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The catch up series part 3: Arriving in the land of the dancing light

2011-11-04T21:49:00.001+11:00

I cannot begin to explain how it feels to be in Cambodia. But i will cheapen it with my words and hope that when you get there you will forgive my clumsy sentiment and bear with me through this one because I don't think I have ever felt so free or at peace then I did riding past the farm houses and through the jungle temples on the back of a bike in the most beautiful light I have ever seen.

I need a moment...

As we flew in from Vietnam, a spare seat between us, The Norwegian and I gazed out at what appeared to be a country comprised of one giant rice paddy. I double checked my bag for my supply anti malaria tablets, all were accounted for. So was my shaving razor which had gone through customs with no trouble whatsoever. God bless Asia. To pass the time between window seat lean overs I braided my hair, remembering that I was planning on spending the next few days as Angelina Jolie, and checked through my passenger card. As we descended sleepily towards Siem Rep this odd feeling of peace started to come over me - yes I know how ridiculous that sounds when you're on air vietnam sitting a full seat over from your last awkward shag but I can't tell it any other way then exactly how it was. And it was peaceful. And joyous.

I couldn't help but cater to the excitement of my inner nerd. After years of anticipation I was going to walk in the footsteps of a people who had survived countless invasions, brutal dictators, and exploitation with their good nature more intact then their physical bodies. How did they maintain their outlook on life? I wanted to understand their culture, their land and their way of life. I had heard from friends that Cambodia was a place that changed your understanding of many things and I had the most open of hearts from the moment we touched down.

We picked up our visa's on arrival, an extra $5 for silly old me who forgot to bring her spare passport photo. The airport was the prettiest I have been to, beautiful gardens surrounded it and sculptures decorated the interior. Yes I know it was just an airport but it stuck with me, particularly after talking so much in university about how airports were non spaces and all looked the same to allow for the ease of travel. But this place was different.

As we walked out, newly paid for visa's in hand we were greeted by the familiar line of motorcycle taxi's and tuk tuks. A man of five foot 4 rushed out to meet us and beaconed us to hop on his bike. His name was Tomas.

Following our plan to not make plans and amazing race our way through south east asia the Norwegian and I had not booked a hotel. This pleased Tomas very much as he had a hotel he wanted to take us to. We agreed to check it out along with a few others in areas we had heard of and we threw our bags on the bikes. I slung the guitar case over my shoulder and rode off, hurtling through the burnt orange dirt towards town.

"I like Australians!" Tomas said as we started our drive. He kept looking back over his shoulder at me to be polite, admittedly I was a little more worried about staying on the road but like all cambodians he had been bourn on a bike. "Australians and Cambodians are very similar," he told me, "the people are good, very good people. The government, fucked."

I liked him immediately.

Tomas liked to tell jokes and talk about the history of his town. His english was perfect, learnt from his American stepfather, and again I felt that one language was just not enough for me. How embarrassing that in a country with such extensive educational resources I had only managed to learn english.

I watched as monks on bikes flew past beautiful french-cambodian architecture and wondered at the faces of government officials that looked down on me from their large street posters as I rode through their home. Tomas took us around through the main tourist centre and then to the local centre of town. We thought about staying further out with the locals but decided on a hotel closer to Pub Street and the night markets due to our limited time in the country. I was hoping we might be able to get to Phnom Pen and then up into Laos after satisfying my temple mania at the Angkor complex. The Norwegian made arrangements with Tomas to be our guide and take us through the temples the following two days.

We spent a little time exploring separately in the afternoon and met back at the hotel to change and grab some dinner. We walked out towards Pub Street, a hive of music, restaurants, and bars. The amber light that wafted out of establishments greeted us warmly and we found a Khmer restaurant that served its food in pineapples .. speaking of pineapples a shake was definitely in order.

A local cat rubbed around my ankles and purred as we ate our meal. I looked out at the street and watched the people drift by. Everyone seemed relaxed and happy yet possessed of the infectious energy of this place. It reminded me of another place on anther trip on the other side of the world where I had also felt at home and instantly accepted. It was like Amsterdam, only balmy.

After dinner we wandered down the main street and found our way to a little stall that promised a fish pedicure for $5. The attendant wiped the Cambodian dust from our feet with a wet towl before allowing us to dip them into the small pool full of waiting miniature carp. The tiny fish attached themselves to the bottom of my feat and toothlessly nibbled away at dead skin cells. They swarmed around the more callused areas, for the Norwegian this was his favoured soccer ball kicking foot. Moving my feat slightly I watched as the school of little fished followed, many still attached, and my feet began to look like two giant sea anemones. It tickled.

Spurred on by tinkering sounds of traditional music calling from the market place we dried our exceptionally clean feet off and made our way to the night markets. A band comprised of land mine survivors entertained guests with their delicate floating melodies. Coloured light bulbs lit the scene of a labyrinth of stalls showcasing beautiful fabrics, jewellery and carvings. I found myself rather in need of a new dress, feeling like I had been living in the cargo's I had borrowed from my friend Kezia for the past ten days. As I slipped the light white cotton dress on I felt like I had finally emerged from under all the dust and bike oil of the trip so far. I felt feminine again and it was a pleasant reprise. Beautiful little pink flowers dotted the dress in a delicate and understated way, I didn't bargain with them, it was $8.

The Norwegian smiled at me in that way that he had, it was the first time I'd seen that smile since we had parted ways in Australia.

After a little stroll we went back to the hotel, and to bed.

The catch up series part 2 - The Norweigian influence in Vietnam

2011-10-06T16:41:00.000+11:00

It's amazing how persuasive sex can be. Though I will never admit it a big part of why I went to Europe in the first place was related to to man. Granted I had always planned on Europe after graduation but in the time before I left another motivation came into play and took a little of the focus off my journey of discovery and redistributed it towards a certain mischievous hunky dunkey who took my fancy at the time. My trip to south east Asia was hyjacked in a similar fashion.

But if you'd seen him you'd forgive me for it. Granted the boy had read the game one too many times and we did seem to have a consistent disconect going on where we'd be in the same room but off in our own worlds. Having a conversation but talking about completely different things or just in generally coming from the opposite ends of the earth. Which of course we did, literally. But in the rare moments that we did seem to cross paths - generally they were physical ones - it just worked.

We'd known eachother since we were nineteen. He'd come over from Norway to study at my uni and happened to be a good friend with one of my english mates in student housing. They tried to set us up straight off the bat but at the time his best pick up line was "I love animals, when people hurt animals it's the worst thing." Alright, now when I look at it I think it's adorable and honest. But back then I'd been running around the Sydney club scene for a year and a half and had been hanging out with men who had already developed their charm and persuasion and the animal card seemed childish. He was awkward and as I get awkward when the other person is awkward it didn't really work out. I decided I wasn't interested and that was that. I saw him sporadically over the next 3 or 4 years, always in a group, never talking for long. We just didn't seem to have anything in common.

Then one day when he had recently returned from the states I ran into him crossing the street. There was something different going on. He looked good all of a sudden, relaxed and at peace with himself. He smelt nice too. They say that when you're pitching a new venture or product to an investor you have their attention for about 30 seconds before they decide whether you are full of it or if they want in. In my opinion a woman decides if she is interested in a man in the first seven seconds. Anything that occurs past that is either overkill or fighting a loosing battle. I was interested. Couldn't put my finger on why, something just felt kosher.

That night we went out for a friends birthday and I watched as he went through all the standard pick up tactics, making fun of himself, making fun of me, changing the topic, talking to other large groups of women about whether the feather boa he had stolen from the birthday boy made him look ridiculous, all of that crap. When he finally shut up we kissed and shortly after that I told him I was going home, by my self, to sleep.

The next day he sent me a text calling me lady luck (Sinatra reference, points scored) and saying that he had the best sleep of his life. He wanted to catch up again. So I went for it. Long story short we got together once or twice, it was mediocre and I left the country shortly after for Europe. I got back just a couple of weeks before he was due to fly back to Norway. We kept meaning to catch up but I was so overloaded that all I could do was make it to his leaving do. He walked me home afterwards and we talked about how much he was going to miss Sydney. When we got to my door he said good night, got in a taxi and left.

I couldn't sleep so I went online, I checked out my facebook and went though some emails. He popped up on chat after not too long and we started talking about Asia. Both of us had said it was the next big trip we wanted to do and that we were just waiting to see if anyone wanted to come with us. It was pretty much that easy. And of course the chatting lead to flirting and shortly after her was in a cab on his way to my house. I think it was a combination of him feeling connected to Sydney and not wanting to leave and me feeling the pull of a man who is leaving tomorrow, but whatever it was, it was incredible. It must have been because after that we both decided Asia was on in four months time. No strings attached in between visits.

Let me just remind you all at this point that a lot can happen in four months. And it did. I got stuck into my first internship with a production company and started running around on shoots. He started work in Norway to save up for the trip and for the next leg of his study which was to take place in Hawaii. We talked on chat and emailed. He sent me pictures of his place in Norway and his families cabin. He invited me up for the winter when the killer whales swim past, as you do. But after a time we disconnected. He had started seeing a girl back home so we didn't have those particular conversations so much anymore and decided on separate rooms for the trip. Then of course they broke up because they were driving each other nuts, as most people do. Asia was fast approaching and I hoped he was over the whole mini relationship because I was not about to play counselor on my tropical holiday which I had marketed to myself as including adventure, cocktails and a heck of a lot of fun.

I was nervous getting on the plane. When we had decided on the trip we planed our flights into Ho Chi Min, our first nights accommodation there, and our flights home from Kuala Lumpur. That was it. We were going to amazing race it through Vietnam and into Laos and Cambodia before hitting Thailand where we could stay with his family and then finishing up the trip in Malaysia. I was stoked, it was exactly what I wanted but at the same time I was struggling with Europe debt guilt. Who did I think I was running off to Asia with a Nordic sex god and leaving all my earthly responsibilities completely behind? Honestly it was just too much. I called Seong who scalded me immediately telling me that I had better not have made her get out of bed with a hangover to drop my sorry ass to the airport for nothing. Point taken I hoped my way onto my Jetstar flight to Darwin and then on to Ho Chi Minh.

While it was not the most amazing flight of my life, certainly nothing compared with Etihad, it got me there safely and about 15 minutes later the Norweigian landed too. Instantly I knew something was off, we were in disconnect mode and nothing seemed to get through. We both tried but it just wasn't sparking. The trip back to our hotel confirmed all the stories I had heard about Motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh. I took in the humidity and the warmth was welcoming. I tried to locate the strange smell everyone had always told me about but I live right near china town in Sydney so to me it just felt like home. We went and picked up some essentials, deodorant and razor blades and all that from the convenience store under the hotel. I noticed the strangest thing about the deodorant, all the bottles claimed to have skin whitening properties. Here I was thinking I would pick up some colour when apparently I was already on trend, at least in Vietnam.

We'd worked up an appetite and wanted to get on local time so we went for a really lovely dinner in one of the street cafe's not far from our hotel. He paid. It was nice. We went back to the hotel. The next day he just seemed to loose interest. I remember one time he just wanted to hang out in the hotel and watch baseball. We were in Ho Chi Minh city! I couldn't believe it. Either way we did knock off a lot of great adventures.

Our trip to the Cu Chi tunnels was the first but I think it put the Norweigian off buses for the rest of the trip. I made the mistake of sitting near the back and he rolled his eyes at me before passing on a valuable life lesson, the back of the bus guarantees the bumpiest ride. If you don't fancy having your ass slammed into a vinal seat every ten seconds sit near the front.

The tunnels themselves are about two hours out of Ho Chi Minh. The city was bustling and on every corner people stood talking, selling their wares in stalls, buying a coconut drink for the walk to work or playing music. Electricity lines raped around each other like jungle vines and workmen stood on one mass to fix another.

It was unlike anything I had seen before.

I watched as the thousands of teaming motorbikes started to thin out and the architecture began to brighten and resemble houses I imagined I might find in Spain or Mexico despite the late French influence.

On the tour of the tunnels I found out several things about myself that I didn't like. The most notable was how was it was for me to forget the travesty and brutality that had occurred where I was standing. How many people had lost their lives in this place in a war between politicians and the months men spent underground, cleverly concealing themselves and fighting with inadequate weaponry and guerrilla tactics. The scars left on a country that would never really heal. Instead my academic fascination took over my sensitivity and it became my nerd theme park. For example:

This is me lying in the bottom of a bomb crater. It occurred to me later that what I was doing was ridiculous. This was an actual crater, not a joke, not something someone had dug out so I could experience it's enormity. What an idiot why would I lie down in it like that?

This is me shooting an AK47. Admittedly for me this was more out of a curiosity with the skill it must have taken to fire a weapon like this when the sight was completely off. I wanted to understand what the vietcong had dealt with every day. The sound was so loud and the earmuffs they gave us barely drowned out conversation let alone the bucketing roar of an assault riffle. My ears rang for hours. I later realized I'd fired a gun on grounds that were surely a resting place for fallen soldiers.

What a fuckwit.

That's the thing about aisa. You go in feeling all high and mighty about human rights and then you find yourself taking advantage of everything. Just another bogan Australian tourist.

We spent another day or two in Ho Chi Minh checking out the markets, sights, computer prices. I spotted a little store outside our hotel that sold guitars and I decided that as I wasn't getting too much conversation out of The Norwegian I would need something else to occupy my time in between sights. I picked up a pint sized guitar and a case for it for $14 and resolved to at least get some practice in. Our next stop was Nha Trang which The Norweigian had assured me was a paradice. Beautiful beaches and crystal clear water. I was intreigued and we boarded a night train. As we got further and further out of the city I began to notice rather more water on the ground then I had expected and realized that we had began to enter the area affected by the recent hurricane that had just passed through. Around this time The Norwegian also realised that we had in fact passed the stop we were supposed to get off at because the train lines were being diverted. He cleverly aquired more intel and we get off at the next stop where he secured us transportation to Nha Trang - in the form of two local motorbike taxis.

I had only been on the back of a bike once on my friend Ben's farm and he drove very slowly. I'd like for you to all think of me as some awesome kick ass chick who pushed her way onto the bike and took off on one wheel, guitar strapped to my back. But in reality I had my trepidations. I made the driver promise to be nice to me and after watching the Norwegian take off on his I really had no choice. I wasn't about to look like a pussy in front of THAT guy. And it was my holiday, I was 22 and if i felt like being a complete dingbat that was exactly what I was going to do. Fuck it. I was getting on that bike.

Once I got used to the feel of the thing it dawned on me that this was clearly the best decision I had ever made. We traveled through the floods, water lapping at my converse sneakers and rain occasionally falling on my cheeks. The world moved around me as I watched children playing soccer in the flood waters and families laughing at their antics. Once or twice we had to turn back because the waters were too high to take on. When we eventually got to the town we found the nearest hotel and checked in. I went out for a walk on the beach and took in the hurricane's devastation. The impact on this small seaside town was obvious as families began the arduous task of cleaning up the beach. Debris had been heavily strewn across the sand and the little huts and woven palm umbrellas had been uprooted in the strong winds. Bits and pieces of the world had found there way to Nha Trang and had to be cleared away before the next load of tourists arrived. It was a strange feeling in a place that was clearly all about having a good time, dependent on it in fact. But today was not the day for it.

We hit a local restraunt for dinner and were served a large portion of food though neither of us could figure it out what it actually was. First of all we never actually ordered anything, they just came to our table and put the food down. Secondly whatever it was had arrived in pieces. There were little parcels wrapped in leaves, a mass of what looked like pastry, coriander, some chicken and a few other veggies. We sat there looking at each other. At the food. And then back to eachother again, more confused. We were the only patrons in the restaurant so there was no one else to copy. I tried unwrapping one of the little leaf parcels and found it contained a plastic bag filled with congealed goo. To this day I still don't know exactly what that was. Eventually the family running the restaurant took pity on us and showed us how to make our dinner. Were had been served the ingrediants for rice paper rolls. What I thought was pastry was several sheets of the rice paper wraps just stuck together. Oh what a sheltered life I had lead.

Below is an email I sent to my mum from Nha Trang.

Hi Mumma,
Just arrived in Nha Trang and have just missed the big storm which is lucky although the beach is covered in debris and it's still quite rainy. Going to the islands tomorrow if it's not rainy. Flying back to ho chi min tomorrow night. We took the train too far past our station today and ended up getting on the back of motorbikes to ride into town! It was amazing! So much fun. The roads were flooded in parts so much so that we couldn't get through but made it here in the end. The Norwegian is kind of boring me at the moment, and i think i am boring him too so he's gone off riding today and i am checking out the town.

Looking forward to getting to Cambodia next! Can't wait for the temples. About done with Vietnam now, it's costing me way too much money! The Norwegian seems to love to just do things without checking the prices first and it makes me want to slap him.

The people, as always, are lovely here!

Love and miss you lots!!!
xoxox

The next day the rain held up so we decided against the boat trip. The Norwegian went to find himself a gym and being morally opposed to exercise on holidays I wandered around town and managed to find a photocopied copy of Catch 22. Book sellers wandered around town approaching tourists with their woven baskets full of books. I thought this was a rather ingenious idea. I'd been wanting to finish Catch 22 ever since I started it in year 12 extension English but just couldn't seem to get around to it. Right then seemed as good a time as any so I picked it up. The sweet lady gave me a friendship bracelet as a book mark and I was on my way. I stopped for breakfast at the Olivia cafe and had my first taste of a pineapple shake and instantly felt more alive. It was a taste sensation. I still don't know how they made it so creamy when it was clearly fruit and water. It would become my drink of choice for the rest of the trip. In thinking about it I can still taste it. On the way home I grabbed a pizza from a small pizza joint and made friends with the waitress. She was studying tourism at the local school and said she one day hoped to work in a hotel. "It's the best career here," she said, and her parents were happy. Because the weather was looking dodgy I picked up a packet of playing cards and went back to the hotel. After a few games and some pizza The Norwegian and I hit a deserted tourist bar for my first bucket.

I'd been wanting one of the notorious cocktails since he'd first mentioned them but he declined to join me. It tasted like lighter fluid, funnily enough he beet me at pool that night. We wandered around and finally found a nightclub that seemed to be doing business. Walking in was like a moment out of an old west movie. Every head turned in our direction. The bar itself played some kind of trance music and if I remember correctly had screens around on the walls where people were watching ... I'll have to check with him but I think it was rush hour. It was utterly bizarre. We got a table and stayed for one drink but clearly we had infringed on the only local bar in town and as tourists we were not welcome so we took off.

The next day we looked at flights back to Ho Chi Minh and realised we might as well just go straight to Siem Rep in Cambodia. The Norwegian was over buses by this time so we booked a flight with Vietnam airlines and took a regular taxi to the airport, driving past some beautiful ocean cliffs.

Vietnam had been a challenge but it was just the beginning. While the Norwegian sat with a spare seat between us on the plane the one thing we could agree on was how long we felt we'd been there for, we'd done so much that after only a week it felt like three. I'd loved getting to see this amazing place but Vietnam was always more of his idea then mine, I was aching to see Cambodia and walk the steps of the ancient temples. My inner nerd was mid asthma attack in pure excitement.

As the plane took off I got the familiar chill of anticipation. I was on my way to the land that changed all those who walked through it, and I wondered who I might be by the time I left.

The catch up series part 1: Why I decided to go to asia

2011-10-05T20:29:00.001+11:00

To start out on my catching up I have settled on the story of why I decided to go to South east asia. As you may or may not remember in the beginning of 2009 I went to Europe. I got on the flight home feeling pleasent about the experience and I had certainly encountered a lot. I had learned a self sufficience that I was not awear I had and it really shook of a lot of the nerves I had about who I might become as a person. I was just that much closer to realising the greatness that lay ahead in life and I was excited to see what it would bring to me.

But...

There was still something missing. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on. It had all been so familiar. So comfortable (except for that camper bed in the Sweet hostel de milano - never again). I was aching for something more. Something exotic. Something less ... white, if that makes sense? Everything had run on the same system. Once I had the tube system in London down, for example, negotiating the metro in Paris was the same deal in a different language. I wanted that shock, the unchartable unpredictable unknown.

My flight home would inspire the seed of a new idea. It was in the last days of May 2009. By the time the flight from Heathrow landed in Abu Dhabi I was buggered. The plane had been grounded for three hours longer then anticipated and put us well behind to catch our connecting flight back to Sydney. It would be an eight hour wait for the next plane but I was glad for it. Etihad had been airing on the side of caution and made sure our plane was safe before allowing it to fly - always a good thing - AND it got me a chance to explore the adopted city of my room mate. Seong had spent the final few years of her highschooling career there and I was curious to see all that she had spoken about. The buildings, the people, the cornish. I was not yet done with my adventure and as the airline had arranged for accommodation for us at the Royal and included free meals I jumped in the car service with three other aussie girls and we made our way into AbuDhabi.

Of the four of us I think I was the only one crazy enough to go outside in the 42 degree heat, unseasonably warm I was told by Seongs mum who was still living there and called me to make sure I was ok. I wasn't sure about how uncovered I ought to be and being rather busty lady I am decided I would pashmina my top half up inspite of the rising mercury.

I left the air conditioned comfort of the Royal and ventured out into the blazing sun and the empty streets. AbuDhabi is a city that comes alive during the night so walking around in the middle of the day is a strange experience. The occasional car drifted past without consequence. The buildings stood all sand, glass, steel and pastel. The giant golf ball that seemed to crown one of the resident skyscrapers watched over me as I got my bearings. It was around about then that I realised I was being watched by more then the local architecture.

It's the strangest thing, I had begun to spot a few stray people on the street. All of them were men, and none of them were moving. It was as though in the heat they had each found a patch of sand and declared a moratorium on movement till sundown. They watched me as I walked down the strip, a crazy tourist who knew no better. A crazy boiling tourist. The only other movement occurred 15 floors up on the beams of a construction work site staffed by Pakistani workers. I was told they didn't stop till it hit 50 and many of them pass away on the job each year. It was a cost they felt was justified by the unstoppable 'progress' of the new middle east.

The stores on the streets had closed down in the heat of the day and would reopen as we drove back to the airport that night. As the evening lights turned on locals took to the streets, shopping running errands and grabbing a bite to eat in everything from halter tops to burkas. The city whizzed past me as we took the road back and I tried to take in as much as I could. My visit was far too short! I wanted to more!

In my short walk I had found it. Something completely alien to me. Something that inspired new questions and challenged what I thought of the world and the people in it. I wanted to find it everywhere. As I flew home I started to think about my next overseas adventure. A good friend had told me stories of her times in Laos and Thailand and I started to hear the siren call of south east Asia. It was decided and I had to find a way to make it happen as soon as possible.

My return to Sydney was largely uneventful. I went back to work at the shoe store and felt a displacement stronger then anything I had felt in my time in Europe. Something had shifted and the idea of a home had taken a new shape in my mind. I needed to escape again, and Asia was definitely the place. I just needed a push. It would come soon after in the form of a mocha skinned blue eyed Norwegian friend of mine and a spur of the moment decision the night before he left the country...

Coffee?

2011-10-05T18:52:00.001+11:00

It just occurred to me that there are many many updates I have yet to post here about my life in the past two years, or what I think I will call the dark ages. Not dark in nature, but certainly mysterious. All the little things I've been up to in the time between posts that seem to have rather fallen through the cracks. Looking over a print out of every last one of these blogs I realised how important this has become as a record of my life. And that if I want to remember all the crazy things I did as a Twenty something I should really be writing about them. So the next few posts will be devoted to catching you, and future Tess up on what went down. Believe me, we have a lot to talk about.

The sandy scrape of shoes accross a wooden floor

2011-10-05T18:45:00.000+11:00

I was lucky enough to see a Tango performance as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival recently. It got me thinking, is there anything sexier then a tango? On closer inspection I realised the tango is a rouse and the real pull is in the risk it pretends to be.

The tango is a surface display of passion we use to avoid the vulnerability of love. It is the game we play, dancing around the subject, never mentioning the elephant in the room. Innuendo and insinuation without substance. All the lead up without the follow through. The moment before the kiss.

It's fat free icecream.

A tango is predatory and reduces the meaning and the need for explanation of what really draws us in, simplifying it to sex without leaving evidence of the true intention of the players. The real desire behind the tango, the desire to be loved, and the confusion of love for passion that it enables is the only risk and it's true method of seduction. It is the safe road and can be dismissed as easily as a taxi can be called before your partner awakes.

It's not playing the game, it's cheating yourself out of reality. And like anything fat free, a tango will leave you just that little bit less then satisfied.

what a relief

2011-10-05T18:33:00.000+11:00

Ah what a relief it is to finally feel compelled to write in here again. It's so nice to feel compelled to write anything actually. Let's just say it's been a while. So lets see, how best to get you up to speed? Well in the past few years since my more regular posting days I have been to 2 new continents. I've kissed 9 new boys and 5 of my ex's have gotten engaged, 4 are now married. Had 4 new jobs, 1 of which I lost. Met so many new friends and reconnected with some old ones. I've been to the blue mountains and magnetic island both of which I hadn't ticked off my list yet.

