Seems to be in a bit of a slump, writing-wise. Ideas flit about, whisper into my ear, but disappear before I can turn to hear what they are saying. Damned annoying.

I've been a bit up and down I guess, working a fair bit, enjoying the guitar, singing little baby operas at the cats... the usual. And keeping my eye on the news to make sure no friendly texans are swept off their feet.

This is just a quickie to say I'm still about... just a little low key.

Stewing.

Ideas.

Hopefully.

He is on the telephone again, his voice slow and thick with his misery. It will be the same conversation -- how he’s lost his wife, how his children are turning away from him.

She looks around her office, hoping people won’t notice the emotion creeping into her voice. She props the phone against her shoulder, attempting to continue to work while he speaks.

He blames his wife. He doesn’t understand his wife’s anger. But she can. What he doesn’t know is that she is aware of his accusations against his wife. She knows what sparked his wife’s final ultimatum. He has never chosen to divulge to her that he raided his wife’s mail on a suspicion. His wife had told a friend she had a crush on a man. He had opened the letter and thrown this slip of the pen in her face. Considering his history of infidelities, the irony is anything but sweet.

She glances at the clock while he continues on. She can’t raise what she knows without betraying who told her. So she keeps it to herself.

She feels for the children. Two teenage boys and a younger girl caught between the pettiness of their parents. She entreats him to consider them, to leave his anger and focus on them. Their mother, his wife, has made an art of hostility. He should do whatever makes this awful situation easier for his children, to make sure they feel his support. But he isn’t listening. He is off on his monologue, the list of wrongs done him, by his own family.

She sighs, wondering why he calls. Of course, she knows. She is the only one left who will listen.

She reminds herself that he is not well. He is on stress leave from work. A policeman, his gun was taken from him after an incident in the work locker room. They fear he would self-harm, and arrange for him to seek help. He doesn’t like what he is told by the counsellor and doesn’t return. He is crumbling and she worries when, or if, he will find his way back to solid ground.

His tone has changed from anger to the more familiar self-pity. His once strong voice has developed a whine. She wants to console him, but the children’s faces flash in her mind. She fears their pain will be longer lasting than his, and it angers her that he doesn’t seem to be able to see beyond his own feelings to acknowledge his responsibility to theirs. He is over 50. When will he grow up?

She types out a few more words. He has been talking for nearly an hour and she feels exhausted, the weight of his emotional neediness saps her. She occasionally tries to offer a different perspective to how he is dealing with his marriage breakdown, but he doesn’t want to hear. This has become a familiar vent for him, with a rhythm he finds comfortable. He doesn’t want introspection if it might mean change.

His mood shifts again. He misses his wife. He loves her. He wants her back so much. And then he says something she has never heard before.

"Everything in my life before my wife was a mistake."

He continues on, but she doesn’t hear. Her heart has frozen.

She is back in her old house. She’s 10 years old, walking in the front door, her school-case in her hand. As has become habit, she makes her way to her parents’ bedroom. Each afternoon she peeks into the wardrobe to see if her father’s clothes are still there.

Only today her mother is standing in the room, ironing. "Don’t bother looking. His clothes are gone." Her mother is stony-faced, staring down at the ironing board, at the shirt she is ironing. Her mother makes no mention of the white envelope sitting there, the only communication that her husband has finally abandoned the marriage.

It has struck her like a cold jolt in the guts. She looks up around the office again. It is mostly empty, people away from their desks for their lunch break. She is glad as she can feel the tears welling up. She is still the 10 year old girl trying to make everything ok, to make it as easy as possible for her father to want her, to be good so he will love her.

Until now.

With one sentence, one final disowning of her, of her beloved mother, of her sister, with those words "Everything in my life before was a mistake," she feels the 10 year old daughter finally let go, finally give up the battle.

She gives up hoping her father will ever be the man she hoped he was.
She realises she doesn’t love the man he is.

She hangs up the phone. Her father seems to sound more upbeat having unleashed his feelings. She can’t describe how she feels. It is so raw, so sad. She goes to the toilets and locks herself in a cubicle. And cries. In her heart, her father is dead.

Too...

Fat? Tough

Loud? Tough

Quiet? Tough

Opinionated? Tough Tough Tough

Shy?

Messy?

A spendthrift?

Left wing?

Critical?

Accepting?

Ignorant?

Parochial?

