What to do on a Friday night these days....

I blew off mini-golf around the boy's office to go to pump and then come home and cook the slightly limp spinach i've been wondering what to do with in some canneloni. Pretty good. Bear always makes things look way easier than they are though. I, on the other hand, have the peculiar knack of being able to make ANYTHING take twice as long as it should.

Just when it looked like I was going to get bored at work for the first time since I took on that last role, I got handed 3 new papers for this months meeting today. And the promise of more by the sounds of it, because, as my loopy boss says, "you're good at writing". Flattery will get you everywhere oh kindy teacher of mine, but please refer to the peculiar knack above.

One of the aforesaid papers, I'm going to say this, cause I won't say a name, and I want to make what I do sound much more interesting than it is, involves a female to male transgender that has only recently gone through the changes "chh chhh chh chh chan-ges...time to face the strange...changes"....and experienced depression etc as a result which effected things with his colleagues and got him right royally dropped in the shit with a supposed "critical incident" involving anomalies in his prescribing. I talked to him today, and he was the loveliest person, has just bought a house, found the kids schools, and now I get to go back to him on Monday and say, well....you might not be able to start work just yet.

Crap.

In truth, I'm just so unmotivated right now. I just do so little that really helps people. And I know that's bullshit because I should just get off my ass and do it if it's bothering me instead of faffing around at the gym or writing on my freakin blog or gazing with trepidation at the passport application sitting on my messy bedroom floor.

Phoney.

I think I need a hot chocolate....

Causing a kerfuffle

One of the things I like most about this blogging business, apart from having somewhere to write, is the opportunity to interact with some really neat, interesting people overseas that I've never met. I've never been in a chatroom, wouldn't consider online dating etc etc. But this seems less dodgy somehow.

I've caused some consternation in the last couple of days with this hiding pixietale business amongst some people who I think are pretty spesh. So I put it back. I guess I'll just have to attempt to keep it a bit lighter....

As The Douros rightfully pointed out I used my HNT up yesterday (yes, with the pic of me and my grannie) so tonight's photo is one of the little brother when I was staying with him in the weekend. His dad and I spent some time Sunday afternnon finding the shoes and clothes (well, actually the shoes took him all of five seconds to decide on) as he is growing like a beanstalk and as Frank (his dad) said, he was starting to look like pee wee Herman with his jeans up around his shins.

It terrifies me how, at the ripe old age of seven, he is a complete and utter smooth operator when he wants to be. Ladies, look out...

Suddenly shy

I'm not hiding from any of you. I just suddenly got tired of being so introspective and knowing that my non-electronic whanau were probably thinking I'm a headcase. And after emailing that last post to the boy (not the URL of course) I received confirmation that I am in fact a headcase. No, that's not fair, it was more something along the lines of 'deep' in an eye-brow raised tone of voice. He thinks I think about stuff too much....

which may be true. But the thinking stems from the feeling. That's the bit that kicks me in the nuts. Metaphorically speaking...

I got my application for the passport today. I want to run away now. Except I'm in flannel PJs. But I'd like to go somewhere foreign, where no one speaks English, and I'd wear white muslin and sit in a castle made of stone over-looking a fog-enrobed moat and a giant herb garden and write. Maybe I'd write love letters, to an imaginary lover. The boy seems to like keepin it real so he won't do at all. Sigh.

I think he's coming over soon and I'm still all tired and rubbery from last night.

I keep getting in trouble from everyone for sharing too much, but this is a blog after all.

Oh, and just to bring things back to a family show, this is my grandma, who turned 80 this month. The shin dig i went back to tauranga for was in her honour. That's me grinning devilishly next to her.

It depends on the light

It is like looking at one of those holograms that you tilt every which way to see both pictures.

A suburban landscape, neatly mowed lawns, trees in bud, faces I have known all or the better part of my life, the backdrop of my childhood. In a flicker it is desolate and devoid of sanguinity. Nothing is as it was.

And yet there is familiarity, reciprocal recognition. It unnerves me where it should comfort. I drive streets unconscious. Restaurants, department stores, the local supermarket; they are all repositories of sentimentality, of treacle-thick memory. I sense that I am an object being tentatively explored with an inquisitive tongue, and I am soon to be spit out. I have the taste of iron in my mouth.