I've rearranged my priorities so many times. I spent a lot of time at work and found love in what I do. Not to mention a few other things at work that certainly made the day go faster. And I gave up writing about the world so that I had time to actually see the world. You have no idea how much this changed me as a person, the way I think about things, the way I take on situations. Stopping writing was almost like putting a temporary cork on my tricky emotions in a way. I think I needed a break from them too for a little. And now, suddenly and from out of no where the need to write is back. As is the need to sing. It's all very strange, and quite lovely.

I've always written quite honestly but I find myself in the real world, the 3D version, to be more protective of late. I'm not so good at admitting certain things. When I want to tell people, important people ... well when I want to tell them important things I rather cheat myself out of the opportunity. I'm having difficulty right now putting it on paper because I concern myself with who might read it. I want to tell you some of the amazing things that have happened to me in the past six months. Inspiring, scandalous, exploitative, explorative, exhausting, captivating, even a couple of romantic moments. But I'm going to punk out on you. Let's just say I probably need to be able to say these things in the real world before I can put them on paper.

I've been completely financially irresponsible. Somewhat professionally irresponsible. And romantically I threw the rule book out the window. It's been interesting.

I'm relieved to know I don't have to publish this one, if I don't want to. It's nice. I can keep it all to myself.

The thing is I don't want to keep me all to myself any longer.

xx

Explosive Graffiti

2011-03-07T16:02:00.002+11:00

NEW BLOG

2011-03-07T15:57:00.000+11:00

Hi All,

I know I haven't really been posting ... my bad but check out my new blog. www.tessfindsafilmjob.blogspot.com which I completely forgot to mention but which actually wound up getting me a job! How freekin cool is that?

Awesome yo!

-Tess

Wait a minute ...

2010-02-12T11:51:00.003+11:00

As I type this I'm sitting in an office in fox studios, a little baffled at how it was that I actually got here and feeling somewhere between a kid playing dress ups and an amature adult. I vaguely recall spending four years in uni and paying dues here and there. Working for free for the last 5 years ... still working almost for free, I do get reimbursed in lunch which is nice because I wouldn't be able to afford actual food anyway and the thought of being paid to do something I enjoy is secretly so terrifying that if ever offered the opportunity I'd probably involuntarily projectile vomit.

I'm supposed to just be another assistant and the other day one of the companies I work with called and said there may be room to train me up as a producer.

People send scripts to my house. By courier.

The whole thing is an absolute disaster of impending success.

I have no idea how this happened.

2009-09-11T23:43:00.002+10:00

I'm contemplating what I want out of life. This as any of you know is an extremely delicate task and should generally be undertaken under the influence of magic foods in the middle of the desert. I have neither magic foods or desert but I do have this little piece of ciber pie that in the past has been quite effective for me in exactly this task. So let's begin.

I am single and I don't do much sleeping around. My friends tell me I am wasting my 20's. My friends are all in relationships so if you ask me people in glass houses ...

The thing is I've never functioned very well in one. I tend to put them first and let all my ambitions slide. I had forgotten I had ambitions until recently in fact when a friend offered me work experience in his film company so this hadn't been an issue anyway but now that I am all nerd-fabulous again I think everything else might have to take a back seat for a change.

Meanwhile I got invited to join the Golden Key International Honor Society which I believe to be a front for an Illuminati scouting operation in which case I will have to pick up an extra language or two because world domination is on the cards and I am ambitious now after all.

The other problem I am having at the moment concerns a holiday I have been planning for a while. The traveler I'm supposed to be going with was previously a ... well ... it was terribly uncomplicated ... and is talking to me about the break down of his current relationship online from the other side of the world while continually changing the booking dates on me. I'm not feeling too certain about the solidarity of this trip.

Another thing bugging me is that a very cute guy who looked like Logan from the Gilmore girls (admittedly not generally my type but he had charisma) took my number the other night and has yet to call. In other words he is not going to call. We met on Monday and it is now Friday kids, spare me the hopeful phrases and ego props. And this is disappointing because my friends want to see me dating so badly and I feel that with every no show I let them down a little bit.

My step Aunty recently discovered her Husband was cheating on her with a Canadian woman who he is now "in love with" and has been gallivanting all over the world on business trips getting up to god knows what for god knows how long. She broke. A month or so later she's filled for divorce, taken off to thailand, quit her unsatisfying law job, sold one of her apartments, met a hot African millionaire and is currently driving around london in a Bently. As Alabama Whirley said "That's the way it goes, but don't forget, it goes the other way too."

Another thought that keeps popping up into my head is a statement made my my retireing primary school head master. "Don't become a dinosaw."

I need that desert right about now.

-Lady Flex

After two months away

2009-05-25T03:21:00.004+10:00

People always tell you they came back changed after their overseas trip. How it altered their universe, introduced them to their true love be it a new city or a new partner, made them realise what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. Well I'm here, there, away. And it's the second last day on the opposite side of the world for me on this trip. And it's been one hell of a ride.

So it's time for confessions...

1 I have not - to this point with two days remaining - so much as kissed a single (or married) man. Yes I know it's ridiculous. I know that was the whole point. I know I went to Italy and danced with many an Italian, all of whom were my type. I know was escorted back to my hostel buy three ridiculously good looking gentleman in Paris. And yes I am aware of how many tall men there are in Amsterdam. But it just never seemed to be the right time ... or something ...

2 I knecked a bottle of red wine in front of a cop car on the streets of Montmarte. I made friends with Americans.

3 I went out on my own with men I had just met.

4 I stole a lot of transport, I payed for maybe one bus in Italy when I took around ten in four days. A hot Frenchman named Donald (its spelled Donald but it's pronounced Donaaaaaaauld- much sexier) walked me through the train turnstiles on his pass in Paris, when he wasn't around I just jumped them.

5 I went to Amsterdam.

6 I broke into my cousins house through a semi unlocked window, snapping the fixture and sending his blind flying across the room. Yet to fix that. Sorry Paul.

7 I attended and consumed alcohol at an Illegal 'beach party' on the Thames when the tide was out till 4 am.

8 I rode a bike without a helmet in Portsmouth. Sorry Mum.

9 My perspective has changed just like they told me it would.

I'm leaving room for 10 considering I'm going out tonight.

All in all not too bad.

Guiding hands

2009-03-19T01:18:00.003+11:00

I have recently convinced myself that I am not, as I previously and proudly believed, behind the wheel of my own life. Rather, I appear to be entwined in some bizar cosmic fate and anything I think I want and try to force to happen in my life is destined to burst into flames where as if I follow the words of the Beatles and just 'let it be', somehow it all falls into place ... intreeguing.

Love Hangover

2009-03-19T01:15:00.003+11:00

If there's a cure for this I don't want it
If there's a remedy I'll run from it
-Diana Ross

Loard knows we try. We try alcohol, we try dancing, we try random acts of violence and self deprocation. But every now and then one get's through and refuses to budge.

WFC ...wtf?

2009-02-10T22:15:00.003+11:00

Ladies and gentleman we can no longer sit in denial. The financial crisis has officially hit. Sydney's infamous Landsdown pub has raised it's five dollar meals to six dollars. A 20 percent mark up. The time has come to take on the new black, downsizing and re priortising.

Things I say in my head in responce to annoying customers.

2009-02-02T16:53:00.004+11:00

What they ask: Is there only white left in this style?

What I say in my head: No. No there's a veritable skittles bag of other colours but I don't like to put my stock out on the shelves that hired professional shop fitters purpose built to display the full range or colours and styles to the public. I'd much rather make you guess."

What they ask: "Is this the last size?"

What I say in my head: "No. No it's not. I just took that little red sticker right there out of the draw and carefully, legibly penned the words 'LAST SIZE' on it in capitals for a laugh. See it was all a joke! There's a million special pairs out the back that I had custom made just for you because I knew you were coming in today and I was bored so I thought 'let's have a little game on unsuspecting customer #36'. After all, in the middle of the worlds financial crisis where my casual job hangs by an ever thinning thread and the retail industry is suffering I had nothing better to do then hide all the shoes from you for my own sadistic pleasure. But you, you clever little minx you found me out! Well done!"

And now about the children:
Working in retail has almost resulted in voluntary sterilisation on my part. While there is of course the occasional cute smiling baby of miraculous four year old with a colouring in book, on the vast majority sit endlessly screaming chocolate covered two year olds and red cordial intoxicated gremlins who - when they aren't pegging shoes at their mothers or running out of the shop - end up dribbling on and biting through leather covered heals and suade platforms. Even the cute little girls trying on shoes with won't comfortably fit them for the next nine or ten years draw a mixed reaction from me. I waver between 'awe you're adorable!" and "get the heck outta my shoes demon child you're scraping the heals and the insides of my ears with your incessant plonking.

LADIES: Shopping is to be treated like a compeditive sport particularly during sales season. Things get ugly, things get broken, and you child will only get in the way of your victory. They don't want to be there, you don't want them there, we certainly don't want to have to clean their grubby fingerprints and saliva off our mirrors. PLEASE leave you're children in the care of qualified professionals and grandparents who are trained to handel them, not shop assistants. It's better for all of us.

If you don't believe me but follow Carrie to the ends of the earth a good reference for you is the episode entitled "A womans right to shoes". The sales girl in that is my hero.

Much love to all my friends who are mothers and who know that special mummy alone time with her shoes is very important.

xoxox

Changing to an unlisted number

2009-02-02T16:50:00.002+11:00

I received a letter in the mail the other week from a Canadian scientist-businessman who I've never met or even heard of in my short existence. The self proclaimed 'not a bad looker' wrote to me in the hopes of starting some sort of relationship 'either friendship, business or who knows where that may lead'. Bad grammar aside I was considerably perturbed.

For two reasons;
1) If the letter arrived in my mailbox with amorous intent it means a man I have never met who lives in Canada has my photograph and my address.

2) If the letter arrived as part of a scam in an attempt to lure lonely desperate women into handing over credit card numbers then a man I have never met who lives in Canada has my address AND he thinks I'm lonely and desperate...

So you can see my dilema.

A stream of conciousness

2009-01-15T12:39:00.004+11:00

An explaination, why I'm not available for that dinner, or that drink, or that dvd in your room.

Where to begin? ... Hmmm ...

Well 2008... On a personal level I got myself out of depression and in control of my anxiety after deciding I simply didn't want to be that person anymore. I'm not.

I started honors at Uni and I worked on my script.

I met other women who love Tarrentino movies as much as I do. After hit, after hit, after hit. I went to Hobart and Adelaide to see my family and get back on my feat. I found out there is a reason for my abhorrent spelling.

I worked on my script.

I learned a lot about where I'm strong and where I need work. I made the decision to go overseas. I started going to a new nightclub. I came back to life. I met a living breathing puzzle.
I went to Melbourne with my best friend and got lost in vinyards.

I worked on my script.

I broke my big toe. I learned how far I'd go for sex, all the way to Erskin Park on a broken toe. I got dumped and told it never happened, "but how could I have dumped you if we were never really together?" I turned twenty two. I got over sixty happy birthdays.

I worked on my script. I worked on my script. I worked on my script. 1st draft. 2nd draft.

I put myself through hell. Made myself keep going out to see it for myself. Made myself see the truth. I picked a place to go when I left. My cousin and soul sister came to see me. We drank too much. We made plans. We didn't stop. I met a gentleman, a friend of another friend of mine. He saved a baloon for me and gave me his jacket. He was nice to me. We went to a strip club. We got drunk. Things got quiet.

I finished my script.

I spoke to the puzzel again, he bought me a drink, made me realise that being nice to eachother just doesn't cut it if there's no connection. Better someone you can't stand to be near but can't stop talking to. I told him I was leaving. I fell backwards just a little... for just a little. I learned restraint. I watched the unsolvable follow me around for a change, trying to get my attention. Trying to understand why. I liked it. I punished him. I ignored him until he stole my drink or dragged me away, cornered me. I relished it. I stopped caring.

I waited for my markes.

I made new friends from old foes. They told me things they shouldn't have. "They always come crawling back." I liked it. After a while I got tired of hearing it. Excuses, excuses, excuses. We made friends again. I ran away but I couldn't. I got my passport.

I waited for my marks.

I went home for christmas. I took after my mother. I stopped taking crap. I stopped caitering. I ate cheeses, I drank wine, I put it behind me.

I waited for my marks.

I decided no more untill I leave. No more men. Not more "we're together but we're not" no more "it's not serious," because I am. No more "I love that you're odd, you're like no one I've ever been with" no more "what would you say if..." No more feeling like I'm being played from every angle. No more beeting them at their own game. No more sex. No more chances and hopes until I leave. A new year came. The puzzel left and it reminded me of my own impending travel. And it feels good. And I can't wait to go.

Accomplishment?

2008-11-10T22:57:00.003+11:00

Well,
I did it. I finished it and handed it in today, finally. Finally I've finished my honors degree. Finally I've succeeded. Finally I wrote a feature film.

And yet I'm sitting in front of my computer drinking champagne by myself and I can't help but wish that I had someone to share this night with. Or at least this bottle. I'm half way through it and I'm allergic. My friends have been amazing and supportive and I've had so many congratulations ... but i can't help but wonder what it would be like to have someone with me one of these times

And I'm in a magazine today. And I look alright really. Page 78 of shop till you drop the December 2008 issue if your interested. I actually don't much like the skirt.

Wake up call to Cynical woman everywhere.

2008-10-23T00:55:00.002+11:00

For silly cynical women like myself.

The other week (yes 'week' not 'day'... I've been busy) I was on my way to a real girls photo shoot for a magazine where a very hard working friend of mine is employed in a fabulous position. While this isn't entirely the point of my story I'm going to pause here for a moment to reflect on this. Now all of you who read magazines will understand what I mean by "real girls". And all of you will know what it means to be asked to be in a "real girl photo shoot". Blatantly, it says; "you are not a model, do not delude yourself in to thinking you could be a model but rather go home and look at your cellulite before you purge you lazy, ugly slag."

Add to this my 2 year stint as a casually working "model" and it's a real kick in the balls to the old ego. But she's a friend and she meant it kindly and I agreed to do it ... real girls are doormats.

Anyway I'm on the way to this shoot in a slightly disgruntled pool of thought and I'm doing the classic walk and hail.

* "walk and hail" ; verb - When one is running so late that he/she walks in the direction of her destination and constantly looks over his/her shoulder for passing taxi's to hail in order to save as much time as possible.

Finally after 3 blocks a cab pulls up and just as I'm a meter away a young guy jumps out in front of me and opens the door to the front seat.
"Oh that's great, really lovely." I say in my lowest and most viciously sarcastic tone as I turn around. This is why I've avoided relationships. This is the typical man in this city. THIS is the reason young women are increasingly anxious and depressed and THIS MAN is enough to completely turn me off the idea of marriage, love, relationships; anything more then the bare miminum that I might require from men. I don't even want him chopping my firewood or fixing my electrical system and he can keep his filthy man mitts off my screwdriver.

I get eight severely pissed off steps away when I hear someone calling out.

"Hey!... Hey wait!"
I turn around ready to blast this guy who has obviously caused every problem known to every young woman in Sydney and quite possibly the world when ...
"It's for you, I opened it for you."
His smiling face looked back at me as he held the door open, confused that I had walked away.
It took me a full three seconds (which is a long time in mental processing years) to figure out what had actually just happened.

The man had opened a door for me.

This young man, who couldn't have been more then 23, had taken it upon himself to pause his day in order to be the kind of guy who does something completely nice for someone he has never met. And I was about to bite his head off for it.

I thanked him, explained my confusion and got into the cab. He smiled and waved as I pulled away.

"He was just opening the door for me." I told the driver.
"This cab was yours from the start miss. I wouldn't have let anyone take it. Do you know him?" the cabbie asked.
"No."
"What a nice young man then."
"... yeah."

I didn't know what to do. A guy opens a door for me and I'm shell shocked. Granted my experience of gentlemen has been limited in the not so distant past bar one or two notable exceptions. But I guess they're not so bad really ... sometimes ... these men folk ...

P.S. I did the photo shoot. When they put my picture next to the other girls on the computer I was at least a head taller then the rest of them so they tried to digitally shrink me down. This made me look thinner then Nicole Richi. Ha! Now THAT's real baby!

-Flex

About hope...

2008-09-02T23:54:00.008+10:00

My father gave me a locket when I was a little girl. Engraved on the back are the words; To Tess, faith hope and love, Dad x.

I've been thinking about hope a lot lately. They say love should end with hope. It certainly begins with it. It brings the greatest pains and the courage for the greatest joys. We're told never to give up hope. To hope against hope. We look for a last hope, a new hope, a constant hope. Even when faith fails us, hope is there. We hope to believe again.

When I lost my very first love to ambivalence a long time ago my best friend told me to give up hoping. "It's not the pain or the betrayal or even the loss," she said, "It's the hope that kills you," Of course we were young and foolish then ... well ... we're young and foolish now except she has joint finances, a house and pet cats and I ... well I'm still here which certainly counts for something. And being young and foolish I interpreted that statement as a defeat of hope for the longest time. A sacrifice on the alter of self preservation as opposed to what it should have been; a change of direction towards something else. A reason. A path. A purpose.

Destino.

Destiny is perhaps the greatest of all hopes. The hope that we are not blindly stumbling and scraping bits together, forcing ill fitted pieces of the puzzle into marriage and winding up with nothing more then a vague backyard attempt at modern art.

I admit lately I've been angry. Another man got bored and left. Another chance at something tossed. Lies. Bullshit. Personality fucking transplants. And I began to wonder if perhaps my destiny is to not know love in return. I know I love, easily and completely. I have the love of my family and friends and I'm grateful beyond measure for that. I love my work. I even love the way I look despite my cellulite and my occasional zits and the eyelid that is slowly drooping in the direction of my breasts which are, in my paranoid opinion, already on a downward path themselves. But in the hours of my day when things are quiet I begin to think that with everything else going so well for me perhaps this is the part I might miss out on. I am still so angry and it's been a month, a record and a challenge for me. It still sits there, irking my stomach.

I wonder if it's not time to carry hope in my destiny again? According to my boss turned palm reader I have already met the one I'm going to be with in my life... while this doesn't necessarily inspire much hope (my track record as you know is a little tarnished) it reminds me of something a very clever writer once put to paper.

"Hope guides me. It is what gets me through the day and especially the night. The hope that after you're gone from my sight it will not be the last time I look upon you."

And I think that perhaps the love of my life can be this, the time I get to spend doing this. My writing. My baby. If that's the case I'm extremely lucky, how many of us can say we found our true love at 19?

Still, somewhere deep beneath all the baggage and left overs and disappointments the part that never changes in me, the hopeful part, has it's own way of resuscitating. And I turn my wide eyes skyward and cross my fingers... and my toes...

And hope.

Olivia

2008-08-23T23:07:00.004+10:00

Somewhere in a little Tasmanian suburb, at her very own birthday party, a little blond haired-blue eyed-rosie cheeked girl named Olivia sat in disarray. The day had gone well so far, beating last years birthday because no one had blown out her candles yet or caused a big fuss. But as the last plastic cup of lemonade was knocked carelessly askew by the pudgy hand of a fellow six year old Olivia could take no more.

Through sobs she managed to explain to her Aunty, "But my tummy really wanted that drink!" Her Aunty turned to her and said, "Now you can't let that ruin your day can you? You've been having such a lovely time."
"But my tummy reeeeeeeally wanted it! And the other kids they wont do what I tell them to do!"
"Well now I know they're being a bit naughty and that you really wanted it but some times these things happen. You just can't let them get you down, you see. You're much more important then that silly drink!"
Realisation dawned in the suddenly wizened eyes of Olivia. She wiped away her tears and went back into the living room to sit at the table in front of her cake. As her candles were lit she shot a challenging look that smacked of a sophistication beyond her years at a trouble maker across the table. The child turned a peculiar shade of white and gaped like a cod fish. Olivia had learned that spilled lemonade was not worth crying over and she certainly wasn't about to let anything else get in the way of blowing out her candles.

It's funny how often we let the little things get in the way of the big picture. I think we could all learn a lot from Olivia's quick recovery and steely determination. At six she has managed to understand what I at age twenty-two am still trying to come to terms with; some people are just assholes. You can either forget them or show them who's boss. I know I won't be backing down to them any more. Some things like your birthday candles, or your dignity, or a friendship, are worth fighting for.

Dedicated to my cousin, the future is bright for us. I'm glad we're made of the same stuff, thank you for inspiring my courage. I love you!
xoxox

2008-08-09T11:29:00.002+10:00

Lies, all lies man.
I feel sick to my stomach. It wasn't because he was leaving and didn't want to get involved. There was someone else. And I believed every word.

Fool, I always do.

And now I may have to face it all next week at a good bye party at my house for a mutual friend. What if he brings her? Do I hide in my room till it's over? How do you handle that?

"Don't eat for a week and use the money to buy a hot dress."
"Talk to every guy in the room EXCEPT him."
"Move, change your name, buy a floral skirt and sunglasses and hope to god no one comes looking."

Problem is these solutions work on the basis that my friends believe he will think "oh fuck i made a mistake" when he sees me, try and get me back, and then leave heart broken when i turn him down. Which those of us in reality land all know is not going to happen, the man dropped me let's accept it. Nothing I could do would make any difference to the situation. I can go, and talk to his friends, and look pretty and ignore him the whole time and all that happens as a result is he goes home to his new woman and gets laid and I will have just spent more money and time on someone who doesn't give a shit.

And this stomach ache wont go away.

PS thanks to a very old friend who sent me a text yesterday after reading my last post. A reminder that you never know just how many people are looking out for you.
xoxox

and so it is

2008-08-04T23:59:00.002+10:00

I don't write here much anymore. The reason behind that is about six foot one with a big thing for movies and odd socks. This is the space where I talk mostly about the sexual relationships in my life. And the funny thing is that this six foot one reason who I had so much in common with, who was my friend, who laughed at my lame jokes and understood what I said, who I was never "in a relationship" with, who said he couldn't understand why anyone would ever end anything with me, who ended it with me because he was leaving or I was too good to just be someone on the side or whatever the reason was, this person who I would have been happy just to hang out with makes me not want to talk about it anymore.

Because I just can't figure it out.

The truth? No matter what you do or how you play it. Whether you're perfect, or your oddball self, or perfect primarily because you're nuts it doesn't seem to matter. You can't make things work out no matter how brave you are just because you're brave and you take the risks. You're going to have to take hit after hit and man after man and keep being stronger then they are when it comes to hoping that eventually someone will be tough enough to take you on too. People will always leave, things will always change particularly when you least expect it. You cannot make someone else risk like you do. Even when what is asked is just friendship. And when you realise this you'll be damned happy that this time you thought better then to give them the internet address to your blog. Wow there's irony for you. This time when I can freely write down everything, I feel like I have nothing more to say.

Anyway this story is one that I'm not going to tell, at least not now. Stories have to have a beginning, a middle and an ending. And I don't know where to begin, or understand what happened in the middle or even if to end it yet.

To all the priors

2008-06-14T20:31:00.002+10:00

We all carry things from our past relationships with us. We hope they will be the good things; remembering how to love, to share, to connect. But sometimes they're not so nice. Things like fear of finding out the other person is insane. Fear of getting attached to that insane person and then becoming insane oneself. So questions are asked, crazy questions like "How does someone break up with you? What are your bad qualities?" I have recently been on the receiving end of questions like these. I had to be honest in my response. Generally it just fades.

And now I have something to say.
There is a reason these questions come out. And that reason is the fucker who got there before you did. The person who was last involved with your lover. AKA the bitch before me. So to all people in relationships out there, please be good to each other. Because eventually if you do break up, the other person is going to meet a nice girl and ask her crazy questions after the break up left them a little messed around. This will freak the nice girl out. Do you want to be responsible for that?

In short; don't be the bitch before me who ruined a perfectly good man by the time I finally found the bugger.

Thanks!
xoxox

2008-04-21T12:32:00.003+10:00

Inalienable fact: times will change, things will get more expensive, and you will begin to remember a better day.

It's getting harder and harder to catch up with the people who mean the most to me. In recent months the change from university undergraduatism to honors student, intern, full time employee, even project manager has begun. And in these changes hide conflicting schedules.

Full time workers have the weekends, casuals don't, honors students shouldn't expose themselves to daylight yadda yadda yadda.

And what starts to happen is we begin to loose touch and drift. Suddenly we're working six twelve hour days a week. We're climbing corporate or bureaucratic ladders we never imagined would exist in uncomfortable heals and pencil skirts. We're increasingly limiting the number of new people we meet until eventually we settle, get married, move to the suburbs and spend hours debating between savanna and egg shell swatches for the kitchen cabinets.

