Confessions of the drunk and smokie

Purpose:
Recently it has become more and more evident that according to the “experts” I drink too much booze. Additionally there seems to be a popular belief now that smoking is not in fact good for you – even if you smoke menthols – I know, I find it hard to believe myself but that’s what “they” say, I just wish they wouldn’t say it quite so often because I am starting to believe it.

I can’t say that I am a problem drinker in the sense that factors in my life are adversely affected by the amount I drink or the regularity of my drinking, but I can say that I really really really look forward to a glass, well lets be honest, at least a bottle at the end of the day, which is accompanied by smoking, because the two just fit so incredibly well together and I simply do not do one without the other. You will never find me outside the building at work having a smoke, or in a café at lunch time or walking alone the street blowing smoke and ashing all over those unfortunate people walking behind me, but when a bottle of wine or a bottle of gin is cracked open a smoke must be lit, its just the rules.

So I firstly decided that the smoking was a huge problem, I have been smoking more often and more regularly than I would like to and I know it makes things I love doing like running, just that much harder and less enjoyable for me, but the habit is formed, if I try to have wine without the smoke I miss it.

I have also recently lost quite a lot of weight, and seem to be returning after a period of hiatus to a more normal size. The issue is that despite the exercise and diet being really very very good, there is little movement of the scales recently and I think it’s the booze.

Additionally I have been becoming more serious about starting a family some time in the not so distant future and have been wondering how I would possibly cope without my two most pleasured vices for not only the 9 months of pregnancy, but also in the lead up to ensure I was in perfect health and also in the period for up to 12 months where I would hope to be able to breast feed – this puts some real questions before me about what I would prefer – to have a family, or a bottle of wine and a packet of smokes that never runs out…….

More importantly, would I actually even be able to do it and to what extent is my “addiction” likely to influence my decision to have a glass (or a bottle) or wine every so often or just have a fag every now and then when pregnant as it ‘really couldn’t be that bad’…….and this is a likely scenario when I find it hard to make it to Wednesday without either – let alone several years!!

I don’t want to be the kind of mother that has to call a cab to take her kid to the hospital in an emergency because I have sculled a bottle of wine simply to get me through the day, and I certainly don’t want to be the kind of mother who smokes around her kids – sorry to those of you who do, its not a value judgement about you or your parenting, its just that I don’t want to do that.

So I have decided to set myself a challenge. I want to stop both smoking and drinking. I can drink on weekend but not combined with smoking and I need to drink more moderately, smoking is to be completely cut.
So I have decided to record my daily struggle via this blog. Perhaps it will provide inspiration, perhaps it will prove to be one of the reasons I stop, who knows – but here we go:

Monday 16 November 2009

Ok, so the first day of my challenge and I must admit that I had not fully committed to this challenge although broadly speaking I have wanted to not drink or smoke on school nights as a rule.

So got home, cleaned up and did some washing, David came home, we were to meet the builder, he arrived and after an hour or so of consultation he left. I needed to go to Coles to get a few things for tea and David went to the gym, but before doing so put a steak in the microwave to defrost. I was advised that this would take 7 minutes and that I needed to stay until the microwave was finished or it would keep beeping until I got back home, perfect! I could have a quick glass of wine and a smoke – which I did.

When preparing tea, I drank another glass of wine and when David was cooking his steak on the BBQ I topped up the wine glass and had a smoke outside, it was really nice out there – what will I do out there when I don’t have a glass of wine and a smoke in each hand!????

Glass of wine with tea, David had one too and after dinner I had just one last smoke and washed down the last of the bottle. Oh dear. It would seem that I have a long way to go. It would be fair to say that the first day of my challenge was not the success I had hoped it would be. But there is always tomorrow.

The first shag post husband exit stage left
Ok, so the first step in recovering from anything we are always told when we are kids and we fall over, fall off a swing or fall off our bike is to get straight back up and give it another shot. I have found this to be absolutely true where matters of the heart are concerned – well, not the heart so much but certainly the loins.

When you break up with someone it is always good to make sure you have sex with someone else as soon as possible, those are my words of advice for the young folk – as they say “the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else” and never truer words have been spoken I say.

So this was my mission – to get laid after the husband left with the chick with the great body and tight pussy. The real issue was, who would the victim be and how quickly could I make this happen???!!!

As I may have mentioned in previous instalments, I was really not in a great place at this time and really must not have seemed like a terribly attractive proposition, even for the sexually depraved, a hole in the ground would have probably been a safe bet for a fun night than yours truly during that time, at least you would know that there was no chance that you were going to be covered in spew in the throws of passion, or have you partner in crime pass out when on top of you – yes, I did do that, but that is a story for another day……

I felt that the best way to achieve my goal was to just let things happen, but when they didn’t and I happened to have a coffee one day with a great mate of mine who used to play AFL and is now an AFL coach, he said that he would certainly be able to find a volunteer to sort my little issue out, which was great news to me, as I believe there is not an athlete on this planet who has a better physic than an ALF player, and the mere thought that I was to get my grubby little paws on one of them, even for the most amazingly short amount of time was enough to keep me from swallowing a bottle of sleeping tablets that night!

So the first bloke he gave my number to contacted me when I was in a hotel room in some desolate little town in regional Victoria for work, I knew who he was and had actually worked with him so felt it was rather strange that my friend would have given him my number, hell would need to freeze over before I would shag this block, not only is he as ugly as a hat full of assholes, I don’t even like him and didn’t get along with him well enough to even have a short conversation, so I quickly informed my dating agent to improve the standards.

The next call I got was also of concern, although he lived local enough, he had been overseas for some time and I was worried because I was not able to check with anyone what he looked like, but I agreed to meet him for a drink, which I did after I had been at the pub with the girls and had once again taken full advantage of the $3 happy hour wines, its all class.

I met him, he was lovely, and completely hot, like smoking hot. This was good. There was absolutely not a spec of chemistry between us and that was also fine with me. After a fairly short amount of time, and after the football was finished I got up to leave, he asked if he could come with me to my place and I said that was fine, he did, and we did and the man had an amazing body, and my grubby little paws got very very grubby all night and all into the early hours of the next morning when I felt I needed to go to sleep and I told him to leave.

As for the sex, yeah, it was good enough, it certainly did the job, many times……..and he was nice enough, but possibly one of the dumbest people I have ever met, but also one of the best looking, and regardless of the fact that I actually had basically no physical or mental attraction to him whatsoever, I was extremely pleased that I was back on the horse! Well and truly back!!

I was recently trying to do a bit of a head count, and was actually trying to see if I could recall names as well, I didn’t do very well on either score, his name is certainly one I have long forgotten.

Interestingly however, I was recently struggling back from Coles in Richmond to my current lovers house, with my granny shopping trolley and my two crazy dogs and as I went under the underpass at the train station I happen to notice someone looking at Ardie with a strange look of familiarity! He then looked up at me and he realised, and so did I, it was quite funny that he remembered my dog before he remembered me, but then Ardie is fairly unforgettable!

The 30th
In the months leading up to my 30th birthday I made some really big changes. I had been separated from my husband (no ex-husband) for about 18 months or so, I had decided to leave the public service and give the private sector thing a bash, which meant leaving the building I have been turning up to for years every day as well as what was inside the building.

It was a really significant change and one that I was petrified of. I had so many memories of the inside of this building and the one we had moved from over the road a couple of years before, and the place was filled with people I knew, gossip I knew, routines I was very comfortable in and a level of confidence about my work simply because I was so familiar with it and the way things operated around the place.

I was hooked up and tight as with all the important people, the mailroom, the bloke who can get your phone connected and get you a new mobile if you happen to misplace it or it breaks – that’s code for “got pissed and left it in a taxi” or “it fell into a glass of gin, I then tried to wash the gin off with a bucket of hot water and when trying to pick it out of the water I dropped it and it smashed” – but every workplace has their “code language”.

I was hooked in the IT blokes who sorted me with a new laptop after mine was “stolen” and this was genuine, because I got very sick (drunk) and was forced to take a taxi home (was unable to stand up or walk anywhere and had also vomited on myself) and left it safely in the taxi where I expect it to still be when I woke up surrounded by Mc Donalds wrappers in bed the following morning, but some opportunistic arsehole took it – STOLE IT!

So leaving this safe haven of connectedness was a terrifying thing. I was surrounded by some of my best friends and at times I felt like I was back at high school – especially when I set all the stationary belonging to one of my best friends in a big bowl of jelly and had him called to reception to collect it, or when the same friend and I had been out boozing and doing air guitar on our knees at the Champagne Lounge until all hours one evening and headed back over the road to the office to collect out bags and the security guards on the speaker phone wouldn’t let us in until we could spell our own names without slurring our speech – they were all in the control room laughing at us while we gave it a good bash and finally let us into the office where we found our other friend who had ditched us earlier devouring a whole chicken at his desk – yes, we certainly were exemplary examples of responsible career public servants in those days.

So I was leaving all of this behind me. I think the only two things that made it possible were the fact that my best friend and air guitar comrade had just recently left for a 12 month secondment to private sector, which left me feeling like someone had removed a limb from my body, and the place was so empty and boring without being able to organise a call from the “Ministers Office” and watch the bullets of sweat pour from his head when the caller informed him of major industrial action or mass sackings in the automotive industry. The other thing that made it possible was that I wanted nothing more than to tell my fucked up manager at the time to go and fuck herself when I got the offer of another job.

