch surfing, tui swilling, shower-phobic one), and he rubbed moosh'es tummy for a good long while. Moosh took me aside afterwards adn said she friended him. In truth, he was the only person we liked at all. Slim pickings out there!

Why is it that there are so many more abnormal, neurotic, obnoxious, ugly people than normal, nice looking, relaxed people? It worries me. Anyway.

So Mike is also musical. Tick. Is in two bands. They're not big here, but they're tour overseas. Tick - will be away for extended periods. Would I know them? I ask. probably not unless you like metal? Overwhelming understatement: i don't. Well he tells me one of the bands is called Ulcerated. That word, ulcerated? Makes me want to cry. But in contrast to my usually ASTUTE gut feeling, I do a Michael-Jacksons-Kid and BLANK IT! I blank it from my awareness because mike is nice and we need someone to move in pronto.

So later Date One suggests I listen to ulcerated on youtube. My, what a clever suggestion. Can't imagine why I didn't think of that, say, two days ago.

I don't know how to describe this 'music' to you. And I have to take a moment to say, i'm sure mike is a great guy and very talented, and i mean no slur on their muscial ABILITY. And each to their own and ALL that but...

The sound that comes out of the computer literally makes every one of my cells recoil in horror, my brain starts firing off terror signals, i start uncontrollably crawling backwards across the bed not unlike Jackie O when JFK got shot, nausea rises in my chest, fear sweat is starting to prickle my skin. The feeling that music gives me is a supersize me combo deal of sick, afraid and upset. Possibly who you would feel if a guy in a hockey mask with a machete has just come through your bedroom door covered in the warm blood of your entire, now deceased family. We're talking the nail in the well in silence of the lambs here people. I'm sorry if that is all too graphic, but there it is. I know of NOTHING, i cannot bear more, than death metal. It is ULCERATING my mind.

I remember when everyone got into Korn. That word still irks me. I bought the CD (oh nostaglia) from REal Groovy (Oh nostaglia) and listened to it in my CD walkman (oh nostalgia) on the way home from town on the bus (nostalgia, you get it). And by the time i'd gotten home i could physically feel that in some previously untampered with part of my brain, mental unwellness had been dangerously close to being permanently triggered. The next opporutnity i got i took the cd back to real groovy to get my money back, when asked why, I couldn't like, I looked at the tattoo'd young funksta behind the counter and said: i just can't have this in my life. and he nodded in understanding and gave me my $24.95 back.

So here I am in my room pressing my hands into my ears, feeling a surge of hysteria at the realisation that my new flattie is going to play this 'music' in the house.
I have to call him up and say awkwardly, ah, that i hate that music and ah, are you going to, inflict it upon us?
To his great, great credit he says two things, that he is fully aware that no one else likes it, and that he does not intend to practise or play it at home.

Are there any other important questions you need to ask? he asks me.
Yes, i say, are you a serial killer?
No, he says, not that i know of, but then, they never know that they are do they?
Well played.

Let's just hope he really was joking.
Flatting, it's a crazy world out there.
In many ways, like living in a bus stop.

These are the people in your neighbourhood

Today we interviewed for flatmates.

There is always something to laugh about when you interview for flatmates.

Like Alex. Alex comes in and I can hear his voice from the front door even though I am standing on the back deck. Soo let's him in while I perform social acrobatics with the potential flatties, keeping everyone talking, finding out information, reading energy, interpreting the movement of hands, the changing of stance, the mirroring of body language. Moosh, my cat, is lying quietly alert on the deck, helping me sieve people out by offering her soft, shiny, appealing coat up for scratching, to see if we have any lovers in the bunch.

Alex bowls, really bowls, out the french doors on the deck and I say: hi (big warm smile like you know i do), i'm clare. he shakes my hand and says; YEAH, so DO YOU WORK NORMAL HOURS THEN OR LIKE WHAT?

He is wearing a crisp white v neck tshirt, reminiscent of dylan perry circa 1991, crisp blue jeans, a silver snake chain, and spikey aggresive hair. Not that any of that matters, but just to paint a picture. By aggressive I mean the type of hair that looks as if it has been puuuuuuled, and pulled, in straining, tense fists.

I say, oh like.. blah blah blah and explain my work hours. And he's like RIGHT YEAH WELL THE REASON I ASK IS..
The caps are to illustrate his voice, it's loud, much louder than is necessary, and it's rough, not sexy rough like those old guys in the speights ads (good on ya mate) but rough like one of those green pot scrubber cloths, and it's imbued with male aggressiveness, sorry boys, I can't think of another way to say it. Being male doesn't automatically make you aggressive, but there is no aggressiveness in a woman like the particular type of aggro you can get in a man.

His voice punches into you, little. swift. jabs. Like how a frenemy will punch you and say it's a joke but it hurts just a little too much to be funny and you still have to laugh it off.

I say, yeah why DO you ask? Because my radar has automatically identified him as someone I will never know or see past this few minutes, and I decide this has great potential to be entertaining.
And he says IT"S JUST THAT I"M NOT INTO ALL THAT NIGHT SHIFT TYPE OF SHIT.

He says it like there's some humour in it that we will all find. There isn't. He says it like he's talking to his mate at the pub, two guys sitting on bar stools commiserating about how shit everything is. I don't think he can even see me, though i'm standing before him, do i look like your whinging mate, mate?

(Interlude: It isn't until after finishing and posting this blog entry that the story is pieced together for me, soo tells me how he saw my massage table in the hallway and said who's was it and she said clare's and so he came bowling out the door essentially asking me if i was a PROSTITUTE. Yeah.)

Aha, i say in soothing tones, yes i completely understsand, well, no, not me! (friendly grin) I work perfectly normal hours. He nods, as if to say i've passed Assessment One.

Three other potential flatties are standing on the deck with me and everyone is silent in sheer delight of how obnoxious this guy is.

And I mean look, he's probably nervous, he's probaby really nice, his mum probably kept him in nappies too long, locked him in a cupboard, fed him only packeted risotto, put down his cat. But in the same breath, WHATEVER! he aint moving into my sanctuary of oestrogen and soft cats and quiet noises and caring smiles. Nosirreebobbamcdoodleydoo!

Unfortunately my brain is too full of holes to remember what he said next, but in essence he fired a few more testing jabs at me, little one to the nose, little soft one under the ribs, asking me how suitable i was to guage whether he might want to dein us with his presence on a permenant basis. And then, without even glancing at anyone else, says, WELL ALRIGHT THEN, YEAH SEEMS ALRIGHT, SO, YOU WANT MY NUMBER OR WHAT?
Oh delight.

I say yes definitely, write your name on that piece of paper and your number and specify which room you'd prefer with a tone that intimates that the world stopped turning the moment he turned up because i had never known perfection before this moment. And he does. Soo is so awesome too, she's all dancing around him light on her little dancing elf yoga feet pretty as a poppy shining in the sun, as if we are all just entranced, just so pleased to have met him.

