Sunday, August 3, 2014

A World Built for Two and a Half

I've been thinking some things for awhile and had nowhere to put them.
And then I remembered my blog!

Oh firstly, do you want to know where I've been?
In my very last post I said that I had a crush on a guy in my wider circle of friends, a real crush.
Well he had a crush on me too, and we fell madly in love.  That is not just an over-used adjective. We fell MADLY in love.  When he kissed me my vision went blurry and the world swooned around me so that I was liable to lose my balance, that's not just poetry, that really happened.

My body wanted out of my skin around him, and him me. My temperature rose, my heart raced and raced.  I wrote songs about him. He gave me big beautiful expensive presents, and pulled me into his embrace without notice, many times a day.
Me him and him me, the whole lot. Two people head over heels in love. It was the single most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, while it was.
And then it started to scratch a little bit like wool does sometimes.
And then the neck started to feel too tight, and you'd pull it away from your throat and think, aha, that is what's buggin me today.
And then someone, hard to say who, washed it on hot and it shrunk, so the sleeves wouldn't reach the wrists, and the hem didn't cover your back, so that the cold came in.
That damn cold, so hard to ignore.
It didn't happen all at once, The Ruining of Your Perfect, Favourite Jumper.
It happened in tiny little wafer thin slithers, so that you'd think, oh well, and keep going.
Until finally there I was standing in the doorway with no jumper at all.
And there is so much empty space.

There is much more of a beautiful, sad story that could be told about that, but that's not what I've been thinking, per se.

I've been thinking and had nowhere to say it, that I hate that all my friends have had babies.
I hate it in so many ways, and I think it is abhorrent and terrible.

When you are growing up, as girls, into women, having the times of your lives together, bonding, drinking, dancing freely to loud music, being in love with each other, sharing clothes, helping each other decide on hairstyles, getting your periods, having crushes, no one ever mentions to you, not even once, that one day it will all STOP.
You're dearest, beautiful, talented, incredible, free, sexy, wild, dancing, crying with you, understanding you, laughing friend is going to die. All of them.  One by one. Die to you.
No one talks about it.

When your women friends have children, they no longer listen to you.
You have spent years, often decades, trusting that those women will listen to your stories, listen to you recount everything from your love affairs to your ingrown hairs, and then suddenly, they don't.

They look like the same person, very much.
But mid way through every sentence you will ever say from now on they will interrupt you by acknowledging something about their new child. The child is usually present, and the thing being acknowledged ranges from how amazing/beautiful/funny/cute/creative/talented their child is, to just some plain story about their childs doings, or to just 'look at him/her'.  And you are expected to also shift every ounce of your attention to the child and be... awed? Interested? Appreciative.

What's more, they don't know that they're interrupting you.  In any normal circumstance to continually cut someone off and talk only about yourself is considered rude.  But women who have new children, they don't see how much it hurts you.  How much you desperately need them to be present with you.  And how painful it is that it never comes.  There is an unsaid agreement, that you never agreed to, that you would Take The Back Seat, now and forever, to their lives, with their new child.

They don't come to you.
You go to them.
Their time tables are so busy.  No. No. Not busy like how the childless 'think' they're busy, (this is exactly how it was described to me) they're really REALLY busy.  And you wouldn't understand. And with a sweep of the dish cloth, whatever is going on in your life is marginalised to a mere inconvenience in the face of the mountain of Real Stress and Responsibility that they have.

You are expected to find their children incredible.
Even, even the women who when they were your childless girlfriends agreed that other people's kids were hell on earth and to be avoided at all costs, even those women get amnesia, and fully expect you to find their children's every snot bubble and tiny digit, incredible.

Let me tell you a story on this matter.  Several years ago I ran a stop sign and hit a moving car going 100km an hour.  Both cars flipped and spun out of control, the other car coming to a stop by hitting a bus stop. Both cars were written off and all of us were jarred and emotionally scarred. Remarkably, no one was harmed.  But as you can imagine, it took quite a large psychological toll on my life and was a significant life event that changed the shape of my being.
Because I was embarrassed, for making such a terrible mistake, I took my time telling people.
I was on the phone to one of my best, and my oldest women friends, and I said, I have something to tell you, something big has happened.  And as the words "I crashed my car" trailed out my mouth, she interrupted me with a squeal of delight to tell me her two year old daughter had just blown a spit bubble.
I didn't tell her about the crash. I gave up. I asked her about the spit bubble. Her babies spit bubble, had become more important than my life.