Let me explain – this woman is covered in freckles, her face is sunken and ugly as a hat full of arseholes sucking on a lemon and she has short red hair which is mainly grey and looks exactly like pubes on her head, and worse of all, she wears nothing but flat shoes – these woman are the worst kind and can not be trusted.

This crazy cat also has a condition known as vertigo. For those who may not know what this is I can’t help you there, go and look up google – but what I can tell you is that it forces her to lie on the floor, or the street or wherever she should find herself when she has one of these “episodes”.

I have seen her laying down in Collins Street in the middle of peak hour, and she could regularly be spotted laying under her desk where sometimes she would actually hold meetings because she was fine if she was laying down – apparently, that’s not mentioning the fact that she was actually fucked in the head and that there was absolutely nothing “fine” about her at all.

So telling her I was leaving in two days was actually a fucking sensational feeling, and on my final day when she was dicking me about and preventing me from going to my farewell function by calling a very important “meeting” and I got up and told her that it was ‘very fucking simple, I have reviewed the file and provided a full and detailed report which included recommendations for further action and was not prepared to continue this bullshit discussion’ – yeah, I was quite happy with that.

But then I had to go to this new job and I was terrified, it was fine, the bloke I was working with was ace, we were the same age and he was fantastic to work with and as soon as I met him I felt like we were just great mates. The job however was a complete misery and was not anything like what I had been told it was and what was far worse was that the business was completely stuffed, it was built on a business plan that was worth less than budget toilet paper and there was not a chance in the world that it was going to remain viable. I was right, it died in the arse and although I did ultimately resign, it went under not long after.

But having this go on, as well as the other really big changes in my life at the time left me on some fairly shaky ground and in the lead up to my 30th birthday I was not in the best state.

I suddenly realised that I was no longer 20 whatever and that I no longer had my 20’s and 30’s to figure my shit out and get myself organised and work out if I wanted to have kids or not, I now only had my 30’s – what the fuck! Where had the last 10 years gone and how did they get by me without giving me the opportunity to sort myself out!!!

I had a plan, I am not sure exactly what it was but it sure as fuck was NOT THIS!

I never really saw myself in the future or had a concept of what I wanted to be or look like or be doing by now but I know I didn’t want to be a miserable dateless fat arsed drunk with a shit job, an ex-husband, two mad dogs and a house in crazy need of renovations – this was not in the plan - I knew that much.

The day of my 30th birthday party rolled around. It was 5th of January, my actual birthday is the 7th so the party was the Saturday night prior and it was hot, bloody hot, 42 degrees most of the night actually and when it did cool down I think the lowest it got was around 37.

My sister and I spent the night before the party drinking wine and cooking food for the event, which was held at my home in Abbotsford. It was a huge effort and the food was truly delicious.

The party kicked off before I even had time to organise myself, I had put on some weight and my boobs were much larger than they had been in a while, coupled with the fact that it was so hot and I was sweating like a pig on a spit, the silk and velvet dress with a zip at the side was not doing up, no way. I had to lie on the floor with my arms over my head whilst my sister stood on my boobs from the side, pressing them down and pulling the zip up simultaneously – I am not sure how but it worked – eventually.

I was drinking gin, its so refreshing and yummy and the heat was making me sweat so much I felt like I was going to melt, I actually started to notice that I was walking with my legs apart as my crouch was so sweaty with the heavy dress on and all the running around – it was truly disgusting.

The thing is with gin is that it sneaks up on you, I can drink gallons of the stuff but sometimes it just hits you, and its normally when you have not been able to eat anything which was the case that day, and when you happen to be a bit emotional which I was already but then became more so when my father decided to “confront me” about my “weight issues” as I stood out the front of my house welcoming my guests.

At one stage I became so hysterical and was crying so hard that guests were turning up and trying to sneak past me to try and find the “fun” people! I AM the fun people!!! But I was a wet, sweaty crying mess and I felt like the culmination of the last 6 – 12 months of anxiety and crisis was pouring out of me, my grief on display for my guests and all the passers by in the street.

After I gathered myself together and drank some more gin I continued with the festivities, the music was pumping the booze was flowing and the house was packed, it was a great night and everyone was stinking hot but having a great time – that is until it came time to have the speeches……

My sister kicked them off with a bit of a tanks for coming and ‘I love my sister’ etc, my dad went next with a bit of banter about how proud he is of me and despite the fact I know this is certainly not the case, it was a moving moment all round.

It was then my turn. I was quite pissy at this stage and thought I would kick off with a bit of light hearted entertainment so launched into ‘well, I have slept with a HUGE number of me’, at which time my fathers head went down into his hands and I could tell he was looking to see if there was a clear path to the exit so that he didn’t have to listen to anymore details about my sex life, there wasn’t, he was stuck and I was going to make him hear it all!

So I banged on for a bit about how I have had one miserable and failed relationship after another, how I was recently dumped on Christmas Day, and how my ex-husband ‘left me for that slut Cindy and her great body with a tight pussy’ – oh the joy. I continued with the banter about my miserable existence and how lucky I was to have all these great friends around me – and I meant it, I wouldn’t have wanted to hang around with me at this time and I was fortunate enough to have people who did!

My sister was decent enough to cut me off when everyone in the place had clearly had enough of my rubbish and the party continued for many hours. My uncle was rolling joints on the back table that looked like Cuban cigars and I was smoking them one after another after I was certain my dad had left for the evening – but suddenly he came back and my sister and I looked at each others paranoid faces trying to work out how we could pretend to our father that we were not completely ripped – the thought that I am now 30 years old and in my own home, that I pay the mortgage for didn’t even occur to me and finally he left so I could smoke some more, that is until I decided that I wanted to be alone and kicked everyone out, including one of my very old friends who is now “The Hot Man” in my life and my oldest friend from primary school who I refused to even let stay inside while she waited for her taxi – my hospitality had clearly gone off in the heat with the cheese platter.

I am not actually sure I really achieved much about figuring this turning 30 stuff out. I did however leave the job, I went back to the workplace I knew, this could be seen as a step backwards but it provided a sense of security which is important and I have had a few jobs since being back and all of them have giving me more skills and experience so perhaps it was just about me accepting my decision to be a career public servant.

I also came to the decision that I want to have children, this was an important step because it means that I am more selective about the kinds of men do meet or spend time with, they need to be deserving of my time and conversation but they also need to meet with the expectation that they may one day father my children – I no longer date men because they have a cool car or a great CD collection.

I have decided to spend more money and time on my house and my efforts to improve my little home have been quite remarkable of late, which may not be turning back the hands of time on the birth certificate, or challenging the pull that gravity seems to be having on my arse and my boobs, but it has put me in a good head space and has given me the opportunity to feel a bit better about my surroundings…..as for the dogs, they are still completely bloody mad, but and endless source of entertainment and amusement and frankly I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I think the madness that engulfed my life in the lead up to my 30th was horrible and seems to have really continued to a large degree, but then recently I realised that all the worry about it has not done anything except perhaps provide a distraction from the fact that I am actually now staring 32 between the eyes and I still have a long way to go before I work out what I want to be, do and what’s more scary now than ever before is that I now have no plan what-so-ever so lets just hope this means I don’t have to go through all the same rubbish when I turn 40, I am not sure my liver will be up to it!

So I guess for me this instalment is probably a little close to the heart. I have previously written about the scares of my past relationships and how I have really found it difficult to get over the hurt I have experienced in the past – not that I have had really bad relationship or been with really evil blokes, its really just that I have had a huge amount of “issues” as a result of my parents nightmare of a split.

Essentially what has happened is that I have developed a chronic fear of the end of a relationship, even if I am unhappy in a relationship which I have been many many times, I will just stay, until the bitter end – and I have NEVER initiated a break-up EVER.

I do however undermine the situation, its not normally a conscious effort but I know I do it. I will be nasty, defensive, difficult, irresponsible, disrespectful and generally treat the victim at the time like complete shit in an attempt to get the person to “prove” how much they love me and want me by putting up with it and staying – but eventually they leave, and why the hell wouldn’t they!??!

The day my husband packed all his belongings into the back of a moving van and drove away I sat with my father crying, I was basically catatonic and I felt empty but full of pain at the same time. Strangely I also felt some level of relief as well. My father said to me ‘you know, you will be a better person for this, its going to be the hardest thing you will ever do but you are going now to be forced to face you fear, a fear that is so crippling that you have never even enjoyed a real relationship. So when you get through this, and you will, you will find some happiness in you life’.

Dad was right. It was the hardest thing I have ever done, and probably will ever do, and it didn’t kill me but most of the time I wished it did because I didn’t see much point in going on, there was no joy in what I was experiencing. But I faced it and I did not get into a relationship immediately because I really wanted to do it properly and not move into something else which would be a temporary fix and where it would be inevitable that I would repeat the same mistake again.

