A letter to my friend.

Dear Marge,

Let me just start by saying that i love you.  I dont think i've ever told you before, but i do.  I value your friendship above most and i am always, always on your side.  You can always count on me, and i love the fact that i can always count on you.  You know me better than anyone else and although i often try to keep you at arms length, i can count on the fact that you are exactly that far away, no further.  You are a wonderful woman; clever, witty, charismatic and loyal. You are my sister.  You are my best friend.

So it upsets me so, so much to see you in this ridiculously abusive relationship.  You deserve much better than that and i honestly, just dont get it.  I dont know why you stand for it.  I dont know how you can stand it.  I appreciate that you have a lot at stake, three children, a house and a lot of history.. but i really think you should just leave.

No one gets to raise their voice at you, no one get to call you names or humiliate you in public or in front of your friends.  No one gets to manipulate you, or emotionally abuse you. And most of all, no one gets to teach your children, my god-children, that this is an acceptable way to treat a person.  So i want you to leave him, leave it all.

You can be happy without him.  Your children will grow into better people without his influence.  He does not deserve your loyalty, your patience, your compassion.  10 years are enough, you are my friend and no one gets to treat you with such disrespect.

Let's do this, you have my full support.
Mars x

I used to work with a girl (woman?) we all affectionately called Beast.  This was her name. She knew it was her name and she lived up to it, in fact, i believe she had it tattooed on her arm in Thai writing on a holiday to Phuket once.  She was a career alcoholic and has been responsible or part of, some of the more... distasteful events which have ever occurred to me.  This woman drank like a man, fucked like a man, you could fry an egg on her hair on any day of the week, and generally was and is, a bit fucking foul.  But she used to be pretty damn fun to go out with, and was the person who introduced me to the concept of a 'blend'.  For this i am thankful, waste not want not.

Anyway, last year I had this dude on the go, who we called Old Greg.  Not cause he was old, just cause he was Greg.  Old Greg was nothing much - thick as a post and a bit mental, but he was pretty fun to party with for a time until one day, he opened up his wardrobe and showed me his gun.  Shortly after that, Mick Gatto's brother turned up at Old Greg's place and it was then i knew that i was in over my head.  No amount of booze or drugs was going to make any of this really ok.  I'm a nice girl from Cheltenham who appreciates irony; not Mick Gatto's brother at the door, or Old Greg's gun in the wardrobe.

Shortly after all this occurred, i got a message on facebook from Beast.  'How do you know Old Greg?!  We used to go out!"

I nearly died in my jocks, sloppy seconds from the Beast?!?!?  That's disgusting.

And it was with this; my whoring days were over.

Not even the romantic text message after i'd backed away slowly and quietly, hoping he wouldn't notice "Y can't we fuk?" would be able to win me back.

Anyway, I was having a conversation with Amazon not long ago about our official count... She's trying to get her number up, feeling ripped off - like she hasn't lived enough life yet and got enough, y'know... dick.  While i (who also feels ripped off on any number of topics), i'm trying to get my number down after what in hindsight, have been one or two regrettable scenarios.  And without really realising it, i've created a system of rules as to what 'counts' and what doesn't count.  You know, for my mind.

Basically, an (ahem) encounter, doesn't 'count' if it meets any or all of the following criteria:

The statute of limitations
This is totally a thing.  If it happened over seven years ago, it's off your record.  I can't be held responsible for this shit forever!  If the ATO can forgive sins after seven years, well, i can forgive myself also.

If it only happened once
And i mean once.  Slipped in, slipped out, no followup - that shit doesn't count.  It barely even happened.

If i dont remember it, it definitely didn't happen

If no one else knows about it, and I want to forget it ever happened... it's gone.  Off the record.  Stricken.

Sadly, I am going to have to wait out the seven years on Old Greg but other than that, i'm down to a pretty respectable number!

A friend of mine has started doing this thing she calls her Happiness Project where about once a week she posts something on facebook that she's really grateful for.  A year ago, i would have found this completely wank and probably blocked her, but now i think what she's been doing is pretty sweet.  So here's some things i am sincerely grateful for.

My mum.  I though i was going to lose her 11 years ago, and every day since then i have grown to love her more and more.  The thought of life without her is probably the worst thing that could happen so i am so grateful to have her.

I still have two grandparents and i'm so lucky.  They are amazing people who i adore.

I recently started a new job, and i'm pretty happy there. The experience that some of my colleagues who started at the same time as me have had has been significantly worse.

So that's it.  Some stuff is still shit, but that stuff is all pretty good.

One of the reasons i'm really enjoying my job at the moment are because of the people i am meeting each day.  It's not all roses and I do still meet an extraordinary number of absolute dicksucks, but i try not to waste too much time on them and give each person the benefit of the doubt that they're going to be awesome... and sometimes, they actually are!

Yesterday i had an old guy come and sit in front of me with barely discernable English... i tried really hard, listened really carefully... but i just had no idea what he was saying to me.  So i took him over to the map on the wall and got him to point where he wanted to go and worked out it was Barbados.  Sweet... So i set about trying to find a fare with reasonable connections straight through to freakin' Barbados, kinda skipping over the 'conversation' part of the sale process.

It was taking ages cause what d'ya know, it's neither cheap nor easy to get from Melbourne to Barbados but i found something i could offer the guy which posed the next problem; trying to get his name out of him.  I asked him if he'd booked at the store before and after a while finally understood that his wife had booked here before when he added 'but she died'.

Then he just kinda kept repeating it... 'my wife, she died... now i got no one'.  Meanwhile i've stopped looking at the computer, as every time he said this, he was getting more and more upset.  'My wife, she died... now i got no one'.  And he's starting to get visibly distressed, and well up... so im starting to well up too, then he starts crying, so i start crying as well.  He just kept saying it like he couldnt believe it - couldnt believe his wife had died and that he's been left here, with no one.  Suddenly, i understood him perfectly and it was so fucking upsetting i cant even begin to express it.

He said he had no family here and had to go back to Barbados.  I agreed, he should go to where his people are.  The store is full and people waiting to be served, he's crying, i'm crying and i cant find a routing with reasonable fucking connections.

So that was pretty fucking... real.  Not the funnest day at work ever, but definitely proof that i am actually a human.

Dear Dottie.

Interface is hard. I am reporting in from my phone - try that, it's pretty simple.

I ate some fruit.

Are you there Mars? It's me, Dot.

It's been a very long time since I blogged. Things have changed. I've moved to San Francisco. I've gotten a full time job. My hair is short. I wear glasses. Blogger's interface is all different. I've started using the word 'interface'.

So, wanna start blogging again?

This is where I live now...