And he STROPS on out the door. His legs are not close enough together. Isn't that a subtle but crystal clear body language signal. It says: I. Am. The. Boss. It says: i am in charge of you, me, and this whole business. It says, my balls are so big that i can't shut my knees, and by balls I do mean balls. It says: submit.
And you know what it is that I exactly don't do monday to friday or weekends, all public holidays and statutory days? Submit.

As soon as the 'viewing' was over Soo and i say simultaneously: so what did you think, then laugh, and then both say 'that guy ALEX!!' and do imitations of him in fits of laughter.

Also there is Anna. Oh anna. Anna is pretty, she has a very short 60's mod boy hair cut and a big black boho dress with a waist belt and a black cardy and those terrible but in fashion shoes that we all wore in the early nineties, the nothing shoes, no features, just a sole, canvas top, one lace. Anna is a fretter.

She is pretty and i want to like her because of it. Funny that ahy? But the truth is, like babies, we all like to look at pretty faces. And by god if you live with someone you more than have to look at their face, you know what i'm saying. It is So personal, living with someone. You touch their fallen dead hair. Need I say more.

Anna talks in stops and starts. Anna's breathing pattern is not rhythmic. Anna is about 23. Anna looks past you when she talks. Anna plays constantly with a piece of paper in her hands, no not plays, that suggests enjoyment, anna's hands WORRY a piece of paper, they have twisted and twisted it until the paper has become first hard, and then soft.

Her hands are red raw from eczema, lined and sore looking. And I will tell you something that you won't know because you are not a naturopath. Disorders, diseases, and illnesses, belong to personalities. There is a 'chronic fatigue' type. There is a parkinsons type. There is a cancer type. There is an Alzheimer's type. There is a high blood pressure type, oh dudes, there is even a fat type, and the more it a person has in their personality, the fatter they get. I mean no disrespect in saying this, i only say what we all see. Repeatable enough events to be considered truth.

And there is an eczema type. And they are irritated by the world. They are irritated, and underneath it they angry. They seeth a little. Eczema is a volcano, it's crust shifting. My heart goes out to every one with this health condition, which includes my mother. And even she will tell you, when she gets really pushed to her limit at work or whatever it should be, eczema flare up.

Anna, dear anna, is negative. a real negative nelly. i ask her what she does and she says graphic design and then tells me how hard it is and how much it sux and she wishes she didn't have to do anything for money. I say oh it must be finished soon though? and she says: not til march, SEE YOU LATer summer! and rolls her eyes to the sky with a big 'gee i got ripped off' sigh. The young lady lives in a world with not even a speck of silver lining on any of her clouds. She complains about her house, house in general, the weather, moving, looking for flats, on and on she goes.

When she leaves soo and i look at each other and soo says, she's quite... critical.
And that is all that is needed to be said.

We get so savvy at meeting and judging people that the last girl who comes in, when she leaves i just turn my head and look at soo and she looks at me and that's all we say. Oh and then soo says, i liked her friend. I'm like yeah totally. At least WE are on the same page, same time zone, same universe.

The girl who's friend we liked, talks over me. I don't get it. Where do people get the idea that talking over somebody is okay? It says two things: one, it says i am not listening to you. There is no way you can be listening to someone when you are talking over them. Which in turn says, i don't count what you have to say as useful or beneficial, intersting or valuable. Two, it says, i don't respect you enough to even pretend that i am listening while you speak. Not even PRETEND. Shucks, we all formulate thoughts as other people talk, but if you are half decent you keep returning to their thread of speech, and give it at least a smattering of consideration. You AT LEAST make a small guesture of acknowledgment that they actually said something, a very tiny head nod, eyebrow elevation, say 'ahuh' or for god's sake just BLINK. The effort involved in blinking? Trust me, it's worth it to make you not look like an asshole.

So yeah. She's from belgium too. THis is an issue and I can't quite put my finger on why. It might be because our last flatmate was german and this was kind of an issue. She had a slightly skewed value system to ours. Like she borrowed my surfboard and covered it in this really aweful, glue stuff, that i suppose was meant to be wax, just like, shit loads of it, and got it full of black sand, and didn't try and clean it off. big lumps of it, it's a real F**king nuisance, and the board was freshly waxed, like, brand new wax job on it. Secondly, she broke a fin, but hey, she got it replaced, okay ones grey now but i'll get over it. But after that i said i didn't want to lend it out anymore, and she took it out anyway, without asking, for her german friend to use, who had never, ever surfed before. just like, so much nah bro. so i dunno, i don't want to tar every european with the brush she left me, but i'm cautious. It wasn't that more than the talking over me thing though. Come to think of it she stood with her legs to far apart too.

Okay well this blog entry is starting to go on a bit. Starting!? you snort. :)
And we still need a flatmate!
better get my hungover ass out of bed and go find one.
wish me luck baggins, wish me luck.

When I see me in the mirror that you hold

Well dudes, I shot myself in the foot. Multiple gun shot wounds.

I called this blog 101 bad dates, and I only made it to three, well five if you count the two that came before findsomeone.

I only made it to three findsomeone dates before I found a man that made me want to stop dating other people. A BIG call I know. But my name is Clare and I rush into things. Especially exciting, nice things. The words 'reckless abandon' are ringing in my ears...

Apparently two things. Apparently I am irresistible. Lol. Apparently no sooner do I start to date than I find a suitable, compliant applicant, and we begin to have a velcroe effect on each other, the closer you are, the stronger you stick, the longer you're stuck, the harder to pull apart. He is going to read this and laugh. He is going to tell me he laughed and I am going to try and hide my embarassment.

As an aside, don't you just love how it is legitimate to call two things that are meant to fit together 'male' and 'female'. Like plugs and sockets? Like the two sides of velcroe?
I do.
I love that in the collective subconscious of all people, men and women really are supposed to fit together and it is a wholly right and holy thing to do.

I have been debating what to write. Could I just ignore the blog title and write my internal musings on the world around us anyway? Would you have it? Would you buy it for a dollar?

This is how I shot myself twice. I started this blog in the spirit of honesty and candour, and hey, in the spirit of self effacing humour. So after pondering my dilemma for the last few weeks I decided that in keeping with the theme I would tell you the truth (as I see it, for there is no truth and feelings are not facts). So here it is:

Apparently, in relationships, I am crazy.

I had completely forgotten. No, more than that, I had always paired with people who stood on equally shaky mental wellness ground, so that it was never clear just exactly WHO was the truely crazy one. (Despite what we yelled at each other).

Unfortunately, this time, though said male has certain notable flaws, they are the normal, mainly harmless, decent type of flaws like: stubbornness. He is stubborn, it's the nature of his mind, hard like six feet of soil, not completely unresistant, not concrete, but hard earth, and I don't want a go with the spade thanks!! He will come around, once something has sunken in, in his own time. My dear Taurus's (and I have a few who are very dear to me) you're all the same - can't be told.