So staying single wasn’t that hard to be honest. I was not at all an attractive proposition for anyone, I was thin, malnourished, drunk, hurt and angry all the time – plus I never got asked out so I never really had the option placed before me so I need to be honest about claiming that I “resisted” the temptations of a cosy hook up, because they just didn’t exist.

I don’t think I have ever been that chick who gets chatted up. I don’t know that I actually have ever been chatted up, and only once have I been asked for my number. I have never been able to figure out why….I know I am no oil painting but I am not as ugly as a horses arse either – and you only need to step out the front door to see what’s out there, some fucking shockers – and they get dates!! Perhaps I am just not really a very nice person, my personality repels people, but then I have heaps of friends so that’s kind of unlikely too.

I asked my best male friend about this one evening and his reply was ‘Rachie, blokes want to fuck a party queen but marry a princess – you are the party queen’, and I guess that’s true.

I am the one who is always the first to suggest drinks, I am the first to accept the invitations and I am always the last one to go home – normally after I have dominated conversation, made people laugh all night and if there is music playing there is usually no hope of keeping me from dancing until the sun comes up – The Hot Man said to me once years ago ‘you’re the fun one, everyone is here because we all want to hang out with you because its always going to be a guaranteed great night with you’ –

This was sweet and probably true but during the years on my own I realised that nobody loves a party queen when she is sad and not “fun” anymore, so whilst I have heaps of friends, I really found out during this time who the great ones were. They were the ones I could call on at 4am when I was crying and thought the pain would never leave, but mainly they were the ones who wanted to hang out with me even if I was a sad sack of shit.

So after being on my own for three years, except for the odd short thing here and there and plenty of random sex with strangers which is predictably messy and generally not very good, and basically I got sick of the hassle of it after a while and made a conscious effort to go home alone and break out the vibrator, at least I knew I would be guaranteed and orgasm and a good nights sleep, but I suddenly find myself in a “relationship” a scary word for me, with someone who is a very old friend.
Basically the way it happened was that I had been having a dry spell after my decision to cease all one night stand activities last year, so it had been a good six months since I had had sex with anyone else but myself and it was kind of getting me down, not the sex so much but the lack of even a pash and just getting some attention to boost the ego every now and then was really lacking. He (The Hot Man) had fallen in love earlier in the year – HARD – he had even cut off all the bits on the side which he has always had as a fall back position should he ever need them and then the girlfriend dumped him. He hadn’t had sex in six weeks and for him this was like life sentence, I started to wonder if he was going to start fucking random holes in the ground or loose it when we were having a drink or dinner and start humping my or some strangers leg like my dog does every so often.

He has always banged on about shagging me, so it was no surprise that he was once again trying to convince me to “help out a mate” as he called it and often questioned my true commitment to our friendship because I refused the alluring invitation to give him sex or a quick blow job at the end of the evening – call me a prude but I didn’t have much trouble showing resistance.

So one fateful evening when last December, when as usual, everyone else had gone home and there was just the two of us we decided to head to The Dirty Swan – for old times sake – and a dance to some bogan tunes. We danced for hours and ended up over the road getting shit food at some stupid time of the morning and he pashed me while we waited for our greasy delights.

This was not really a big thing, we had pashed before, a few times actually, but it never did much for me, although it was nice. So on this occasion I was not overly concerned about it but as usual told him to cut it out, he persisted and somehow managed to convince me that going to his place for some sex would do us both the world of good. It didn’t.

It was weird and felt odd and although he was fantastic, it wasn’t working for me. I made an excuse to leave, but he insisted on coming with me to my place because he wanted us to spend the night sleeping in bed together – I never do this with anyone and I kicked him out at 7am on the dot, his phone was flat, I didn’t call him a cab and I told him to walk home – lucky for him he only lives a short distance away, but it was still a little rough when I look back on it.

So I am not sure what happened after that, I told him I never wanted to do it again and to just forget that it happened and go back to normal. We did and it was fine, but we had the odd pash here and there over the next few weeks and then on Christmas day I felt weak in the knees when I saw him when my dad and I went to pick him up to go to our family lunch. I have no idea what happened, but I definitely felt something.

We had a great Christmas day, we pashed a few times when nobody was looking, we smoked joints and drank shitloads and it was fun. The next day we had the Boxing Day session and once again we shagged that night, and this time it was amazing, it blew my mind and it all felt different.

Anyway, the next few months get really messy and actually probably quite boring so I will get to where I am now.
Right now I am realising that I am essentially in a relationship with someone. Someone who I care about with an intensity that I never imagined was even possible to feel without the person being your family, or in my case my dogs!

I am no longer undermining my relationship, I am investing time into it and trying to do things differently to any other time I have been with anyone before, although I think this is an ongoing process and I continually doubt and question myself about this.

The truth is that I am scared, really scared. My dad was right, it was the hardest thing I will probably ever do, but he forgot to tell me about this bit, the part when you are totally and utterly consumed by fear, the fear of letting someone else into your life, because if you do that you will change your routine, your patterns of behaviour, you will loose the sense of loneliness that you have become accustomed to and comfortable with.

But I have made a commitment to myself that I need to do this, I need to invest myself in this in order to invest in myself – to grow as a person and learn how to function in a relationship – regardless of the fact that it may well not be this relationship that is the lasting one.

Right now I am feeling things I have never felt before for anyone. I truly and utterly adore him. Life is just better when he is around and even when he isn’t I feel happy that he will be again. I am fully aware that this relationship may not last and whilst I am worried about the sadness I will feel if and when it ends it is no longer an all consuming fear that keeps me locked into something that does not deliver what a relationship should – a feeling of happiness that just isn’t possible when you are on your own, a feeling that when you look over and see the person on the other end of the couch when reading the weekend papers you feel like they are an extension of yourself and that your world would simply not be right if they were not occupying that space.

The most important thing for me is that even if it ends, I know I will be ok, I will be sad, probably even devastated for a period of time – but it won’t kill me – because it didn’t last time. I have faced my greatest fear.

The Fox Man
Ok, so this bloke was the work shag, but most people who know this story know this bloke as “The Fox Man” – the reason for this will become clear as the story unfolds.

So the work shag as read in a previous instalment was great. The sex was great, the conversation stimulating and oh my god did I found this bloke amazing to look at, and sometimes that was all I needed. He dressed so ridiculously well, to a date once he turned up in a cravat – I was like jelly whenever he was around and as a consequence had no ability to speak to him at work because I would go weak in the knees and not be able to stand, I would also blush uncontrollably and it was just all too much.

So whenever we went on a date I would have to drink a HUGE amount before we went just so I had the confidence to get out the door and be alone with him, but even then it was so hard. Dinner was basically useless because I couldn’t eat when I was with him, cake after a movie was not even mildly possible, although a cup of black tea was sometimes helpful for the dry parched mouth caused by a significant amount of anxiet, it was so hard and it didn’t get better.

I really liked him and wanted to spend time with him but was so nervous all the time that basically the only time I had the confidence and the desire to be with him was when I had been at the pub all afternoon and evening with my friends, I would be so paralytic that I would start sending him text messages and get him to invite me over. I would lob over there in a drunken state (remembering that he is a non-drinker) stinking of smokes and booze and for some reason think this was sexy……its not at all surprising that this relationship did not last…….

He was a perfect gentleman. I was always welcome to do whatever I wanted in his house, although he always preferred I do it with no clothes on, and would often chase after me when I looked a little unsteady on my feet as he was always very concerned about my drunken clumsiness as his house was the most amazing bachelor pad you have ever seen and if I broke anything I would simply never be able to afford to pay for it.

Let me explain……his house looks fairly average from the outside, in fact quite normal and unappealing, but then you go in and he has renovated and decorated every single part of this place with style, the man just oozes it.

He is mad on art deco and this is the theme of his place. His floors are black floorboards with a high shine, you could seriously do your make up with the reflection from these things. The couches are red leather with black and white leather cushions – each one has a specific place…..there is an immaculate art deco bar, side tables, flokati rugs, and the art covering the walls is to die for, not to mention the tasteful and immaculately placed deco ordainments and decoration pieces, its simply amazing.

Then there is the other thing he likes to decorate the joint with – and that’s the vast collection of dead animals. Yes, you did not make a mistake in reading that last line, he collects taxidermy, he is mad on it. A great Saturday night to him is finding a great new species online for a great price and organising the shipping, and marking the arrival date on the calendar in anticipation.

So to recap at this point, I am having fantastic drunken sex with a sober bloke who I work with who collects dead stuffed animals when I am a mad crazy animal lover – it’s the backbone of all the fairytales we heard as kids.

The favourite dead item was a fox, who was named “Lindsay”. She was a small female fox mounted on a log and stood in the lounge room and she wore a peal necklace with a diamond clasp from Tiffany. She was his pride and joy and he would speak of her often.

On one occasion he was dropping me home after I had stayed the night and I demanded to be walked to my front door – because I think that is what you should do – he refused because he said ‘I have the gardener coming in 3 minutes, I have to get to the other side of town before he gets there, I have a fox at home who has not had a decent good-morning from me yet, and you are ruining a great night and a very enjoyable morning….’.

There were also often suggestions and requests for Lindsay to come and “watch” the activities in the bedroom, which was beyond strange, even for someone who was literally soaking with booze every time I was in that house.