Guilt. Dormant and cancerous. My head becomes light with it when I am showering, and I begin to cry from habit. But I can't, and I remember that for the last two years I have been consumed by a veritable drought and instead I lather myself in milk and honey, and turn the water as hot as I can withstand it. When I step out in to the embrace of a towel that was probably once laundered by my mother, and open the window to release the steam that has engulfed the tiny room, I look out upon another woman plucking at mum's washing line, with another cat weaving between her legs. And again the holographic picture flickers in the mid-afternoon light.

I hate the roles we play. Saturday night I dined with the extended family. I applied more makeup than I usually would, in anticipation of the theatrics. I hate those conversations where people size each other up, compete with one another, their eyes glazed with envy or disregard or confusion. Tug-o-war conversations. I marvel at people who can't hold a conversation about anything other than themselves. I am tired of bearing my soul to people who don't deserve it, revealing I am unsure about what I want to do with my life or even that I need to do anything. Eqully I gag at pretending to be inspired by my job, or that I am hungry for adventure, or desperate to nest and nurture. But I am all smiles and charming and attempt to be stirred by a connection wrought with blood although I know the time is too short to appreciate the essence of any one individual, let alone a crowd. My soul is made quiet with the fear of being boxed, labelled, returned. I feel my eyes pleading with those who sit with me, do they see there is nothing quintessential about me, about all of us, that this performance is cruel and pointless?

It is a fragile game we play.

Back with my little man

This is not an even more demeaning reference to the love interest in my life. But I have my seven year old brother sitting on my lap at the moment, with a red and green mohawk with enough hair gel slicked through it to get even my boofy mop to stand to attention. I think i may be getting high from it....

Anyway, I'm in Tauranga. Spent last night with Lou in Auckland in her cute little apartment. We went to Daikoku which is a bit of a tale in itself, and I had a really great time with her. She was a bit amped cause of her boy being over-worked and absent a lot at the moment (he's a mechanic for a motor sports team) but it was all sweet again today. We spent over an hour in the bendon (lingerie) outlet in her suburb and I spent an exorbitant amount of money getting pink and lacey and g-stringey. Hope this redeems me somewhat. Then we drove the 200kms south or so to get to Tauranga.

"The" boy dropped me at the airport around mid-day yesterday, which was very sweet. He wouldn't let me board until the last minute, at which point i realised i'd left my coat back at the cafe and he had to go running through the airport to fetch it for me, while I got mistaken for the passenger with a pacemaker and nearly got frisked with one of those scanny things.

Jacob very much wants you all to know that it's Dean's birthday tomorrow and he is dressing up as a pirate. We will have photos of both the red and green mohawk (it was crazy hair day today at school for the last day of term before they break for a two week break) and the pirate kit.

Peace out. I'm mellow and in holiday mood and need to go find a beer or something.... Plus J and i have a bit of boogie-ing to do. He's playing with my hair and it is making me feel all goofey inside.

Snore.......

I'm incredibly dull at the moment. I've been holding my breath all week, waiting to exhale at approximately mid-day tomorrow when I will scoot up a runway on my way to Louby's new home for a night, where we will dine on Japanese food and drink a white shiraz (I'm intrigued Lou). I will see her brand spanking new little shoe box apartment, wake up in Jaffa-land and then hopefully go shopping for underwear. Most of the ones I own at the moment are testament to the fact I have been a single gal for a rather longish time. Black, cotton, boy legs.... Then we will totter on down to Tauranga, hopefully in time to pick up the Buddy from school (he's on school holidays for 2 weeks after that), and I rang Frank tonight and got his mum as he was at a meeting and was regaled with a rather comprehensive run down, of well, everything past and future, from her.

Work is actually quite interesting at the moment. I made a doctor cry this week, and it looks like one of my papers will be appealed to the District Court. But I'm distracted. And weary. And conscious of the fact I'm not really developing or advancing where I am, just mulling and musing. And dreaming of far away lands. Oh the repetition on this blog.

Note to self: apply for a passport.

After flooding the kitchen the other week, I almost managed to set it on fire tonight trying to impress the boy (who unnervingly referred to himself as "your boy" in an email today). It was unnerving because I wondered if I had ever called him that to his face. Not because he phrased it that way, I quite liked that part.

Boring Bridie.