Women with children tell you flippantly not to have children if you don't really like or want them, which I don't.
But we all know that a person with children can smugly discuss the abstract concept of not having children with all the arm waving philosophy they like, in the comfortable knowing that they have already reproduced, done the deed, sealed their fate, continued their line.

Women on my end of the stick however, who have neither a good relationship, nor any prospect of one, nor any real affection for children, have to take that decision like a very bitter little pill, ever day of their lives, never knowing if it is going to be the medicine that allows them to fly, like they hope to god it is, or, unfortunately a poison that damns them to a life of searing, alcoholic regret.

I am not a person who believes that children are miracles.
The process of creating one, cell by cell, is rather miraculous yes.
But the children themselves, they are not miracles.  A miracle implies something wondrous, awesome, other-wordly.  Children are destructive, irrational, sometimes violent, selfish, unpredictable, conniving, manipulative little devils on speed that suck the energy out of their carers, drain their money, erode their brains and consume consume consume.

And I believe that most people have children to assuage their existential emptiness, to have 'purpose', to have someone who will forever (or until their thirties) need them, someone who will love them and be unable to leave them.
People have children just because it's 'the done thing'.
People have children to have something to shape, walking, talking play dough with their eyes.
People have children to feel important, to get attention, to feel special, to be loved.
I don't think these are good reasons to bring an entire person into being.

And it really annoys me that society reveres this choice, makes of it something so sacred and untouchable that nowhere are we allowed to say 'bad idea homie'.

And lastly, I do not like what the children take away from my friends: all their possibilities.
I have an exceedingly smart, talented bunch of women friends who now spend all their mental and physical energy being the cleaner, the pumpkin masher, the table wiper, the driver and singing inane, repetitive nursery rhymes over and over and over.

No one tells you it will be like this.

In the sad true words of that soppy misogynist loving songstress Lana del Ray: the world was built for two, only worth loving if somebody is loving you.  So sign up.  Join The Club. Put spermatozoa to ovum and create your very own, genetically personalised greatest show of all... come one, come all, to witness and be awed... just don't expect a part in the show, you're hear to bear witness, not to be heard. Can the childless all please take their seats... the show is about to begin.





Friday, September 14, 2012

Round three, ding ding ding

I signed back up to findsomeone.
What happened was, I was lying in bed doing all sorts of nothing on the computer feeling bored.
Then one of those online dating ads came up on the side of my screen, you know how the rockerfellers are monitoring my every move and all that... yeah so I slide on over to findsomeone to check out some boys.
A bit like how you might go onto countdowns website and check out the price of ham.  You don't even necessarily want to eat ham, just checking the price.
And all the faces that pop up, honeys!
So I sign back up, fuck it.
And search again... and where are all those honeys..?
Nowhere to be seen.
Total decoy profiles, I just know it.

Anyway so I'm signed up now. And I think with better self esteem than last time. So this time when some average guy doesn't reply to my message of interest, i won't crumple.

But it's very de ja vu. 
I mean, it is actually the same hundred profiles I have seen before.  Either we chatted and I decided they were too stupid/weren't the same enough (too into rugby and barbecues)/said some dodgy innuendo.... Or they are just ug boots.
Or five foot eight.
Or Christian.  Lotta christians!

One guy, who is unreasonably tall (we're talking just shy of two metres here, but not going to let that bother me), said hey you were here before and you disappeared, why'd you come back.
And i said i don't know really, don't have much hope for finding anyone.
And he said me neither.
And i said, well that's good then. Hopeless. Things can only go up from here.

One guy is a pirate.
Or at least, his profile name is something pirate. And we've shared a few 'aaargh me hearty' messages.
Here I am thinking, sense of humour, tick.
And then he says something about massage and think of me.
And i'm like, GODDAMN innuendo.
I'm no prude, but three messages down you're already insinuating that you're going to rub me all over?!??!
Don't know why I have a problem with this, but I do.