On one occasion when we actually were working on the same project we both needed to attend a conference in Bendigo I think from memory…….I went up with one of the other project partners the afternoon before as we had to meet some people for dinner and we stayed over and The Fox Man came up the following morning, so the first I got to see him was at the morning tea break where we said a quick hello and I had to check the phone and make some calls for work.

Lunchtime was when we got to have a bit of a chat, a flirt and talk dirty to each other whilst standing around with the other guests – it was exciting, we were telling each other what we wanted to do to each other as we stood there eating chicken sandwiches and meeting and greeting all the local important people, and they had NO IDEA, and this was thrilling to me.

The afternoon just about killed me, I had to sit through a killer hangover from the night before that was refusing to leave me alone and the thought of driving all the way back to Melbourne with the bloke I had travelled up with who the night before when we had seen our dinner guests off and continued drinking had tried to kiss me and had begged me for sex which was so far from appealing, it was Friday arvo and I just wanted to be in Melbourne and hit the pub. So we left the conference early and booted it back to Melbs in time for me to grab about half a dozen wines at happy hour price and get them in before heading to dinner for a friend’s birthday in Richmond with my sister.

We met our friends (a bunch of gay blokes) and we ate an amazing amount of Thai food, mainly hot and very spicy curries, and of course we drank and drank and drank and drank some more.

At one point I went outside to have a ciggie and when I returned my mobile was in the hands of one of my mates as they were all gathered around reading the latest text message which read ‘when are you coming over here’ and was followed by some dirty suggestions from The Fox Man….they all cheered as I approached and with that we finished stuffing ourselves, I sent a message back saying I would be there soon and we all left the restaurant and walk round the corner to a friends place where the festivities could continue.

Of course, keeping in mind that with the amount of booze I had consumed at this point I simply had no concept of time, so as we sang and danced the evening away around the grand piano my friend was playing I didn’t give a second thought to the fact that The Fox Man was at home……waiting and stroking the fox and waiting for me……

Many hours later when my sister had given up on turning one of the hot gay men straight and I felt that it was time not to be standing anymore we called a cab and I said I would drop my sister off home, she lived with me at this stage, and she could just run in and grab a few things for me for my sleep over, just the critical items: a toothbrush, a new pair of undies and a couple of bags of poo tea.

Now if you are not familiar with poo tea then this is a synopsis for you – it’s a tea you get from the Chinese grocery store, it tastes like poo, but that’s not why we call it that, we call it “poo tea” because that’s what it makes you do, and in uncontrollable voluminous quantities.

When you have a cup it generally works over night and in the morning you will probably be woken to the feeling of your insides turning on themselves and you will spend the next little while wondering if it will ever end and if you will ever be able to get on with your life again. But if you leave with a sense of security, as if you have finished, at some point you will feel it come on again, it may hit you when you are in a line at the supermarket, or on the tram or train, you will start to sweat and you will know that you have literally a matter of seconds before you are going to shit yourself as an adult – again.

You may be wondering why anyone would be interested in taking this stuff – simple – weight loss. I will do anything to lose weight, I will try anything, buy anything, spend any amount of money I have available in the desire for a decent body, and this includes being obsessive about what I eat and how much exercise I do.

So after a big meal of hot and nasty curry, I have in my drunken state, made The Fox Man wait for hours whilst I dance around singing ‘Its Raining Men’ with a bunch of queens and have then called past home and grabbed a couple of double strength tea bags to make sure that there was no chance I would absorb any unnecessary calories.

As soon as I rocked up at his place I made the tea, drank it and proceeded with some hot sex – I think, I can’t really remember.

In the morning I recall opening one eye and not knowing where I was but realising that I was nude, I stank like a homeless alco and my face was stuck to the pillow from sweat and drool – I am one hot lady! But it was only seconds before I felt the war that had begun on the inside of my body and I sprinted to the spare loo down the hallway and really really wished for some background noise as I made some of the most sickening sounds and hollered and prayed to every higher being I was away of that this would 1) stop 2) not get any louder, and 3) that The Fox Man would remain asleep.

The fact that none of these wished was granted is the reason I do not believe in god, and what was worse was that was that when I tried to flush there was no way I could get rid of this mess, it just got worse and worse, more and more blocked as I tried to flush and flush and flush this disgrace away. It did not work. I broke the flusher and the dunny was blocked. I wanted to die. There were no requests that morning for Lindsay to come and view the action and I am fairly certain that I became slightly less attractive to The Fox Man that morning, but what the hay! I had a great night dancing!

The scares of relationships past…..
Ok, so despite the fact that I feel like I have learnt a huge amount from previous relationship, and particularly from my time being married and the subsequent three years that followed when I was essentially single the entire time and did a huge amount of sole searching and actually really tried to figure out some stuff and learn about myself and my failures in relationships and more importantly why this stuff has happened, a couple of things happened as a result:

1. I realised that its actually very nice being on your own, and despite being “nice” it requires far less effort, does not require any risk and certainly absolutely no compromise
2. I am actually really not very good in relationship, I have had appalling relationship models and have not had any level of success in relationship as a result
3. Probably, the only reason I would consider having a relationship again is for the simple fact that I want to have children, but completely expect that the relationship would be brief and I would raise the child/children on my own
4. I guess this is more than a couple…..I really actually never saw myself in a relationship ever again and was completely accepting of this

So I guess all of this combined means that I have the tolerance for other peoples shit of an superficial premadona rock star who likes their m&m’s sorted by colour. I am more than happy to pull the pin at the slightest flaw. The fact that someone I was dating worse explorer socks was enough for me to realise that it was never going anywhere, I judge men on the income they earn, the car they drive, the level of education they have just to name a few of my very specific requirements.

I have actually been onto a number of dating websites where I have (without registering) done a search for my basic requirements and the result is always the same “there are no matches for you at this time”. Fine. That’s actually MORE than fine with me.

I don’t want to have to tell someone that I am going for drinks after work, I don’t want to report in during the drinks and say I am going to be a bit longer than expected and then have them crack the shits when I turn up at 4am on a Tuesday night after drinking my body weight in gin.

I don’t want to have to negotiate what colour I will be painting the walls, or what furniture I will buy, keep or throw away, or how the house will be set up, and what pictures will go where.

I don’t want to have to negotiate “house rules” where a level of respect needs to be shown toward the other person, not just because that’s what you should do but because you say you love them.

I don’t want to have to shower if I don’t want to, or watch some retard try to vacuum the floor or attempt the washing and end up doing it myself because I like things done the way I do them. Granted, there are tasks I detest and loath, these are taking out the bins, something I have been able to deal with by not having a bin inside but a small freezer bag on the bench that gets thrown out when it gets a couple of things in it so it has no time to go feasty, and cleaning the toilet and this little one is solved quiet easily as I get my dad to do it every time he is over.

So then there is my current situation where there is a relationship of sorts with my very old friend “The Hot Man”.

This has not been an easy situation to negotiate and I have many many times behaved badly due to my desire to resort back the my happy place of aloneness at 40 Henry Street, but also due to the fact that he brings to the table much of the same if not more failed relationship and fucked up family baggage as I do – making this from the get go a very friggen unworkable situation, which once again makes me think its probably easier not to bother.

I wouldn’t bother normally, but the thing is I do have a great deal of fun with him and can see some level of potential where this thing is concerned, mainly because we seem to fit quite well together despite all the negatives and I laugh a huge amount when we are together, and I reckon that’s not such a bad thing.

What I have been learning however is that I need to shut the fuck up sometimes – this is a hard one for me. I am much better at fighting with someone rather than just letting it ride when they say stuff that annoys me – possibly the reason my ex-husband spent on average 5 out of 7 nights sleeping on the couch…..and the other thing is that I am like a dog with a bone, piss me off and I will put it in the memory bank and bring it up EVERYTIME YOU SHIT ME.

So, on a personal development front I am learning that this kind of doesn’t fly so well with other people, especially someone who is old, pigheaded and extremely stubborn anyway.

I kind of did learn a bit of this from observing my grandparents relationship. It was a beautiful relationship however extremely dysfunctional so I am conscious that I should not model it too much, but we actually interact in an extremely similar way so its worth referring to for some pointers.

For example, my grandfather would say things to stir up my nan or just in general say things to give her the shits, and her response was to tell him to ‘shut up you dickhead’ rather than take the bait and spend the evening fighting the point and being in the shits.

But its really difficult to learn where to draw the line.

Over the last few days I have been quite sick with a cold. I don’t get sick often but cold seem to really affect me since having pneumonia a couple of years ago and I know when it comes on I am done for. Sunday night was the beginning, sore throat, fever, bad night sleep, sneezing and feeling crappy, I was staying over with The Hot Man at this point but it was not really until Monday at work that it became a full on cold and I went home at 3pm and got into bed.

Tuesday and Wednesday I was in bed, feeling lousy and basically just wanting to die.