He is also brutally frank, and he has NO idea. And either he is winding me up, or he has a wit so dry that it takes off the first layer of my skin, cold like alcohol, before I can consider it's humour. It's kinda like god sent me someone who's natural inclinations all rub my natural weaknesses the wrong way. More like dentention than school really.

But these are all flaws that sit tidily alongside blonde hair, blue eyes, a preference for thai and good at chess. People are people after all. Pobody's nerfect. Those type of flaws that don't detract from a persons overall attractiveness, of which to me, he has ample. These are just those flaws that give you something to forgive a person for. Something that makes them seem falleable and endearing. A flaw in them that allows you to be a bigger person by letting it slide.

I, on the other hand, am apparently not just irresistible, but also potentially insufferable.

Any relationship that I have that breeches depths beyond 'neighbour' or 'courier' for me, is TUMULTUOUS. And tumultuous has a kind of onematopoeiac truth to it. It is like the turning of mulch, the airing of compost, the turfing up of what has lain beneath the surface for so long, breeding inhabitants and creating great, sulphorous heat.

And this is a painful and uncomfortable realisation for me. A moment of silence, absent of jocularity please, for how initially overwhelming, drop the floor and cry this realisation is. Goddammit. And Goddamit again.
the words 'sucks to be you' now ringing in my ears.

You don't want evidence, no, no, please dont' ask, you don't want hard facts, trust me. It's all too much to share really. Say the words SPAZ in your head and what do you see? Now give it a gnarly mouth of teeth and an aggressive hiss, a tongue as sharp as a chef's knife, it's blade hones to an edge so fine, sharp and thin that it could cut through from this world to another. Chuck in some blood, and saliva. Something shiny that flickers and catches your eye, something underneath that cuts, watch your feet. Imagine it is as fast as a snake in the grass.

I want to interject on this diatribe to say this: I am also good. And and Both. Not One or The Other. The reason I go so ape shit is because I am so tender, the center of my heart goes to the centre of the earth.
I am both crazy and also good.
Kind, generous and warm. I agonise over how to help other people, how to cheer people up. I stay up late thinking of little things that someone would like.
I agonise about being a 'good person'. I try to care for everyone, people who pass me on the street. I can't watch the news because I cry for the whole world.
I try my best.
I'll make you laugh. I'll write you a funny song and sing it in a stupid voice to see you smile. I'll bring around three flagons of cider and sit on your porch with you til you are laughing and your tears all dried on your face. I'll make you warm food when you have a cold, sad heart. I'll remember your birthday and make you a card.

Testimony to the wealth of my person, is the incredible wealth of people to be found in my nearest and dearest. My friends and family. A cast of true royalty when it comes to people. They are the triumph of my life. Knowing them, and them loving me, that is the triumph, and testimony to the fact that I am not all bad.

Part of me is pollyanna. Part of me is a warm cats tummy in the sun. Part of me is an angel. Part elf. Part magic. Part siren. Part mermaid. But yes, part of me is that bad, fast snake.

So on realising this, fully. See this monster staring back at me in the reflection of me in his face, made me want to change. Really, really, change.

I'm going to be 32 in two months. What kind of age is that to be carrying around a small, pissed off, hurt and shitty child on your back and letting her tell you what to think, how to feel and how to react and making you throw great big epic wobbly's at the exact people you are supposed to be an ally to?

Fuck her. I've had enough of being a sympathiser. It's exhausting. It is truely exhausting being me. Trapped in a suspended cage with this snakebeast for all my life, never knowing up from down, right from wrong, never knowing the truth. Only hearing the rumours whispered in my ears like madness. I want out.

So on the great advice of my friend and colleague (again...hmm, quite the angel this one) I have become interested in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Stop. The. Madness.

The basic premis of CBT is that there is A) the event, B)your beliefs and then C)your actions or emotions (the outcome). And realising that it is the beliefs you have that stand between the event and your feelings. And you can choose, you can change those thoughts and beleifs becuase hey, you're really just basing them on past experiences and the incorrect interpretation you made of past circumstances. And things have changed, it wasn't true then and it isn't true now. So you can choose what to believe about the event, and therefore, how to feel and react.
It is a world of sane.

To begin with it explains a whole bunch of ways of thinking that are really unhelpful, for example: 'crystal balling' are you trying to predict the future and envisioning the worst possible outcome? YES! yes I AM! all the f**king time!
Okay so how about letting the future unfold without trying to guess how it's going to turn out and worrying about it in advance.
It might sound simple, but it's beautiful. It brings great relief.
Oh that thing hasn't actually HAPPENED, and in all likelihood may n ever happen, how bout i stop stressing to the max about it, i can stress later, if it happens.

Here's a good one girls: Mind reading. So you think you know what other's are thinking do you? ANd of course they are thinking NEGATIVE things about you and have negative intentions!!
You never know what someone is thinking, generate an alternative reason for what you see, consider that you migth be wrong (who, me?!), get more information if you need it.
Bring the sanity.

Oh and another sample: feelings are not facts. HA! feelings are not facts. How is it that it's taken this long for information of that gravity to come to light?
However late, it is a liberation.

I could never possibly do a reasonable job of paraphrasing this model of therapy. It's so good at identifying how bad things can be in the mind, that it makes me smile, and it picks my air balloon up and blows a puff of air into it. Not saying it will be easy, or even that I will succeed this time around. But as my colleague and angel friend said to me, you've got nothing to lose, this can only improve your life.

It feels like an oar, and I adrift on an immense ocean in a rickety wooden boat.
I know where to go, i know which direction, I know where I want to end up, safe on the mainland with date one. I just didn't have an oar. One oar, that's all I need.

I may have a propensity for crazy, I may be sometimes insufferable, but goddamit I'm still my parents daughter: smart, strong and brave.

'Gonna find a way to the shore.
All I needed was one oar.

What do you look for in a man?

When you are about 5 or 6, the quality you look for in a man, well, boy, is that he notices you. Boys are noisy, and terrifying, they climb trees and jump off tall things and come back from playtime muddy. You can climb trees and jump off tall things and you just want them to notice you. To let you in. You write him a note on a very small square of refil, cut painfully carefully symmetrical, it says: Dwayne, why won't you notice me, we were meant to be together. You don't even know what this means.

When you are 8 or 9, you look for the quality of 'difference'. By now, you have divided the world, there are: good people, normal people (some are good), weird, dangerous people (some are still good) and bad people. You like him because he is the weird, dangerous good type. He comes from a bad gang family, the wrong side of the tracks (the state housing up the road), but he has intelligent eyes and you see more in him. You sit together in the classroom at story time so close that your whole thigh is touching. You think that one day you might kiss. But you don't, because a pretty girl moves to your school from out of town, and she kisses him in the cloak bay. You move on.