If you can't look at me and see something exciting waiting to be discovered, guess what?

Tough

To and fro, back and forth

How do we differentiate between what makes us comfortable and what actually makes us happy? They often aren't the same things. How do we learn to change the sense of what we deserve out of life? Some people seem to be able to just grab the trapeze and fly through life. I'm still testing the guy lines on the ladder that would take me up to the platform.

I know these are things I've raised over and over, and they don't seem to be any closer to revealing any secrets to me. Maybe there aren't any secrets. But there must be. There must be something that will help me to life a life with better relationships.

I know. It all comes back to self esteem. But even that confuses me.

I believe I am a decent person. I try to be thoughtful. I try to be reliable. I like the fact that I think about things, question things, have a curiosity about the world and what happnes in it. I like that I have such a soft heart for animals that even the sight of a happy dog can make me grin for an hour, and a dead pigeon on the road makes me sorry and somber. I like the fact that I
have my opinions, but would never deny others theirs, even if I don't agree with them. I like that I'm willing to learn and immerse myself in things that make me happy. I like that I'm transported by music and that I can lose myself in books.

I like my patience. I like my humour, that I'm not afraid to laugh out loud at the many ridiculous thoughts that pop into my head during very ordinary, banal moments. I like that I sing silly songs to the peanut butter in the supermarket. I like that I enjoy snuggling back into the warm covers of my bed to go dream chasing after I have woken up. I like that I have my principles and
don't let others bully me out of them. I lke that I quietly live my life with what I believe to be integrity, that I am honest with others, and try to be perhaps a little too much with myself.

I think I would like me, if I was ever to get to know me.

So, why, when there is a long list of things about myself that I like, do I assume that others will find me boring or just plain freaky?

I spend too much time in my head. That's an easy argument. I'm uncomfortable around new people. I automatically decline invitations (like I just did then for lunch) because why? Automatic response? Fear of the unknown? Not sure. I like the people here, as far as I can tell. Fear of me saying the wrong thing again and seeing that glazed over response as the 'other' realises there is nothing about me they find interesting? Which shouldn't mean too much to me. I probably wouldn't find them too interesting either.

Maybe that's where my shyness begins to stem from. Even though I like things about myself, I don't expect to fit in. Partly a values thing. And partly that I live too much in my head? I'm not a do-er. I don't go out and experience things, achieve things, that others find they can relate to perhaps?

I don't buy houses. I don't invest. I haven't travelled. I haven't studied. I am not fast tracked on some fabulous career. I don't have a partner or children. I am willing to admit that my life isn't AMAZING all of the time. I don't have a large circle of friends accrued through my years of study and travel. I am naturally reclusive and happy to spend time on my own. I don't need to cram my days with 'stuff' to do, just to feel that the day has been worthwhile. I am easily overwhelmed if I am around people too much. I like to be alone often.

Most times I feel self-contained. Sometimes I feel disconnected.

I am comfortable with the idea that I don't have to liek every person that I meet. That I can interact pleasantly with people but have no interest in them beyond that. There are some people I like. There are many that I feel not particularly strongly about in any sense. And there are the very few that I dislike. The people I like and who interest me, I try to know better. Those
that seem to want to make a connection, a friendship... well they are rare, and maybe I smother them. I don't seem surprised when the friendships sputter out.

All this sounds whiney and sad.

I'm sitting in the sun with a coffee watching people go about their day, all enjoying the sun, the beauty. I have Elliott Smith in my ears. How could I not like the life that is mine? How can I not feel a connection with every single person here, if only because we are all enjoying being here. I truly do love my life and am grateful I can live it the way I do.

Maybe it's just a skin thing. No, not exactly. I've tried the skin solution. It wasn't enough. OK, I just caught myself looking at the way a man's lats cast shadows, with the sun creating highlights on his shoulders, as he leans against a sandstone wall, oblivious as he talks on his phone. If he isn't talking to his lover, he should be.

So maybe it's a little bit a skin thing.

I think I'll go back to riding. And I think I'll make a concerted effort to crawl back into my skin this year.

I have a life full of happy moments strung together. I might struggle a little with a depressive, or sad, basic personality. Maybe. But fuck it. I am able to wring out more joy and humour in my day than many I've known, and that has to count for something. For a lot.

I don't need to change, to improve. I just need to let my guard down more, and not roll into my little echidna ball everytime I think someone MIGHT hurt me.