During this time I received a number of text messages (yes, that’s how we communicate, email text, few phone calls, I hate talking on the phone when I am not at work and basically just refuse to answer if he calls me, plus throughout the 7 years we have been friends we have always used text as our form of communication and I am not so keen on changing that) – but not one of these messages asked me how I was. I did however get a full report of the amount of booze he had consumed at a work dinner on Tuesday night, and a very detailed analysis of everything else that was going on, plus a phone call at 4am when he was completely blind and the following day a bunch of status updates regarding the state of the hangover – BUT NOTHING ABOT ME!
I reported my lack of appreciation regarding this little oversight and did not receive an apology but I did get a number of messages several hours apart to see if I was still shitty, to each I reported YES and then this afternoon I received an invitation to come over tonight to his place.

Despite wanting to go over to see him, and be in his warm house, my response to this invitation was ‘I can not cook for you and will not have sex because I am too sick, I am of no use to you in my current state’.

Now, this may seem like it was a reasonable response on one level, but The Hot Man is the most unsympathetic, self absorbed individual to ever grace god earth. There are no secrets where this is concerned – he is great for some things, but this is not one of his redeeming features. However, like all chauvinistic men he loves to be cared for if he is suffering from an ailment – in fact he expects it, as did my grandfather.

So the issue that I need to resolve with myself now is weather I accept that this is just something that I need to live with and get over it, because he will never change (and he certainly won’t) or if I need to end it because its simply not something I can put up with (and its probably not something that bothers me a great deal) and if I do end it, am I doing it for the right reasons or for the simple fact that retreating to aloneness, 40 Henry Street and my dogs is a far safer option, or do I continue in bitch mode for a while, then give in eventually – and if that’s the option, then what exactly will I have achieved!!!??? NOTHING!

So I am off to ponder this issue now, and its probably not a great thing to do after swallowing half a pharmacy in an attempt to get through the day – but hell, at least I am not drunk, that’s normally when I make my other big life decisions.

The work shag
I expect that you will be anticipating a big instalment here about what a huge mistake this whole thing was – you would be wrong. The sex was great and at times it was the best thing for me at the time, but I am happy to confirm that there are elements of this whole saga that I will say were a mistake, predominantly the drinking and texting, even worse the drinking and erotic texting….shame shame shame…..

So after the first post-break-up sex which I will write about some other Friday afternoon, it would be fair to say that there was a bit of time between drinks, well, too much drinking and not so much picking up and shagging, and I became a little, well, hung-over and strung out.

Work for me at this time was beyond bad. It was shocking. I had a great manager and the place was brimming with friends, most of whom had also broken up from marriages and long term relationships around the safe time as me so we were all able to go to the pub every night (and I mean EVERY night) and watch each other smoke ourselves into early emphysema and cry into our gin or beers. But during the day it was just bad at work.

In short I had worked my arse off for the few years before this time getting a bunch of really ace projects and programs going around the state but was battling a very serious personality clash with my Director at the time, and what I mean by that is that I have a great personality and his is pure evil shit – therefore there was a clash.

So I was basically instructed to “cool my heals” for about six months after causing a few political issues – which essentially meant, warm a seat until your contract is over or we can figure out where to put you where you will be a bit more…..well quiet!

So whilst having a conversation with my manager one day after once again turning the regular staff meeting into somewhat of a circus he pointed out ever so kindly that my attitude may be a little “off” at the moment and could he possibly suggest that I make myself feel better with a new pair of shoes or perhaps some earrings….I explained that I had done little else but shop for weeks now and that the ability for “things” to fill the emotional crater which had taken residence in my soul was starting to dwindle, to which he responded that I really did need to have sex, and if it needed to be put in my Performance Development Plan then he would do so, but that I really good night of fucking as according to him this was what I was needing. I think he may have been right.

I need to point out at this time that he was in no was in no way offering himself for the role of “pleasure king” as he is not into women, in fact I think I recall on evening when he said he would rather fuck a dog than have sex with a woman – and I believe him.
So he asked me what the level of interest and what my situation had been like, to which I tried to explain that I had not been nourished by much else except for wine, gin, menthol ciggies and the occasional sushi roll for many months and could be regularly spotted crying in pub places, vomiting on myself from time to time and being tossed out of some of Melbourne’s dodgiest establishments, including Hosies one night the bloke on the door suggested it was time for me to go home – hell, that joint is a strip club! They don’t have a pricing arrangement for women there because I am probably the only chick in Melbourne who has been there! I think it would be fair to say that I was not really looking like a very attractive option for even the most desperate and sexually depraved men of this fine town.

So my caring and considerate manager suggested that he might try to set me up, and asked me had I seen anyone around the traps that I liked and this was he could establish what I “liked”. I mentioned that I have been perving on and lusting after the bloke he was talking to in the lift this morning, I have no idea what his name is, where he works, who he is or what his relationship status is but I liked everything I saw.

My manager thought this was quite funny and said that he could have that sorted in NO TIME! He is single, very single I was told, he works in Regional Development. He ran happily down the stairs to level 33 and came back soon after with a smile from ear to ear announcing that he was also extremely interested in me, thought I was married, is happy to hear that stint in my life is over and that he would be joining us for morning tea, and gave very clear instructions that I was to ‘go and do something with that hair and put on some bloody lipstick!’.

The “meeting” was very uncomfortable and weird but he was hot. More than 6 feet tall, Italian and dressed to kill. I followed up with an email saying that I was very sorry that my manager had put him in this situation and that there were certainly no hard feelings if he was not interested. He replied that it was quite the opposite and within a few emails exchange I had half of my office crowding around helping my exchange some of the most sexually explicit literature I have ever read, of course he probably just thought I was sitting on my own typing out lines about things I have only ever heard of much less partaken in, but little did he know I worked with some of the dirtiest minds alive at that time and had their knowledge at my disposal.

The follow Friday night we met for a drink, although, he didn’t drink……I should have listened to my sister and friends when they all proclaimed that the relationship was doomed if I was going to drink and he was going to sit there sober, but I went along after squeezing in about 8 wines and a pack of fags.

I got to the venue and slammed down a gin and snuck into the loo and enjoyed a smoke. Chatted to some chicks who said they could tell I was on a date but observed that he was actually more nervous than me. This was comforting to hear!

It would be fair to say that it was a very ordinary date. He was hard to speak to and although we got along really really well we were both kind of aggressive and defensive and there was no flow at all of conversation, it was actually more like taking pot shots at each other and trying to be the biggest smart arse. I kind of respected this because without blowing my own horn, most men that I meet are not very smart and I liked that he was smart, almost as smart as me, and witty – almost as witty as me! Ha! But I said I was over it after a while, hoping once again to shatter a bit more of his male ego and said I was off, he said he would walk me home. On the way we passed another pub and he suggested that perhaps he might like to have a gin and menthol with me by the open fire in the pub and see if we could at least salvage what was left of the evening. I agreed. Within an hour we were fucking like mad and we did that until the next morning when my dad knocked on the front door for our regular Saturday brunch.

It was the best sex of my life there is absolutely no denying that, and I was concerned that I might be addicted. I was smiling and nothing could stop me!

Monday morning I skipped into work past my managers desk who advised me that he had seen my partner in crime earlier for a coffee and he seemed to be in a similar state and that he was glad that his theory that “cock solves all problems” was able to remain intact.

My say on Ute-gate

Sometimes I actually think I am psychic, but then I realise that I am actually just a cynical public servant who has lost all faith in the political system and basically all politicians. Even the good ones are shit and the bad ones are well, Theo Theophanous – need I say more…..but I tell you I could see as soon as this story broke that a public servant was going to cop the blame for this Ute-gate business at some point, I mean, it just had to happen.

Now before I get started on my rant about politicians, I might just say a few words about public servants.

I need to start by saying that realistically when I was at school and at Uni studying I always knew I would be a public servant, I am not really sure why. I was always interested in politics, had a huge obsession with Paul Keating and would write fan mail to Joan Kirner rather than BROS, so it’s fair to say that the interest was always there.

I think what attracted me to be interested in being a public servant rather than actually being involved in politics was really just that I was under the crazy misapprehension that I has the capacity to contribute to the development and delivery of social policy in a completely bipartisan capacity.

I never actually really pursued a “career” in the public service, but it did just kind of happen after I finished Uni and it made sense, I never really had any experience in the private sector of any significance and in the early days I guess I actually felt like I was doing some good in the time when education and skills reform was flavour of the month. Then of course it became less palatable and I learned some very hard lessons about how social policy IS actually made – but that’s for another instalment.

What I will say is that generally speaking the role of the public servant is extremely misunderstood. People get it if you sell something, make something or have a job that has a television series based on it, I mean, we all know that CSI is exactly like it the real thing……but there are no shows about the public service except for things like Yes Minister and more recently and probably more accurately The Hollowmen.

If you have not seen The Hollowmen, I encourage you to watch it. The script is literally spot on. It shows a bunch of people who are working on behalf of the politicians who are largely stupid, indecisive and easily manipulated (according to public opinion as opposed to maintaining a sense of morality or attempting to maintain a stance on an issues which is well understood), but these people work hard and are under pressure to satisfy the political and personal needs of the politicians under extremely difficult circumstances.

I am aware that there are obviously plenty of public service jobs where the old notion of the brown cardigan clad, odd socked wearing balding man stamping bits of paper in a slow and drawn out manner and attempting to seem important or to be a decision maker in some capacity, very much still exists and they are out there, I have met them, sat next to them and occasionally tried to explain to them that they bring the rest of us into disrepute, but by and large this person is an endangered species.