When you are ten or 11, you are interested in a boy who is 'older'. Older is sophisticated. You are desperate to grow up. You are in intermediate and the world (that matters) is divided into two groups: form one, and form two. You are form one and you aspire for greatness, recognition, coolness. So naturally, you want a boy just out of your reach, a form two boy. Mostly, you choose him because your very best friend loves his very best friend, it has nice symmetry to it.
The grapevine at school 'arranges' for you to meet behind room 12 one day after school to pash. You can't do it, you don't show. He 'dumps' you (via the grapevine). You find yourself that Christmas Eve staring at fuzzy rainbow coloured fairy lights through your tears, as you cry softly, because he doesn't 'love you back'. At this tender age you have a rich sense of what it means to be 'unrequited'. You fake your little, broken heart out.

When you are 13 you have you first friend who is a boy. Actually you have two of them. They are great fun. They get into terrible trouble. They smoke cigarettes, holding them with the lited end cupped in their hand like men at war. You try to smoke cigarettes. It makes you sick. You like this boy because you can be yourself around him, well, more yourself than ever before. He loves you first. So you go out with him. You wag school one day and he spends hours and hours giving you hiki's trying to get one to look like the batman signal. You start to think it might not work out because he is a foot and a half shorter than you. Height becomes an issue.

When you are 15 you look for the quality of 'coolness'. He is very cool, he is a skateboarder, he is really good looking, with curly blonde hair and big brown eyes. He is a cunt to you. But you can't really do anything about it because you have no idea where your personal power is located. He cheats on you with your friends friend, the same night that your one of your oldest, best male friends confesses his undying, never ending, all inclusive, overwhelming, eternal love for you.
You switch boys.
You love this new one. The quality that you love most is that 'he loves you'... 'to death'. He is the first boy to ask you to marry him. Drunk. You 'sort of' accept. And break up with him a few months later because he drinks too much and has no ambition. You decide 'love' as a quality cannot replace 'ambition'. Because lets face it, ambition is hot.

When you are 17 or 18 you are, tragically, still looking for a guy who is 'cool' but with something more, unique hobbies, rare talents.
You hang out with your friends older brothers, at the pub, underage, playing pool, trying to seem cool, taking drugs, going to parties, trying to seem cool, feeling painfully insecure and unsure about everything, working overtime to appear cool. You like him because he's older, cool, and he's the closest thing to a professional musician you have ever met, he plays in a band. He's a twin. He just needs a good scrub. You could be really good for him. You score him at a party one night. You realise he is kind of a loser. It starts to dawn on you that YOU might actually BE cool.

When you are 19/20 you want a guy who 'treats you right'. No more mongrels. No more lending them money for hot chips/cigarettes/vodka/the bus and not getting it back. You want a suave guy. A guy who owns a suit. A guy with good manners who you can take to meet your parents. A guy with a good car. You move into a house with him (as flatmates) and get to know each other pissed on the upside down couch at the front of the house playing guitar singing elvis songs. He treats you right, he is suave, he owns a suit, he's a DJ and he loves rat pack music. You've never had it so good. You fall madly in love. You work at the same bar. When your shifts finish you get drunk, be beautiful together and ball room dance to Frank Sinatra. You feel envied. A drunk comedian writes a love poem about how beautiful you are together and gives it to you. When he leaves and goes to London. You feel sure that you will die.

When you are 22, 23, you want to turn the tables, you want a guy who you can do more with than drink and party, you want a fit guy who is 'into things' outside of a nightlife. You find him, he is into mountain biking, kayaking, camping and snow boarding. Outdoorsy. You start going to the gym and running and you quit smoking (for the first of many times) because you like hanging out with this healthy guy. When he comes to stay he brings his 5kg tub of protein powder, he can't leave home without it. he is a cancerian, you have your first expreience of having a truely deep, emotional connection with a person of the opposite sex. He moves to Wanaka and you break up over the phone.

When you are 24/25 you look for guys who 'have their shit together'. You want a grown up man. You want to stop being their stepping stone on the way to emotional maturity (snort). You find one. He's six years older than you and he is a teacher. He's from South Africa and so has an incredibly fascinating past/accent. He's not like kiwi guys, he CHASES you for over a year. As an excuse to see you he takes you to lots of concerts always paying for everything, just like a grown up man would. He's really got his act together and he is totally crazy about you. It drives you (good) crazy that he's so crazy about you. But also, for all his charm, he is a bossy know it all and you are hard headed and emotional labil. It flounders. Funny how he could seem so grown up, but when you look back you can see he was just a young man.

When you are 27 you date a guy who falls into your lap. The quality he has is that you are mutually infatuated with each other. As if your love rings at exactly the same note and tone. You see yourself in each other. And you are inseparable and pyschotic about being together. I mean, you guys are angelina jolie, blood in a vial around your neck, tattoo your name on my arm, i don't need another single person in the world, mad, crazy, scary infatuated with each other. Its the best feeling you've ever had. Together, you have the best time of your whole life, and equally the worst. The passion spills into your disagreements. You are plate throwers. The good times and bad times are rolled together like sugar and cinnamon in a cinammon roll, but eventually, there sweetness is all lost.

When you are in your early thirties you look for a guy who is: the right age, has a good job, wants to get married and have kids, treats you with respect and wants to love you. He finds you. You let yourself get swept away on a fairy tale. The fairy tale is fuelled by alcohol as you have an equally matched propensity for drinking too much too often. After a few months you here yourself tell your best friends that you have nothing to talk about, and that every declaration of love and forever has been made under the influence. When you are on the precipice of sacrificing your entire life for him he ends it. Was it just the long distance? Him breaking up with you, in hindsight, appears to be the greatest act of real love of the whole affair.

And then... you get a little bit older, and you think to yourself that after all this looking, all these boys and men, these heart surges and heart breaks, these electric shocks and discoveries... you must know SOMETHING about what you really need, something about what you should be looking for in a man... you MUST be able to pick (find, identify, attract and keep) the right guy.
You start falling for a guy because he has this quality: he makes you feel calm, unselfconscious, happy and relaxed. It suddenly seems so obvious.

Near Death and Dates 3, 4, 5, and 6

If you are going to crash your car and nearly die taking five people with you, this is how to do it.

Last Saturday I picked up my 'musical brothers' friends Tom - wonderful soulman blues lead guitarist, Marlon - funk man soul brother bassist, and Jamie - producer extraordinaire all round cool and lovely cat, and we drove out to Avondale.
It was the weekend of recording my demo. Yes my demo!!! Oh my goodness, dreams maybe can come true.

Because I am as lucky as bees are happy making honey, Jamie has a friend who lets us use his barn converted into a studio for recording purposes.

When we get there it is just One Of Those Days. It's been cold for so long and this day is really warm. The sky opens up it's blue arms. We are down a road and down a drive way and the bush and native trees crackle as they warm up and there's a river which trinkles, it's all good.