And god forgive me, but some dudes can't spell.  And it's so off putting.
I mean, I'm not talking about words like restaurant, or mississippi here. I'm talking four letter words.  Like 'busy'.  Is it wrong for me to judge?

Never the less.  A couple seem decent and things are a stirring.
And so now I'm in that same old predicament of actually having to do something. As in, go out.
Leave the house.
Forgot about this bit.

So tentatively have a 'drink' date for tomorrow, he left a message on my phone and already gets points for having an nice voice. Who doesn't like a nice voice. And he does waka ama, so you know brothers got a body.
And a maybe sunday date, or should i say, if i go up north for a surf, catching up with him up there.
So many difficulties inherent in this situation.
Bikini. That's one.   Arrgh that reminds me to wax!
And, I go purple when i'm cold.
I'm not pretty purple.  I struggle to hold it together on the best of days... but purple...

And besides all this there's a guy in my wider circle that I have a real crush on. As opposed to a fake, it's all a mirage, internet crush on.
Although it could all be a mirage, because it usually is.

So stay tuned. There's bound to be some funny out there somewhere....


Tuesday, August 14, 2012

“ Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are. ”

—Eckhart Tolle

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Don't have a cow man!

I thought I would tell you one of my favourite jokes.

Two cows are standing in a field and cow 1 turns to cow 2 and says:
'Hey man, have you heard about that Mad Cow Disease? I'm really worried'
Cow 2 turns to cow 1 and replies:
'Yeah man, I've heard of it, but I'm not worried'
'Why not?' Asks cow 1.
'Because' says cow 2 'I'm a helicopter'.

Disclaimer:

The cows in this joke are fictitional characters.

No cows were harmed in the telling of this joke.
By telling this joke I am not implying that mad cow disease is a trivial issue.
I am actually not making a political statement about mad cow disease at all, it is simply a joke.
I do not mean to imply that I understand the challenges of a cows life. 
I do not consider myself an authority on cows, diseases, diseases of cows, or cows with diseases.
Try not to take this joke too seriously.
Try not to take yourself so seriously.  Just try. 
Cows around the world, do not need to feel minimised or marginalised just because I have mentioned them in my blog.  in fact, cows don't need to have any feelings because I mention them in my blog. I am not The Leader of Everyone and Everything in The Whole World.
If you don't like my jokes, just ignore me.

Cows who read my blog should not read into this joke any hateful, negative, or judgemental sentiments that are in fact, not there.
If cows should do this, then it is said cows who are responsible for their own silly misery, and I would hereby like to officially state that I Don't Create Your Feelings.  You do.  With your mind. So be careful what you beleive.

And if anyone like to know my REAL opinion, instead of thrusting one upon me... the truth is...
I like cows.

Happy, crazy, silly old cows. 




Thursday, July 19, 2012

mad men is infiltrating my brain

Sometimes, when i feel sad that I am not married with children, i go out for dinner, which i don't need to arrange for with anyone, drink alot of wine and come home late, sleep in, maybe til 12, and do what i want all the next day. in the quiet. catering for only my own wants. then i feel better.

A client of mine (personal training) called me today in tears, telling me that she couldn't see me today because she was falling apart. she just found out her lying, cheating, abusive husband, who she recently left, is having an affair with a woman in sydney, amongst many.
why does he get to have all the fun. while i'm stuck here in the family home.

Marriage. It's a doozy.

I'm obsessed with mad men, it's set in the 1960s. when men were hard working hard drinking womanisers. and women were either mothers and housewives, of sexually inviting servants of some sort.  or help. the black people were help.  it's hard to belive this was only my mothers generation ago.
the impeccable hair, hats and tight wasted dresses, the dinner etiquette and the accepting way people put up with the chain smoking of lucky strikes. the cadillacs.  it's also amazing how this particular type of trapped existence can seem so appealing.
but then if you are going to be in a trap, why not a well presented one, that smells like lemon washing up liquid and chanel no. 5, cigarettes and brill cream.