Bleak.

I got a text from my coffee friend the other morning that arrived at a rare shared free two hours. What I felt as a result was not happiness to see her, urgency to make it there on time or annoyance that I really should have been doing my uni work. It was relief.

We talked. We talked a lot and only stopped for brief periods to re oxygenate and caffeinate. And we realised that two things were happing at the same time; we weren't being available for each other and we were trying to do everything on our own.

These days everyone's got their own business and we don't have time for each others shit anymore. Thing is that when we all started out in uni (most of us living about 28 seconds form each other) we were swimming in it. Yes swimming in each others shit. And things worked out better.

We are a generation who grew up with the belief that we could have it all. That we were responsible for our place in the world. But we can't do every thing by our selves and expect to come out the other end sane, morally intact, with healthy livers or without anxiety disorders. That kind of success takes a team.

It's time we put on our goggles.

-Tess
xoxox

Results

2008-04-13T18:32:00.003+10:00

Well the blind date went perfectly... and yet... I'm not interested. Can't explain it. Nice guy, tall and all that but... nothing. Turns out my hypothesis was right. My friends do pick good people for me, but at the end of the day if I have any say in it they won't make it past the front door. You know what I realised though, what this experiment really proved?
That I have amazing friends. Friends who I love spending time with, and who want the best for me even when I don't always want it for myself.

Thanks guys.

xoxox

The House

2008-04-11T17:22:00.003+10:00

There is a house up the road from mine and everytime I walk past I feel a little odd. The balcony's been completely demolished and it's locked up with corrigated iron and wire. This in my investigation.

3:05
I think about going door-knocking but then remember that most normal people are working at around three in the afternoon. I remember Vanessa’s concerned warning to be careful door-knocking in class this morning. I think about knocking on the door of the house. THE House. The HOUSE. The House that ate its own soul. The only nice part is the cream painted door, the portal to another world although even that has a large gate of bars in front of it. Cream painted bars.
The House is one wall that I can see and I think of Bruno Latour standing next to me, "Walls are a nice invention but if there were no holes in them there would be no way to get in or out." (Latour, 1992, 1) He’d tell me this house had a hole-wall or door as we call it, and I’d retort that it wouldn’t be much bloody use considering no one ever goes through it. I suggest it’s there to stop something from getting out. Well, he says to me, you’re the expert.
I decide against knocking on that particular door. I figure I’ve got two hours to kill so I go and eat some chocolate.

3:23
My computer shuts down on me and I re-boot. I remember to save everything from now on. I’m wondering if the man I envisioned really does live in there, in The House. The purple house with no balcony left. Corrugated iron nailed over a would be balcony door and bars and wire securing the windows. Does he have a computer? Is he too looking at the world in the screen? I think of those people who shut themselves away all their lives. Is that why there is corrugated iron covering the balcony door? Is he maybe allergic to sunlight? Is he Boo Radley?

3:39
I think about what it must be like to live without sunlight. This house has been without sun for a year at least now. As long as I’ve lived down the street. People on this street are nice, neighbourly in the modern sense of neighbourship.

No complaints. Friendly nods.

There are rows of little consecutive brick terrace houses, all once the same but now rendered and brightly colored, some knocked back to reveal the original reds and browns. The roof ornaments sitting on the line in between now half purple and half yellow. Antennas from the fifties dangle broken arms in the breeze. A blue stone sign down the street reminds me to look around because, "This street will never be the same."

Kids are playing basketball and I can hear it from my bedroom window. I hear a lot. I hear my Indian neighbours talk about how Chinese migrants should learn English and I close my window. This street was different in the fifties. I can see the women walking along in their round-toed heals and hats. I wonder who loved in my house. I wonder if The House misses the old days. If it feels neglected, idle, and deviant. I wonder why moss hasn’t even started growing on its one visible wall yet when there is clover and three types of grass shooting up through the cracks in the pavement in my yard. If moss and clover and grass can sense The House is working in opposition to its natural order. If it knows it’s a left foot house.

I think again of Foucault, "in our society where leisure is the rule, idleness is a sort of deviation." (Foucault, 1967) He brings this up discussing places which haven deviance. I think of this place as being the deviant. As being the idle one out. The gutted building in a row of homes. And all the myriad of small and seemingly insignificant systems that constitute a home are absent here. No electricity, the water is stagnant in the pipes, no internet or phone line, no people, no guests, no privacy because it cannot exist without someone there to require it and no lack of privacy without someone there to invade it.

5:00
Early dinner time. I figure I should eat now and head out at five thirty when people are walking home. I want to see if they cross the street when they get near the house, look at it or avoid it all together. The neighbours should be home then too.

6:05
I leave my house and walk tentatively along the street past nine to fivers struggling home in suits and mismatched back packs. I’m thinking about the task ahead. Thinking about my neighbourhood. Thinking about that creepy stretch with only one street light now daylight savings is gone. Thinking about hand writing with a serial killers slant. .

6:06
I knock on the first door, the one to number 306, the high tech house on the street. It’s rendered and painted a soft purple. The balcony that adorns most of the other houses has been built out here, extending the master bedroom a precious three square meters. A popular renovation in this area, everyone wants that little bit more to themselves. The landing in front of the house has one of those pretentiously leafy plants in a large glossy pot. I knock tentatively on the door and step back behind the gate. Houses like this are built for one of two reasons, to keep people out or to keep people in. The only reason they have a door is to confuse the passer by as to which one it is. To create the illusion of both entry and exit. No one answers. I realize there is a door bell with a security camera and intercom attached. I press it and wait for an answer. I wait for an answer. I wait for an answer. Then a glint catches my eye and I realize that the shutters are mettle and what I thought was a living room light from a distance was actually reflection from the single street lamp. I was looking at my feet on the walk over.

I move on and shudder a little as I walk past 308, The House. It has no mailbox which seems, no, feels wrong. This place is not connected in any way. Even the adjoining terraces seem to strain away from The House. A copy of Central, the local magazine, sits reluctantly where a doormat should be.

6:08
I like number 310 much better. For a start there is no pretentious plant, in its place leans a well used, once red bicycle. I can hear a television inside and on hearing my knock a dog barks. I do not step back behind the gate.

The door opens a crack before the lady behind it eeks realizing her dog is planning an escape. She secures him behind her with her leg and smiles warmly in my direction.
She seems genuinely happy to entertain me and tells me the house is "derelict, yeah no one’s in there at the moment."

She annunciates derelict as dereleeeeeict.

So then this house, The House, it’s been empty for ages, years.
"Yeah, well I mean there are owners who come and repair it every now and then."
I thank her and walk across the street; I sit down under a street lamp and wonder if I’m changing the nature of The House by looking at it. Changing the way it behaves and interacts by observing it, like a psychiatric patient responding to therapy and observation. It doesn’t seem so scary anymore, just sad.

6:18
Back in my house in front of my keyboard I wonder why it is that we find a house with no people in it so terrifying. Loneliness perhaps, The House does seem lonely in all the ways that timber and brick can. An environment built to house humans just sitting there left to its own devices. Perhaps it is because in a way we are terrified by the absence of our own existence. Our individual mortality, a personal apocalypse. And then, if this place is no utopia for I can see it, and no non place for I cannot see another exactly like it, then I must concur it is a heterotopia, but a heterotopia for what? For whom? And why? For its owners to have a project they can entertain themselves with and then abandon for greener pastures?

No.

A heterotopia for the thoughts and imaginings of a little street. For the rest of us who walk past and feel violently excluded, and in this exclusion turn to spectacular justifications. For the community center children to walk past and spook each other with chilling stories of ghostly beings and imaginary specters. Boo Radley’s house in their very own neighbourhood. For a little deviance.

I'd rather bake cookies.

2008-04-11T15:59:00.006+10:00

Alright so it's on for tonight.
Yep. The big blind date set up thing. Tonight. Stoked.
Really...

Ok I don't want to go.

Is that bad? I can't be bothered and I just ate a whole home made lebanese bread pizza (which by the way was delicious) so I'm kinda full and lazy and I just bought a new book... and stuff.

Alright, alright! I'll go, sheesh. But I won't enjoy myself and I won't have any fun ok? Deal?

I'm glad we talked that through. I just feel like I'm in this total state of inertia at the moment and I think I've earned it. I mean I'd been peppy and up beet for like a whole week till I crashed hard while doing my cultural studies essay on wednesday night and now I'm just not up to forced socialising. I don't want to chit chat. I have absolutely no interest in faking interest.

And yet all of a sudden everyone and their boyfriend wants to set me up with somebody. Last night in what was supposed to be an after work drink it was Andrew, tall, blonde ... nineteen. A teenager. A teenager who, the first second he got, "So I hear you arrr... also work as a model." I mean fuck it I'd rather talk about shoecare. Waterproofer anyone?
I think the phrase be careful what you bitch for is relevent here. I admit it. I see the error in my ways. Now help me!

Where did that white horse get to?

xoxox

Messing up

2008-04-07T19:41:00.002+10:00

Highschool Word Reference Point : Deem; a mean or ill sprited embodyment of evil. One who posesses great anger or mean-ness.

They say life is what happens when you're making other plans. I didn't plan to be driven to the police station by an angry cab driver last sunday morning at 3am. I didn't plan on throwing up half out the window of a cab and half down the window of this same cab. I didn't plan on drinking champagne that night. I didn't plan on being allergic to champagne.

So is this my life then?

It's not easy for me to mess things up. Let me re-phrase that; I don't take it well when I get into trouble. I HATE it. That's why I've been so god damn well behaived. I still feel guilty that I once cheated on one question in a test in year 4. I feel guilty when I don't change the water in the fish tank.

They also say you have to own your shit so, Bubbles, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I don't clean your tank often enough, and that you don't have one of those little plastic treasure chests like all the other fish. I'm sorry that you have to live in a bowl with no dvd player or private bathroom. I'm sorry that I can't afford to give you a proper retangle tank with a nice filter and more plants. But one day, Bubbles, I'll make enough money to get us both into a good place with lots of room. I'll do it for you Bubbles, for us.

And Angry Cab Driver Deem who took me hostage when I was having a severe allergic reaction , I'm sorry I was ill in your cab. I'm sorry I ate cheesecake earlier that night. I know there are a lot of drunk bastards out there who do this all the time. The fact that I'm not a regular and have only thrown up twice from alcohol in my life is no excuse. So Angry Cab Driver Deem, I appologise. I am also sorry that you are such a Deem because obviously events in your life have made you so mean and Deem-like. I bet you're dad never got you the little ride on police car you wanted when you were five. I bet some times you wonder what might have been. That's not nice for anyone. So I'm sorry.

And to all others who I have ever inconvienienced, I'm sorry. Just in case I made you feel bad. Oh and to that girl who knew was cheating on the question in the test and tried to out me, I'm sorry that everyone believed me and not you because I had been completely perfect and honest up till that point and you were always a little dubious. You were spot on that time, I should have been caught. Maybe then I wouldn't be so afraid of getting in to trouble. If it makes you feel any better people tried to cheat off me for years afterwards when I got smart.

I hope this brings us all some 12 step closure.

Much love and missing you from my glass case of work, uni and emotion,
-Tess
xoxox

Not so blind

2008-04-07T17:42:00.002+10:00

Well...
The blind date is set for friday night. And now not entirely so blind. Ok I admit it, I did what any self respecting 21 year old woman resorting to blind dates would do. I facebook stalked the guy. Sneeky? Yes. Abnormal? Not so much, considering I too am frequently photo stalked on facebook by people who really shouldn't be looking at my photos.
SO.
Overall he came off ok. Over 200 friends, one of whome is mutual and who I'll be messaging for info. My room mate thinks he's quite good looking, I remain undecided knowing full well how misleading profile pictures can be. Besides he looks a little on the skinny side. Not that skinny men can't have well rounded personalities but I've worked with male models and there are issues. Can't access his facebook profile of course because it's private. So now I'm myspace stalking him. You can't really blame me after recent experiences. I know how many crazy people are out there and I prefer to think of this less as an invasion of his privacy and rather more like... pretcting my security and emotional sanity. Besides everyone knows the universal internet networking site picture stalking rule, potentials are ok, ex's are not. Well unless there is no possible way of them finding out.

Ok my computer is too slow becuase my room mate used all our download space and myspace isnt loading. Going to continue with the plan tomorrow when I get my download limmit back.

Tango Mike out.

Update

2008-04-04T11:38:00.002+11:00

"Marc's INTERESTED!" a short and excitable woman informs me as she jumps up and down.
Oh dear... I see there is little to no chance of getting out of it now although I have to admit the whole thing does intrigue me. And I have repeatedly maintained that I'm in no sane mental state to be choosing my own men.

"He was so funny, he's all 'Don't tell her, it will be awkward!' and I was like ... 'Of course not!' Haha!"
"You didn't show him my picture did you?"
"Ummm of course not..."

Hmmmm

So I should be happy because this means my experiment of having other people choose my dates is going well so far. But everything in my life is going so smoothly at the moment, no one is rocking my boat and I'm not sure I want anyone climbing aboard with their luggage (or should I say baggage) and messing up my nice steady sail. I don't even have time for dating again I'm working five days a week and uni three days a week and I'm already rescheduling dinner with friends, people are booking me weeks in advance. Aside from that I'm scared... I don't want to be out there. I'd much rather be in here, in I tell you! Who knows what scary things Marc with a C is hiding...

But I must remember that I promised myself I'd do it so I'd have something less depressing to write about for a change... And it's just one casual meet up with J there to provide a safe buffer for me. And she knows him so he is probably reasonably normal. And it's not like I'll be marrying the guy its a fix up for Pete's sake, we'll probably hate each other. And I can always just make an excuse and leave.

I seem capable enough of making excuses.

BUT I DON'T WANNA!

*runs around in circles*

xoxox

smooth sailing

2008-04-03T10:06:00.000+11:00

I think there's a lot to be said for no news is good news. Those brief periods in your life where nothing is outright fucked and everyone around you is pretty okey dokey.

Take a breath babe, you've earned it.

The problem with many of us is that we begin to get suspicious that something is going to happen because this is obviously just the calm before the storm. To these people I say "STOP!"

Enjoy this moment of blissful thoughtlessness.

Anyway having no news myself I'm signing out here.

Yep.

Off I go.

Over there.

Nnnnnow.

A social experiement.

2008-04-01T09:14:00.000+11:00

Ever since year four, sitting in a circle in the Sidoruk's family games room with pillows and matchmaking intentions, I have been told I am not eligible for a set up because "no one is nice enough" for me. As much as I can't stand the "nice guys finish last oh poor me" rant it did seem to bite me on the ass on this one. And somehow people still seem to mistake me for some angelic little cupcake when really I'm quite kinky.

I have found the solution!
People who don't know me in the slightest! They're more then willing to introduce me to their attractive single friends. In steps J from work who within five minutes of talking with me (mostly about my breasts) decided I should met her friend Marc; tall, blond, blue eyes, really sweet, commerce student with a grad job already. What's wrong with him you ask? So did I.

"He got out of a three year relationship a little while ago so he hasn't met anyone yet."
"Urhhhhh,..."
"Don't make that face! Seriously he's fine now, he just got back from Hawaii and he's a totally great guy... where's my phone I have pictures."

A close inspection of these pictures unveiled a face half hidden by an arm. In photo number two said face is obscured by a giant tounge.
Quite the mystery man. Perhaps he is not merely a tounge poker or uni student half asleep on his desk but actually an international spy who is cleverly concealing his face to prevent detection by Columbian drug lords or Soviet arms dealers.

Yeah that's it.

Don't you love this stage before you meet someone and can place wild expectations on them? It's really quite rational though because after all with him being the youngest billionaire in the world I might actually get a thoughtful surprise every so often, something that most men who didn't spend a year working with habitat for humanity learning the rewarding nature of giving to others wouldn't be as inclined to do.

Mmmmm, constructing in the jungles of Borneo... yum!

I have to admit being set up with someone feels a little odd... I'm going to look on it as an experiment into pre-determined human social interaction. Also there is the fact that anything I've had since my last decent relationship ended last year has felt completely wrong, but I'm going to have to put that aside in the name of science. Updates on this social experiment as I get them.
-Tess
xoxox

The set up

2008-03-28T00:39:00.003+11:00

So I've been reading this book called the Celestine Prophesy, which is basically a self help book disguised as an action adventure novel that my mum wants me to look at. I won't talk about the rather uncomfortable fact that my parents are recommending self help to me on this page any further, that's why I have a shrink, but I'm sure you can understand it's a somewhat less then confidence inspiring notion.

Anyway while I am given this material I make the most of it and try to avoid the obvious traps and pitfalls of self help writing. I'll give it this, it's a nice book with a good message and one particularly interesting point. That where we are is a direct result of our actions and by no means an accident. That we are able to be more actively involved in our own evolution by becoming more aware of what's going on around us. And that the path to happyness is the total and utter agony of love.
YAY!

But aside from my raging cynicism it did get me thinking about how I got to where I am today and what I got to learn from the things I've done.
*I learned how to spell 'learned' when i typed it as 'learnt' and the little red line came up underneath.

*From walking into the glass auto doors at housing I learned that auto doors don't always work and glass is transparent.

*From being trapped at work for an hour an a half by an electricity black out and a dodgy manual release on a roller door I learned that I should never be at work when I don't have to be.

*From working at Bakers delight I learned that bosses are often less intelligent and more fucked up then the people they employ, that's why they're the boss, they are incapable of doing it themselves so they hire others and delegate.

*I learned from university housing that a 'standard drink' is truly a fluid concept.

*I learned from working at Hoyts that people are lazy animals who believe its best to 'let someone else clean it' and won't listen to the simplest directions. I say: "Round the corner to your right past the cafe" They say: "Ok thanks," and walk up the stairs to their left.

*I learned from working in cafe's that good coffee is not burnt.

* I learned from sweeping floors that sometimes all you can do is move shit around until you can be bothered to really get rid of it.

*I learned from working at 9 west that if it's on sale it fits. That women who spend upwards of $500 on shoes go out and make someone else spend $8 on their vodka tonic. And most importantly that I have individual style.

* I learned from doing promo work that what the tax man doesn't know won't hurt him.

* I learned from modeling that my body has absolutely nothing to do with who I am and is an instrument to carry out my will and desires.

* I learned that if your flight is delayed and you are carrying a gucci hand bag you can sneak into the Qantas club for free drinks.

From my mum: "Look out for number one."
From my dad: "Don't take any wooden nickels."
From my grandmother: "Men all just want a place to put their dick into so be careful and don't listen to anything they say if they tell you they love you!"
From my uncle: "Write something and all of a sudden the worlds a better place."

From my flat mates: That you can smoke banana peal for a high.
That three liter bottles of vodka come with pumps.
That Lebanon is the origion of all good things and fried rice.
That I can tie dining table chairs together to make a bed.
That locks on bedroom doors should be in working order.

And just last night I learned from my friend Ben that the reason dumb asses keep reproducing is because they don't use contraception.

So where does that bring me?
Right here, writing this. Avoiding my uni work.
Look how far I've come!

Oh wait a minute, I forgot to write something about relationships... hmm wonder why that is?

...

Ok seriously, from relationships I've learned that I pretty much always pick men I shouldn't be with. That sex is good in the morning. That I can't stand being patronised. That I can love. That you have to be honest about where you stand straight up. That long distance doesn't work in the end. And that hugs fix pretty much everything, words are fucking useless.

From writing this I learned the lengths I will go to in order to avoid an assignment.

miss you!
-Tess
xoxox

Astral Tess

2008-03-12T13:17:00.035+11:00

Sometimes the most important successes are the one's when you realise everything hasn't gone entirely to plan.

Every year I make my little pilgrimage to Adelaide to visit my Dad, step mum Belinda, and extended family. And every year Belinda, my 'tour manager', arranges my visit for me enabling me the great reprieve of not having to decide anything at all. So when ever I go to Adelaide I have this fantastic opportunity to recover from stress ulcers, lower my blood pressure and let all of those thoughts I can't afford to have when I'm being an adult come to the surface.

This trip itself was a colossal disaster in my parents view because absolutely nothing that we'd planned went as it was supposed to. The tickets we'd thought were booked for us to a performance of 'A Mid Summer Nights Dream' weren't organised after all. The tickets we'd gotten to see the French acappello artist Camille turned out to be tickets to an Irish, German style cabaret singer by the same name who was said to drink a bottle of wine on stage and flash the audience. We didn't get to WOMAD (the world music festival) because of monetary constraints on all sides.

I still had a wonderful time maybe even more so then I would have if things had worked out.

Anyway...

On the Monday night we joined family friends, Amy and Pierre, to go to this Irish Camille's performance ( which was surprisingly sexy and fabulous and only half as drunk as the reviews claimed) and later progressed to Thai food and a nice sauvignon blanche at Amarin Thai on the east end of Rundle street. After a few glasses and half a bowl of green curry with vegetables the table begun to blur itself into a mist of basil, Dad's woody merlot and social taboo. They talked of critical West Australian Mormon fathers. Their long lost and previously unknown daughters who were shipped off to be borne in shame and exile at somebody's Aunt Maude's house in Kalgoolie thirty years ago. The should have been and could have been laments of musicians and new mothers. Politics and relationships.

Redoing the kitchen.

All the happy concerns of Adelaide life where, as Ben Folds says, "The world could turn and crash and burn and you would never know it."
I nodded through the conversation and contributed the occasional comment, mostly aimed at poking fun at my Dad. He'd smile at me over the top of his glass with a rare look of sincere approval.

I turned briefly to see Amy's hand holding Piere's to my right and somewhere between the reality of my dimension and another possibility a familiar hand fell on top of mine as I looked back across the table at my fathers approving smile and laughed. But a moment later and out of the haze I realised I hadn't been laughing at all, that there was no hand on mine and that it was Amy who sat next to me.

I got the distinct impression that someone was missing.

The whole thing was like I'd astral projected myself into another, more fantastic life on a different plane. I sat there completely shocked. Largely because some other Tess in a different dimension was clearly living the life I'd wanted, and who the heck told her she could do that?

I smiled because there was nothing else to do, particularly as I became acutely aware of what had actually just happened. That I'd believed something would occur so much so that I'd already made the memory of it. And that when the reality of the situation didn't live up to my expectation the pre-constructed memory temporarily took over to remind me about it.
And that I'd somehow completely forgotten about it all in the first place.
Anyway the whole thing slipped out of my subconscious to whack me without hint, preview, or tact, straight in the face. I looked like a stunned mullet and couldn't speak for a good 20 seconds afterwards.

They say memory is what makes us human. The places we've been and the people we've met and all that. But I think the stuff we forget about is equally important. What I'm going to take out of it all is just that anything is possible.

xoxox

Crisis

2008-03-11T21:58:00.003+11:00

I can't believe how old I look. I made the fated mistake of looking at pictures of myself a year ago and I can see it. For the first time ever I can see a years worth on my face. And I am begining to feel it. A need, for sleep. And love. And a regular 8 glasses of water.
I am grown up. And I can see it across my face. I'm tired from a nine hour day.

I knew I was changing when I started prefering to have dinner with friends to going clubbing. To prefer spending time at home with people I love, a good book or movie then going out to see how many I could scull back and still be able to get home. When picking up lost it's appeal. I felt it, but I didn't actually see it.

And I have a degree! How the fuck did I manage that and when did it happen?

I get up and get ready for work. I work 9 hours at the shop. I make my daily targets and multies. I finish work, I remember to take the bags of supermarket shopping that I managed to fit in during my lunch break and I lock up. I go back to my appartment and hang out my laundry. I cook dinner for one. I avoid picking up my Honors Cultural Studies reader because I'm too tired. I remember a time and look at some photoes. And I realise.

I'm 21.

And everything I've done is just the begining.

Jesus I'm tired.

-Tess
xoxox

Scents and sense-ability

2008-03-04T12:06:00.002+11:00

Recently in the backrooms at work and the bedrooms of flat mates a question has been asked about every woman’s best friend. Whether you call her Yasmin, Diane, or any number of other alias’s, she is there for us every day of the month. Helping us out, saving us from the consequences of bad choices, ensuring that we go on to enjoy relatively guilt free sex with whomever we please.

But recently our good friend has come out from under the microscope says Time Magazine article “The Science of Romance” and Adelaide’s controversial Clementine Ford of the Sunday Mail, as being slightly co-dependent. While we thank god for our Yasmins the morning after as our newest mistake steals the sheets, rolls over to face us and exhales, she may have been the cause of it all in the first place.

Now don’t go trotting off on your high heals refusing to believe that Diane could have ever done such a thing. Like the friend who feed’s you alcohol when you’re drunk, points you in the direction of the nearest penis and then rolls her eye’s the next morning over coffee, our girl the pill might just be biologically responsible for the whopper mistakes we’ve been making.