I've survived worse. None of this should frighten me.

Don't expect sense at 2am

Well I'm back to about 90% and feeling SO much better. Now I'm just trying to avoid all the other people sneezing and blustering all over the place. Hankies, please, people!

I will be starting a 3 week busy period at work, which is good. Money is good... when your car is due for rego and you know it is going to need a new set of tyres and a major service to get it back in the good books.

I might be getting back into horseriding again. I can't actually afford it, and it is a little risky when I can't get income insurance, but the woman who owns the stables where I was riding contacted me to see if I could take up looking after their website again. I'd originally created it over 2 years ago now, and looking at it, it's a bit clunky and could really do with some streamlining (purely design/page flow wise... don't ask me anything technical about websites... I have no idea). We'll see how it goes.

I miss riding a lot, and I think it would do me the world of good to get back into it again. Apart from all the benefits of being with a beautiful animal, and the rightbrain effect riding lessons have on me, which is so peaceful, just to get back into something physical again is needed. I have been big for a while now, but it is getting silly. This isn't me. And it is beginning to interfere with my life.

Beginning? I wonder how long I've really been using it as an excuse to not risk things. I like to think I live bravely, and on some levels I do. But on some, many, I am so frightened I feel like I'm stuck in one of those dreams where you're running away from something ominous, and you hide in a corner, and you are trying to stop yourself breathing so the ominous thing can't hear you, but you're gasping for air, and as this thing comes closer, you try to hold so still but you're shaking from the effort of not moving, and any moment it'll catch you so don't breathe, don't breathe, don't breathe.

Has anyone out there read Kate Grenville's Lillian's Story? I read it when I was a teenager; young and athletic. Yet the main character still resonated with me. As a young girl she takes to eating, building up a wall of flesh, in an attempt to escape the beatings, and later sexual abuse, of her father. At the turn of the century, when the most she was expected to achieve was a good marriage, this wall of flesh disqualified her from the marriage game, freeing her to pursue an education she would otherwise have not had. Of course, her history, her experiences, her abdication from her social role, all catch up with her in the end. But what I was leading to was, even at 18 I understood the significance of that wall of flesh. And when they later made a movie of this story and ignored this facet of the story (an amazing but very slim actress was cast to play her character), I was more than disappointed. I felt like they'd completely missed the most important key to her trying to control her life.

So, have I built up my own wall of flesh in an attempt to disqualify myself from the love game? People who meet me for the first time might describe me as reasonably articulate, slightly eccentric, and enthusiastic on certain pet subjects, but attractive isn't a word that would sit comfortably, not in the traditional, boy-meets-girl way. It makes a perfect excuse for me to accept lack of interest in me (rather than facing some bigger flaws in my personality), and allows me a higher moral ground (if they REALLY liked me, my body shouldn't matter, they must be shallow -- although I really think, they must be normal), and if the worst was to happen and someone STILL was to try to express an interest in me, I could assume they must have some warped kind of fetish. Nice series of justifications I've built up there. Even the French judge would have to give me a 9.0 for that lot.

So, the big (HA!) question is... what am I hiding from?

I'b been sicb

Snotty. Achey. Tonsilly. Headachey. Sweaty. Chilly. and now Coughy.

Aren't you glad I stayed away!

Lost a little bit of work, but I should be able to make it up over the next few weeks. The worst thing was not being able to play with my new toy, and having to cancel my lesson. Again, I'll make up for it this week. Began this weekend. I am reaching the point of frustration. Barre chords. Little fingers don't make full barre chords easily. Or mine don't. Stoopid fingers.

Ummmmm... I have to say that days and days in bed don't make for interesting reading. Or not the reason why I was in bed anyway. Oooooh for another reason. *sigh* But it does make for freaky paranoid dreams. I've had a week of dreams where I'm being attacked by strange beings trying to break into my car, and then lots of dreams of someone breaking into my home while I'm asleep, and other dreams of police with police dogs running around my house looking for criminals in my yard.

Which, oddly enough, kinda came true. About midnight last night there was a scuffle on the street outside my house, with someone yelling, and someone else yelping and whimpering, and suddenly a bunch of police cars turned up. A loud conversation outside (I don't think they appreciated having to run) became more muted, and then they all bundled up and drove off. I couldn't see anything, just heard it. Surreal.

So, anyway, I guess I should try to get some sleep tonight. Hopefully dreamless sleep.