I 'belong' to several feminist organisations on facebook.  girls rule the world. that sort of thing. whilst it strikes one chord with me, it twangs another.  why does it seem that women are still just reacting to thier circumstances. it's all still so reactionary. i know i am. 'they can't tell me this' 'they can't do that'... it's just like a child reacting to bad parenting. women, reacting to a 'bad world'.

sure things aint so bad for me. what can i say. i'm not going to get stoned to death for being raped.

i think i'll go out for a walk, i won't have to check with anyone, nor will the neighbours ask hushed questions.  I think i'll drink wine at three. wear pants. work overtime.
these are the liberties of a modern girl, in a modern world. that i am.

I have a growing feeling that there should be a new movement, not patriarchy, but not feminism.
A movement that acknowledges that women need men. and men need women.
Because we do. We need them to take care of us.  And they need us to be tender towards them.
If only we could stop making it a game of battleship.  Stop trying to infiltrate each other. Stop identifying ourselves as separated by enemy lines. I think that would be really shocking.  Who's with me?


Monday, June 11, 2012

boy or girl?

I recently came accross the story of Jenna Talackova, a 23 year old woman who was born a boy, who forced a rule change to let transgender women contend in Miss Universe Canada. 
(FYI Donald Trump owns the franchise and it was he who acquiesed. You just know behind that comb over and rubbery face that guy is a real good c*nt ahy?)
So yeah she was born a boy and says that by the age of 4 she felt like a girl living in a boys body.
Age of four! 
This is when I started to think... do I feel like a girl inside?
What does a girl feel like anyway?
*closes eyes and tries to feel internal feelings of femaleness*
I can't feel if I feel like a girl or not.  I'm not even sure what i'm looking for here.
I try the same thing with 'feeling like a male'
*closes eyes, forages around in the dark for feelings of maleness*
Nup.  I don't have any of those either.
The truth is, I have no feelings of gender inside me at all.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say, I feel quite genderless inside. Inside I feel like a person, kinda, although even that's a bit of a leap.
Mostly I just feel my emotions whizzing around like electrons in an atom, combusting and colliding and disappearing from existence only to reappear again without warning and seemingly without meaning....
But even those, I can stand back from, they're not really me.

What the HELL are these people feeling, that make them feel like, or not like, one gender or the other?!?
This has really got me puzzled.
And it surprises me that this question has only just arisen for me because I lived with a transgender person, originally male turned female, for a year, and I never thought about it then.

And actually, that adds another puzzling level to the whole question, I'll tell you why.
Even though she said she whole heartedly felt female, and wanted to live in a females body, you know, enough to have her wanger surgically transformed into a gash for $10,000 in thailand, enough to put up with weekly laser sessions on her face to remove facial hair (and you know that shit hurts ladies), enough to take synthetic hormones that made her all sorts of fucked up and depressed (oestrogen - who'd have it!) and EVEN To deal with all the bullshit and prejudice and hatred she must have encountered regularly... Even though all of that, she just really acted like a boy.

She had such a boy nature, just like, not that emotional i guess, and seriously, girls are moody! And she was really good with tools and cars and she loved motorbikes, I mean she could really fix shit, like anything, and had heaps of tools... she was just, boysy.  She couldn't see dirt, that was another boy thing, she had that 'broad stroke of the brush' approach to cleaning, and the other three girls who lived there were, you know, a bit more anal. That's a girl thing.  There were lots of little ways she seemed like a boy.  She even liked girls. Even though she was a girl. So she was gay too. Nuts ahy. I think that's why I never really thought about it, because I was too busy trying to be accepting for her sake, because man, what a hard road to hoe....

And once we had this really funny, telling moment. I think it was me who said that women have 72 bathroom items, and men have about 5, and everyone, boy and girl, in the group nodded that it was true, except her and she said, i'm somewhere in the middle.

So that's what I've been wondering about that. What are these people FEELING inside?!?! How does it FEeeeel? Why don't I have a feeling?!?! Should I be feeling something? Should I be worried? What do you feel inside? Does this make me non-gender!?? Aarrgh.

I mean, I definitely like boys, but that is a separate issue.
What if I'm a gay man in a womans body and i don't know yet?!?!?
Wonder if I can get ACC for that...?

That's all really.