We were all warned about the weight-fluctuating, mood-swinging side affects of the pill and decided it was a fair trade off. What we may not be aware of are the pheromonal consequences. We’ve all heard of the swipes packed with “attractive” pheromones available for purchase in men’s bathrooms so most of us are vaguely familiar with the concept that our body naturally produces these mysterious chemicals which draw us in beyond our intellectual control and make us love puppies. According to the afore mentioned articles the science of it goes quite a bit deeper.

Getting technical, The Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) is one of the many genes controlling the immune system and influencing tissue rejection. We all have it and we get a vibe of each others MHC subconsciously through scent and possibly saliva, explaining (if this theory is correct) why that first kiss is so damn important to us. Biologically we chose partners whose MHC is most different from our own.

MHC being the blueprint for what we are immune to, causes opposites attract for the purpose of producing offspring who will have the benefit of the strongest and most varied immunities passed on from both parents. While the idea that just as you think you’re kissing a man of the moment your body thinks you’ve found Mr Wright is more then enough to make us concerned, the real bitch of it all is still to come.

Research shows that the Pill interferes with the whole process, messing up our radar and taking us toward people whose MHC is similar to our own. Leading ultimately (once you get past dating, meeting the parents and failing contraceptives) to allergy prone children.

But I have to wonder, should we be listening to these biological signals anyway? Are these pheromones telling us who is really a compatible mate or just who is biologically sufficient? Is it still relevant with humans having largely moved past the days of clubbing a chosen mate over the head and dragging them into the nearest cave? If our aim is not to produce heirs but rather to travel and promiscuite does it really matter if you’re both allergic to cats and susceptible to chicken pox? Perhaps the pill is making it just the little bit harder for us, making us evaluate our chosen partners on an intellectual level as well as an emotional/chemical one. Or maybe it really is messing us up and mankind will one day be wiped out by dust mites.

As Clementine says (and I’m rather inclined to agree), “I do find this science quite fascinating and not the least because it points to something I (and about 99.99 per cent of other sexually active worldly women) have passionately wondered for some time now: when will both women AND men have access to a non prophylactic contraceptive device that a) wont interfere with our hormonal wiring; b) works; and c) still allows us to have that aforementioned mutually enjoyable and consensual any-time-of-the-day-or-night sex (just to nip those joyless abstinence-only crones in the bud)?

And what do we do until that day comes? Keep popping? Go off it until we meet a suitable partner and then get back on the bandwagon? Or go off it altogether and rely on the less enjoyable methods? Either way, so much for the long list of attributes we’ve all noted in our heads or even committed to paper. After all, what’s a sense of humor against the scents of pheromones?

How many do you get?

2008-02-26T23:58:00.004+11:00

My very first boyfriend John Smith* and I had a rather interesting discussion the other day about sex. Back when we were dating I was a very naive 17 year old and sex never entered into the equation as far as our relationship went (sorry John). But as the years have gone by he and I find ourselves periodically in the same predicament and this synchronicity brings us onto msn to talk about our post teen angst and latest exploits.

Ironically this meat loving technophile ex-boyfriend knows more about the most intimate parts of my life then some of my closest friends. Largely because I can count on his wit, confidence, lack of judgmental comment and the anonymity of my latest problem (he lives a few hours drive away and hasn't got a clue who I'm talking about). So all in all you can see it's a beautiful thing.

Our latest talk saw both of us discussing the varying enjoyability of sex determined upon the degree of emotion you have for your partner. Shock horror both of us agreed that the best sex we've had was with someone we'd been in love with at the time.

'Sex just isn't as fantastic with anyone else,' he said, 'sure I enjoy it and so do they, but it just isn't as good as it was with Jane Doe * '

Eventually you have to reach a point as a person where you are able to speak your mind. Without hesitance. And the question on my mind that I ask knowing it puts me out there as a bit of a sap, that I put to you completely honestly and without hesitation is;

How many do we get?

How many people come into our lives with whom we feel completely comfortable to be ourselves around? With whom we can enjoy the simple things like feeding the ducks and (as John* and I both agree) multiple orgasms. With whom sex is only ok when there is emotion involved instead of the other way around. How many of these people who truly bring a smile to our faces get the opportunity to do so?

Something to think about.

-Tess M
xoxox

*names replaced to ensure Pete and his girl's privacy :P

Regret.

2008-01-30T18:37:00.002+11:00

It's been almost a month. And it's difficult to say how I feel about that because in the past 27 days I can't begin to explain what happened between me and Bachelor number 3. I've never fought so much and felt so awful. Particularly about myself.

When it came to him I couldn't seem to do anything right, everything I said made him angry. He seemed constantly upset or hurt by me. Every light joke I made was some kind of attack. Everything I learnt from my experience in relationships was nothing; I was a neophite, young and stupid. He called me naive, manipulative, pathetic, told me I'd never make my film, continually patronised me and made me miss every single one of my ex-boyfriends.

That's right.

And falling out of the fog I find myself saddled with regret. Regret that I didn't stay out after the first break up. Regret that I couldn't tell him to his face how he consistently made me feel worthless. Blow after blow after blow. Regret that I found myself intimidated, trying yet again to fit into someone else's impossible definition of adequate. Tiptoeing to make someone else happy.

I always looked at people in these relationships and thought, "What the hell is wrong with them?" But it's so easy to fall into. After every verbal hit the praise seems to be more valuable because now you 'see' that they're older then you, they know so much more about everything, they have careers. You find yourself responding to ongoing assessments, your answers to their questions graded and returned with varying levels of approval or lack there of.

"How would you feel if I told you ..."

"I'd be concerned."

"Good answer."

Falling into these traps is no ones fault, staying in them is. With every small comment you find you're less able to be yourself around them, and you begin to conform to new rules. You think you must be this awful person. You start to play the game as well in the hope that maybe this way you will begin to understand each other. That you'll figure out where you're going wrong. Why it is that they can't understand you. You tell them past is past and that it doesn't bother you what they did before you met when really it does more then you can begin to understand. You start to think that sex is only a good idea if you're not emotionally involved. You start to think you're fucked up. And by that point, after being told how wrong you are all the time you start to think the only way to get out is to be manipulative yourself. To make them not want you anymore by nit-picking, picking fights or picking up a phone. And you think twice about publishing something like this on your blog despite the promise you made to yourself.

The funny thing is you were such good friends before. You had some amazing times and they were good to you then. You were good to them too. Maybe you really had hurt him as much as he says. You can't be sure. And you doubt yourself when really you shouldn't. Because anyone who makes you feel worthless, naked, and stupid is not someone you can afford to be considerate of.

And you really do feel bad about it. Because no matter how bad they made you feel, your responce, your manipulation, is your responcibility.

2008-01-24T10:40:00.001+11:00

This is unusual for me. I don't normally write about celebrities or scandal outside my own little world but when I find myself emptying the contents of my stomach in my laundry sink I'm compelled to say something about it.
Being Australian we tend to want to put a protective wing around our international success stories because we know how much criticism successful Australians go through before they make it. We're the ones who put them through it. Up and coming creatives have to prove themselves time and time again in an industry still struggling to leave tall poppy syndrome and cultural cringe behind.
So when one of us does make it past the boos and blows and becomes internationally renowned the rest of us suddenly turn around and pat ourselves on the backs. We always knew they'd make it.

Heath Ledger by all reports was an outstanding guy. He stayed away from press outside of his contractual red carpet obligations and had a fulfilling career in front of him. He had a beautiful little girl. He had the adoration of a particularly difficult nation. He was nice to his neighbours. And it makes me sick that something so fixable as anxiety and insomnia knocked him down. This is a reminder that we all have to take care of our selves and not let the pressures of work, other peoples expectations and relationships get us into these places. He will be sorely missed.

While some people should not have access to google.

2008-01-18T17:00:00.002+11:00

A tall leggy brunette model friend of mine met me for lunch yesterday. As is often the case with exceptionally beautiful women the talk quickly turned to the latest waste of space who'd messed with her head because he wanted to get laid.

"We were lying on the floor in the living room after everyone else went home and flirting and talking till like 3am when I think we both fell asleep. Then I wake up to find he's moved closer to me and he put his arms around me. Then, you know, one thing lead to another and we messed around for a bit and it was all really nice. We weren't even drunk or anything."

I was confused, it seemed like everything was going to plan. Why was she upset?

"Well the next morning we wake up in each others arms and I go to kiss him when he pulls away."

"What?"

"Yep. He doesn't remember a thing. Apparently he's a sexomniac."

As Google found out for me later; Sexomnia is a real condition where by the sufferer engages in sexual behavior during sleep.

"And he has the nerve to turn around and point the blame in my direction because 'clearly I wasn't complaining'. "

"The fucker!"

"Exactly!"

Of course as is often the case the 'gentleman' in question did not actually suffer from sexomnia or a classic one-two-many syndrome, if he did embarrassment and apologies would ensue. No he was suffering from total-and-utter-tool-itus.

Meanwhile sexomnia is a serious condition that results in tremendous difficulty for many couples and severe embarrassment for individual suffers and should not be used in vain to get out of a sticky situation or take advantage of people. Thats messed up.

xoxox

Another year wiser?

2008-01-03T13:01:00.000+11:00

For the 21st time, happy new year.

Friends the new beginnings have begun again, along with the erasing of the old and soon to be forgotten ones. Welcome to 2008, year of the new tiffany blue Kikki K diary and hopefully a matching bed spread. It's time to say goodbye to beige, and welcome something much brighter.

The best part about this new flirtation is that me and eight go way back, my favorite number, the upright forever. If only I had less trouble standing upright I might find my own forever. Over the last three gentlemen callers my week knees seem to have progressively gotten the better of me. From sex on the second date, to fooling around on the first, to finally giving in to a long standing temptation and going home with someone I've known for a while and who I'd only just kissed after eight thousand triple vodka red bulls. Had I lost my mind or was it my dignity that went awol? Was I becoming - for lack of a better euphemism - horizontally inclined?

Or was that all now in the past?

That's the thing about new years in Sydney, it's like getting married in Las Vegas; provided there's nothing behind it you can always brush it off as one of those crazy things you did when you were drunk. Vodka is a very very dangerous drink. But I can't entirely blame it on the mixers, there was spark. The IT factor, the za za zsu, and not for lack of a better phrase; I saw fireworks. Bachelor number three showed definite promise. Smart, sexy and while I hadn't slept with him, he was most definitely 'that kinda guy' which instantly makes him my kinda guy. Which makes all of it extremely problematic. Was it really a good idea to be getting friendlier with this old friend, would it work out, was I just curious?

Following my therapists advice and listening to what I want and putting others needs aside; do I even want to be with anyone right now? When I have such wonderful, loving, non judgmental friends just a phone call away in Byron. When I have a flatmate who wanted to live with me for another year and looked at me when I came home the next afternoon with a smirk and not a cringe.

Of course I always said I wasn't going to settle for anything less then fireworks.

-Tess xoxox

New year. New you.

2008-01-01T18:01:00.000+11:00

Every year around this time hundreds of articles appear in magazines, newspapers and online around the world about how to make over your self. Your house, your job, your love life; suddenly everything about you is subject to change. We invest in new wardrobes, gym memberships we'll hardly ever use and spend hours in relationships we hope will erase the painful experiences of our past year and bring us into a more successful place for the next one. Like the honeymoon period of a new relationship the first days into a new calender are filled with hope, unrealistic expectation, sex and alcohol as we try to set the pace for another year, a better year. Another man, a better man.

But as far as resolutions go I can't help but feel a little guilty. After all if so much is wrong with our lives, why do we wait until the last minute?

Some people believe that the meaning of the number seven is that it is the number for learning lessons. I can say with complete conviction that 2007 has been full of em. Over the past 365 days I've been single, homeless, unemployed, in a relationship, a resident, an intern, a household bill coordinator, a sales woman, on holiday, a success, a failure, anxious, depressed, dyslexic, in recovery, in therapy, a slut, a dog owner, completely lost and partially found, and as far as 2007 goes I can comfortably say I was fucked.

Last year I wrote about how important it is to get the perfect diary each year because odds are it will outlast your next relationship and it seems I jinxed myself. This theory bites you particularly hard in the ass when you find the schedule of it splashed across the pages, flights and holidays or a personal letter written inside. So this year I'm taking a different tac. It's important because you need the most fabulous diary to write down your most fabulous memories and plans. And two nights ago as the new year approached and I looked back on my life to date and my past relationships I realised that I now had a fuck buddy, a fake boyfriend and a gay fake husband all to stop myself from a bad new beginning. From becoming a skank, a slut, or worse from having a meaningful relationship again. But as my beige diary comes to a close I realise I can finally put the past in the past. The best way to ring in thew new year is with a fresh start. New bedding, new underwear, new year, new me. It's time to wash all my dirty laundry.

And this year, I'm going to buy more flowers.

Oral Hygiene

2007-12-11T23:09:00.000+11:00

One balmy Sydney evening an Irishman met a local gal for a couple of cocktails and some easy conversation. The night progressed and despite both of their better intentions the pair headed back to his beach house for chocolate cake and a night cap. They fell asleep in a haze of champagne listening to the sounds of the ocean. But the next morning something came up.

"Well we were messing around and he ... you know ... and I offered to get him some tissues or a towel. He just reached over and said, "That's what sheets are for.'"

"Oh god. What did you do?"

"I was saved by the vibrator."

"What?"

"My phone was on silent, Tess, get your mind out of the gutter. A girl from work called me in to do the morning shift and I bailed as soon as I could."
"So was it just the muck of the Irishman or was it the whole getting back into a relationship thing?"

"Forget the relationship it was the sheets I didn't want to get back into."

I had to admit I was somewhat mortified. But being objective how was he meant to know? Was there a proper blow job etiquette? And if so just how dirty should you get after going down? As always I turned to my friends, male and female and asked what they thought.

Friend 1: "I once went down on a guy and when I finished the first thing he said was, 'If only it wasn't so messy.' I still don't know how I feel about that."

Friend 2: "He could have at least used a shirt!"

Friend 3: "Was it the top sheet or the bottom sheet?"

Friend 4: "Rank."

There's always a limit of how comfortable you can get with someone a few dates in, it seems that in this case it might have been too early for tall dark and Irish to be himself between the sheets.

xoxox

The IT Factor

2007-12-05T10:33:00.000+11:00

Inalienable Truth: When you got it, you got it. When ya don't, ya just don't.

One Saturday night in Darling harbor a pretty young Australian woman and a handsome younger British man strolled home after a night on the town. The man had high hopes, inspired by the fact that at this point her was carrying her shoes and playing the gentleman, when suddenly everything went awry.

"I was trying to play it cool so I suggested a game of Murder Marry Shag," he told me later that night, "So I picked three random people from the wharf and asked her who she'd murder and marry and so on, next thing I know she's carrying on with one of them!"

"Your kidding! Which category?"
"Shag."
"Oh dear."

I happened upon the situation with my other English cohorts a short while in and we watched from afar as a mere ten minutes saw this pretty blonde girl discarding the attentions of the cute Englishman and begin flirting outrageously with a skinny mop headed emo boy she had never met. They kissed.

I was confused.

"I don't understand it!" he said as we all headed home, "I mean, I'm a guy but I think I have some idea of what's attractive and tell me if I'm wrong but that looser does not fall into the category, right?"

"Right."
"Then what is she doing?"
"Clearly she's insane."
"But she seemed so normal!" He protested.
"They always do mate."

I didn't know how to tell him the situation was hopeless. The only way to explain the strange phenomenon I had witnessed was a severe case of IT. As in 'it' not computer I.T. but 'it'. That mysterious point of attraction that you cannot quite put your finger on. Unfortunately for my English friend I have to say that every good relationship I have ever entered into was a result of the IT factor. It's not something you can explain but the closest description I can think of is an undeniable physical pull.

I gently brought up the possible explanation for her behavior but my friend refused to believe it, "You can't tell me THAT guy has IT. I won't hear it," He said.
"That's thing, you and I may not ever be able to understand, but to her he might be IT."
"How is that possible?"

What could I say? The fact of the matter was simply part of that grander mystery of attraction. I wise friend of mine discussed this with me a few weeks ago when I explained my frustration at not being attracted to a guy I know who is completely lovely, as I said "I'm just not there, it's just not there."

He explained it to me thus; "The thing is Tess, you have IT. You have that undeniable unexplainable quality yourself, and so you can't force your attraction to someone who does not have IT. Some girls are easy to please, they want romance you send them roses, they want stars you take them to the observatory, they want a man to make them feel more like a woman. But you're different. When you're with someone, you just want them to make you feel more like you."

Wow. Very nice.

I'd almost forgotten what IT felt like when on Sunday night I went out dancing with friends at Hugos in Kings Cross. As the free drinks flowed I noticed a ruggedly handsome man dancing near the DJ's. He was there most of the night with his friends for a work christmas party, occasinally dancing with random girls who approached him but mostly just having a good time. At the end of the night we ended up dancing together. I was spun and twirled and dipped accross the dance floor and everything felt so natural, so simple, so much more like me.

So while the strange powers of this IT factor continue to illude and mystify us all, to bring love (even if just for the night) and to take love from us, hope is not lost. While IT may fade past 3am, there's one place that a girl can always find IT, with a man who can dance.

-Tess

xoxox

So much for 21 days

2007-11-28T20:03:00.000+11:00

So here's the thing.
Sometimes when I write here, it's as the person that I am. And sometimes it's as the person I want to be. And my twenty one day waiting period is probably coming from the alter ego I use to make myself feel invincible as opposed to the vulnerable person I might actually be... I call her Evil Tess, she has expensive footwear and a penchant for flaming beverages.

This is Evil Tess seen ready to devour a male model at a press event

*Note the bared teeth, wild hair and clawing fingers.
*Examine the elaborate mask on her face ( done by the team at make up store)

There are dangers in putting on the mask of Evil Tess. She's no good to anyone, in fact she's out to stir up as much murk as she possibly can while crossing the line, setting fire to it and dancing naked on top of it. What seems to happen as a result is confusion, embarrassment and hurt and she comes across as some hard core man hating bitch which is about the opposite of the real Tess. While the statement "You're the man, put your foot down," makes me want to puke I have to say I have quite a fondness for men. My house mate Andy keeps me sane most days. My 'brothers' Simon and Darren are loyal to me to a fault. The guys who work at my blockbuster rock. So I'm writing something thats not quite a retraction, more a correction. An apology of sorts to those who read this and got the wrong idea about me in a place where I promised to tell the truth, the whole truth.

My whole truth.

If I'm perfectly honest - which we all know I am trying to be here - 21 days is long gone and I'm still not Ok to see anyone else. When I tried to it was because I figured he would already be out meeting people and to convince myself that I'd be fine too, of course I failed miserably. Everything about it felt wrong. The new guy didn't smell right, feel right, and I couldn't just enjoy being with him because I didn't have any feeling about it. I thought I would have been able to separate emotion from enjoyment even if it came to sex let alone kissing but I couldn't. It's just not in me. What happened after that 21 days was a mistake, a series of mistakes with someone lovely who should have just become a really good friend but instead now becomes another ex-something. Because it didn't feel right, because he wasn't the person I was supposed to be kissing. Because he wanted something from me that I didn't have back yet.

See there's a story, about this guy, this guy who kinda broke my heart but really didn't mean to. And it plays over in my head a bit. He read my blog and thought I didn't care. And he met this girl after me, and they broke up because being with this girl didn't feel right. Which I think means because he was used to being with me (probably similar stuff I was going through with the other guy). And then I think conversely, if being with me did feel right then why end it? Which then makes me think the following: If he's not fully over it now when he is the one who ended it and it's been over 2 months, then he wasn't over it in the first place so why did he end it and was he really ready to do that? Taking the 'I love you' situation out of the equation and leaving it to whatever was there; was it all a little premature if now, after the same amount of time it took my best friend to get over being broken up with after over a year with her boyfriend, he's still not OK to do the relationship thing and neither am I? So I have to wonder if it wasn't just a bit early, but this is from my head not his.

Anyway my point is when I wrote that blog, this guy thought our time didn't mean anything to me, that I was fine to move on. He didn't realise that it was actually a massive ego defense and that I was - still am - in no way ready to try to fall for someone else. They still don't smell right, kiss right, look at me the right way. And as you can tell from the previous paragraph I'm still analysing it, so yes I do care, yes it meant everything and yes I was full of it when I wrote that post.

When I wrote what I did it was because that relationship was so important to me, and I was trying to forget that because it was too hard to remember it every time I tried to kiss someone else. Every time I saw something that reminded me of it, nachos, a made in Poland sticker at a furniture shop for christs sake, the weather map.

So that's the truth.

xoxox

For the whispered conversations.

2007-10-07T21:35:00.000+10:00

I write this knowing full well that my last boyfriend will probably read it and he will be concerned because of my last post but he need not be. So to him I say; don’t worry. I’m not writing anything bad. Promise. And I do miss you. And stuff… but I digress.

Anyway a workmate of mine was broken into this week. Her laptop was stolen and she has now lost all the photos she had on it plus her assessments that were near completion. When I think about loosing my computer, and consequently everything I have ever written I am sick to my stomach. Her mother told her she should have locked the upstairs balcony door and that she should take responsibility for her own actions. I told her people weren’t supposed to come into her house uninvited and steal her shit and I hope they caught the bastards and made them take responsibility for their own actions. And yet I remain self centered, well friend centric perhaps and relate this little anecdote to a completely unrelated topic so that I can use a nice little metaphor to lead in to my real point.

When it comes to robbery, you can lock your doors to prevent it, there is contents insurance to safe guard your things and there are police reports to fill out to catch the bastards. But what happens when your relationship is taken away from you?

Ok so I am being a little dramatic, but I was thinking about all my friends who have been broken up with recently (there are a lot) and how they are dealing with it. As well as can be expected I suppose but putting it under harsh scrutiny not really well at all. When I looked closely, one was having meaningless sex with people she hardly knew, another was contemplating giving up altogether, three were on anti depressants and hadn’t slept with or dated anyone else yet, and some part of all of them just wanted to get their love back.

“I can’t orgasm with anyone else,” one confessed as she told me the intimate details over coffee. A strange occurrence, because after all sex was just sex wasn’t it? “That’s what I thought, but it’s just not the same, it’s just not him.” I had to agree, I was having doubts about it myself. Would I be able to enjoy sex with someone else? “He smelt different and he’s dick was too big for me and I didn’t like it. It didn't fit or something.”

That’s right, direct quote. To all you men who are concerned with penis size let me say this once and for all, its not about the size, its all about the fit.

Another is hiding behind her room. She is keeping it in a state far too embarrassing to let anyone else into it and thereby limiting the possibility of sex. Her boudoir has become her chastity room. Again I can relate, I’ve been trying to get over it by telling myself that I should clean my room because at any second, boom, there could be a man in it watching dvd’s with me on my laptop and making out. But it does kinda seem a little forced. Everything seems a little forced and it’s a big change from the comfortable feeling I used to have.

When you are robbed of a relationship, how can you be sure that you will ever get that connection back; and if not with the same person, then with someone else?

For me being in a relationship felt great. It was comfortable, exciting and fun. And there were down sides of course but the positives far outweighed the negatives. And I wonder how many of my ex-boyfriends are reading this, amazed, thinking they’d never see the day that I’d look positively at relationships. Well there you go.

I’m not quite sure how ready I am to let it go completely. Everyone tells me how amazingly well I am doing but how can you possibly know for sure. These conversations I write about are whispered as if these people, my wonderful friends, are ashamed of being upset. People keep telling them to get over it and move on, that they are being silly and should just find someone new. So I am going to be brave and put it out there. Yes I am doing ok. I get up every day and I go to work or uni and I see friends. I go to the movies, I go out for cocktails and talk on the phone and write here. But this week on my lunch break in the food court of Broadway I had to explain to my mother in no uncertain terms that he didn’t love me and that was why it ended. Not because I am so beautiful, so intelligent, so intimidating that he ran away as my family members seem to concur is the only possible reason, but because he thought he didn’t feel strongly enough to continue being with me. It killed me to say it but I needed to end her questioning eg "Do you think it was because we moved when you were eleven?"And in all honesty it tipped my balance just a little. Parents, they try but they're not perfect.

I'm not ready to completely let it go and actually be with someone else yet. We all have our good days and our bad days. I’m just trying to have honest days so that when I’m ok I really am ok, and when I’m sad then I really am sad and that’s cool too.

21 days are up.

2007-09-19T23:11:00.000+10:00

Allllrighty then. It's been 21 days since the break up (and you all know what that means... sexy time for Tess!) so I have officially come out of my mourning period. And there's something I finally need to just say before I move on in about ... oh 46 seconds.
Let's just say I've been avoiding doing this for the past three weeks out of 'takethehighroad-itus' and thank goodness, everybody, it's ok, I got over it. Cured. I am officially not beyond putting my personal issues with people on display for they whole world to see. And I'm going to do it in one sentence ... ready?