Election night and a sigh of relief

NZ's triennial parliamentary election was held yesterday. I spent most of the day at work, then trotted up the hill and went and ticked a couple of boxes with uncharacteristic decisiveness. The anguish came later that night, after I'd made a slightly soggy paella, as the election night coverage commenced and the votes began to be tallied. National were ahead by about 10 percent with just under 10 percent of the votes counted. But by the time we got to Jimmy's huge throbbing post-election party things were starting to even out, the Greens were sitting above five percent, and the left/right margin continued to narrow until the final result (with special votes to follow apparently traditionally favouring National) had Labour with just one seat more than National. So yes the country has swung to the right since the 2002 landslide, but it could have been worse. It could have been so so so much worse. And as an esteemed acquaintance of mine pointed out at the succession of the evening as Clark took the podium and made what was effectively a victory speech, at least a large percentage of NZers, (well, about half of them) were not blinded by the superficial platform of tax cuts.

Highlights of the night. Hobbs took Wellington Central, Clarkson ejected Peters from Tauranga, Lauren got a bit boozed and let me drive her car, and I woke up at nearly 10 o'clock this morning and didn't have to sob into my pillow.

Two meals of note

Thursday night after swallowing a couple of neurofen I had roast dinner at the boy's mum's house and met both aforesaid mum and the elder brother for the first time. Big bro, who is based in Auckland, is incredibly sweet and I said to the boy later that it was quite reassuring meeting him and seeing the resemblance, how attentive they both are with the mum (who is in convalescence), and knowing that his chivalry isn't all an act. The boy seemed to handle the meeting all very well, even the part when the big bro and I became engaged in rather heated political discussion, but I found it all quite amicable compared to similar "discussions" with my whanau. And in those situations I'm used to being a minority and managed to not sulk when the mum said her little bit about small business and it became clear I was outnumbered three to one. I got a kiss from both the mum and the brother at the end of the night and left feeling pleased to have met them and that I'd made an okay impression. Not that I'd been that worried. The ex-mother in law is still buying me gifts after all....

Friday night we went to Il Casino for a work function as his team had made an outrageous profit the previous month or something. I got fancied up, even wore a little dress borrowed from Bear that she'd seamstressed earlier in the week and some little kitten heels bought for the occasion. My earlier guilt had been assuaged with a red rose and a little heart shaped lollipop. I'd never been to the restaurant before, it's a bit fancy, and I'd heard rumours of mafia and immediately envisaged a dark candle-lit room with lots of round tables and white linen and pasta and dark suits. But the private room we were seated in was very intimate old-age mediterranean, with a huge bust that looked kind of familiar in the corner, a fireplace, terracotta coloured walls and a beautiful long dark wooden table laden with glass. I drank too much pinot for someone on antibiotics, had scallops for an entree, king prawns for the main and shared a delicious little chocolate fondant dessert with the boy. After we'd eaten we wandered up some old wooden stairs that were part tree-hut part old luxury liner and led up to this gorgeous little lounge room above the restaurant that was painted an earthy teal and consolidated the nautical effect. The walls were adorned with white-boards with signatures and messages, and the boy pointed out a message from Ian McKellen "love from Middle Earth" or some such. There was a man getting bluesy/sexy on a grand piano in the corner, crooning Robbie and Rod and the Beatles. Everyone was quite boozed by this stage and singing along. And then it was just me and the boy sitting talking on the leather couch at about 12:45 in the morning, his hand playing with the zip on the back of my dress, and I couldn't remember feeling so blissfully happy in a very long long time. And not a fleeting bubble on the breeze kind of happy.

HNT

Way back when Cece was first tempting me over to the HNT side, I had toyed with the idea of posting my new belly stud that my stepmum had gotten me for my birthday. But I refrained as my tummy is vampiric white, spotted with big chocolate chip moles and kind of unacceptably snail traily for a girl (my Chile sis will back me up on this). Sorry to be so gross.

Unfortunately, after some recent vigorous aerobic activity last week I noticed in the shower that I'd lost the bloody thing. Nowhere to be found. And it was a blue sparkly daisy, I liked it a lot. So after 24 hours I went to replace it with the old one, and the bugger of a thing had sealed over. And even though it has given me grief and I don't even particularly like my stomach for aforesaid reasons I pushed it through again, and it bled a little.

Here is the infamous belly button somewhat veiled by the cute little camisole my ex-boy's mum sent me for THIS birthday. Yes, she is still buying me underwear. And I still haven't written her thank you.