The reality is that public servants come under a great deal of pressure in the process of serving the public, because the reality is that we are expected to serve the Ministers, and if anyone is stupid enough to think that we receive emails from Ministers (including the Prime Minister or Premier) which directly state that we should do X in order to assist them they would have to be barking mad.

The influence they have is far more subtle that that and takes many forms which can not be traced and is all just he said she said stuff which is never able to be proved and will always be denied. It is more about a culture that exists which makes it impossible for someone to refuse a request from a senior officer.

But because politicians are never responsible and completely above reproach when something like the Ute-gate thing comes up or ends up looking more like egg on the face of an MP from either side of politic you can bet your bottom dollar that a public servant will be blamed for the fuck up.

Tony Abbot has now blamed a federal treasury official for “making up” the story and handing it to the opposition who have now ended up looking like a bunch of clowns. Give me a break.

The senior public servant who is said to have let the leak out was a bloke who was previously on the staff Malcolm Turnbull and they appear to have some level of connection still, however this is being denied by both parties.

So here is what I reckon happened – the senior public servant got pissed with Malcolm or one of his staffers and they chatted about the fact that this finance scheme which was being administered by Treasury was attracting a bit of attention from various pollies who where trying to help their mates out who have suffered financial loss as a result of the Global Financial Crisis…..which is fairly standard fare really, but what I never bought was the fact that there was an email instructing Treasury staff to “help out” K Rudd’s mate who owned a car dealership and needed assistance under the GFC assistance package.

The reason I never bought this was that going back to my earlier point – you would NEVER write that sort of shit down. But the Treasury person was probably pissed and mouthing off and then had to create an email after the story got out. So at the end of the day there are a number of people to blame, Malcolm and his idiot staffers for not getting their facts right and having some concrete evidence before they went public, the public servant for mouthing off without having evidence that was actually able to nail K Rudd and then of course there is the culture that exists within the public service where Ministers and their staff do lean on bureaucrats who are supposed to be politically impartial.

Furthermore the stupidity of the people who have been writing into idiot TV “Sunrise” asking why “Average Joe” should care about this, you must be fucking kidding me??!!

At the core of our political process there are the government departments who administer money, policies and other government business and this process should be completely independent and transparent and should not be subject to political influence or corruption and nobody, not even the Prime Minister should have the power to use public money to “help out a mate” – but guess what its isn’t and it does happen this way and THAT’S what we should all be getting loud about!!!

Melissa Doyle is a complete fuckwit and an insult to woman and especially those of us who continue fight the stereotypes associated with being a female, you and blonde and having boobs but waking up to the sound of her dumb voice trying to ask a “sensible” and “intellectual” question of that moron David Koch, who I might add was unable to answer, he in fact said that “Average Joe” should be concerned because this proves that pollies lie – what the fuck??!! Are you kidding me?? As if we didn’t already know THAT!

This angered me, but was followed by a clip of Tony Abbot blaming a public servant for the fuck up and that just tipped me over the edge. I came close to putting the TV outside on the street and letting a homeless person come and take it but changed my mind on account of the fact that its footy season and I would miss too many games if I had no TV and I would have to go to the pub and watch footy, where I would just drink and that would be all bad for everyone, so I thought I would keep the idiot box, but I must remember not to leave it on.

As for being a public servant and the shit that goes along with that, well there are a few issues……do I like my job? Yeah, its ok….is it everything I though it would be working in the public service? No, nothing could have prepared me for this, and mainly nothing could have prepared me for the disappointment that often sets in when I feel compromised or unhappy about issues or activities I observe or am part of….would I leave and go and work in the private sector? No, I tried for a few months a couple of years ago and I missed it here, I missed the process of government and laughing at the many ironies and similarities between my every day working life and the script from The Hollowmen……so why complain? I’m not, I often get frustrated, annoyed etc with certain things in the workplace that go on, no more than other people in any workplace really – what I am complain about on this occasion is the fact that people who seem to feel that they have something to say about the issue and contribute to the discussion seem to be so ill-informed and the politicians treat those of us who do know what’s going on with contempt by darting and dodging ultimate responsibility for a culture that they have ultimately been apart of creating.

It doesn’t matter what your political beliefs are, if you think for one minute that one side of politics is not capable of behaving in a certain way, you are fucking kidding yourself……so where does that leave us? Needing to understand our system better, rejecting shit media coverage of political issues and stop eating the political rhetoric like blocks of Cadburys chocolate. The only way to stop what goes on is to firstly understand it, but people don’t and as a consequence I drink and try to forget that I live in a country of ignorant stupid people who watch Melissa Doyle and David Koch in the mornings and pump their kids full of sugar filled cereal instead of meaningful and intelligent conversation.

Right – wine time.

The difference between being straight, a gay man or a lesbian….
Discussions over the Sunday afternoon roast:
So yesterday I was having lunch with a bunch of gay friends I know through The Hot Man. We quite often have a home cooked meal on a Sunday, it’s a great way to end the unhealthy weekend of too much booze, too little sleep and not enough vegetables. It must be said though that these events normally kick off with a couple of joints and end with too many bottles of champagne and too many cigarettes, especially given that Sunday is actually a school night.

So yesterdays event started early, which is a great thing, although it did force The Hot Man to have justification for waking me up at 6.30am whilst drinking coffee in bed and generally being noisy and hyperactive – something I am not inclined to be EVER at 6.30am, much less on a SUNDAY MORNING…..but he was right, there was plenty to be done, so reluctantly I got out of bed, had a shower and was at Coles at 9am, to my surprise they are actually open at this time and actually its quite a hive of activity, it would seem that not everyone holds the same Sunday morning rest as near and dear to them as me.

Despite the elusive dream of a short nana nap, it never arrived, there was simply too much to be done before a 1pm lunch. There were house renovations to be done, shopping to be bought, dogs to be walked and fed and of course an impressive desert to be baked. I am truly becoming a one woman domestic goddess.

Lunch kicked off with a few wines while a group of 7 assembled for the delicious meal. This is a fairly out there group, they are most certainly people I feel completely comfortable with as I have always felt very much like a square peg in a round hole in the company of most people anyway and generally when I say things like ‘oh my god I have started to have multiple orgasms, and they are fantastic, I had a total of 6 in one session last night’ over a meal I get some strange looks and many requests to leave my sex life in the bedroom and move onto other more civilised topics of conversation.

Most certainly not with this group; a statement of this kind would be nothing if not mild compared to some of the stories and adventures this lot have to share over digestion, and discussing incidents such as getting stuck in the kneeling position post-blowjob in a public place one evening are really just standard fair; but it did make me think……

These stories of public hook-ups and encounters purely of a sexual nature where there has been no discussion between the parties, the mere fact that you have shown up at a location and look at someone in a certain way is as effective a form of communication as if you where carrying your own sign saying “I am here for sex and will give or receive oral or anal sex” made me realise that other than “The Dirty Swan Hotel” in Richmond there really is no equivalent for straight people or gay women who desire a quick physical release without the bullshit that normally follows – hence the reason I went for so long without sex last year, the thought of having to kick another beer soaked man out of my bed before dawn who delivered nothing but bad conversation and some very ordinary sex was simply more than I could bear, I became much more satisfied with a night out with friends, decent stock of batteries, a guaranteed orgasm and no necessity to change the sheets in the morning.

But after all of that it is really very very clear that the really significant cultural differences that exist between the gay and lesbian and straight communities is the way we hook up, have sex and form relationships (or not in many cases).

From what I can work out, gay men have all these options depending on what they want, parks and other known locations for random anonymous and presumably not very fussy participants who just need a quick fix and who require no level of verbal interaction. Then there are bars and clubs where the sexual activity is on a scale from rapidly out there to much more social and “civilised”.

Lesbians (and I am happy to be corrected) seem to have more networking and social activities which provide the opportunity for woman interested in woman to be provided with a supportive and friendly environment in which to meet new people, sure, there are bars and clubs, but the sexual behaviour is far less ….well literally “in your face” and the focus is morning on socialising and meeting new people rather that instant sexual gratification. Its does seem to be an unusual phenomenon though that when a couple of chicks sleep together, well they seem to just stay together and start a relationship without the kind of rubbish that we straight people endure.

That’s certainly not to say however that we are hard done by, those of us seeking sex with the opposite sex, it’s just that I think we have many more options, and with options there come a plethora of confusing and confronting situations which quite frankly give me the shits.

If you do want fast uncomplicated sexual gratification, well there is always The Dirty Swan, but I have to say the last time I went in there I had a very very strong urge to start checking ID’s and asking what time these children needed to be home, and if they had a safe mode of transportation to take them there. I am not sure when I got old, but I can tell you that I did, but old people need sex too!

So then you have the old faithful – Transport. But seriously, the place is spilling over with bogans, bogan music, cheep aftershave and chicks who are risking their health wearing as little as they do and shoes that even I think are not only questionable for ones health but actually quite dangerous. Plus it’s loud and frankly who can be bothered paying for a glass of wine, what the whole case probably cost them to buy and basically getting a “fuck you, you are interrupting my evening” attitude from the bar staff. Not me.