My long distance boyfriend of 7 or 8 months broke up with me a mere ten days before he was supposed to fly into Sydney to be with me after lying to me about how he felt for a month and a half and THEN didn't tell me if he'd cancelled the flight or not (the very same flight that was a gift from my friends for my 21st, they effectively got me time with him which was the nicest thought ever) despite it being my one request that he communicate that particular piece of information to me but instead chose to let me wait by the phone wondering if he would walk through my front door because it was all just to damn hard, for him.

Oh god I feel so much better having let that out.

I don't begrudge him happyness and if he ever takes his head out of the sand I'm sure one day after a very legnthy appology we can be friends. Alright. Cool :) Done.

-Tess
xoxox

'Let's just build a huge fuckin fence!'

2007-09-06T08:13:00.000+10:00

Five helicopters follow over their police escort. 200 secret service agents escort one man to his destination. A fence was built from nine ton concrete blocks and wire. The worlds biggest criminals are finally being treated with the precautions necessary. I can't help but wonder if that fence was built to keep us out, or to keep them in.

'Please mam this is the only safe way, there are world leaders in there!' No sudden movements or flash photography, you don't want to set them off.

Unless you've been living under a very large and sound proofed rock you will know that the world leaders are arriving for APEC, the Asia Pacific Economic Corporation. And they've come to my city. And they're meeting about a six dollar cab ride from my house.

Hu Jintao, Geroge bush, how dare you? I'd like to ask you to leave.

Sydney is in lock down and as they keep telling us, we aint seen nothing yet. I have to congratulate the Australian armed forces for the biggest inconvenience I have ever seen. I have never felt less able to get around and I am sure that no terrorist would dare try to enter the city because it's just too much of a pain in the ass.

By car? Traffic.
By train? Delays and the threat of other terrorists.
By bus? What bus?
By monorail? Nah its for tourists.

The F 18's fly over my work across the city and my friends hear them too. It's disrupting businesses and there won't be compensation. Menopause the musical had to close its doors at the theater royal and lost thousands. Retail outlets in the CBD have never been hit this hard as Pitt St mall becomes a ghost town.

Of course there are benefits to it. Last weekend at 11 pm I was followed to my door by a man in a white track suit asking me 'how much?' I managed to lock him out and get help from my room mate upstairs. He continue to bang on the door and yell obscenities. He told us the cops were after him and that he would burn down our house. We warned him we'd call them, he said go ahead. 20 seconds later and I guarantee the cops have never been that fast.

In all honesty it is an amazing thing to watch. Granted I would sympathise with their choice of venue, but boys, did you really think it was a good idea to put the 21 most wanted in the economic center of the country? The skyline the world associates with Australia, our pride and joy, our harbor city, our biggest target.

All I can say to the armed forces, 'keep em in boys, keep em in'

My workout. Day one.

2007-08-24T21:51:00.000+10:00

Oh god. In the style of Brigit Jones I have just realised that I have 2 weeks to get my self into shape before shag fest September 2007. To be fare I do walk up a very steep hill at least once a day and drink a lot of coffee ... Instantly begin leg lifts and squats until the humor of this particular exercise becomes far too much to bare. I am now making inappropriate sexually explicit jokes at my self. Need help fast.

Right quick check of latest mag on roommates' bedroom floor reveals a wonderful article on how to look like Cameron Diaz (my secret icon). Only problem is that it suggests a dreadful workout regime that surely no human being should subject themselves too unless nominated for a golden globe or similar. And it takes 6 weeks. Ah.

What if I just went blond? No?

Hmm.
Ironic how the only effective exercise to turn yourself into some sex goddess looking thing is in fact sex itself and in my particular case this would somewhat defeat the purpose.
Stressed out, must locate chocolate immediately. On second thought ...
-Tess
xoxox

New Track (albeit an incoherant rant on cabbies and other stuff)

2007-08-23T23:50:00.000+10:00

Ok, ok, ok.

I promice I am going to stop. Thanks to an old co-worker commenting that he accidentally read my blog the other day I have realised this. This blog should never be read purely by accident! We all know I've been a broken record, "long distance sucks, blah blah, my relationship, blah blah, woe is me, blah blah. In short I have become one of those women I hate. And I am extreemly sorry for doing that because it meant that I haven't been doing my job which is to be brutally honest about why it is that we get mad when the cabby refuses to change our fifty dollar note's.

Which is clearly the most frustraiting thing on the planet.

It's not like it isn't hard enough what with uni, work, relationships, demanding family members and Geroge Bush is bring all his bad karma in our direction. There are cabbies all over the city turning away our fifties and leaving us to scrounge hopelessly through our purse to find change from yesterdays lunch which makes us look like filthy rich basterds when in fact we are Uni students who take out large sums of cash at once to avoid paying extra withdrawl fees and save time so that we can study! And when they're not refusing our fifties they are leaving us stranded on highways in the middle of the night, refusing to pick us up if we aren't going in the same direction. You guys should have the air let out of your tires so that you can think about what you've done.

Meanwhile I need to send out a medal of honour to all the children of divorvced parents out there who want to help you by blaming the other parent for your short-comings and pushing for you to be less like them.
Don't get me wrong, my parents are awesome. I love them more then anyone else in the world and we generally have a very friendly, supportive and adult relationship provided I keep them as separate from eachother as possible.
This week my mother - acting from the spirit of true love and campassion for her daughter and the crusade for goodness and justice in general- rang my father for the first time in four years to tell him the best way to help me not be anxious was to pay for my textbooks and that this would make him feel good as he would be contributing to my life. My father in turn called me and lectured me on my financial priorities.

Not helpful conversation when one has just suffered oil burns to her wrist and is standing at the kitchen sink moving her hand in and out of cold running water in two minute intervals.

FYI Mum, I know you are the most wonderful woman in the world and you mean to help me but Dad doesn't see things the same way as you do which is why you guys divorced. Please don't call him, it is pointless and just makes my life more stressful. Send love to me instead. And my room mate laughed and agreed with you.
FYI Dad, I see your point. You have supported me. However; the last thing I need is lectures on my financial well being especially considering I haven't come to you once begging for money in the entire time I've been in Uni and I had nothing to do with mum calling you. Yes you've been supporting me and I'm really greatful, but in all honesty you were the one telling me that that I should continue to live in the second most expencive city in the world and it was you who said that I should consider the long distance relationship I help fund as auspicious. You can't go back on your statements like that and tell me I am being frivilous because in all honesty I can't afford to think about frivolus stuff! All I do these days is budget to afford presents for other people inclusing you and my lovely deserving step mum. And finally, out of the two of us who spends more money on clothes? (If you need a hint mine all have holes in them).

To all divorced parents in the world, please don't call your parental counterpart unless it is to congradulate eachother on what fantastic stable children you somehow managed to raise. And please don't take out your issues on the perfectly responcible and savy kids you had. We don't want to hear about how aweful your relationship was, or about how much it was the other persons fault or about what traits we've inherrited from them. We don't have time. We have study, work, partners. We need to get change for our fifties.

My confessional:
I love my parents, but there are times ...
I cannot in all honesty believe that it is a good decision to move to Perth at this stage of my life.
I am not ready to rebuild my life from scratch yet again.
It annoys me that some of my friends have dumped me for their respective boys when I am asked to do the opposite.
I will go out and pick up an inebriated flatmate in a cab if they need me to and I won't think twice about it.
And if I'm holding a fifty at the time mister mean cabby with pleanty of change, you'll bloody well take it or I'm walking out.
I'm not spell checkin this post!

That's just the person I am.

-Tess
xoxox

Anxious much?

2007-08-14T18:22:00.000+10:00

Sydney is officially the hardest city to live in, in the country. It is one of the top 20 most expensive, competitive and corruptive cities in the world. And it is the second most expensive city for overseas companies to send their workers to.

I live in it.
This week I had my first anxiety attack.
I am 21 years old.
And afterwards I bought shoes.
And I am not alone.

The funny thing about Sydney-siders is that we react in the way that all self centered opportunists should react to situations that put us out of our comfort zone, we try to control it. So naturally the first thing I said to myself was that if I had to have an anxiety attack then it would go the way I wanted it to go. It hadn't happened to me before but I wasn't scared of it. I simply had to ensure that it gave off the right dramatic effect. The crying wasn't scary. The breathing difficulty didn't bother me. What bothered me was that I had clear thinking through the whole thing. In the middle of my anxiety attack I was thinking, quite clearly, about what everyone else would say. About how they might react. Treat me. Would it make a difference? Should I tell them, would it make them back off?

What I was scared of was everything else. My life. My relationship. My job. My studies and my work. My friends. I was beginning to doubt. I was scared that one more thing might tip me over the edge and next week people would be ignoring the hat sitting on my tartan blanket out the front of the QVB while I held up a sign that read "will self deprecate for food".

The reason I became a sobbing human statue that night was because I hadn't had space. No one does, space is more yesterday here then what's-her-name form that movie. What we have in the city is our apartment. A few square meters of bedroom to call ours alone and some shared living space. I became scared of space because you have too much time to think there. And the last thing I wanted to do was think about how annoyed I was at my friends, at myself, for letting me become this person who was not strong enough to continue being an opportunistic prat. How annoyed I was at my lover for becoming indispensable. How annoyed I was that I needed everyone else, because I was no longer capable of doing it all. That I needed time. How annoyed I was that I couldn't even get away with loosing control during an anxiety attack.

Most of all how annoyed I was that the first thing a close friend said to me when I told them about it was how hard anxiety would be for me to overcome. I don't believe that and I refuse to hear it.

So I bought shoes. I went on a picnic. And today I helped out a friend who reminded me of a sobbing statue.

And I cleaned my room. Because I pay for that space, and it's mine.

-Tess
xoxox

The voice on the other end of the line.

2007-08-01T20:57:00.000+10:00

A post in two parts, May and August.

Long distance is hard. Really really hard.

Before I began my current relationship I had no concept of what it was really like to be in one. I'd dated alot and had my share of fauxlationships (fake relationships where you try eachother on to see if you fit) but I never knew what it was like to be connected to someone else.

I do now, and I like it.

But where it becomes difficult is when that connection is a Telstra or TPG service, and what you're feeling most of all is a strange mixture of hope and lonlieness. I have the right guy, in the wrong situation.

The frustraiting times are when the one thing you can't say is what you want to say most to the person you think you can say everything to. But you can't.

I started writing this post in May. This line marks the begining of my completion of it. It is now August. I have returned from one of the most fantastic holidays of my life with the afore mentioned right guy. And coming back from my month away I realised how much I had learned from the experience. About myself, and him, and us. And knowing now what I do, and keeping the promices I made, I find that what I said before continues to hold true now if not more so then before. I am more hopeful then I was before I left. Lonelyness has become patience. And the wrong situation has become the 'current' situation.

The strange thing about a long distance relationship is the way that obsticles that would ordinarily hold you up in a relationship become irrilivent because if you've commited yourself to it then there is no time to spend wasting on the "should I or shouldn't I's." And the obsticles you' never dreamed of, like 3972 km's inbetween you, become nothing more then small details. Funnily enough what's even stranger is that timing is more important then ever because one tiny event in the middle of an arranged visit can vastly change plans. The time space continuim adjusts to suit the particular state of infatuation or love that your in.
And you become greedy with the time you get to spend with the other person because it is the one thing you don't get.

And after a while missing them becomes something else, sort of a gut feeling that's always there.

And there's so much space in your bed.

Broken Record

2007-05-28T20:56:00.000+10:00

Patterns, like beds, are made to be broken.

A friend of mine recently broke up with his girlfriend. Nothing out of the ordinary, in fact it was exactly the opposite. It was completely ordinary. It was in fact so familiar I felt as if I'd heard the same story a month before, a year ago, and the year before that. That's was of course because I had. And looking at it objectivley, the fact that I was hearing it again in these particular circumstances indicated the repetition of yet another pattern.

Oh dear.

A rut, routine, normality.

SCREEACH!

That was the sound of my Havianas abruptly coming to a halt. A thought has occurred.

"Hang on, I didn't sign up for this!"

Many thoughts in response. Explosion of thoughts from guest celebrities in my own head.

"Well of course you did because something you did along the way has put you here dumb ass... And by the way you've been punked!" - Ashton Kutcher
"You're life is not boring, YOU are boring!" - Tony Robbins
"If you want to go ... go. If you want to stay ..." - Antonio Banderas
"Dental plan ... Lisa needs braces" - opps that wasn't me that was a Simpsons copyright infringement. But you get the point.

If Harold Crick hadn't changed the time on his wrist watch incorrectly he never would have been hit by the bus. If Gracie Jane hadn't hesitated in the eighties she'd have a multi-million dollar Palm Beach property by now. On the other hand if I hadn't suggested to my repetitive friend that he should avoid what is generally the next step in his break-up pattern - to try and be my friend, crack on to me causing emotional complications, and then run off with a short woman - I may well have had to deal with it all over again.

So you see there is something to be said for breaking old habits. Wake up. Get out. Break bed's, not records.

Life's too short.

As for the rest of my broken bed, you'll all be glad to know I made it into a shelf. Thus is the transient nature of all things.

-Lady M
xoxox

Promices, instinct, satisfaction.

2007-05-10T18:52:00.000+10:00

We don't keep them, we don't follow our own, we don't get enough, or maybe we have to much.
I can't decide.

Last night I ate a Banquet, I was satisfied. I should follow my instincts more.

Promises are the stickiest of subjects though, we all get caught in them and we all forget we made them, sometimes deliberately, "Sure, we can stay friends! I'll call you..." Sometimes to the benefit of humanity "I'm giving up on men!" ... Sometimes to the benefit of ourselves "I will no longer eat chocolate."

Some of them we make to ourselves. To stay away from things that hurt us, to be better to our selves, to work harder, to keep in touch, to stay together, to switch to pre-paid.

If I think about all the promises I have made to all the undeserving bastards out there I am confronted with all the promises I've broken to the people who matter most .. as well as further undeserving bastards. And then the most shocking figure emerges. The number of times I've broken promises to myself. To do better, to eat better, to love more.

I'm learning.
-Lady Flex
xoxox

A Tale of Ikea

2007-05-05T20:07:00.000+10:00

Inalienable truth: you get what you pay for.

The Ikea Catalogue is the most read book in the world. The validity of this claim was recently argued at a Thai dinner with friends. The results are as follows;

Simon: "No it's not, isn't the bible the most read book in the world?"
Darren: "Nope, catalogue."
Simon: "It's not even a book!"
Darren: "Well it's the most read whatever in the world."
Simon: "How can you say that, this is god, this is the bible!"
Darren: "Honey, how can you compare God to flat packed furnature? When God can flat pack a three by four book case for me then we'll talk."

Regardles of the spiritual implications this brings up we have all been there. That maze of intricately placed walk ways designed to keep you in as long as possible. Anyone else noticed that the exit sign rarely actually points to an exit? Ikea is the worst place to be in the event of a fire, flood or general menace. But it is the best place for uni students with unlimmited furnature requirements and continually limmited funds.

So we make the treck, hire the ute and battle the "occasional furnature" to find and return with our perfect bed, book case or coffee table only to find that after a months worth of useage (or about ten minutes into putting it together) it falls apart.

I'm being a little bit mean here, after all Ikea has supplied me with several happy purchases and excelent service when I've had to return things but as I am sure some of you are awear I bought a bed from them about a month and a half ago. This is what happened one month in ...

I'm sure you see my point. Endurance, stregnth, durability, going the distance etc does not seem to apply to this bed. Lucky for me Ikea were happy to refund my money. And continue to serve excelent softserve in the food section downstairs.

As for me, I bought a long double ensemble bed made for the Hilton hotel. And ikea and I are still on good terms.

Lesson learnt.

-The appropriately named, Lady Flex
xoxox

Coming to Terms

2007-05-05T19:19:00.000+10:00

My name is Tess and I am an occasionally working Model.

Wow.

There it is, I have now published it on the web and all can see and I am no longer in the closet ... I'm just wearing its contents. Coinsiding with this new attitude I've even put pictures up on my myspace so that I can get more work (to the support of all but one of my mates) and now I'm ok to tell people openly what I do for extra cash. Yay for me! If they percieve me any differently or get that dumbfounded look on their face and ask me to walk for them its their problem. I love my job.

This rant may come as a shock to many of you, others will not care but I have had a lot of problems telling people about this (I started out about a year ago and it has taken this long). Mostly because of my own little insecurities about being percieved as superficial or self centered. Ironically it was this fear and my own associations with the occupation that made me those very things along with judgemental and a fool.

The other morning at my very first fashion week when I watched a five foot eleven blond doing her chemistry homework for uni I decided, fuck 'em. Fuck the lot of em who don't support me doing what I really do enjoy doing. Funnily enough I've met an assortment of chemists, microbiologists, social theorists, communications students, legal secutaries, actors, marketing analysists and design students in my line of work and I'll be damned if I hear a bad word about any of them.

I came across another bloggers post when I was google-ing song lyrics yesterday. She wrote beautifully and talked about feeling ashaimed of being a sexual person. Ashaimed of wanting and enjoying sex. I was so sad about it because sex is great! No one should ever be made to feel that way. And it occured to me that I felt the same way about enjoying a show or shoot. Its all the same tall poppy bullshit we've been hearing about for years and I am taking a stand!

The other day I did a quiz from one of the teenage magazines (procrastionation does strange things to the mind of a uni student) and I realised that I no longer have anything remotely in common with the teenage species. I think one of the biggest differences is that I no longer have the desire to put myself into any steriotype. I no longer wish to confine my life to one career and I no longer feel the insecurity of caring (to my detriment) about what other people think of that.

Don't get me wrong, we are social animals and it does matter to some extent to all of us and all of that. But if someones oppinions are getting in the way of your happyness then you need to reconsider your priorities. I can't believe I let that put me in the modeling closet for so long. I'm out and prowd baby! Out and prowd!

- Lady Flex

xoxox

Deck the halls with cups of carlton fa la la la la, la la la la

2007-03-26T13:00:00.000+10:00

Well it's been a long time ... I shouldn't have left you ...
Sorry guys! I know I've been bad with my blogging lately, there is no excuse even though I, bullshit artist and evasive maneuver extraodinaire, could come up with a million of them. Damn that rental crisis. See there I go, sorry again . Oh and to all the people I didn't pay enough attention to, text back or remember to invite the other night because I was running around all over the place and then dealing with intense personal issues with old friends ... sorry again ... Oh and to those old friends ... also sorry. Oh and to my agent ... kiss my ass.

But now that I've got that covered I think we can get on with it yes?

ALRIGHTY THEN

Ladies and gentlemen, we're back, and better then ever. The last few months of confusion settled themselves with a rockin party at my new place last weekend where a never ending punch bucket reigned supreme and all of my problems were solved. Our household was united in alcohol and also decorated in it to some extent. To the man who masking-taped the cup of beer to our wall, I know who you are, we have footage and we are eternally grateful.

To be honest my memories of the night are a little sketchy ... something I'm not entirely used to but then again it was an excellent punch. Unfortunately due to scheduling complications I couldn't have some of my friends from back home join me for the trashieness but now that I think about it they may not have fit in the house anyway thanks to all the old kids from my apartment and uni mates it was amazing. I've always said there's nothing like a big trashy night to replenish you and bring you back from the brink of depression. To all who think alcohol doesn't solve problems, I have this to say to you. GO HOME AND RETHINK YOUR LIFE!

The only problem not addressed was of course my financial ones, but thanks to uni financial services I can breath a little easier. This brings me to a point of annoyance which I feel I have to blog about because fuck it pisses me off.

People who do not pay you when they are supposed to and how I have now been forced to become one.

My agent has decided that I will get the money that is owed to me whenever he feels like handing it over because he "doesn't have time to be dealing with models complaining about not being paid." Not only did he give me a different spiel then what is in my contract but he was quite mean about it. I have tried being patient. I reminded him when it was due in with a lovely text message because I know he's a busy man, and when that didn't work I tried the hard core demon hell bitch approach, still to no avail. The problem is that the lack of this money (which is more then I make at my internship in a month) is now causing me to owe my generous housemates for things like washing machines and internet connections and bond. That combined with the ATO giving me 28 days (I'm probably down to about ten) to pay up or face legal action has made me one very unhappy camper. I even had to write IOU's for my mothers and grandmothers birthdays this year. NOT KOSHER! Did I mention I've been waiting for nearly 4 months? My contract says to expect mayment after three, would you be annoyed in my situation?

So my advice to all who may need representation, whether you be musicians, models, actors or any kind of artist, talk to the people they already represent before you get involved. I'm stuck in a contract for another year with people who I don't believe will be out for my best interest. It's been a hard couple of months.

And if you're feeling down about money, uni, and life in general, get a big group of people together and get wasted, a life half lived is a life un lived after all ;)

Your friend,
Lady Flex
xoxox

Miss Unavailability

2007-02-08T14:02:00.000+11:00

Is it all just a quesiton of availability?

As Sydney delves deaper into rental crisis with up to one hundred people lining up outside everything from 'handy men's dreams' to 'contemporary masterpieces' I have to wonder, to what extent are we subject to availability.

Right now for example all I think of is finding myself a place to clutter up as quickly as possible. The beach house and good company that comes from my current displacement asside I have to admit that I long for my own piles of mess in my own room of my own house, fixer-upper as it may be. Ironically last week I recieved an email from a business aquaintance offering me an oppertunity to apply for a marketing and promotional position with all expences paid in a resort style estate for six months.

An eighty thousand dollar contract. I haven't applied, the estate isn't close enough to central station and there aren't any pics up on realestate.com.

The only things that are consistantly available to me are cochraoches which are without fail all over this city.

- Lady Flex

Bringing flexy back ... YEAH!

2007-02-04T17:35:00.000+11:00

We all knew I wouldn't stay away for long. No matter how I try and try I can't help but come back to you, true love lasts a life time ;)

And after all inspiration is fleeting, so when it strikes over a coffee conversation down the road or a visit to an old familiar place I come here to get it all down and out there to an audience that is seemingly larger then I have previously assumed ... I've been quoted back to myself by randoms three times this week. Comment people so I know what you want to read about, even if you are my ex-whatever! Don't leave it all to my blonde caffinated counterpart and my own life experience (I'm only twenty, it's limmited)!

This week saw me ponder, a lot. New things, old things, old things that have become new again. Friendships renewed and familiarity lost. The fact that in England 'flex' is a term for sex eg 'did you flex her?' etc, revelation! How appropriate! And of course having done all that heavy thinking I found the need to indulge in some light and fluffy Carrie Bradshaw crap. This time we're looking at what it takes to go the distance, why microsoft really has revolutionised the way we opperate and Bill Gates' ultimate plan, (to see us all going without sex) in;

Are long distance relationships the new black?

Ladies of Sydney it is official, we are in the import business. It appears that having now dated every living specimen with a penis and his best complacent mate in this city we have begun to do the only rational thing left; import them from elsewhere. That’s right, boyfriend trafficking is the latest trend with the small female fish in our increasingly bigger pond.

Alarmingly so this week alone I have uncovered that no less then five of my female friends are dating outside their own state and in some cases internationally. A further three have continued relationships whilst travelling overseas and none of these relationships are polygamous, the result of residency applications or a solution to Sydney’s rental crisis (although let's face it couples always have a better shot with Johnny Realtor, especially if they hire out a small child for the day). Believe it or not they’re all legit baby, straight up moon light and roses.

Paragraph of questions:

Why is this suddenly happening all at once? Have we become so commitment phobic that we prefer to date beyond the reaches of our zip codes? Is this a new kind of ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ answer to our ever increasing tendency to replace and upgrade everything that's already working (cough windows vista cough) in our lives? Are Sydney women the pick of the crop or are we all just suffering from ‘the grass is greener’ syndrome? Is this yet another symptom of globalised communication networks and the you-tube increased interconnectivity of our I-want-it-all-and-now-with-bubbles lifestyle?

Or are we just not willing to settle for convenience anymore? And if so; are we finally seeing clearly or are we just looking at a Monet?

Perhaps I am approaching it from the wrong perspective, perhaps it is the men from anywhere but here who are reaching out via the radio waves and optical fibres for their long distance low maintaince women. Or is this indicative of a greater trend of bringing romance back? Should JT change his lyrics?

Right now I'm being imported and exported between friends couches and my posessions are circling between four houses so it makes sence that I have too many questions and not enough witty little answers. Maybe you could leave some for me? If thats too much maybe you could bring me cookies? It's a crazy world we live in and as is typical of me I'm grabbing on to my old security blankets and jumpin in for the ride. After all, as wise Sam says 'aren't we glad to be alive!'