Sunday, May 27, 2012

Another Audition

So I look down at my phone and it is flashing and his name is on the screen.  I don't know if I'm calling him, or he's calling me, or how this happened. Then I realise if he's calling me he might be listening to me heavy breath into the phone while I try to work out what's going on, and quickly press end call.

I think about it for one minute and realise I don't want him to think I called him. Oh so, he's a guy from findsomeone I messaged with once right before I got on-line-dating-fatigue (OLDF) and closed my account.  It's been ages, months since then. So I don't want him to think all this time I was clinging to the possibility of us, worked up the guts to call him, and then lost my mettle and hung up mid call! Tragic.

So I text him him "hey (guy), my phone just pocket called you, sorry about that, hope you're well".
Sorted.
Don't hear back for a few days, nothing unusual there.
Then I get a text from him saying he's had his phone off because he's been trekking in the himalaya's and how am I?
So we text back and forth, turns out he's travelling in south america, and after a few texts asks me if we should have coffee then?
If you don't know, I am a believer in just about everything.  From vampires to fairies to there being no actual time, to mayan predictions, to witches, to lot's of types of gods (non-exlusively), to telepathy, aliens, ghosts.. yeah you name it I pretty much believe in it, so being this type of all-believing person, I think that it might have been Fate slash Destiny that my phone rang him all by itself. And what a great story this will make to tell our grandkids.... of course I'll go for coffee.

We text during the week, actually, he texts me alot, and I have a good feeling about him from the things he says and does.  He asks questions, seems to have a full and interesting life, and thinks I'm funny. Which of course I am, but you know, it's good that he can tell. 

So I turn up at the Piha cafe, he lives at piha and i'm happy for the opportunity to get out there because it's been months.  And I see him through the window and he has a nice sort of look about him - blonde, blue eyed, tan skinned surfer type look. I pull the heavy glass door open and step inside and he has risen to greet me and I am 100% sure that his first thoughts are 'oh my god she's so tall/big!' while mine simultaneously are: 'oh god, so small/short!'  Here we go again.

In the week I'd had to log back onto my findsomeone account to preview his profile JUST to be sure.  And I read on there that he is 5'10.  You know I call myself 5'11, but i have no idea really, i don't even know what that means, five what's? badgers? eleven what? eggs? five shoes and eleven cigarettes. I dont' even know.  And I could possibly be 5'10.  So from looking at his height on his profile I think, okay, about my height I can deal with that.

Everyone knows I date short guys. Dated one for 2 and a half years. It was pretty miserable but not because of his height. I thought he was very attractive. So for years I've been saying 'i don't really mind short guys' and you know what? I'm not going to say it anymore because CLEARLY the universe has been listening, and is sending every vertically challenged midget into my life like it's a Charlie And The Chocolate Factory wrap party.

Anyway, I put that aside. And we get coffee's and he asks me what i would like and pays and that's nice and we sit outside and there's his dog and it's about the nicest dog i think i've ever met, a collie huntaway cross, and so polite and gentle and nice lookingand doesn't smell and well behaved and that really endears me to him.
And we're talking and he's eating eggs bene and i'm saying to myself just be yourself and he's telling me all these things, how he's invented stuff and had it patented and sells it (pretty impressive) and has had four major careers, and while he is giving me a short history of just about everything i notice that his hands are really small.

Quite aside from the old, I think fairly accurate adage, that mens hand and foot size is directly proportionate to their appendage size, his small hands just look a little bit ridiculous.
I know, I know, i'm going to hell. ALONE. I get it.  But i'm just being honest.  I move on from the small hands thing and then he puts this massive big woollen jumper on, the kind that looks like it just came off the sheep, real thick thing, maybe an inch thick, and it has rolled up cuffs and a kind of turtle neck, i like the jumper, but unfortunately the sleeves end shy of his wrists. and in this too short sleeved, over-sized, massive jumper he looks a little bit like .... a little-person.  You know? with normal head size but short limbs and small hands?  I mean. Come on. I'm really not that shallow.  But a little person?