So the other alternatives are basically bars which are all very much the same generally loud music, and one night stands or “hook-ups” from my experience normally occur when there has been some sort of introduction by a third party, I have certainly never been approached by anyone in one of these venues in a capacity where I believed that they were interested in anything, be it quick shag or the opportunity to see me again, except for that drunk bloke who grabbed my fanny at Trunk that time a few months back – he doesn’t count because if that’s the best he can do to try to sweep a girl off her feet then the single woman of Melbourne are completely fucked, should buy as many vibrators as possible and just stay the fuck at home.

I realise that I am no oil painting, but I am not hideous either so I would have to say that my experience would probably be fairly representative. Men just really don’t approach you, it just isn’t like it is in the movies, a smile over the bar and some sex or a phone number exchanged at the end of the night – if I am wrong them why are RSVP and all the other dating alternative absolutely booming with business???

Then there are pubs, my personal favourite. Far less pretentious than bars, better music, you get to watch the football and at the end of the night if you are feeling horny you really only need to go and say g’day to some bloke with his beer goggles on and ask him how he would feel about coming back to your place, if you add that its walking distance I find they dump their mates even earlier – that’s a tip for the ladies out there. But this practice has been successful enough to get me laid, but has done little for my desire for sexual gratification, and frankly provides a disruption to my sleep in plan, gets the dogs pissed off with me and forces me to think about how the fuck I am going to get rid of this bloke without having that weird and uncomfortable conversation about breakfast and exchanging phone numbers.

I can simply not tell you how many times I have tried to explain to someone that ‘no, I do not want to eat a meal with you, I got drunk with my friends whilst watching the football, I don’t even want to speak to you, but I was horny and you are hot, you have a hot body and now that you have successfully reminded me why I hate taking strangers home please fuck off and die’……….which normally goes more along the lines of ‘do you see the dark out that window? Good, you need to be gone before its light – clear?’ generally this is enough for them not to bother with requests for future activities.

So you can see my point…..despite being a minority who have a shocking and shameful history of enduring persecution, violence and discrimination, when it comes to sex, gay men have it all! The community have clearly defined rules and venues for the desired activity, I mean they would have more trouble picking from the various condom types than deciding where they want to go for an evening, the process is that simple. What would you like ‘sex please’ and how much effort would you like to have to put in on a scale of 0 – 10 and the venue is chosen with sex guaranteed.

Anyway, my roast was great, the banana cake was amazing as usual and I had a very nice afternoon with the queens and The Hot Man. I did however wake up this morning with a bit of a hangover and my undies on back to front – not completely sure what the go was there, but am hoping I have started having sleep sex – I reckon that could make for some interesting blogging!

The Divorce
I guess we should start with the marriage. It was far from perfect. In fact it should really never have happened.

The husband and I met at Uni. He was hot and had a cool car. He was also smart and came from the Northern Suburbs, I had never been there before but it all seemed very scary and quite exciting.

We got together after I left a note on his car advising him of a location where a night out was to be had with some mutual friends, and my number, he called, said he would love to come and the rest is history as they say.

We studied together for years, and I thought he was smart, which I still believe, he is very smart. He is also a lovely person and I was lucky to have him in my life, but I met him when things in my family and home life situation were really ordinary and we stayed together mainly due to circumstance and the fact that I think we truly loved each other, but just not in the way that you should when you are married to someone.

There were many ups and downs. We worked hard together and saved hard and got ahead financially early on and we were pleased with that. Our wedding was lovely, small, we had dinner at an Indian restaurant after a chapel service and it was a whole bunch of fun.

I am not entirely sure what happened after we got married but I can quite honestly say that we were never quite the same again and I also think that we never talked about what we both wanted from our lives and when we did we didn’t want the same thing at all. It was just crazy, it was like the only thing that we both wanted was just to stay together, almost because it was easier I guess and we did work well together, but the spark, if there ever was any, was gone.

I knew he was going to leave me when I went on a few days break in QLD with my sister who was up there for work. The whole time I was away I could feel in the pit of my stomach that when I got back he would have decided to end it.

I had found a text message on his phone (no, I was not checking, mine had gone flat and we were ringing my dad about some house stuff) and it was from a chick called “Cindy” and it said ‘Had a great night last night, can’t wait to see you again’…….

I trusted him implicitly. I always said that he was like a Labrador he was so faithful to me, but I guess Labs do have that reputation for sniffing out food when its on offer elsewhere…..which he seemed to have done.

His reaction was weird, and so was mine. I didn’t say anything and was not angry or anything, I was just numb. I asked him about it very calmly and he just kept crying. It was very odd. We never discussed it again but I knew when I was in QLD that he would make his decision and he did. He was not at the airport to pick me up when I got back and that was again most unusual.

He did finally arrive and claimed that the traffic was so horrific that he was delayed – it was a 6pm pick up on a Sunday night, the easiest airport pick up known to man. When we arrived home the house was turned upside down and in a complete state, again, I just said nothing. But the next night when he arrived home he made the earth shattering announcement and that was when the nightmare begun.

He said he was moving out and that was going to happen as soon as he found somewhere to live, he slept on the couch and I drank and smoked like a chimney outside. I wanted him gone, if he was going to leave anyway then I just wanted it to happen, it was like pealing off a bandaid slowly, it was horrible. Within days he said he was moving the following week and then he went off on a ski trip. At least he was gone.

But he was not gone completely; you see he needed to move his stuff out when he got back from the ski trip he had intended to go to his parents place, for the fathers birthday and then come home and continue to waltz in and out until it was convenient for him to move. I was not so happy with this and even more so when I had been drinking massive amounts of casked wine.

So after an argument via phone, which turned into a physical altercation outside his parents place he agreed to stay there and move the following day, out, completely – all his stuff would be gone. Thank god I though, and really couldn’t wait for the following day to come – literally.

I thought I should start doing things on my own again. I got myself all frocked up in my best track suite and I headed on down Victoria Street and thought I might see a movie. However, whilst passing a bottle shop I caught out of the corner of my eye a cask of wine on the shelf and it just looked so good. I went in, made my purchase and walked home with my wine and bogged in. It was a four litre and I did my best to make sure there was no left overs.

At some point, it is unclear when exactly, I decided that I would provide some assistance to my beloved husband, soon to be ex-husband by getting his stuff ready for the truck by throwing it all into the street.

I started with the laundry at the rear of the house and worked my way through. I threw out everything. I should point out at this point that the ex-husband liked to spend money on toys, and always had a new interest, so there was plenty of stuff to get rid of.

There were surfboards, wetsuits and all the surfing accessories, there was a scuba tank, all the scuba gear, boxing gear, wrestling gear, random gym stuff and all the personal possessions.

I threw out all the Hugo Boss shirts, suits and cufflinks. I pissed on the shirts.

I emptied every draw onto the street, I removed all household items he had purchased or that I knew he would want more than me. This included a leather arm chair and ottoman he had recently purchased with some money he was left by his grandmother. I am not entirely sure how I got that out of the house, it was huge and we struggled to get it in, but the power of the casked wine kept me powering on.

I then started smashing wedding photos and making quite a racket. It was possibly about 4am at this stage. Soon after a police car entered the street with its spot light on my house. The police pulled up outside my house and there was stuff EVERYWHERE in the street and the porch area.

I was blind drunk and trying to get the ottoman through the doorway. I asked them ‘yes, is there anything I can help you with?’ to which a very friendly policeman said ‘we have had a report of a break in at this address….’ I replied with ‘no break in, husband a cunt and sleeping with Cindy, so he is moving out….now if you don’t mind I have quite a lot of work to get through tonight so if there is nothing more I can help you with…..’ they smirked, told me to continue and I am sure went back to the police station and had a great laugh.

The ex-husband was not laughing a few hours later when he turned up, expecting to get changed and go to work, but I announced that it was moving day today and that I had provided some assistance. Thankfully for him, and most surprisingly nothing was actually taken, I really only finished just before he got there because I was working hard all night.

I even sorted papers, I came across his passport and I defecated in it and returned it to the plastic sleeve. It was not found for several months and was discovered when ex-husband and Cindy were preparing for an exotic overseas holiday – mission accomplished I would say!

So instead of going to work that day he had to hire a truck and move all of his things into his new abode and I, once again got drunk. Then I cried, and then I got more drunk. And that’s basically what I did for many of the following months.

Since this time………….
Ex-husband has managed to stay single for about 3 days I think. It never worked out with Cindy, she was a nut (how surprising…) and she left him, at which time he became a blithering mess and spent too much time talking to me about how broken hearted he was.