-Lady Flex

xoxox

Epilogue

2007-01-29T11:22:00.000+11:00

... Another day, a week or so later.

I wrote that last post from housing about a week ago, and I'm coming back now because I think I need to add something. This has been about my life, and a large part of that has been spent making mistakes, analysing, and asking questions about the things that have always puzzled me more then anything else:
Relationships
Men
And all things pertaining to the afore mentioned.
And when I think about everything I've written on the subject it seems fitting that the last night I spent in my room here was with someone who changed my mind on the whole thing. The past week of homelessness has been one of the most amazing weeks of my life. I have no place of residence, no steady work, and no idea where I will be tomorrow. But I have never had more fun.

I met someone. And last week when I was dancing with him in a club I lost my ID and I think a part of me attached itself to the sticky dance floor with it because I feel differently about the whole relationship enigma.

He's probably going to read this but I don't think he'll mind. He left and I kinda miss him already, mostly because I'm out of pj's and wearing the t-shirt he gave me. But like he said it's hard when you can't rationalise it and try to tell yourself you can't fall for someone in a week when you think you might feel otherwise. The fact that he lives about as far away as you can while still being in the same country makes it difficult, and now I'm starting to wonder whether he was ever really here or if I made him up in my homeless delusions. Maybe I am actually now a crazy bag lady with an aluminum foil hat on my head and six cats I can't feed and believe myself to be typing this when in fact I am absentmindedly tapping a park bench. But real or imaginary, he reminded me of a few things I'd forgotten in the process of developing my cynicism.

If you are lucky enough to find someone you can talk to who will listen to you, keep em around. It doesn't matter how capable you are or how much pressure you're under to perform and succeed as an independent adult in your life, everyone needs a little help every now and then.

As much as we say sex is just sex; wanting to feel something, some connection or chemistry, is a good thing too. Fuck as many people as you want, but feel good about it. It doesn't make us week or foolish and it sure as hell doesn't make us less independent or assertive. Those strengths come from doing what you want to do, and not from what you are told will make you tougher, sexier or more competitive. It's only when the opposite happens that you risk loosing a part of yourself. So stop dating duds and start going after what you want, whether that be with another person or with your fabulous single self.

And the most important thing I learned from this whole thing; it is possible to want to be with someone and still be ok if that can't happen. It actually IS worth the risk of getting hurt because the things you regret really are the things you don't do, the risks you don't take. The person I spent a week with recently could not have been more what I was looking for if he tried (he fed ducks and wanted to learn salsa I mean COME ON! It's just cruel!) and I couldn't help but imagine ways I could make it work. But I had to let him go even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. I guess it's a long flight to my place. And it's crazy to think anything like that could work after a week right? Right? And I'm ok, a little sad to see him go but I'm ok. Still I hope he knows any time he's in Sydney he has a free place to stay ... as soon as I do.

So I think this change in perspective deserves a few other changes. Because of this Flexism and I will be taking a little break from things as they have been. Not sure how long it will be, knowing me I'll be back here tomorrow with something else to say but whatever, I'll let you know how it turns out. So keep checkin in.

I think it's a case of when you know, you know.

With love, and some real hope,
Tess M
xoxox

A last flex.

2007-01-19T12:55:00.000+11:00

Ladies and Gentleman, the time has come.

For the past year and three months I have confided, advised, commented and saterised the events in my life and those of people around me in over 100 posts (107 including this one to be exact). Today as I look around the shamble that is room A of my apartment, my room and home for the past two years, I realise that it is in fact my anniversary.
This exact day two years ago I left home (and Sydney) not knowing if I would return, not knowing if my decision was a safe one and missing what had been the best years of my life up to that point.

But I did get to come back. The day I moved in, February 7th 2005 (also known as the bad hair day that would live forever on my student ID card) I got to my apartment and found a three liter bottle of schmirnoff vodka and a living room clearly suffering from morning after syndrome. They told me I was living with two guys and someone else who hadn't moved in yet. I opened the door to the bedroom that was to be mine and at that point it looked more like an sterile asylum then a livable quarters. I sat down and burst into tears. I had never felt more alone in my life.

I can't believe how wrong I was and how the people that lived in my apartment for that first year became my family, changed my life in so many ways, and are those who I hold vastly responsible for developing the person I've become.

I can't help but think, what if I'd never come here? What if I'd never met you all?

This blog has been a record of the things we talked about and muddled out way through. From the break-ups and the hook-up's to the break downs, the evil places they kept our paychecks and the legnths we went to just to avoid an uncomfortable conversation in the elevator. There were those in transit, the influx's of new people every six months and the remaining strong-hold of aussies and original long termers. Some of whom despite occupying a different address still have half their stuff around because no matter how hard you try you don't ever really leave this place. It always feels like home.

So I wanted to say thank you. Thanks for inspiring me, reading along, and for consenting to let me write about you all (sometimes not so anonymously). Flexism has been a place that I've kept for this time in my life so that I will always remember. The time, the place, the people. I have never met such a consistent band of alcoholics in my life. And now it's time to say goodbye. The last of the original group are moving out this year and handing over the reigns to other 18 year old would be drinkers. I can only hope they sneak as many people in and out of this room as I have had the joy of doing. I firmly believe that no one can understand why we are the way we are until they have lived in this building, and I wish the next generation the best of luck and many nights to remember along with some they might rather forget.

In a few days I leave again, so far not knowing where I'm going to end up. Not knowing how safe my decision has been. And missing what have been the best years of my life to date.

Thanks for listening,

Tess M
xoxox

What happened to alcohol?

2007-01-18T11:02:00.000+11:00

On wednesday the 17th of January 2007, three intelligent, chariamatic and most importantly busty twenty year old women sat in a living room in newport and discuessed a terrifying new developement over mid-day mohitos.

"No one is fun anymore."

As a trashy night was proposed for the comming weekend realisation hit like a particularly nasty ton of bricks; none of us had been both out and trashed in quite some time simply because no one was doing it. It was a sad moment as each of us remembered that once we had been consistant practicing alcoholics. We had formed new definitions of tollerance, no top was too busty, no place was unreachable with a reasonable cab load, no heals were too uncomfortable as no drink was too strong. We were unstopable provided cover charges were fair and promoters were male. How had we let this happen?

The loss of a favorite club where the entry was as free as the drinks for us had definantly contributed. The hospitality industry was also to blame with its deliberately unreasonable scheduals. Men. Both the need for money and the lack of it.

But most importantly for this little alco, a golden oppertunity had been wasted. She had spent the past few weeks bored as her friends were all away in different countrys, but she was foolish and had forgotten that this meant she could do anything she wanted and no one would find out...

Something had to be done.

Wake up calls

2007-01-14T12:13:00.000+11:00

Inalienable truth: When you've missed, forgotten or overlooked an aspect of your life, some smart ass will always be there to remind you and it will be more blatent then the Good Will Hunting rip off I just saw on futurama.

My room mate dropped something metalic and clangy at 8am this morning. As I told my myspace friend I thought the queer eye guys had finally come to dish out a makeover, no such luck.
Wake Up call #1 : Temporary unemployment is no excuse to sleep in.

Two people quoted my blog to me, problem? They were both ex's of mine.
Wake up call #2 : My ex's read my blog.
Oh god, was mortafied to uncover this. Especially considering my previous and somewhat misguided anti-ex boyfriend rants of last year and the year before. (See the archives) So I am officially turning over a new leaf regarding the issue. I, Tess, promice to no longer loathe, despise or regret any of you nor do I wish to see you in grave disatisfaction. I promice to, from this point on, be completely not awkard at social gatherings and to (as had always been my policy) continue not to name names.

A man appeared on Glebe point road the other day after I sat up from eating a spinach pasty. He offered to heal me. I hadn't noticed him standing outside the reputable hippy shop behind me because I was focused on the food in front of me. He offered to heal me useing a technique similar to reiki for ten minutes for free in said reputable hippy shop with no commitment or guilt to buy. Now normally I would say no thanks but in the last few weeks I have developed this need to say YES to anything free. To make sure I told him I had no money and that I was moving so would not be able to afford anything beyond 2 minute noodles for a month. He said come on in.

It was the Glebe point road version of Mum's hot Milo and biscuits.

"You have a lot of heavy energy around your heart, have you been a bit emotional lately?"
Well I'm broke, sober, unemployed, house-hunting in Sydney's rental crisis and thus feeling uncharacteristically sorry for myself. You could say that... Instead I just said "Yeah it's been a tough few weeks."

"You need to heal."

I walked away wondering why he made his offer. Was it my "vibes"? My cleavage? Was he some sort of Karma? The universe's way of telling me to chill out? Whatever it was I actually felt better after. It helped having someone tell me there was evidence I wasn't being good to myself and that it was more important to fix what ever it was then to focus on everything else.
Wake up call #3 and #4 It's not really about the problem, it's about how you handel it. And free stuff is always good. Yep yep yep.

Due to a water leak the cieling of the house I checked out today had collapsed.
Wake up call #5 : that was just not my house.

Cool

So there you have it. Just a few random things that happened, not really important but I was bored.
-Tess M
xoxox

Those Damn Penguins

2007-01-03T20:13:00.000+11:00

The world is set on marriage and coupledom again and in these rush-to-the-alter times I find the blame must be placed squarely on the Penguins. That's right, the Penguins. Ideas of forever together are circulating the minds of children and impresionable twenty something animated feature fans the world over after the release of toe tappin childrens flick Happy Feat. Should we be concerned?

Even infamous call girl Xaviera Hollander is giving it a shot as I read in an interview I have copied and pasted below (it's in italics if you're not interested so you can skip it easily):

Vera de Vries, better known as Xaviera Hollander the "Happy Hooker", married boyfriend Philip de Haan in Amsterdam on Tuesday. Hollander wrote the 1971 book The Happy Hooker, describing her career as a sex worker and brothel owner in New York. The book was considered a landmark in demystifying sex. She later wrote a sex advice column for Penthouse magazine.

Hollander, 63, married de Haan, 53, in "a quiet ceremony attended by family and friends", she wrote in an email response to the Associated Press. "Marriage is an institution; who wants to be institutionalised? But yes, I am ready to be institutionalised now!" she wrote when she announced her marriage plans last month. "After two years of intense courtship I will soon be marrying the new love of my life, Philip," she wrote in an email newsletter on December 22. "We are made for each other, and though (neither) of us believed in marriage any more, we now are ready to tie the knot again."

In my oppinion this whole thing stems from the smug coupled people phrase "you just know" which I seem to be hearing alot lately. Even from my gay ex room-mate who is supposed to be deliciously single but instead is now coupled up and telling me that there is some strange mystic toe tingleing thing that happens to you when you meet "the one". I know the feeling, I get it everytime I sit in one position for too long...

What comforts me is knowing that while I may not meet that other penguin who I am supposed to spend the rest of my life with (for a while or longer) there are lots of people out there who settle for relationships they aren't really happy or comfortable in, and I am not one of them. Recent stats indicate 71% of men think it's ok to cheat and 60% of women think its ok to snoop on their boyfriends (they're right 71% of the time to be fair). Also apparently I rang in the new year with Paris Hilton. So who can say what's what these days?

In conclusion, I think its great to be coupled if you can tell me why without looking of into the distance like a vacent hollywood B-lister. AND despite the lack of hugs and morning-after-wake-up-next-to's I also think being single has a good side, positives including eye sex with attractive strangers and flirtations over myspace.

Pondering and ill informed as always,

Tess

xoxox

Business Unfairs

2006-12-29T23:35:00.000+11:00

Inalienable truth: Never cut what you can untie, but only spend time untieing what you can't afford to cut and replace ... yes ...

I need an accountant.
I, a 20 year old uni student with minimal income need, an account.
In what world do I need an accountant?
Oh that's right the one where I decided to be self employed and take a joyous trip to the land of profit and loss statements and other business unfairs that I now have to demonstrait to centerlink and the ATO.

Kid's today grow up too fast.

When my parents were my age they were running around in silly relationships, enjoying herbal substances and finding themselves ... sometimes they got more lost in the process and winded up at outlet malls. But they were most certainly not filing profit and loss statements between calls to people who owe them money and jittery trips downstairs for yet another soy mocha.

And another thing, people who say they are going to pay you should pay you so that you can pay back the people you're supposed to.

Confused? I know I am. A word of advice; Never get involved with bad management.

I now understand why my Dad didn't do his tax for years on end. I also understand why I haven't paid mine this year. But what I still don't get is why I need an accountant!

Tess
xoxox

100 Posts - In dedication to my brave friends.

2006-12-29T09:16:00.000+11:00

Well, this is my 100th post. I suppose at this point I should feel some sence of completion. Like I have reached some sort of blogging enlightenment. But to tell you the truth it's been a tough week and I'm still feeling a little in the dark. The good thing about Blogger is that you can look back on your previous thoughts and rambelings and figure out what an ass you really are. Wait a minute let me check .... Yes I am an ass.

The past few months have not been easy for my favorite women, evicted, homesick in a foriegn country, relationship detioration, mean manipulative friends, and a break up has managed to drive us all into a little insanity and a few tears. What bothers me most is that five beautiful, tallented and kind hearted women have had to feel so very sad recently. And I don't want that to ever happen again.

SO
In honor of these women I have developed the following; Tess's guide to being evicted, homesick in a foriegn country, enduring a rocky relationship, mean manipulative friends and breaking up when it's probably for the best.

EVICTION - Inspired by Siana, my best and blondest.
1) Instead of hireing movers, enlist the help of several chefs and apprentices who may or may not also be in a band.
2) Have your specially made couch push your boyfriend through a second floor window.
3) After the 3rd day of moving attend your work Christmas party where all the drinks are free and bring your best friend and boyfriend who will end up more trashed then you will.
4) Wake up the next morning with severe hangovers and large television sets to move.
5) Have family members burst into tears and comfort them by carrying more furnature out of the house.
6) Finally tell your land loard to shove it, you'll be out when you're out and that's all there is to it.
7) Realise that you've spent more of your money keeping your assisting friends fed and happy then you would have spent on movers but don't care because it's shown you what amazing people you have around you.
8) Resolve to hire movers next time.
9) After a nice sunny day of moving, finish exactly when it starts to rain and thunder and go to the beach anyway.
10) Get a pizza, sit down, and go to sleep on the couch next to your window bashed boyfriend, accross from you're brused and battered mother and opposite your boy besotted bestie.

BEING HOMESICK IN A FORIEGN COUNTRY - Inspired by jetsetter Wendy and more recently Eb's.
1) Take with you Dvd's of your fave tv show to watch over and over again when you miss little things about your life at home.
2) Replace hours of sleep with hours of shopping.
3) Go blonder.
4) Have eye sex with attractive people on busses.
5) Develope an unhealthy addiction to Skype and MSN and make sure it is worth it by catching up on all the goss and stories from your friends back home.
6) Find somewhere to have coffee everyday, just so that you have a spot of your own in your new place.

RELATIONSHIP DETIORIORATION - Inspired by all of us at some point.
1) Talk, even if it is about the fact that you can't talk.
2) Give yourself some space, whatever that means. If you need to go to Spain, go to Spain.
3) Do not put your plans on hold or turn down offers that you've worked hard for. It's not every day that Richard Branson says "Hey I like your blog, would you like to fly through space to the secret plannet of Alcolor I've set up where it rains Jack Daniels?" Do you really want to be saying, "No I can't I'm having a bit of a tough time with my boyfriend who I will probably break up with next week anyway because he is 35 and still trying to find Wally in the crowd of walrusses. " I think not.
4) Winge and whine about it for hours to your friends untill their ears detatch themselves from their heads in protest. You have the right and they will pay you back, probably with intrest.
5) Feed ducks. Ducks are cool.
6) Get trashed and make phone calls you will regret later. Why you ask? Well then you will have said what you meant and will have to call to appologise and this will force you to work it out. When you are trashed you tell people what you really feel, why go against what is natural?

MEAN MANIPULATIVE FRIENDS - Inspired by Seong who is the least mean person I know.
1) Be nice to them, try your best and you will know there was nothing more you could have done.
2) When 1 doesn't work stand back and look at what you may be missing out on if you don't talk to these useless loosers again... my guess is alot of bitching and over emotional rubbish... so not much.
3) Buy yourself a nice present.

BREAK UPS - Inspired by recent personal experience so this is difficult.
1) Take 24 hours and be as upset as you need to be. Cry, sob, sniffle, whatever makes you as depressing a figure as you can become. It's not a girly thing to do, I've had guy mates burst into tears over it so make it your personal mission to be as pathetic as possible for 24 hours.
2) After that 24 hours, take 3 weeks off anything serious. The 21 day waiting period is good. Go with it and don't argue, otherwise you'll do the whole transferance thing and wind up with excess baggage and another failed relationship.
3) Flirt like mad. I said nothing serious for three weeks, I did not say flirting was out of the question. The more people you meet in this time the better, keeps you occupied and acts as a helpful reminder of how many awful people are out there. Serious. That way you're in no rush to break the three week rule :)
4) Talk to your friends of the opposite sex if you need advice and support, you're more likely to trust that you are a good catch if it comes from someone who would actually know.
5) Don't read guides like this written by know alls who try to tell you how to run your life. Do whatever it is that you need to do (short of harming anyone or thing or yourself) and be happy that you did what you needed.

Well If I've learned nothing else I have at least figured out that the only way to deal with things is your way. And it may not always be right, cheep, healthy, legal, sane, interesting, wise or dry but it is what you need.

Tess M
xoxox

In from the cold

2006-12-27T13:16:00.001+11:00

Christmas time is a time of giving and sending, a time of receiving, a time of alcoholism, binge eating and cleverly placed career related "Merry Christmas Boss" style emails. What they forget to tell us is that Christmas is the sole generator of New Year's resolutions. Emotions run high and the politics of Christmas come into play and you start to question just how much you actually like the people you're around, enough for the day spa gift pack or just a card?
The snow on the top of Hobart's Mount Wellington on Christmas morning was both a perfectly timed present for my european-christmas-wannabe self and a nice little reminder of what I really need in my life, a little warmth.

My friend Kirrily served up a tasty little piece of wisdom yesterday as we discussed her latest christmas time conquest. Her theory on the difficulties of male-female relationships is thus: every woman is a little bit crazy and every man is a little bit of an asshole, and the two of these facts are action and reactionary.
"Where the woman inches up in craziness," my wise consult informed me, "the man responds by being an asshole and it's a perpetual cycle that can start with either sex."
"I see, because the crazy response is generally generated by the asshole action." I said
"Yes."

I gave this concept a lick of thought and it seemed to make sense to me. Realistically, the women I know who are what I would call high maintenance in their relationships are dating men who regularly do not meet their needs. This asshole action on the part of the man pushes the woman to further heights of craziness which in turn makes the man believe he has the right to continue being an asshole.

The process varies but the general idea goes something like this.
Step one - the small annoying thing.
I once dated a gentleman who was lovely to me when I was in his presence but while I was away seemed disinterested and wouldn't call or text for anywhere up to a week. From my point of view, this was a mildly asswhole-like thing to do. In this case the action/reaction is initiated by the male and overanalysed by the female.

Step one and a half (because it may or may not happen) - The potential letting it slide or admission of guilt.
I decided I would not be a crazy woman just yet and instead I sent a nice text message of the "hey how are ya" type variety. After all even though he seemed to prefer to initiate things himself I should also make an effort. I received no response for two days.

Step two - The reaction to the small annoying thing which by now has become a larger problem in someone's mind.
In the two days I had without a reply I managed to think up several potential reasons for why I may not have received one. This is where it all begins. The crazy female reaction starts up as a small niggling thought in the back of her mind... "What is really going on? Is he still interested? Is he seeing someone else?"
The reply I got when I did hear back from the gentleman in question included an explanation for his 'absence' that was not quite believable (or worse anti-climactic) in my opinion after the two days I'd spent developing elaborate conspiracy theories. So instead of confronting him completely straight up I sent mocking sarcastic messages. The male responds by being a little defensive and after one or two goes he stops replying.

Step three - The madness continues.
I apologise. Realising that I may have been a bit of an asshole myself I offer up a half assed apology (with a bit of a bad joke inserted) and tell him it is up to him, deciding that if the problem is to be discussed he can let me know.

Step four - The backfire.
No response. A definite asshole reaction. The female responds to this by developing more theories and considering those previous ones that now seem more justified. It is now clear that he has been attacked by a flying mailbox from outer space who zapped his cerebral cortex with its laser and dropped him in the middle of the desert where he stands surrounded by hired goons. But of course as her friends will tell her, even this is not a good enough excuse as at least one of the goons will surely have a mobile with T3 coverage and he should be decent enough to send a reply.

Step five - The cycle continues.
The cycle continues building and building until one of two things happens; an argument followed by an acknolwedgement of idiocy which is in turn followed by fabulous make up sex, or an argument followed by a chilly break up which is in turn followed by the purchasing of sale items and chocolate. The sad thing is this whole cycle can be stopped at step one and a half by one of the pair deciding to either let it slide or to apologise for their sillyness.

As for my part in it I'd gotten a particularly icy shoulder and finally realised it was time to come in from the cold. I also realised it wasn't normal for me to act the way I did and so there must have been a decent reason for it, and a way to stop it from happening again. Hence the theory.

What has this got to do with Christmas you ask? Well I thought the snow on the tip of the mountain was a nice metaphor for getting the cold shoulder/being left out in the cold etc ... it kinda went from there ... My point is if you're a woman who's made to feel like you're high maintenance just because you aren't getting what you need, or a man and your girlfriend makes you feel like an asshole because the diamond shoes you bought her for Christmas were too tight, maybe it's time to give yourself a break and talk it over.

-TessM
xoxox

it's cold so it counts!

2006-12-19T15:39:00.000+11:00

Things I love about the going to airport by myself.
1) I can look flustered, busy and important enough to require the little moving walk ways and no one can tell me I'm not.
2)Airport junk food doesn't count due to caleries burnt from traveling long distances.
3)I can stand in the bathroom fixing my hair for as long as I want and no one will ever know. Glee!
4) IronicStarbucks white christmas type music playing in the background while outside the tarmac blokes are sweating up a storm.
5) The hour check-in rule means I have both the time to make all those phone calls I meant to before I left (while eating junk food and considering the bar) and the ability to avoid those I don't want to answer because I am after all at the airport and "busy and flustered".

Well well well,
Back in Tassie for but christmas this time and in true Tasmanian style it's 20 degrees in the middle of summer, but I'm not complaining. Half an hour ago as I sat in Hobarts central Starbucks with my delicious (and thankfully hot) tall soy mocha I looked out the window pretended the oversized plastic snowflake stuck to it was real and I was in some quaint little english town untill some nob in shorts and haviana's wantered past. I hope it snows on him tomorrow, just enough for him to stop droping reality into my coffee.

Things are in their usual reverse in the apple isle and as I struggle not to make immature jokes about the predominant licence plate slogan "tasmania: your natural state" ... think about it... I spend my time deliberately avioding glancing at the clock in the pub down the road which runs backwards and has it's numbers situated anti-clockwise around the edge. Yes I understand that this is completely mechanically possible and whatever but it freeks me out and I'm entirely comfortable with that fact. Then again I probably look like a nutter under my five layerd statement of "this is cold, recognise it".

I'm staying at my mum's multi-coloured Hippy house which has definant pro's including a view of the city and the water and is surrounded by these other multi-coloured things that grow out of the ground, I think I remember them from my child-hood... Whatever they are they are everywhere and I'm diggin it. All the places on her street are like fairy tale cottages and I keep waiting for some creepy lady to wander out and tempt me with candy...

My mum woke me up yesterday with hot milo and cookies, the woman is a goodess.

The flight over was good, I think I'm really getting used to it now. And I couldn't believe my luck when they sat me next to someone normal ... well he was tasmanian ... Phill, a 20 something coogee boy, was flying back down to tassie to see his girl before she took off overseas. He referred to one of the girls in the jetstar magazeen as inbreed and thought I'd let that oppertunity slide. Poor Phill had no idea how low I will stoop for a joke. We compaired ipods and did the quizes. I love plane friends, possibly the lowest maintance friendship in your life. They're there for you when there's no one else to entertain you and disappear as soon as you land and it gets awkward when you both realise there are other people in the gate lounge you'd rather be talking to. By the way is it just me or is it odd that Tasmania international airport has only one luggage carosell? No? Ok then.

I'm in the same internet caffee as last year but they're playing aussie hip hop in place of the usual celtic panpipe music and the guy who served me had rocking dreds, a marked improvement in the establishment.

Off to dinner with my uncle in about an hour, probably means I should bugger off... don't look so happy about it will you I realise there's not much to report yet but I felt the need ok? Deal with it.

From the land of strawberry chilli sauce,
TessM
xoxox

Speechless

2006-12-15T23:21:00.000+11:00

There are a number of things about women that men may never entirely understand.