Sorry that the undies clash.

My buddy Bear

I feel bad about putting all my bad energy out there on the internet, so I thought i would do something feel good.

This is my buddy Bear. She is one of my favourite people in the whole world. She is a bit crazy, which is one of the reasons I love her. The hat in this photo is a good representation of Bear's zany side. But she is also smart, and is doing a PHD in public health and housing. And she is a great cook, and when I got home from my last art class tonight she had made me tea. I think I was attached to her when we were in a student hostel together our first year at Uni in 1999. And then we shared a room for a year, which wasn't so smart. She writes beautiful letters and found me a four leaf clover once when I needed it most. I can tell her how I really feel about things, and she might pull a face or say something equally candid back, but I know she'll still love me.

One thing about her I have trouble with, she is hard to corrupt or lead astray. I guess that's good though.

She's getting married next year to a boy that loves her lots, I know that because I live with them both. I think they'll really appreciate this dedication. And I feel like this could be the beginning of a series....

Grizzle

For a multiplicity of reasons, I'm not sleeping that shit-hot at the moment. I've already been reading for half an hour this morning. Now i'm gonna get up and go to the gym.
Although the thought of flinging myself out my (very high) bedroom window with one of my percale sheets wrapped around my throat is almost as inviting at the present time.

Note to self: Do not engage anyone in political discussion until this election is over. I nearly had a full fledged argument with someone I don't know particularly well in a room full of people last night, when he likened the Maori Party to the National Front. I need to learn to be a bit more constructive about these things, instead of throwing my toys everytime someone expresses a view incongruent with my own.

Tonight is my final night of art class. Then Bear and I are going to see Willy Wonka. I'm a bit frightened about what they've done to Johnny.

Eve

Sometimes I lie awake at night and my mind is like my radio when it is between stations,
or,
like the marble effect at the traffic lights when the pedestrians scatter in every direction,
I want to be held by my mother,
and wear boy leg pyjama pants with pink hearts and cartoon depictions of pigs,
and giggle, I want to giggle until the day I die,
whenever that will be.

But there is a furnace in my breast,
and a huge well within me, opulently deep, empty
and yet flooded with longing, with hot empathy
there is blood in my urine,
and still my hollow womb aches,

I wonder if I dropped twenty five pebbles in to a virgin-still pond
one at a time,
how many ripples would reverberate from the point of entry
how much life and darkness and viscous depth
would be effected

Home

I've inadvertently ended up spending the week out in Seatoun housesitting the boy's mum's house while she was in getting a hip operation. That's why i've been absent. And it was a beautiful week, like a holiday. The house is sitting on the hill looking out over blue Harbour for 180 degrees. It is an older home, but tastefully decorated with lots of wooden floors and earthy tones, which I love. There was a bath. And on Wednesday I did the naughtiest thing i've done in a long time, and called in sick (well I have had that sore throat hanging around). I got taken to a little faery shop in Seatoun (pixie heaven), had brunch at the Chocolate Fish, went for a walk along the coast, fell asleep on the sun lounge reading my book, and then cooked him tea while he was out visiting his gran who has dementia. I made a really nice pasta sauce, which I'm quite excited about, particularly as my cooking buddy who is allergic to tomatos wants us to go solo, ostensibly as we're never home together anymore.

I suppose I am getting slightly attached. And I should stop looking for ways to psychologically sabotage things. Good god he's intense though....

And I'm excited about being back in my futon tonight. Particularly if it is anywhere near as gorgeous tomorrow as it was today, as I'll wake up in the sun and bask.

Whoopsies

I made a boo boo. Bear went in to World and smelt these crazy perfumes that have names like laundromat and dirt and rain and ocean and honeysuckle and thunderstorm and decided to order some on the internet and she got wet garden and brownie and i wanted thunderstorm but it was going to take 7 days to despatch, so instead i ordered gin and tonic and we'd been in my room for awhile and i came out cause she was talking to her ma and I heard running water coming from the kitchen. And suddenly realised I'd started doing the dishes quarter of an hour or more beforehand. So I hopped around and said holy shit in a squealy voice until Mark brought me in a towel and told me hopping around wasn't fixing things and then I mopped. And as I mopped in my bath robe and flannel pjs and danced with the mop to Ella Fitzgerald I suddenly saw myself as an observer, and I was my crazy aunt, minus a few years. It was a very sobering thought.