Jamie sets up the electronic stuff, wires and mike stands and boards of wood and carpet etc. dem boys so clever with stuff. And becase i haven't got two technical brain cells to rub together, and they boys don't know i've got muscles, (even when they do know they don't like to see a girl liftin things) I get to mostly sit out in the sun on the porch. We've brought up some cold ones and I have a cider. Marlon and i reminisce about old school days.

So we get in the studio and we do our first song. First take is good but I'm a little rushed. second take is better, a few tiny mistakes. Third take is damn near perfect. There is a feeling that happens between you and other people when you play music together. It is akin to being with a best, best friend, who you know inside out and are 110% yourself around, and you talk to each other and what you have is a conversation.

Usually, people talk, and they talk from the inside of themselves out, like they're talking from a well, and they can't see where the words go, and they can only hear themselves, and they don't much care. Then the other person replies from up at the top of the well, yelling down, but by the time the sound reaches well person, it's faint, and the intonation has been lost, and the meaning with it. This is how people talk to each other, all over the world. But with this best, best friend, your conversation is like a song, and you both sing parts. Your words and their words are like ingredients in a soup, distinguishable, but irrevocably mixed, more delicious together.
Playing music with people is a bit like that. You are getting lost in your part but you are floating along on their part, your spirits are rising and falling together. No I am not on drugs. I have been in the past, but not right now.

I love to look over and see Tom bending the blues out of his guitar, to my songs, I mean, they're our songs now, but they're about my love, found and lost, so it's even more, muchness. I love to glance right and see Marlon, his whole body making the bassline, anyone could get lost in his basslines. I really love these two guys you know. And here they are making a song I wrote jump up off the floor, grab you by the shirt collar and kiss you til your lip bleeds.

After that, we decide it's time to go get a pie. We pile into my car. I think: I don't really want to drive. But my car is blocking Jamies so it makes sense. We get in the car. I am driving, Tom to my left. Marlon is behind me. Jamie is in the back seat passenger side. We drive up BlackBridge Road. It's a typical bright and shiny new zealand day. As we drive we laugh and talk. I check the speedo and stay below 60. I am not trying to drive fast. We come to a one lane bridge. When I see it that ad flashes in my head. That ad where teh drunk guy hits teh one lane bridge and flips his car and kills his mates. And in my head a voice says without words: look after your mates. I slow down to go over the bridge. The road undulates, up and down, up and down, the trees on the side of the road cast dappled and shifting shadows on the road. I am here, I think that I am aware, I think that I am driving and therefore, I know whats going on around me.

When I play this back in my head, I hear Jamie say, you're going to want to turn up here. But at the time, I was drifting in my thoughts and don't compute it. Shortly following that Jamie says STOP. and then by the time Jamie is saying STOP STOP STOP I am passing over the double yellow lines at 60km an hour.
60km an hour does not seem fast when you're driving down an empty road in the middle of the day. But when you are travelling 60kmph over a stop sign into your unknown and uncertain future, it is faster than a speeding train.

Within the split seconds that you can react in emergencies, I percieve to my right: is there a car coming from this direction? No, I carry on straight, still the safer option than to break hard going 60km. I percieve to the left, is there a... yes, there is. A car is coming around the bend and we are on course to meet it at this intersection.
I break hard and pull the wheel hard to the right.

There is a moment of complete silence and suspension before we hit th other car, all the world is empty, time is nothing. The noise it makes hitting the other car, us going 60km and them 100km an hour, is big, but it is not bigger than the FEELING of hitting the other car, which is quite earth shattering. Like a giant mallet the size of a ... well, car... hitting you with all it's force, as though the blow is meant to silence you as well.

Due to whatever law of physics we are acting under, this blow shunts us into a clockwise 360 spin.

As we spin I am fully conscious and what I feel is my body being thrown by incredible gravitational force up into the left hand corner of the car, my body straining against the seat belt, my head plastered against the passenger seat, the force through my neck is incredible.

As we spin I am fully conscious, the day is warm and sunny, it is warm inside the car, my body is warm, my body is in one piece, my body is beautiful and alive and it works fine and all I have to do is keep it that way.

As we spin I am fully conscious and I see the car that I hit flipping through the air exactly like in an action movie. It flips sideways, it flys up into the air abot a meter and it flips, flips again, and crashes into a corrugated iron bus stop. Flattening the busstop.

As we spin i am fully conscious and I push my will out into the universe, as strong as i can make it, and my will says this: EVERYONE SURVIVES.

We come to a stop. Myself and one other person are yelling is everyone alright? is everyone alright? marlon and jamie say yes. in hindsight tom does not say yes but he gets out of the car. I put the car in park and get out of the car. Everyone can move. There is no blood. Immediately following this realisation I run to the other car ten meters away, it is lying on it's side next to the bus stop.

My legs are goverened by two forces, one propels me forward, wanting to get there as quickly as possible to help them as quickly as possible, the other is holding my legs back like glue with the sickening dread at what i might find...

I reach their car, i can see them through the skylight, they are screaming.
Are you alright? i scream at them. They say the are. The driver screams "don't let me die in here" she is trying to get out through the skylight, i try to pull it, i have no strength, my hands are feeble tools. I say to her, you are NOT going to die in there, you are fine, we're going to get you out. But I don't know how.

A man turns up, actually he's off tele, he's on that 'manage your money' show, the army guy. In a very, loud, stern, and soothingly authoritative voice he says: my name is ... (can't remember now, john?) and i am a first aider, are there any other first aiders?
I say yes, but so meekly, because i feel as if i have done enough damage and how can they trust me, to help people, me, who just nearly killed them.

They get out of them car, they are so relieved to get out of that car. They are two young girls, maybe 16 nd 14. They are not bleeding or broken. They are shocked, teary, but as I apologise over and over, they say to me, it's okay, it's okay. This is my first taste of the bottomless depth of humans ability to be compassionate. It is then that I think to myself, tom? tom was very quiet. and i sprint back to see that tom is cradling his right arm and a big lump is sticking up out of his collarbone, it looks broken. He rapidly turns whitey green and needs to sit down.
Medics are turning their attention to him.

The emergency services turn up within the blink of an eye, cops, ambulance guys, fire fighters, about 15 of them. And you know what they each do? They ask who was in each vehicle, and once asking if we are okay, can breath, no pain, they look totally inredulous and say 'everyones alright'. They each do this. 'everyones alright??'