For example; tandem bathroom visits, open mouthed mascara application, or the fact that our recent sexual independence springs not from the years of banding together as sisters and marching, signing, and blowing up mail boxes but rather from a television series about four single New Yorkers trying to find a balance in their lives and their four inch Manolo Blahniks.
This mysterious behavior is ok though because men have come to accept that we are more likely to return from the bathroom as opposed to leg up-ing it out of the window, look pretty and take them home with us afterwards. "Yay!" Men the world over rejoice, "Go new feminism!"

On the flip side, there are only two things straight women do not understand about men;
1 How it is that they could possibly enjoy giving oral sex, and
2 As strange as that is, it does not mean that they are gifted with other supernatural strengths. They are not (John Edwards being the excepetion) mind readers or psychics.

"He should know/have known/understand/have expected/not have expected or get that ..." Is the sentance starter that spurs my own little cosmopolitans on to continue to single handedly support the cafe across the road and it's cohorts across the globe. That one sentence, that idea, "He should know..." has caused more problems for women then fad diets, corsets and ex boyfriends combined. And it must come to an end.

Let's assume for one second that man is like woman; self centric (for survival purposes), goal orientated, and human in all his flaws. We have the same fears, the same desires and needs, and more recently very similar bathroom products. We are no longer on Mars and Venus ladies. Welcome to Earth.

On earth we have oxygen and ample water supplies. The air is not fatally acidic and our gravity will not crush you like a bug under a newspaper. These life-giving vocal chord and sound vibration supporting conditions considered, explain to me why it is that we still haven't figured out that we are capable of speech?

Can't do it? I'll give you a hint ...

It's because we don't want to have to say it. We believe that our own importance is above the need for explanation. It is a survival instinct and thank god we have it because otherwise we'd all be absent mindedly walking into on-coming chicken trucks. But the great flaw in the grand design is that we are ALL thinking this.

Men take the line when it comes to, "She should know that I love her/wanted to be there/would have waited with or for her/would have picked her up/don't love my ex anymore ..." etc, etc, etc. But the truth is women don't know any of this. Just like men, we're not mind readers either. And sometimes, on the rare occasion when we might suspect it, we'd still rather hear it for reinforcement wouldn't we? The reason we picketed and blew things up was to give our half of the species a voice, so why aren't we using it?

"Women like to date assholes," say's Simon, long time friend, adopted brother and opinionated advice giver. "You don't like to be with nice guys you like to be with men you can complain about."... All those cathartic coffee sessions are springing to mind about now... So does this mean that women chose not to tell men what we want in order to set them up for crimes of deliberate ignorance that are innocent of ever having committed? And what about when we don't ask the questions and come off as insensitive but get away with it because it's their fault for not telling us in the first place.

Oh god, I need to lie down.

The other problem with "He should know," is that it gives the rotten apples a chance to say, "How was I supposed to know?" There is a reason that at the staff meeting of my very first job the boss's told their employee's, "You are not allowed to eat the merchandise," because -as they told us- legally had they not said anything we could not be fired for enjoying the stolen tasty deliciousness of a cheesymite scroll. Because after all, "How were we supposed to know?"

So I'm putting this out there as a plea to the masses. Whether it's in the bedroom, the boardroom, a restaurant, a mud wrestling match or a less then enthralling conversation about food groups ...

If there is something you really want to say, all you gotta do, is say it.
If there is something you really want to know, all you gotta do, is ask.

TessM
xoxox

Marketable you

2006-11-30T18:30:00.000+11:00

Being young, female, and out there in the dating world has its prerogatives. You can claim innocence or naivety for things you knew full well were going to happen anyway. You can over-analyse and over react and blame it on hormones or modern media's influence on your still undefined identity. You've messed around with enough commitment phobics to know how to pretend to be commitment phobic yourself should the need arise and you know what bondage you're in to and what paris hilton videos you're not.

But what sucks, is you can never be sure what to expect from anyone else. Or even if you can expect anything full stop. I'm personally a big believer in walking into something with no expectations and then assessing what's on and what's not. But I'm starting to think this might be what gets me into trouble. Not knowing what to expect from other people, you present yourself in a sort of modified way. A shiny, together, marketable you.

Cool, calm, collected.

Don't lie and tell me you haven't spent that extra five minutes in front of the mirror, put on that skirt that makes your ass look perky or, if you're a guy, used L'Oreal for men because you're worth it too. You make yourself the attractive marketable person you want to be in the hope of achieving your motivation (which is sex apparently, in case you've forgotten). I know you have, so lets accept it and move on. After all like most of us out there if I meet someone I'm interested in I too morph into something I believe is going to win them over.

Low maintinance "cool, calm, collected" Tess

She's chilled, happy to go along with things, doesn't ask too much of your time and does her best to accommodate what ever date, time and location will work out best for you. She's too cool to care about not seeing you all that much, too calm to get worked up about catching the bus home alone at night and too collected to freak out about who else you've been screwing recently. Men love her, she's great. For about a week.

The problem with cool calm collected Tess is that she tends to get left on dark streets at night by herself and harassed by short creepy men. She doesn't ask for what she wants and she tends to send the wrong message; disinterest. After too long being so chilled and agreeable she disconnects because its really exhausting for actual Tess who loves that she is opinionated, career driven and occasionally a little flipped out. She's into arguments and random stuff that pushes her a little further. So after a while of frankly boring-assed cool Tess, the conversation stops, the chemistry goes, and the whole thing waits to collapse in on itself.

It's completely my fault I do this on purpose I get that I can be a looser I have no misconceptions on that. But I'm not alone.

Wouldn't it all be so much easier if we just knew what we could expect? Even the basic questions. Who pays for what? Who's a monogamous person and who isn't? Who has surprise affiliations with terrorist or worse religious groups? Who has odd hygene habbits and who collects minature figurines of David Hasselhoff... creepy...

Or is that all part of the fun? ... Maybe not the hoff discovery but the other stuff...

I think it's kinda about a balance of mystrey. Do we honestly want to keep being marketable all the time? I can't be bothered anymore. Not everything has be be completely clear, but in the words of poppeye, "I yam what I yam."

mmm yam...

TessM
xoxox

Friendbushing

2006-11-20T23:35:00.000+11:00

Don't get excited guys, no this one isn't about women at pajama parties getting mischievous after some pillow fighting action or some saucy new lesbian position. What I'm talking about is the blatant combination of two words, friend and ambush, and the resulting feeling of 'oh crap'.

Friendbush; friend-bush
When two people are dating or seeing each other in one way or another, and one proceeds to introduce the other to their group of friends without warning. As in the character of an ambush.
e.g. "He totally friendbushed me!"
"She took me out to dinner the other night and all her uni mates were there, it was a complete friendbush."

Dating in 2006 is no longer a simple minded lemonade and cookies experience. Modern dating bares much more resemblance to warfare soldier and you better know where your allies lie. Anyone who has been friendbushed will tell you to keep your own teem close by and make sure you have available backup going in. Friendbushing goes both ways and can occur in any number of places, the only defining factor is that it has to be an unexpected assault, if you are forewarned, it is no longer a surprise attack but rather espionage on your part.

"Why?" I pretend to hear you ask..

In today's Sydney most of us young single people have moved on from the nest and shunned our traditional families (love ya mum :D ) for more convenient urban families. This means that once Lucy-Jane meets a nice young man she no longer has to get him past her golf playing sweater knitting parents or sneak out in the back seat of a Holden to 'look out point.'

No indeedy. Lucy-Jane is swinging from her fluffy hand cuffs with the best of em.

So naturally once I moved out of home at the tender and delicious age of 18 I thought I was in for some real non judgmental-do-who-you-will freedom. I was wrong.

Having read previous blogs of mine concerning sexpeditions (if you're lucky) you will no doubt be aware of the very real problems faced by the house sharing youth of Australia when it comes to sneaking around. Getting caught by a housemate is one thing, but getting caught by an urban family member is quite another.

As I said before when we leave home and move in with X number of randoms, if we are lucky enough, they become our new family. I have three adopted siblings that I never wanted but can't live without; an older protective and independently minded Lebanese brother, a witty, rebellious and social revolutionary red headed brother, and a younger stylishly boy crazed Asian sister. They say you don't get to choose your family so it makes sense that we were all lumped in together by chance. Now however, every person I date has to go through a screening process. This is only natural because if you are hoping to continue seeing them you want them to get along with the people you spend most of your time with, your mates.

When it comes to my 'family'... well I tend to wait a little longer because ...

Anyway ...

There are three sure fire ways to survive a friendbush;
1)Make friends with the boys. It doesn't matter who you are, always make friends with the boys first. If the men like you, the women will eventually follow.

2) Have your own urban family on standy to call you if an evasive manuver is required. I'm going to go with the classic blind date proceedure on this one. A text message with "call me in 15 minutes" is reasonably effective and for added reality pair it with a frustraited look when the phone rings as though you really don't want to answer.

3) Make sure you let the friendbushing party make the moves on you and relax in your responces. This way his or her friends know you're not too full on and more likely to relate to them as mates rather then so and so's latest fling.

As for the real family... Well I've never been in that situation, hmmm odd that ... Any hints?

pondering,
TessM
xoxox

when good girls go bad

2006-11-18T00:15:00.000+11:00

A case of the ex, his.

I know how much I've rambled about my ex's (sorry) and how I bitch about never getting a moment out of the grasp of someone I've either dated, messed around with or even just kissed. It's a case of survival of the fittest. And all women feel this way. Rather like religious converters at your front door, ex's are intrusive, annoying and unwanted. But what happens when it's not your ex that's causing the problems anymore? What about when it's his?

I want it to go on record that I have said nice things about all my ex's to their new or potential girlfriends. Yes I know that may come as a shock considering I loathe them like I do the Howard government, but in some cases I have gone so far as to help repair damage in their relationships and recommend reconciliation. I have even told women I think they should continue to date people I have good reason to kick because it wasn't up to me to get in the way of their new relationships. I may bitch in my circle but in general I'm a good ex girlfriend... I think (if you've ever hooked up with me in any capacity and disagree with this comment, believing me to be living in a fantasy world of my own creation, feel free to leave a comment of your own).

But what happens when the ex-girlfriend goes Uma Thurman on your ass and wiggles her way into causing you problems. We all know the power an ex has to pull out all the stops to get what they want, we've all felt it at some point. So what do you do when the she devil is back in the picture?

The ex who doesn't like you one bit.
She is a nasty creature. Overtly dismissive of you if you are lucky. Otherwise she will snarl and glare at you snakelike from underneath a neatly positioned rock. She makes his life hell by constantly hitting on him and getting him in trouble with you when she's not even interested. She makes your life hell by making you mad at him instead of her.

The one who wants to be your friend.

I know this because I've done it. I admit it. And I am ashamed. I make friends with my ex's new girlfriend largely so that I don't look like an idiot but also because I feel it is a fantastic way to get back at my ex by showing them how mature I can be (when really I am being incredibly immature but worst case scenario I end up with a new friend). I tend to do this when I'm not fully over them. Of course you never can tell because some times I do actually want to be friends with the girl in question, thus is the beauty of the plan. And it works too, they get rather pissed off. Because here I am colliding their separate worlds that have worked so hard to keep apart. Yes I know it's bad, yes I know I shouldn't do it. I swear I hate mind games and I don't play them in any other situation. But I am a big believer in the whole "living well" vengeful way and so I invade and be as lovely as I can be and there is nothing to be done about it.

The phantom ex.
This is the most dangerous of all demonic women because it is harder to fight what you can't see. She is the ghost of relationship past and she will tear at him relentlessly from the inside. There is no way to defeat her, he has to do that on his own. But if he never stops bringing her up, then its time to vanquish your own relationship. Threesomes only work if all three people are physically present and kinky.

The crazed ex.
I've employed the use of a visual aid for this, actions speak louder then words on this one ... lets just say don't leave your personal belongings in your mans care if one of these is around...
http://ebaumsworld.com/2006/10/exgfcrazy.html

The ex who wants him back.

We all know the 2 strategies men apply when dumped dissed or dismissed:

1 Act like they're ok with it.

2 Date other women like a man whore and frequently show up with them in front of her.

Both of these strategies inspire jealousy which is the most powerful tool a man has against a women who may not realise she actually cares. Getting her jealous is the only way a man can truly manipulate a woman if he is successful at it. Unfortunately if she has any sense of pride she won't go back even though she regrets it and he'll be stuck with another woman he's not all that interested in.

Women on the other hand are completely different. They will flirt with him subtly bringing up all the better points of the relationship (usually related to sex) and try to seduce him back. I have even seen women go so far as to put themselves in a make believe situation whereby they need to be saved by none other then the one they want back because this is a test and will prove if successful that he is still within reach.

There are two way's this could go, he is either interested in her or he isn't. But if he starts saying how much he feels bad about it and she guilts him into hanging out with her, tell your no good do good boyfriend to kiss your ass good bye. If he's not but you're still the one dealing with a persistent ex there is only one thing to do, and that is nothing at all.

You heard me, put down your carved wooden stakes and take you foot off the accelerator in your SUV's and think about it. If he wants her back, he will go back. It is that simple. If he doesn't then it's her problem not yours. Don't hassle him about it. As long as he's not encouraging it then it isn't his fault. If it bothers you then talk to him about it, but chances are he's more over it then you are.

Random thoughts inspired by a friends plight,

TessM

xoxox

2006-11-05T11:03:00.000+11:00

Another morning after.
Another dull foggy head.
Another closing of the blinds in consideration for my poor red tired eyes that have once again gone more green then brown from a night of mixing drinks and sending drunken text messages.

Another breakfast I'll probably regret tomorrow when I regain the motivation to leave my room and stand on the bathroom scales (someone left caramel mudcake in the fridge, silly them).

It's always the same feeling, that exillerated tiredness. Your disarmingly peacefull head that concerns itself with nothing more then remembering how to hide under the covers. You roughly follow this pattern of thought: light bad, too bright, why? Hmmm I'm all foggy, what is that about? Oh... I remember now.

So still half in slumber, my red and green traffic light eyes are stuck on yellow, can't manage to open them fully so everyone else has to wait. I realise I'm actually quite hot because I'm in flannel pj's and hungover. I get the motivation to get up and change and shuffel in to Seongs room to annoy her before she has to drag herself off to work. I go to her lap top to put on music.

"Don't open that"
"Why? Porn?"
"No, light."
"Ah."

I have three assesments due tomorrow. I have to decide whether or not to take a job. I lost $25 somewhere last night.

But right now, it's Sunday morning.

2006-11-01T11:16:00.000+11:00

WWAD?
My dilemma is now not "oh god no one is giving me work" but a startling "oh god they've offered me a job."
Perhaps I should explain. I went to apply for daytime work in functions two days a week and around ten hours. The job I've been offered is at the sofotell wentworth's lounge bar, pays well and requires three set shifts a week of around 5 hours each at night on Thursday, Friday and Saturday... Beginning to see my point?

At times like these young students like myself need to find a point of inspiration, something to look to as a shining beacon of hope. At times like these, I ask:

"What would Angelina do?"

And when that fails?

I think of Buffy.

But coming to that neither of them ever really had a part time job and Uni they just ran around in less then supportive lingerie and battled the forces of darkness.

Oh dear.

Not that I'm saying they didn't do their fair share, I'm sure maintaining their front of regular students and archeologists alongside battling the undead or enervated statues was high pressure job. But did they have to get down on their hands and knees and scrub eight years of grime off a floor? Did they ever have to deal with a tearing morman who wanted his money back, complaining that the movie he just walked out of offended his religion? Did they get up at 6 after an all nighter to work in a bakery and still put on a smiling face "Would you like that sliced? Paper of plastic? For an extra fifty cents you can get two rolls!"

I don't think so.

This time I told myself I was not going to settle.
I am telling them no. No damn it!

The writings on...

2006-10-29T21:52:00.000+11:00

When a sign is really just a sign...
Ever been hit over the head with something that it was obvious you had to do?
Ever had all the pieces fall into place without you lifting a finger?
Ever asked a question and had the answer shoved in your face?
Ever thought nah I'm reading too much into it to then have seen it pop up right in front of you in bright pink spray painted on a wall no questions asked?

I have.

What sucks is that what the universe, god, attkins or whoever is sending the message, may not necessarily be telling you what you want to hear. What I got this week was a right kick in the guts, mostly because it was in reference to a person who gave me a right kick in the guts once or twice.

Usually I would choose the following chain of events:
*Cower and shake and call my room mate and my best mates freekin out, followed by a brief chat online with my old mate Ben who'd tell me I was being an idiot and that I should exercise more which would be in direct opposition to the other msn window on my screen (my accross the road neighbour) who would laugh followed by "oh god" and concede that it was to be taken seriously and that my plan of eating chocolate is the best coping method...
*Still unsatisfied I'd then ring mum and eat three chocolate bars while she consoled me and then launched into an unrelated discussion about nun's who do yoga.
*Then after the effects of that wore off I'd stay up till 2am and call my Dad who would calmly tell me that men can wait and now it is time for me to focus on my career and the person I want to become. Personally I think his feminist views are somewhat related to the benifits of his only daughter not sleeping around.

This time I say no.
I will not be reduced to a cowering chocolate covered pity hore.
I will not allow someone who wrote something on a wall (in pink no less) to dictate the way I live my life.
I will not see it as definitive and be miserable at my 'fate'.
Signs are there for us to interpret them and decide what they mean but it is our decision to believe them.
This time I choose to look at it for what it really is.
The past.

TessM

The But's Stop Here

2006-10-28T10:32:00.000+10:00

We all have that person in our lives who is absolutely full of but. Yes 'but'.

Perhaps I should explain...

"She's constantly talking but..."
"He's a smoker but..."
"She lives in Northern Albania, but..."
"He may or may not have been spotted walking into the chruch of scientology last night at 11pm... " No there's really no excuse for that.

But sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, all the but's in the world won't stop you. And that, is precisely when you are fucked.

Because when the buts don't count, there can only be one reason. The largest and most agonising 'but' in the entire world.

"But I love..."

Will write for food...

2006-10-24T12:37:00.000+10:00

Inalienable truth: Everywhere in Sydney costs $20.

Living in Sydney definitely has it's prerogatives, I believe we have discussed the men, the shoes, the fabulous cosmopolitan mix of nationalities and generally being able to get a cab. But along with the "I love Sydney yay joy" side of things, is the fact that you cannot leave the house without spending at least $20.

We are young, we don't pack our lunches from home and we most definitely do impulse spend.

As my good friend Simon - who pointed out "if you're broke in Sydney, you're well of anywhere else." of course another thing about sydney-siders is that we aren't so easily satisfied and so this means bubkis to us. - claims, the minimum cost for leaving your house here is 20 bucks. Even in broad day light.

Don't believe me? Ok lets say you're running your errands for the day, you make a few calls and have to go to the supermarket. $2 in bus fare, $8 on lunch and you'll be thirsty, there's another $2 for a Mount Franklin and by the end of the day you'll probably have had to grab a cab somewhere which is another $8 to $10.

Off to the movies? Student tickets are $12 at Hoyts and your average combo is $10.95 , 20 bucks anyone?

Feel like clubbing? Well you can forget anywhere with a cover charge unless you don't mind walking home at 4am. You have to at least put in for one cab which, no matter where it is you're going will cost you around $5. Average cover in Sydney is $15 so before you've even entered the club or had a drink you've spent $20.

Like most people who live in Sydney will tell you, I am broke.

Those fabulous cabs I was talking about, the ones you can catch at almost any time, well they're costing me a fortune. I worked out that this week alone I have spent a whopping 40 bucks on cabs, oh and I used eftpos instead of cash so add another $6 in fees. Translated into uni dollars that is equivalent to six JD and cokes. But no, I couldn't be bothered to take the bus.

Cafe eating is another big cost for me, even when I was working more I spent about $10 a day on lunch and a drink. Now that I'm not I have even more time to go down to my favorite haunts and coffee my way up to about $50 a week (seven maybe eight drinks worth depending on where you go) in food I don't need because I already went to the supermarket.

So ...

I have decided to put together as many money saving tips as I can for the struggling uni student who wants to have a little left over but doesn't want to be cooking at home quite yet.

1) Take the bus. Yeah its obvious but then your looking at $40 in cab fare as opposed to $3.30 on the bus realisation sets in. Also you're opening your life up to new people who have already seen you in fluroescent lighting ... yay?

2) Drink at home before you go out. Split the cost of a bottle of spirits or some champagne with your mates and drink first. For example a bottle of Jack Daniels is around 20 standard drinks for 40 Aussie dollars. Between two of you that's ten drinks for 20 bucks. $2 a drink? Yes please.

3) Eat less before you go out, you'll spend half what you do on drinks. (I do not endorse this particular method and am not liable for the results that may occur, you take your health in your own hands with this. It has often resulted in my drinking a lot of vodka and waking up somewhere unsavory)

4) Need to shop, check out websites like www.salesguide.com for all the latest sales near you. Why shop retail? And when it comes to sales remember; if it aint half off, it aint on sale. Also the best places for shoe sales in this city (when you need something fast but have no money) are without a doubt Zu and Zomp who always have something for relatively nothing.

5) Switch your credit card for a Visa debit card, it comes with all the online shopping perks but without the hassel of extra fees. Annnnnd if you use it for shopping (first 10 buys only) you don't get slapped with eftpos fees because it's a credit purchase.

6) Forget using other banks ATM's I spent thirty dollars on them last month. Get cash out for free when you pay by eftpos at Coles or Woolies and remember to swipe your flybuys card. It also helps to try and work out how much you're going to need in advance and take it out all at once to save on transaction fees.

7) If you do want to drink when you're out remember the difference between 2 beers or spirit drinks and 2 cocktails is often around $16... it's up to you...

8) Do you know Blockbuster will half your late fees if you bring your dvd's back and pay for them straight away. That's right.

And for when you are really, really low. And I mean scraping the bottom of the barrel I'm-not-proud-of-it-but-I'd-do-it-again low, and you don't want to sacrifice your lifestyle...

Things that can be legally pilfered from cafes:
Small packets of jam, vegemite, butter and sugar.
Napkins (low budget form of tissue, cleansing wipe, toilet paper, band-aid when combined with sticky tape and 100 other uses)
Extra plastic knives and forks (ok this is more if you're lazy and don't want to wash up at home).

Naughty inside scoops:

At the movies;
Have a little class people. The fire exits in movie theatres are triggered when you move through them, the management knows when you sneak in that way and the cameras will point you out. This is not the way to go. It's much easier, generally people who tear your ticket don't check the date, so provided there is a session on at the time on the ticket they'll probably let you through. Oh and once your in, it's not hard to see something else afterwards, they don't check at the door to every theatre, just casually walk in. (again I do not condone this behavior I am merely expressing a weakness in out entertainment facilities) Oh and yes you are allowed to bring food in with you provided they cannot see it. Cinema workers the world over believe strongly in a policy of "if i cannot see it, it does not exist."

At the Casino;
Join up to their club, you'll get ten dollars worth of chips and a free drink.

There's got to be a million more, if you come up with anything post it as a comment.

Cheap, cheap love,
Tess M

2006-10-17T20:29:00.000+10:00

You're not going to believe this
he's still there! that bastard is still sitting on my computer! I cant believe this! Im in lock down now its on baby, if you think there is any way i'm leaving before i get what I can more you can kiss my perky little ass you bearded man!
oh my god,
he just got up
he's leaving! he's leaving!
It worked!
Oh my god! I won!
YES!!!!!!
woo hoo to my vulken mind powers!

An interpretation of my angry face

2006-10-17T17:54:00.000+10:00

Ok so here's what pisses me off.
PC's and Macs and house music vs RnB and people who burn a potentially good coffee. Why can't we all just get along?
Right now I am sitting in the computer lab at uni trying to figure out a polite way to tell the gentleman to my left to give up and go home now, he is on my computer. And in saying my computer I mean the single computer in the whole of the world that holds my entire screenplay. As I am not in the presence of a digital camera the face to the right is to demonstrate my anger.

Dilemma is this,
Screenplay needs to be reproduced three fold by tomorrow for my writing class.
I can only print it from that computer because it is a mac, the program I used to write it was mac formatted, and I didn't email the finished version to myself because silly me thought "my computer is pc I wont be able to read it anyway" and forgot about the fourteen other mac computers in this god forsaken fluroscent shit hole that I could have opened it on.

So now I have to sit here and wait until this guy is done with my computer, which technically I have no legitimate legal guardianship over but in the world of Tess, I am right, he is wrong and the fact that I spilt my incredibly bad coffee all over the fucking desk is irrelevant. I wonder what kind of person he is. Bastard's wearing a leather jacket, clearly he has no regard or respect for animals. Bad hair cut indicative of no respect for himself or the visually able public. I bet he's a liberal party supporter, you can tell by the way he's hunched greedily over my computer with no real intention of using it constructively but rather to surf myspace or play world of warcraft. Actually I'll give him that, he doesn't look like a games guy. He just sighed and put his head in his hand the way you do before you have some sort of a break down or after you've realised you have been sitting under lighting of death for an undeterminable amount of time. Not good enough! Be constructive computer guy don't waste my time for nothing!