The happiest moment of my day today was when a doctor phoned and in his cute sri lankan or indian voice started telling me his problems and i patiently listened until he started sporadically hiccuping and i had to clench my desk and think unhappy thoughts to restrain myself (it was such a cute little hiccup) and I was so proud of myself as I responded very professionally and calmly until right at the end of the conversation I blew it and blurted out,

well, you better go have a glass of water,

and he apologised and then I giggled a farewell. God i'm a mongrel.

The grass is always greener.

I feel like having been through what I have in my life I should be a lot wiser than I currently am. It amazes me how naive and oblivious I can be. How swept up in the moment I become as my curly blonde head is catapulted skywards to bob merrily around amidst the cumuli. Retrospection prompts a counter-response, and I metaphorically curl up in to the foetal position.

I have had a very surreal weekend for a girl who three weeks ago spent weekends, well - alone. I rarely feel lonely. I have fantastic friends and have learnt to feed my soul with endorphins and nature and solitude. And for some not insignificant time in the recent past, whatever the activity, whoever it was with, things have been done on my terms, as a solitary unit. And there has been peace and an element of invincibility that has accompanied being alone.

I've always considered myself a dire romantic, with a raging feline vanity glorifying in flattery and affection, and secretly cultivated delusions of ultimately being destined for a hedonistic existence worshipped by some hapless lesser mortal of the opposite sex. I think it was because I have never had anything remotely along those lines before, and that's what fantasies are for. I have decided that the ex-boyfriend, the only boy I've ever loved in 'adult' fashion, was emotionally lazy, he was uninspired, and he was frightened, of what I am unsure, but he was hopelessly rooted in his sedentary comfort zone that over time suffocated me, suffocated the whimsical and spontaneity in me.

That's not to say there weren't wonderful things about him. I mean he tolerated what a head case I could be for one. But I am suddenly achingly aware of the kaleidoscope of people in the world, the jigsaw puzzle pieces of people in existence that joined could make an infinite number of pictures. I am curious about the potential for love without crippling compromise that would not callously cast shadowy judgments or scorch like an over-zealous mid-day sun, but instead allow each other to furl and unfurl flower-like at the appropriate times in life. Surely there could be appropriate nuturing and appreciation, but no requests to change colour, or grow facing a certain direction, or worst of all, neglect.

I'm not saying I'm falling in love. This new boy is rather at the opposite end of the spectrum from what I am used to, and perhaps I just need a good hard back hand but I suspect his intensity. At moments I watch the courtship with a detached objectivity and marvel that although time has given me perspective, it has by no means healed all. At this present moment I have a deepened awareness of myself, of why it is I don't want to be vulnerable, why it is hard for me to trust, how perhaps I need patience and tenderness much more than I need to be twirled around on moonlit beaches or gazed at adoringly over the rim of a glass heaped with cabernet merlot. I particularly don't want to take on anyone emotionally weaker than me, not at this stage in my life. As I go about my day allowing a stranger in to my life, my fears, my bedroom, I expect to hear an inner voice chanting softly from my core. The voice hovers protectively over a tiny blue flame that it has been guarding devoutly for many months, years, and it now burns solidly although it was once almost allowed to be snuffed out.

My mother always chastened me for over-analysing things.

Curly Mop Thursday

I think my HNT photos are getting tamer. Starting with my ass probably wasn't the best move.

Anyway this is my head. And Cece you said you like the colour of my skin. In New Zealand, we call that vampiric white. My married friend told me I have the whitest stomach she's ever seen. But this post isn't about my stomach.

It's about boys and their preference for standard issue girls. In this case, I am ummming and aaaahing over whether to chop my hair off again. I loved it when it was pixie short. But now it's not, and yesterday the Chinese girl at work told me I reminded her of Shirley Temple. When it gets longer, I feel younger and girlier and less dynamic. And I get more "80s, and it took A LOT for me to leave that decade behind....

But mostly, I have been told (not by the boy) but by boys that guys prefer long hair. And I know I shouldn't give a shit. So I will chop it off, before Summer, so it doesn't get tangled in my snorkel.

I went on another date tonight. They are developing a distinct characteristic of food followed by ocean. I might need to spice that up a bit. Maybe we're almost not dating now.....