I won't go into every detail. It is a long time we are standing on the side of the road. My car is a 'total loss' for sure. Do you know even writing this i LOVE that car, and i know it contributed to saving our lives, you know why? because it CRUMPLED. Only a week earlier i had been saying how they can't handle knocks and they just crumple (after hitting somones towbar). Well yes, they do crumple, that is how they save your life. It is sad to see that car demolished. I am drowing in realisations and feelings. This really happened. It was my fault. I nearly killed everyone of these people. This is not something I can hide from. I look into their faces and say i'm so sorry i'm so sorry, but i am also keenly aware that i don't even deserve their compassion, how dare i put them in the position of having to say 'it's okay'. Have them comfort me. No, they should be allowed to be mad, and to feel that it is not okay. So I am caught between apologising, and not wanting to seem that I am trying to elicit their forgiveness. Everyone is so shaken. Jamie has his arm around me numerous times, rubbing my back, and i think, i want someone to hug me, to say it is alright, but i don't deserve it. I can't believe he can smile at me. The mother of the two girls gives me rescue remedy, she sees the contorted look on my face and she hugs me and rubs my arms and tells me it's alright, it's only cars, it's alright. and i cannot believe her generosity. I nearly killed both of her children. How can people be so... good.
I am not good. I am careless. I am in trouble with the law. My car is gone. I will have to tell my dad. This is always the worst part of every mistake i have ever made, telling dad. Dad who is so sensible and practical and who TOLD me to drive carefully and pay attention, but then who doesn't say i told you so when you don't heed his advice and you screw something up. Dad who gives me everything, and helps me fix up my each and every mistake. Oh dad. I'm sorry. I've done it again. Your stupid daughter, it's not your fault, you taught me everything right, but i just don't listen.

The cop is lovely, he is calm, and while he has that stern cop thing going on, he's a person too, and he doesn't pull that one on me like: you are a bad citizen who broke the law. I think he sympathises. He's lovely. He takes my statement. I'm sure he writes it in a way to try and make me seem like a good person who truely did have a very bad accident.
The cop tells me I am very lucky, that when he heard what they radio'd through he fully expected to find bodies. I know I am very lucky. I just don't know why.
The mother of the kids in the other car had said, buy a lotto ticket tonight and i thought, no, you buy a lotto ticket, you deserve it, i've had all the lucky i feel it is fair to take.

Tom goes in the ambulance because he has a shoulder injury. We go back to the barn. the boys pack up. i give my statement. We drive to the hospital. everything at the hospital takes forever. we are there til 8. miracle upon miracle, tom hasn't broken his collarbone, but he has torn his ac joint, not good, coudl be worse.
dad comes to pick me up out of my mess and take us home.
My body is starting to hurt, a hurt i haven't felt before. Funnily enough, a hurt that feels like I have been hit hard by several 2 by 4's from several angles.
I want to be a sick cat and crawl into a hole. I want to be a sick bird and hide in my nest.
Guilt and gratitude. Guilt and gratitude. I am overwhelmed by both.
Why me god? why did you save me?

Well the date part is that when it happens i text the guy from date one. I text him and tell him what's happened because... because i want someone to be on my side and to care, but i can't bring myself to tell my family yet, to worry them, to put them out. And he texts back and we text to and fro from the time of the crash, around 1.30pm, til 8pm that night. He's understanding, he says tell me what i can do, he asks if i've had dinner, he could make some for me, he says things to cheer me up, stupid, aweful things, wrong things that shouldn't be said, and they make me smile just like they're meant to. What a good guy. He comes over to see me afterwards too, i'm exhausted and wired and i can't be alone, i need to be distracted. Date one (wll think of a better alias soon!) comes and distracts me, he picks me up, we go to his house and watch the rugby half heartedly, we sit on the couch and he puts his arm around me and kisses my cheek and takes my mind off the crash and he doesn't think i'm an evil, careless person who nearly killed their friends, and his believing that of me is holding me together.

So that is date 3, and half of date 4. Then on sunday without any complaint he drives me to the supermarket to get food for tom, then drives me to see tom, and he sits and talks with tom who he has never met, while i do things in the kitchen, then he drives us home again, then to my dads, meets my dad (no big deal people!), so i can pick up dads spare car, follows me home, comes in and we lie on my bed and talk til bedtime. This is date 5 and 6.
Which would probably make you ask if this guy is hammering the nail in the coffin of this blog. I don't know kids, watch this space.

Jamming versus Rollerderby.

I've decided you can tell if you want to spend time in someone's company within roughly thirty and no more than sixty seconds.

Call me judgemental, I suppose it is. But you just get so much information about person the minute you meet them. bam. like a wave. probably in your brain a trillion nerves are firing, areas are lighting up here and there, you're recognising them, relating to aspects of them, associating them with other things from your past. weighing them up. judging them.

This is not about looks, shoes, car... or even face, well it's not strictly about face.

It's the expression their face has taken on from all the years they've used it. It's the feeling that the muscles around a persons eyes give you about how they've received their life. You can tell a cheerful, aware, optimistic, observant person, from a person who wears blinkers all their life, and lives a tunnelled life, from the look in their eyes and the muscles in their jaw.

You can tell a pessimist from an optimist, by the way they hold their shoulders. Whether they lift their heart or not.

You don't analyse this at the time, you don't think it consciously, you just feel it.

And chemistry. You either have it, or you don't. Not just the bowchika wow wow type, but just a 'click', something that fits, a feeling that tells you were meant to meet this person. A feeling that you like them straight away.
Or on the contrary, a feeling of ambivalence.

Date one. Friday night. You like date one the second you meet him and shake his hand, and see how nervous he is, and how he grins stupidly because of his nerves.

Date one starts with smiling and laughing and easy rapport. Date one catches you off guard, date one is funny.

Date one is a good date. A feeling that you've met with an old friend who's been away along time, and you're eager to hear all their stories. And you've always fancied this old friend, and now providence has brought you back together.
Date one involves playing guitar together, and singing, and cider.
These are a few of my favourite things.
Date one is easy. It's comfortable, but exciting, like driving your trusty car through the winding roads to the coast. You've been here before, but it's exciting every time.

Date one has kisses. Kisses, and dancing, are two sure fire ways to certify whether you fit with a person. A kiss fits, or oh lord... it does not fit.
I described a bad kiss scenario to a friend yesterday as 'like eating a pie'
Cringe with me.
The least sexy thing you can imagine. All fat and no flavour. Excuse whatever filthy pun you are inventing in your head right now.
When, during the pie-eating-like bad kiss i heard my inner voice say: it'll be over soon. I realised, it was over right now.

Date one kisses are not like pie eating. Date one kisses are like lychees in syrup on icechips. Date one kisses are like getting static off your jersey as you pull it from your head. Like sneezing. Date one smells JUST how you like a man to smell, you can't put your finger on it, but when your face is leaning on his jersey with his warm shoulders underneath and there is that smell... you melt down into a little puddle and hope he won't notice. That smell is like pine trees at christmas, just, so, right.
Date one ends with you wanting more.

Date two is a sunday rollerskating jam. It begins with you losing direction in Mount wellington. Date two is polite. Date two seems a little, medicated, do you know what I mean? Date two doesn't look you in the eye properly. Date two has short legs.

To Date Twos great credit, he takes you rollerskating.
Rollerskating is seven years old, my little ponies, everything with rainbows on it and plenty of pink. Rollerskating is ice cold slushies, music and lights, rollerskating is a boy two years older than you that you JUST DIE every time you rollerskate past him, because you have the BIGGEST crush on him.