And also, it's starting to become apparent, that he is for talking, and i am for listening. And that's probably the crux of it.
So we go for a walk down the beach and i ask if he feels like a big 'stonking' walk because i haven't had enough exercise this week and we're at piha and the air is all fresh and misty and the beach so long and ideal for it, and he says we could walk up to the look out bit and I say cool and can we walk FAST?
Reason 1 - my back hurts, all the time, and i shit you not it hurts more when i dawdle.
Reason 2 - i have long legs and my walking pace is fast. walking slowly is like waiting for a toddler. Or watching a toddler try to find it's mouth with a spoon, but all the slimy porridge ending up on it's top, hands and chair.
Reason 3 - i need the exercise.
And i begin to stride off at my normal beach walking pace and he falls behind and says, but you have long legs and i have little stumpy ones.
And now the word stumpy has been said, laid on the table, out there for all to see.

Up we go, me and jack the dog up front and piha-man twelve paces behind.  And all the way up and around and down and through, he continues his telling me all the things he's ever done, or thought, or been to.  And the worst of it is, he punctuates his sentences with the word 'mate'.
He actually refers to me as 'mate'.  Like: and then this thing happened and MATE you wouldn't believe it... and i mean MATE have you ever seen.... It's not a general reference, he's actually referring to me as mate. and sometimes dude. which is vaguely better but not much.
I have a thing about being called mate, no, women have a thing about being called mate.
Mate is what you call ugly chicks.  I am not your mate, I am not on your buliding site in gumboots with a fag hanging out the corner of my mouth, nodding my head in condelence to your big night out shagged a fat chick story.
Mate.
And it just kind of adds to the me bing three stories taller than him thing, with him calling me mate, i'm feeling more and more like a checkered shirt wearing, short haired, tractor driving, lesbian.
This is not how I want to be feeling today.

We reach the look out bit and i'm soaking in the big endless grey atlantic sea, six foot swell and tiny black bodies of surfers'; the wet air on my face and emansive black rocks pushing up into the slate sky, and his phone rings and he talks on it for five minutes. and when i want to keep moving he says 'gee you don't sit still and take it all in do you?!' but i did. while he was talking on the phone.

So i don't know, is it the height, the hands, the always talking and telling me the same story three times (yeah i get it, i already got it), the calling me mate, the stumpy legs? Is it all those things, none of them? I don't know. I just know there's no spark. And when there's no spark, there's never going to be.  Sparks do not grow.  We are not two bits of tindery wood, who if we just rub together long enough will create an inferno.  If i've learnt anything about dating it's that sparks don't grow. In fact the lack of sparking almost always escalates into full blown revulsion if you let it go on, hoping for a fire. In a way, it's like mother nature saying, next! And quite aside from whether it means anything or not, I just want to feel something.  It's a bad feeling, not feeling anything.

And you see this, this is part of the reason I don't want to go on dates. Prior to meeting him i was feeling intreptidation, more than half the reason was because i don't want to meet a nice person, have them put in all this vain and noble effort to impress me, and then have to tell them i don't like them.  Because I don't NOT like them, I just don't want their sweaty body writhing on mine.  But that's not how it sounds. It sounds like 'i think you're shit'.  And then this perfectly nice person you have nothing aginst, immediately feels like shit and hates you. It's rough.

I am good and polite and go back to his house for tea and listen to more stories and then finally the light is changing and it's a decent time to say i have to go.  And we have an awkward hug goodbye where he goes to kiss my cheek but i leer to one side and his lips go flying past my cheek, completely missing it so he is making a big MWA sound into the air over my shoulder. I hadn't planned for that to happen. Oh well. And off I'm driving with him on the driveway waving.  If the date had have been with his dog, I would have damn well adopted that dog.  I've never liked a dog more in my life.  I'm going to miss that dog. Might have been the only dog I'll ever meet that I really liked.  The Fates are laughing at me.  I swear they're laughing.

Oh P.S! I had to add this, when i told my mum about him she said, well i'm 5'10.  And my mum is a tall lady. And you're 5/11. She says. Which makes him no taller than 5/8, and probably 5/7.  So he lied. And when we sat down to coffee, the first or second thing he said to me was, i happen to remember in your proflie picture you were a blonde (i've died my hair reddy brown) in a vaguely accusory manner.  Can you believe it!??!