One conversation I had with him at this time was to try and explain that I might be a little bit upset about hearing the details of his new relationship, even if it was not all beer and skittles and his reply was ‘but she’s hot, she has a great body, not an ounce of fat on her and a really tight pussy’ and the thing that was most surprising about this was that he actually said this to me with the expectation that I would congratulate him on his successful find…..what I did respond with was ‘get the fuck out of my house and get those divorce papers organised….’.
But he was recently married again to someone I am assured is really quite lovely. He came to my house to see myself and Ardie who was our dog as he was moving overseas and we had some final matters to sort out and he wanted to see the dog off. It did come as a bit of a shock when he said he was going to be married in a few days, but I could see that he was extremely happy and that was pleasing to me, because he deserves it

Movie Date
So last night my thing….whatever he is…..I am not sure actually…..he is the person I hang out with, watch sports with, watch TV with, get drunk with and like to see nude allot and have been shagging now for a while…..I have been contemplating a name for this person, I mean he has one of those but it would not be fair to use it in this forum…..I don’t like to use the term “boyfriend” it seems weird after I had a “husband” and now that I’m old, plus it implies certain things about our relationship which I am not sure are true…..so I like the term “lover” it seems exotic and a little bit sexy, but then he is also my mate, and has been for many many years so it kind of sounds wrong.

I think I will call him The Hot Man. He is hot, I think so anyway and he is a man, and this statement is non-committal (which I like) makes not statement of possession or expectation (again, tick, tick) and, I hope, would be interpreted by him as a complement, which it is.

So The Hot Man and I decided on an early film last night, we had been up late the night before and I had some movie passes that needed to be used before they expired so thought we would go to the Jam Factory and see State of Play . If you are reading this and you thought you might go and see it, it’s the new Russel Crow/Ben Affleck film and its pure shit, we both hated it.

We got to the cinema nice and early, movie started at 6pm and there was nobody there to take our tickets. On leaving the cinema there were still no staff to be seen but by this stage a very sizable crowd had gathered on the lower level as they lined up for their tickets for the later timeslot.

The Hot Man was walking down the stairs just in front of me and banging on about how I take so long in the bathroom, which is a little odd really, it’s a public bathroom so its not like I took War & Peace in for a session, a quick twinkle and I was out of there. But as we stepped down my newly healed shoe caught on the metal stripping on one of the stairs and I took the tumble of a lifetime.

Of course this was I am sure very amusing to those who were lining up to get their tickets for the late movie session however it was excruciatingly painful for me. The Hot Man was wonderful and caring and tried to get me to sit on the step (no way- germs) and was holding me and extremely concerned about what injuries I had sustained. The blood started and the jeans were torn and the panic set in. he was helping me down the stairs and trying desperately to get a napkin from a café. He patched me up, took me to the fish n chip shop, got me some salmon and we went home.

That was basically where the sympathy ended, because you see the TV went on and the fish and chips came out and so did a beer. So I hobbled around and got myself a salad and ate my salmon and tried in vain to stop the bleeding.

I certainly don’t want it to sound like I am making The Hot Man out to be uncaring and unsympathetic; it’s not that, I think he just loses interest to be honest. In immediate crisis he is gold, but then the shine fades from that crisis and it’s not longer interesting for him.

So after a bike fall a few weeks back where I fractured my knee I now have a massive bruise on the knee that is fractures and have sliced my other knee open on the metal bit on the step. It fucking hurts and I want to stop falling over like an old woman. Especially when I am actually completely and utterly sober!

Manners required – Incidents
At one time I needed to catch the train to travel to work, those days are behind me now and I will never allow myself to return to that hideous style of transportation - I have a bike now and love riding, well I don’t love it at such, but compared to the other alternatives, well it rocks. I now arrive at my destination not covered in someone else’s germs, their spit, cough extract, hair or stench and I am generally far more tolerable on arrival than I once was.

I have had many incidents on the train but a couple that spring to mind:

Picture this, hot day, fucking hot, get on train which was late (yes, I know you will find that hard to believe) its Parliament Station about 5.20pm and a million people try to get on the train due to it being late and it being an express.

I get on the train and my face is literally pressed against the scummy glass and I can taste the lack of hygiene and am trying to forget all I know about bacteria breeding.

During the short ride to Richmond Station, the first stop and not the stop I plan to get off at I try to work at peeling myself off the glass and the door and by the time the train stopped and the doors opened I had moved to one side of the path of exit and was working at trying to remain on the train whilst these hot sweaty rude animals pushed and poked each other in an attempt to save 3 seconds of their day and move that bit faster!

I was trying to stay on the train because if one gets off the train it is likely to take off before you have time to board again and that would not impress me.

So it was at about this time that one of these animals, who happened to be disguised as a tall middle-aged man with a very limited amount of hair remaining on his head and way too much growing from his nose and ears pipped up and said ‘do you mind moving, people are trying to get off the train’…..this was a mistake.

I turned and looked up at this creature who was trying to intimidate me with his height and some misapprehension that he was under that he had “power”, at this stage my eyes had become daggers and I was snarling and I responded with ‘listen fucker, its hot, we are all hot, its been a long day for everyone, we are all doing the best we can on this cattle train so I suggest you settle the fuck down leave me to do the same’.

It seemed to work, he looked shocked that something so small had the power to be so evil – but he left me alone.

Another incident on the train was one Friday evening (of which there were MANY) when I had been having a few wines with the girls at the London in Richmond. I jumped on the train after watching my beloved Pies cop another thrashing and it was packed, full of families who had just left the footy at the MCG – this I like, this is good that people don’t drive to the MCG, the whole concept defies any kind of logic, I don’t want to get sidetracked but do people actually know that the train literally drops you at the MCG, like RIGHT THERE, punt road is a cunt at the best of times let alone when the football is on and it doesn’t matter how early you get there to get a good spot closer to the door, everyone will be leaving at the same fucking time! The closer you are to the ground the LONGER IT TAKES TO GET OUT!

So I was on the train, not pissed, but you know, its Friday, few wines, few cigs few laughs with the girls, things are moving along ok in my world at this time, I am quite pleased with things in general.

That is until this fuckstick who decided that he was going to travel home that evening in the middle of the carriages, yes, this was considerate of him actually because he was chain smoking and I was pleased not to have that going on inside the train. I was however conflicted, on the one hand I really do want him to fall and be crushed to death by the train, this would eliminate one more dickshit from the world, but I just kept thinking about how this was going to cause disruption, they won’t just keep driving the train I’m sure they will stop and want to call the police and the ambos and this is likely to delay my trip home…..you can understand my dilemma.

So all is going along fine until at regular intervals this idiot started opening the door and screaming the lyrics of one of these ridiculous songs he was listening to on his oversized headphones. The lyrics where filthy, involving many many words that are not suitable for the sensitive ears of children and the sort of shit families just shouldn’t have to put up with.

I was not very impressed with him and showed my distain for this behaviour by casting a few nasty looks over my spectacles at him whilst trying to read about Kylie and her breast cancer.

Finally this creature decided to joint the party inside the carriage and sat, wait for it….opposite me. I knew there would be trouble.

When the behaviour continued I got his attention and he removed his noise from his ears and I requested ‘do you mind pulling your head in, there are kids here and families who have tried to have a nice night out at the footy together, try and behave yourself mate?’ a simple request one would have thought……apparently not.

At this point this idiot decided to unleash a great deal of abuse on me about my judging him because of the way he looks and various other insults, trying to explain to this numbnut that I was judging him because of the way he was behaving and thought it was appalling was apparently getting me nowhere so as he screamed at me that I was a “spoiled stuck up rich bitch” at which point I tried to point out that may in fact be quite incorrect about that and was being quite hypocritical in fact as it was actually HE who was judging ME on the way I looked……we didn’t reach agreement.

It was quite clear that other than all the other things this bloke was he was also intellectually superior to this clown which made him angry and when idiots get angry they resort to violence. He started to threaten me and described some rather unsavoury things he planned to do to me. It was about this time that two gentleman who had been observing this few minutes of exchange got up and came over and stood over this loon and told him in no uncertain terms that this needs to stop and that he was to apologise to me and to the rest of the carriage for his poor form.

I should explain something here….when I say “gentlemen” this is perhaps describing more what their personalities were like, not their physical appearance. They both looked like they had seen a bit of action over the years, and possibly done some serious jail time. When the clown refused to make his apologies he was advised by the two “gentlemen” that his stop had in fact come and when he tried to dispute this they picked him up, opened the door, punched and kicked him a bit whilst he struggled and tore some of his clothing, but he was not much of a problem to them and the passengers on the train cheered as the train pulled away leaving this idiot almost in tears. I thanked the kindly gentlemen for their assistance.

So the lesson here is that these idiots will not be stopped until someone says something! Someone threw rubbish on the ground a couple of weeks ago as I was walking along the busy city street, when I told the man to pick it up, he was firstly surprised that a stranger would speak to him and secondly was shocked that someone had told him off – I reminded him that I was not joking and that I didn’t want to have to get nasty and he picked it up – simple.

I always tell people off for spitting in public, it’s a disgrace, what the fuck is wrong with you or makes you so special that you produce SO MUCH saliva that you need to spit all the time?? Do you have a medical condition which forces you to do this?? Then go and see a fucking doctor about it!

Men should open doors, idiots should stop trying to enter lifts, shops, doors of any kind unless people have first had the opportunity to exit! These are simple rules and really do separate us from being animals – even my dogs let me go through doors first, and yet I have dated people who don’t – what’s wrong with them! If my uncontrollable pooches can learn the rules then it should not be that hard for even these inbred people. Once again, people need to be told, if they do this, mention to them that it’s rude and they should wait, otherwise they will continue to do it and society continues to erode until we are all dragging our knuckles on the ground and killing our neighbours for food again.