I am ready to have fun, you know? Date aside, it's ROLLERSKATING... how could this not be fun?!
But somehow... it is not that fun, it starts out fun.. you get your size 10 womens, mustard brown rollerskates shaped by many years of eager feet from the teenager standing in the room full of skates. You put them on and tentatively roll out onto the hard, shiny floor. You take little, sliding new born foal steps forward, you can move, you aren't falling over, and something in your brain fires up and says I remember this!!

And around you go. Around and around and around, and around. With Date two either trailing, or leading, or beside you asking you the dullest questions you have ever heard, so dull they make your stomach ache, so dull they make you instantly tired, like, so you work monday to friday then?

And a nasty, hot, painful blister begins to form on the inside of your big right toe, metaphore not lost on you.

I'm in two places, emotionally, one of me is a 7 year old child rollerskating around a dark skating rink with the smell of sweat and sugar in my nose and multicoloured lights dancing across the floor, tripling the feeling of fun.

The other of me is 31 year old on a first date thinking REALLY? I'm really on a date with this guy?? This is really what's out there for me?
I haven't really given you any real reason not to like him, here's one. There are a bunch of lesbians at the rollerskating rink. Apparently rollerskating is big in the lesbian world, you can kind of see why, and because there was that movie with drew barrymore and page whatsherface about young girls defying their parents and taking up rollerderby.... you still with me?

So the lesbians are clearly lesbians, and there's quite a few of them. They're wearing those black clothes that are meant for 15 year olds but somehow women in their 30's seem to think it makes them look young and cool to wear them, with grafitti on them and Misery type graphics. ANYWAY. I like a lesbian as much as the next person, which is to say, I just generally like everyone until proven wrong.
And Date two, as he slowly dwindles into a bottomless hole of boringness, running out of things to say even MORE so than in the start, skates in a bit closer to me and says, looks like there's a lesbian convention down there, with a sort of a snide smirk.

The lesbians, about 8 of them, are all standing at the end of the rink, chatting, probably about how they like to eat pussy you know. Cuz thats all those lesbians do you know. And of course my date has to point it out, like we've come across a cage full of vaguely dangerous monkey species at the zoo.
I don't know, am I being too harsh? To me, that is just not interesting, and furthermore, who cares, and furthermore, it starts with the lesbians and it ends with him saying let's not let so-and-so mind the dogs while we're away because you know (he's black and he might nick something). You have to watch for bigotry, it comes in many guises.

I do this thing, when i hear someone say something snarky or unkind I try to picture my brother kae saying it. Kae's personal goodness is A close to god's as a man's could be, mean, bitchy crap doth not depart his lips. And if I can't picture him saying it "check out the lesbian convention" I drop the hammer on the person who did.

So anyway. I make the most of the rollerskating, I can feel myself going off the guy and am having to work out an exit plaln. My inner thighs and outter glutes have taken all the nostalgia they can take. When I look at the clock to see if it's over soon, there's an hour to go. Bad sign.

I realise I'm going to have to lie to him. To get out of the date extension, because of course rollerskating has only been two hours, two interminable hours, there's sure to be a 'drink' afterward. I can't bear the idea. Call me selfish, it would be entirely accurate. Out of self preservation and nothing else, I cannot sit in a bar drinking cider across from a guy who is going to ask me 'so, do you drive a car?'. Nope. NOsirreebob. No can do.

Rollerskating comes to it's natural conclusion, lights go on, skates come off, shoes go on, everyone is a little sweaty, tired and elated. Hand in our skates and head outside and there in the parking lot I lie cold and barefaced to his face. I do, I know, I'm a bad person, it's true. He says, do you want to go get a drink or something, and i look him in his dry, chaffed, red little face and say, man you know, i've got to go catchup with a friend, because she's LEAVING THE COUNTRY, and it's really bad timing i know, i'm so gutted, but this was the only time i could see her, did i mention she was leaving the country?
EEEEEK.

It's horrible. It's horrible to lie to someone and them know it and you know they know it and...it's horrible. And he just says: on yeh. and gets in his car and disappears, as I plea into the air behind him it's been REALLY nice to MEET YOU!!!
Oh god.

What you want to be able to say is, you're a nice guy, you are, you're not an asshole and you'll probably find someone as lifeless and boring with a mellow case of bigotry just like you to spend your every day with until you just completely stop moving and become a sod of dirt. I appreciate you liking me too, thanks, it's always good to have a fan, and the date was not aweful, but I can tell you with total sincerity that we are never going to have a spark and end up in a passionate tryst tied to a bedpost, or spend our sundays reading papers while we stroke each others leg with our foot under the duvet, or reading books to each other in a tent. We have no future. So lets just cut our losses shall we?
That's what i wish you could say, but you can't, the world makes you lie.

So then i text date one, because i want to kiss him again, and i'm hungry, for food, and if there's one thing i like it's going out to dinner with someone i'm attracted to. Sitting across from each other sharing our thai meals thinking how if things carry on this nicely you might just end up reading the paper together on sundays.

Rambo is a Vegetable

So this is a posthumous post. This bad date happened several months ago. It's a tale worth telling as it fits with this blog, and shouldn't go untold.

I meet him at a party, I am on a high because I sung at the party, on a microphone, to everybody, and no, not drunk, not by prying it from the MCs hand, I was actually part of the 'set'.

I'm excited, I have a few ciders, a few more. I have a cup of 'tea' that might or might not have had something in it that dilmah doesn't know about. I'm down by the fire and the fire is glorious and I'm glorious and he has a big bent nose, the type i like, and so i kiss him. And we kiss and kiss and then he drops me home. We sit in his van outside my house, he has been supermarket shopping and has a bag with wine and chips and crackers in it. we have a mini, drunk as heck picnic in the van at 4 in the morning outside my house. Everything about this is likeable. He is named after a vegetable.

He texts me the next day, and after texting all week he arranges to pick me up on Sunday for our first real date. He has texted me all kinds of sweet wonderful nothings, he seems quite taken by, I can't wait.

He says he'll be at my house at three. At three fifteen he texts and says 'running late will be there in ten'. I wait. I hate waiting. I hate people making you waste time, I hate not knowing when the next thing is going to happen. I hate how your makeup and hair flops and sweats off when you wait. By FOUR pm, yes, an hour after the origial ETA, I confirm with a good girlfriend that this is unacceptable and am just writing the text that says 'don't worry about it mate' and his text intervenes (damn you fate) and says 'i'm here'.

I figure it's worth going out and seeing if in the daylight, he's worth any fuss at all. Okay to be honest, memories are patchy and I want to see if his nose is a alluringly bent, if he is is cute as i remember.

He doesn't cross the road to come to the door. He stands by his car. I cross the road (don't you think this is unfair? That i have to be seen approaching and not him?). When we meet it is awkward because cars are passing at high speed and we dont' hug or kiss cheeks and he. Does not. Apologise. For being. Late.

We get in his jeep, he's kinda cute, part maori with blue eyes, nice, the big bent nose, nice, a funny brightly coloured old 70s tramping jacket, he's kinda cool, I think.

But as soon as were driving he's talking, talking, talking, all about himself. He's done this, man he's done that, he's bought this business and worked for this organisation, man there isn't anything this guy hasn't done. Currently? Oh, currently he's between things, weighing up his options. He talks and talks some more. Maybe he's nervous, I think. He is fairly interesting. Man I wish I could talk some too...I cut him some slack, maybe he's just nervous.

We get to where we're going, kare kare, nice. there's a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, my opinion of him keeps flicking from positive to negative. And damn you know what else? All this time i'm trying to appear gorgeous, funny, interesting, intelligent and skinny.... for a guy i'm not even sure I like at all.
This is how bad it can be inside the brain sometimes ahy.

We drive up, up, up a long winding road, i've never been here, miles away, not the beach at all. We park, we get out, he says 'we should have time to do the loop' and i think nothing of it. Off we walk. It's muddy, but it's beautiful. Bush walking is never not good. We walk and talk. He's definitely an alternative guy, and done some cool things, he's up my alley for sure, i'm just not sure if we share the same address, i do like him... but he still won't let me talk... negatives, positives....

Okay so here's the next thing. We come to a fork in the path. One way says 20 mins to karekare beach, the other says back the way we came (can't remember the track name). He ums and ahhs and scratches his patchy hippy stubble, how long do you think we've been walking for? he asks me. I reckon about 40, 45 minutes I say.

I, for no known reason at all, have decided this day to wear my tacky, plastic, $10 watch today, something i never, ever do. It's strictly for wearing to personal training sessions so i can time peoples torture. But here I am wearing it, funny thing that.
I run every night, so I know when sun down is, because I always check how much daylight I have when i head out the door. I look at my watch, and I realise that sun down is in 20 minutes, light will linger for 30 if we're in a place with no canopy and very, very lucky.

He has decided that we take the track back the way we came, finish the loop.
There is a little, awkward aching in my torso that is worry beginning to take root.
We walk a bit of the way down the track, this part of the track is real muddy, it's all about just getting muddy now, it's steep too, and not as well cut back.
After a minute or so he stops, looks genuinely perplexed, and says, ahh, i've kind of lost my bearings, i'm not sure if we're going the right way.

BANG. Adrenalin bursts out of my adrenal glands and takes a millionth of a second to reach my heart which pounds once, big and hard like an axel against it's ribbed cage.

I realise now fully the predicament we're in. We're not lost, not exactly, but we are in the waitakere ranges, and the sun is about to go down, we have no light, no equipment of any sort, in fact i am dressed in jeans, which are wet, and a sweatshirt, which is also wet, and wet, muddy sneakers with holes in them.

I am with a stranger, and no body knows where we are, because it was a date, and so the destination was kept a surprise from me. I'm not even one iota worried about this pleb doing something harmful to me, he's too stupid to be dangerous, what i really, really don't want, is to for the first time, have to spend a long, cold, scary, uncomfortable, night, with absolutely no equipment, water or food, in the forests of the waitakere ranges.

And you know why i'm facing this predicament? Because he. was. late.
And why was he late, lets face it, because he doesn't respect me, or other people generally. do you know how much i like this guy right now? less and less.
And the part of me that wants him to like me? That is willing to let him make bad decisions while i stand by being tryinig to seem skinny and simultaneously funny?
It is dead to the world.

We're going back to the fork and we're taking teh other track, i say. And I lead us up the hill at a MUCH brisker pace. We get to the fork. The sun is going down. The light is getting grainy. It's funny how the light seeps away in such tiny increments that you can't see it going, what you notice instead is that you start to only be able to see outlines, colour loses it's vividness. After awhile you note that you are semi seeing your way, semi feeling your way along the track, the ground rises to meet your foot unexpectedly high, low, or slippery, you can't quite tell in advance. It is going to be dark soon. I want to go home.

All this way, mainly to quell my hysteria, i keep letting him talk at me, asking him questions to egg him on. you know what he tells me? That he got lost in the bush not once, but twice before, and had to unexpectedly sleep in the bush over night with his mate. That they'd nearly walked off a cliff in the dark in fact. You know what i think about this guy: you're a f**king dickhead. And how DARE you put me in this position, you big, hardmN, rambo, renegade friggin vegetable.

We make it out, we walk out in darkness, nighttime darkness. And now, now my friends, we only have an hour or so walk up a very steep, winding, one lane road in complete pitch black to get back to the car!

A guy goes past on one of those one man wide, flat, tractor farm type bike things (somebody help me here) and Vegetable Juice says, if he comes back i'll flag him down for a ride.

WHAT!?!? And where the hell do you think we're going to sit?? you on the back and me clinging to your shoulders??!! This guy is such a fricken renegade, such a tough guy, so much to PROOVE.

car lights light up the horizon, I thrust my arm out, thumb up and say into the night, please PLEASE pick us up. They stop, two nice people, they say, we'd give you alift but we've got two really wet, dirty dogs in the back.

Of course you have.

That's fine! I tell them, opening the door, ploughing into the back seat only to be met by the wettest, dirtiest dog i've ever met, and there's another one behind them. I push them over, to leave room for Rambo. The couple in the car are absolutely lovely, and it makes me realise what unenjoyable company rambo has been, i'd rather have been hanging out with these two complete strangers and their dirty canines.
Which, by the way, are plastered against me, wet, cold, sandy dog fur, pressed to me like, lover-close. dogs.

They drop us at the car. i'm now wet, cold, dirty, muddy, sandy and smell like a dog, and the vegetable man? not even a little bit muddy, no no because convenintly it was i who ended up sitting next to the dogs, not herotown over here.

He drives me home. Every second is one second closer to being away from him.
He mentions how he's going to be early for a part which is not like him at all, and i'm like, "that doesn't surprise me, late people are late people, they don't give a shit about other people adn they're just late for everything". I relish not caring and being able to blurt out the thing that comes to mind the fastest.

He drops me off. Before I can silence my stupid mouth it says 'lets do this again' or something inane like that. Something that i dont' even MEAN! I should have said, you suck, thanks for getting me lost in the bush, i hope your johnson gets a rash this week. But no, i smile and say, lets do it again. Goddamn me!

You wanna know what the real injustice of it all is. He doesn't call me. He doesn't text. He doesn't want to see me again. Him. Me. Him. Me. I taste the bitter and bile-like taste of being rejected by someone you don't even LIKE.

There is more to this story that could be told... about how i bumped into him again... and proved my theory that he was just a try-hard rambo wanna be and that nobody really liked him... but for another time.

Moral: Don't date dudes named after vegetables.
Lesson for the day: if he's any moer than 15 minutes late, it's too late. Stop waiting for him and move on.

Next!