GAH!

You know what else pisses me off, RnB clubs have become the official gathering places of short, short men. I now have to pay $20 to get into a club filled with men I cannot stand. I was grateful to be kicked out of "Booty bar" (ok I should have known it would be bad I concede to that) when our friend was roughed around in the bathroom.

Oh! computer guy has a friend. He is not short. Perhaps he isn't a liberal party supporter after all, although he is still on my computer.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Wait wait wait, what?
Did I just hear right?
computer guys friend just read what ever was on his screen and commented "oh! the penis was the one who drove?" and they are now giggling uncontrollably. Right, "yeah I'm just trying to sort of get it all out.." he says. hmm suspicious much. Maybe they are the leaders in an underground campus erotic fiction ring? In this day and age would you bother? Ah no they are writing a film. Oh god they're talking about character development the way psudo-intelectual-art-house-film-watching-i-love-dogma-screenwriting students do to make ourselves feel better about the lack of any real meaning in our lives. I mean their lives... they...
Shut up

Erugh how much more of this am I going to have to taaaaaake...

OH GOD!
Shocking revelation, computer guy is scary alien guy from my Wednesday class! oh god, I am in a room with scary alien guy (so named because he writes stories about aliens with such conviction that I believe he may have a small slug implanted in his brain from the planet Zorag who uses his body as a vehicle to recruit other people to enslave. Oh no! his film! clearly the reason he is writing it is to lure people to a dark cinema where they believe they will be watching a penis driving around when in fact they are to be the victims of an alien invasion the likes of which have never been made into a flim with a token black guy in the armed forces.)

oh wait its not him never mind.
Ah the fucker is leaving! He's just put his bag in front of his computer without logging out, gotten up and left! Oh never mind about the rest of us your highness we'll just wait for you to be all finished up you take a walk if you feel like it. Do what you will, maybe get a coffee? Can I peel you another grape?

Now I've wasted all my time (and yours if you've read this far, seriously why did you? I am so sorry, call the number on the screen for your money back and you can keep the free stake knives if you were not comletely satisfied) writing this when I could have been at home wasting my time downloading all of the sessions three songs individually on to my computer. I've said nothing remotely valuable and pretty much all I've accomplished is to remind myself of my own pettiness.

Fuck this. "wuh huh haaaaa" (sound of Tess dislving into tears on the inside)

Maybe I should just go home, forget this ever happened, join the armed forces and make a movie about aliens from the planet Zorag infiltrating uni students via an underground porn ring and grow some bad facial hair. I don't know anymore.
It's too hard.

Met a cute guy the other day.

Signing off,
Tess M

2006-10-13T10:45:00.000+10:00

Right now I'm trying to figure out if the position I am in is the result of luck, misfortune, or absoutely nothing but my own bumbeling ways. How much are we in control of our own destiny? I believe pretty much as much as we allow ourselves to be, but on strange occasions if you take the right hints you might find yourself somewhere else entirely different and then where will you be? Over there?
Confused yet?
I have finally uncovered that I am not entirely an unemployed women I am more of a freelance contractual worker dabbeling in several projects of... oh thank god my phone is ringing.

The truth about Cats and Dogs

2006-10-09T23:13:00.000+10:00

That title is incredibly misleading because the movie is not about cats or dogs that rollar blade or truth at all for that matter and Uma if you're listening I want you to know I'm very mad. Mad mad mad.

Today, after twenty years of sniffly existence on this planet I found out that I am allergic to cats. So all you feline fuckers out there stay the hell away from me. I finally have to take a stance in the dog people vs cat people war and its forcing me to re-think so many things. For example does the fact that I am allergic to cats make me a sub standard Leo? Can I still listen to all my cat related bands eg Josie and the Pussycats, the Pussycat Dolls, Cat Stevens? And what about my childhood passion for ancient Eqypt, will I ever be able to see the sphinx or will that cause a seismic sneeze so cataclysmic (am I even allowed to use that word anymore?) that I may obliterate the entire continent of Africa or Europe depending on which way I'm facing when it happens? Is this why I have bad relationships? Wait...

And you know how dust pretends to be all inanimate? Well its not, it's actually the small airborne transporter of tiny little bastards who I have a scale five allergy to (the scale goes to 6 incase you're wondering). They're called Dust mites which as I found out has nothing to do with vegemite or any other lesser mite substance and means that these pint sized alien commandos are on the way to my nose as I write this with their mucus guns planning attack and invasion. GAH! Diminuitive megalomainiacs. And here I was thinking it was just left over crap from the six lanes of traffic outside my window. Web of lies!

WEB OF LIES!

This is why the first thing I used to do every morning as a child was sneeze! Revelation after revelation.

Feeling betrayed,
Tess M

Actually...

2006-10-09T17:25:00.000+10:00

This week I've been thinking alot about relationships. Those that keep us on our toes, those with people you can't physically seperate from, the ones that you should leave but for one reason or another you don't, and those you should salvage but can't because you're chicken shit.

A random conversation I had with an ex (ok I know my stance on ex's but I do have 2 who I don't absolutely need to see lying dead by the side of a river) the other night inadvertedly made me realise a few things other then the recent lack of sexual content on this blog (I promice man I'm working on it).

1 Alot changes in two or three years.
2 An appology can change worlds.
3 You do not talk about fight club.

Because I failed to recognise rule one and two, I won a battle but lost a war this year. So I thought it might be a good idea to put that out there.

2006-10-01T22:32:00.000+10:00

Salute to Aussie boys

It's not often that I forget how happy I am to live in Sydney. But sometimes, I miss the little details.

Living on international soil (student housing) as I do it can be easy to get caught up in stories of everywhere I haven't been yet and overlook what it is I love most about my city.

The Men

If you know me at all, you will know that my mind revolves around food, men or some intricate combination of the two. I took a trip back home about a month ago and I realised, I've dated five of the seven continents. Having become quite the conniosseur, it is safe to say; no matter where his parents are from the aussie boys are still the best all round. I spend so much of my life criticising men that sometimes I forget about the good ones and in the words of Dorothy, there's no place like home.

It really hit my yesterday when I was watching the eagles/swans final (GO EAGLES!) with three international men who had little to no grasp of the game and only knew who barry hall was (who played so shockingly bad that it didn't help them much). Here's what got me, I was explaining the rules, strategies and players weaknesses to them. And as much as they're great guys, it was kind of annoying not to mention weird, frustrating and distracting.

Top five generalised awesome things about aussie guys

1) They like sport. Sport is something a man should like. I don't care what kind, if he isn't pushing you aside to watch something on tv, he's not aussie enough. When it comes to his team the aussie man isn't a violent or aggressive supporter. If his team wins he drinks to celebrate, when his team looses, he takes a cop out from his mates and drinks to celebrate with them. He holds his alcohol well and he leaves his car at home.

2) Generally they're not overly passionate about any one thing in particular. Apathy is highly underrated when you're having dinner with a latin man who is fascinated by your eye brows and how when you arch them they remind him of the mountains of his homeland.

3) They're easily pleased. Give an aussie man a beer or bourbon, a good meal and he's a happy camper. Yeah uni is a pain in the ass and he's over work but at the end of the day who cares, there's drinking to be done and mates to thrash at playstation.

4) Unlike their english counter parts they know when to keep their mouths shut and the fact that you've gotten together is less likely to reach the ears of others.

5) They are upfront. Aussie men are less afraid of confrontation, can take the piss and have a sense of self deprecating humor. Their easier to get along with in general because the vast proportion are pretty laid back and they tend to appreciate what a good woman has to offer...

So there you have it. Just my oppinion, nothing written above is law. Feel free to comment.
Tess M
xoxox

That stinks!

2006-09-19T19:57:00.000+10:00

Things I hate about offensive odors.
1 The smell bad.
No that's it.
There is some strange exotic dish that people who live in my building cook that stinks the whole place out like wet socks drying on top of a dog with anal gland problems who just got out of a swimming pool.
Yes. It IS that bad. And thanks to the wonders of air-conditioning, it's everywhere.
So I can't leave my house because you need a gas mask for the hallways and the hot blond guy in the lift who was here visiting his mate saw me breathing through my jumper in vein.

The worst thing is offensive odors that linger for hours like egg or wet carpet. My apartment decided to smell like cats today, a reason for this eludes me because it's not something any apartment should aspire to smell like (especially one that only houses four slightly depressed fish and a small army of cockroaches with political aspirations, no cats). So why the smell? Yes I'm currently single, yes I'm in a transition phase between jobs, but I'm only twenty years old I'm not ready to be the cat lady.

What really bothers me is that I now do LIVE in my apartment, like 24/7. And I can see how much the floor actually does need to be vacuumed. For the first time in 3 years I don't have a weekly secure job that I know will fund my ridiculous chocolate related impulses.

SO clearly I have to get out of the place as often as I can, the problem with this is I seem to be doing really odd things. Today for example I decided it would be a good idea to break in to the photography studio complex accross the road and see what was inside.

Come on 2 years I've been lookin out my window at that place you can't tell me you wouldn't be curious. So I dressed up pretty incase I got caught and had to make up some excuse about what I was doing there (people are more likely to believe you when you look pretty) and shimmied my way through the door. What did I find you ask? Photography studios, media companies, fashion agents, a film company and a couple of architects. So many posibilities. Tomorrow I think I will try and actually get into a studio, lets not forget people Fabio has been spotted in that building, my mission is clear.

AND I may be able to find out the true identity of Naked Yoga Guy (the man who lives above the studio, points at us during thunderstorms with a lazor pointer thingy and does yoga naked - among other things). Wow, to know his real name. But I have to wonder, is the world ready for this?

pointlessly yours,

Tess M

2006-09-19T03:41:00.000+10:00

So here's my dilemma

Our housing is holding the annual residents ball. This year it's a masquerade ball and its on a harbor cruse. Two problems there, 1) I have to develop a disguise cunning enough to avoid detection by the people I don't want to see, and 2) it has to work long enough for me to get through a four hour time period whereby I cannot leave the venue unless I want to get a little more acquainted with the harbors more sharky residents or the mafias latest double-crossers.

The next issue is I would actually have to pay to listen to music I've probably already heard and be trapped on a boat with no means of escape surrounded by people I try to avoid getting caught in 30 second elevator rides with. Yet if i don't have a great dress and mask and get all excited about it i will be extreemly disapointed. Wierd huh?

Did I mention the date is set for Friday the thirteenth?

Holy Shit

2006-08-31T13:30:00.001+10:00

Tom cruise, you crazy scientologist you, will you ever learn?

In this weeks star watch Tom Cruise and Katie Homes have given new meaning to the words "That shit's gold!" by bronzing baby Suri's first solid stool sample. Only tears will come of this.
What happened to the days when parents took photoes and made hand prints?

In other bronzing news my room mate almost killed Australian Idol runner up Anthony Callea in a hit and run while bolting from her shop to the make-up store accross from her to catch a glimps of the five foot wonder. She said "sorry", he said "don't worry about it," I think he took being bowled over by a frantic five foot four asian woman reasonably well considering.

In local news I still don't have internet at my house and wish I'd taken controll of the whole thing in the first place and signed us up directly with a big name. TPG is not doing us any favors and costing me a mint in phone bills. Bastards. Very unimpressed.

The big problem with STILL not having internet is that it is affecting my job searching. After finally quitting Hoyts (Hurrah!) and writing a rather assertive email to the CEO (which I'll post here soon so you can all see my assertivness and be proud) I am once again looking for work. Fortunately I have some side projects that are keeping me from going nuts and will hopefully earn me some money. It's so strange because I'm working my ass off but earning nothing and because I'm not getting a pay check I feel like a bludger. Yet scooping popcorn for ten hours a week and not doin much else the rest of the time made me feel like I was contributing to the world. WEIRD.

Speeking of contributing to the world the guys at body boarding mag Movement are contributing to mine by letting me hang around their office and sending me some projects to keep me sane. I went in on monday and watched a production meating and I thought to myself, yes, I could definately be doing this. This is how I see my life going. I like it. The fact that the boys at Movement mix up their day between writing, desiging, editing and producing the magazine with sushi, soccer and surf definately had something to do with it. It's pretty amazing that you can be great at a job that you love and still have a lifestyle. Inspiring stuff.

This has been a reasonably personal blog for me and I promise It won't happen too much again...
Next blog will be my more objective salute to Aussie boys because there's no place like home baby and after several brief international visits I can say to you our blokes are definantly the best.

Till then,
Nacho's and pool to you all,
Tess M
xoxox

FIM

2006-08-14T13:03:00.000+10:00

The Hot International

Living where I do I am subject to a half yearly change over of international students. Roughly translated this equates to yummy new stock every six months and inter-apartmental flirting ensues. Unfortunately for me I have suddenly developed a lack in confidence for talking to people who I find attractive commonly known as Foot in Mouth syndrome (or FIM). A variant of Teen Wolf syndrome (see earlier blog), Foot in Mouth syndrome renders the sufferer unable to form coherent sentences giving the impression that something roughly the size and shape of a foot has positioned itself in their mouth and refuses to budge. Closely associated with Babbling and Foot in It syndrome, Foot in Mouth sufferers are also prone to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. For example:

Hot International: Hi, I’m Palo, what is you’re name?
FIM Sufferer: Um…ah… Palo… shiny…

Hot International: Hey there.
FIM Sufferer: Hello I like horses do you like horses you know my doctor says that you can get diseases from horses but I don’t believe it because my cousin Mindy she’s a stripper and she says…

Hot International: Bonjour…
FIM Sufferer: Oh cool you’re French? My last boyfriend was French, I miss him so much. You know you kinda look like him, actually if you’d let me cut your hair…

Get the gist?

I believe this illness to be extremely dangerous to one’s social life and inductive of alcohol over consumption. But in the spirit of slip slop slap and spray tan, prevention is better then cure.

SO I present to you:

Tess’ Fail Safe Foot in Mouth Preventative for Internationals at Parties.

1) Let’s start with the basic avoidance of sensitive issues. Politics, religion, addiction, ex boyfriends/girlfriends and the like are a NO GO AREA. I don’t care about your essay on why Palestine should be freed or that you believe the colour of Jesus’ skin was misrepresented in popular culture. No one does after five minutes of knowing you. Learn.
2) If to appear worldly and knowledgeable you attempt conversation in their native language, make sure you know what you’re saying, and that it is in fact in they’re language or you may end up producing something along the lines of “Hello my name is Fish God on Tuesdays but I like men and women in underpants.”
3) Always ask someone with a North American accent if they are Canadian. Never bring the USA into it. If uncertain, stick with “So where are you from?” Don’t try to be clever, if you were you’d have already picked it.
4) Good topics of conversation include; what they’re doing in Australia, how long they will be here for and local night spots they might like to check out (preferably with you as tour guide).
5) Have at least three means of escape. You Will Need Them. For example; pre program your phone to ring (use alarm mode) in ten minutes before you go over to say hi, locate the position of the nearest bathroom, and sus out all exits including elevators, fire stairs and back fences.
6) Have a back up routine in place with another human being just incase the attractive Spanish man turns out to be “Fish God on Tuesdays” (they make mistakes too… lets hope that was a mistake) or an alcoholic who asks for a sip of your drink but sculls the lot and refuses to leave you alone until you hand over whatever else you have. A good plan is to have a friend in site who you can communicate S.O.S to via a series of complicated gestures and signals. Should you begin to feel a FIM of your own coming on, resort to pre-determined methods of escape. Told you you’d need ’em.
7) Remember, everyone is human no matter how attractive or international they are, so don’t worry so much. They’ve probably got a whole bunch of insecurities and quirky habits of their own you’ve yet to discover. So good luck and play nice.

More appologies with a hint of frustraition

2006-08-11T10:52:00.001+10:00

The good thing about this internet break has been that I have had some time to read, specifically the Trevisan's copy of Mia Freedman’s "The New Black". I was completely inspired because she is an amazingly talented and successful woman who dropped out of university at 19 and rose to the position of editor for Cleo, Cosmopolitan and Dolly magazines, but mostly she writes the same glorious sort of crap that I do! Right down to the Sex and the City rip-offs! (BIG BIG thanks to Siana who in lending it to me has changed my life, I now belive I too may one day earn money from my typing.) The book is charmingly light hearted and pretty relatable for most of us chickadees. I would recommend it as your book on the side this semester because it is basically a whole bunch of short opinion pieces on everything from shopping justification to Brazilian waxes and why it is we feel we have to do either of them.

GAH internet is not coming until next Wednesday and I have assignments damn it!Plus if you know me you will know and understand all too well that these little segments that I post are my way of "woo sahh-ing" (bad boys 2 reference). Oh how I miss you all. But Wednesday is only a few short days away (woo sah woo sah) and all will be well soon.

The benefits of getting a new internet connection are going to far out way this short period away I'm sure. It means we had to get a phone line connected in the house and now my dad can call me without having to worry about the mobile phone induced tumour he believes I'm certain to develop above my ear in a year or so. I'm not telling him the house phone's a cordless...
Of course now that I have a home phone number I feel strangely old and generation X like. Generation Y does not have a home phone, generation Y has a $79 cap with international calling credit. The home phone has become a thing of the past. Or is it just me and my non-committal uni lifestyle? Speaking of, everyone is back and in drinking action again (except for me I have definitely given up after last night no more booze for Tess) and with new arrivals this term looks to be far more interesting then the last.

Fortunately the old apartment associates haven't flown too far from the nest and so are within good gloating range. I went to see Darren's new apartment (officially the most upgraded techno house in existence, their bin has a motion sensor) and I am extremely jealous. Then again he hasn't met the new internationals yet...

Look out for blogs on how to best manage a conversation with a new international and the long awaited and completely been done before blog on why men and women cannot be just friends with extensive research behind it. erugh haven’t we all heard that before. But I wrote it and I'm publishing it and there is nothing you can do to stop me. Mwa hahahaha... oh wait you probably wont read it... eh... please read it and validate my existence.

I've been writing on word at home on the side to keep my blogging skills up so there is a nice bank of new material for when we're up and running again. In the mean time recent experience has inspired me to write this survival guide for internet deprivation.

Tess' internet deprivation “woo sah” techniques.

*Remove yourself from anything that might trigger internet withdrawls. For example I have to stop watching Sex and the City because every time I do I get an idea to blog about so I have replaced it with Wendy's collection of Charmed DVD's (the one's with Cole in them before Prue died... mmmmm Cole... ) which is killing my addiction and working like a... charm.

*local library’s, universities and internet cafe's provide a good quick fix and aside from the germy key boards that stick in places they're also a good place to commiserate with other people in your area who don't have internet and are having withdrawals, sort of a internet addicts anonymous (there's also the potential for cute travellers passing through to check their email... excellent...)

* Rediscover your love of interpretive dance or perhaps the art of the phone call. So much of our communication is email and instant message based these days and I'm not just talking about generation Y, but there is a reason we have the $79 cap people. If you can't remember how to make a phone call or exactly what the concept entails, start with texting, baby steps.

* Think of it as an opportunity to learn an actual practical skill. For example instead of ebay, venture to china town and work on your real life bargaining techniques ("I give you special discount, from $35 to $34.50") or rather then internet shopping, try coles (again cute guys at the supermarket, everybody has to eat don't tell me you can't pick up there I have done it and it is awesome). There's nothing like removing yourself from the virtual shopping world and getting back to the real one for a few hours. Think of it as retro chic.

*Get yourself in a real relationship as opposed to your virtual one. I can tell you right now, any man who's R.S.V.P profile states "young successful ex Calvin Klein model, $500 000 a year, willing to fly anywhere" is most likely Robbo, a 54 year old Janitor from Alice springs with three cats and an odd penchant for bondage. And Candy aint who she says she is fellas, infact any "18 year old blond 36"-24"-36" and out for a good time" is most likely Robbo's feminine side. Yummy.

I feel better now.

Lots and lots of virtual love (and some real stuff too)
Your faithful blogger,
Tess M

Appologies....

2006-07-27T14:59:00.000+10:00

Hello all,
Due to Darren movig out, I have no internet at home and thus will be posting a little irregularly. Never fear the post Darren 503 is cordinating its efforts to bring about a new era of internet lovelyness. Untill then (probably some time next week so don't worry too much) I wish you all the best sex money can buy, bubbles and loads of chocolate.

Love,
Tess M

The 23rd of July

2006-07-24T14:46:00.000+10:00

Thank god it's over.
What is a birthday really, another year older, another year closer to becoming one of those women who complains about her missed opportunities, inevitably, irrevocably, happy birthday? No such thing.

This year despite the best of intentions I rang in my birthday with other peoples friends at someone else’s birthday party, surrounded by short men, unable to drink alcohol, wet, cold, hundreds of km's away from my crew and in tears at every phone call from them because I missed them so much. We then proceeded to leave said party to go to a night club (at around 12:40), an action I was decidedly more impressed with until I realised it was still raining and while the taxi company "appreciated my patience" they were not coming. So we walked - some stumbled and twisted their ankles - and the hair I had spent a good hour straightening (motivated by the anger I had at my friends who spent dinner that night bitching, picking, etc.) turned to frizz. By the time we got to the club ironically named "the drink" (throwing the fact that I couldn't in my face) they had experienced a power outage and evacuated the building. At this point the house party people decided they were going to go home. So we went to shooters, a bar from this point forward to be known as "the worst place on earth where ugly men who grab at you go to get drunk off bad quality vodka".

Several hours, one friend asleep, the other hooking up and a good twenty "please don't grab me's" later, I met Shervin, a blonde dental nurse who told me she had a two year old son and that I had perfect teeth while she proceeded to spill her bad quality vodka on my favourite black shoes, rest her talking chin on my shoulder and tell her friends she knew me.

We eventually left and after being asked if I was American again (4 times in 6 hours) we headed over to the taxi cue. Let me explain this fully because I don't think you could possibly grasp this concept without having seen it for your self, I will not do it justice but here goes. You have to wait in line for a cab. You have to wait in line with drunk stumbling people who didn’t pick up and go home at 2 for a cab. You have to wait in line with drunk stumbling sexually frustrated men and the women they've assaulted who have already been standing in that line for 40 minutes and made three trips to the kebab shop across the road so you know the next thing to come out of their mouths is either "fuck", "cunt" or masticated chicken, garlic sauce and cheese... for a fucking cab.

This strange enforcement of order seemed so completely out place when we were surrounded by people who had no self respect, ability to tell the difference between a tree and empty space or control of their bodily fluids. The search for a cab has always been a survival of the fittest and the shortest skirts. You run, steal, bribe, maim and do what ever it is you have to do to get that cab but you do not wait in that line longer then you did to get into your chosen booze house of the night. It's just not right.

So this is my rant. And I'm entitled to it. What I got out of the whole experience was how much I appreciated my friends and the people I call my family in Sydney. So after I got off the plane home in the final hours of my brithday I headed out to arq for the first time to meet urban family member Darren and his gay clubbing friends.

A disasterous weekend in surfers paradice; hundreds.
Surrounded by hot men who accessorise well, free to dance how I please without being shoved by short blond women, and some good friends nearby; priceless.

Salute to coupledom

2006-07-03T15:45:00.000+10:00

Ladies I am most definitely in love

I present to you, MIDAS.

It was a question of fate. If I hadn't borrowed Sabby's jacket one night after clubbing, I would not have organised coffee with her to return it and I might never have stepped into the best sale of my life. MIDAS shoes in the QVB.

The sale was amazing and I managed to pick up a pair of aqua marine statement shoes that will last for ever. The minute I tried them on I knew we were meant to be together. They fit me perfectly, cosily hugging my toes and supporting my high arches. The kind of chemistry people try to tell you you can only get from an attractive member of the opposite sex. So naturally when you find this special relationship, you buy the shoes. You don't care how much it costs you, you buy them and you wear them.

This brings me to my second point, $348 down to $135

I'm in heaven.

It's hard to find something that fits. For example my Shoes are far too tall and in turn make me too tall to be allowed but I love them and so I accept this. Having bought my shoes I looked around and discovered that most of my friends had also found something else that fits. Just the right height, that makes them feel great. Their new (or previously unnoticed and unaccounted for on this blog) boyfriends. So this is my solute to coupledom.

Being a conscientious objector on this lifestyle choice it isn't often that I write about it. After all on yesterday's trip to the book shop I opened up an orical called the Little Love Book of Answers. It told me and I quote "Wriggle out of it". I then proceded to spot two ex's of sorts and my good friend Donnie Darko at the video store, four times.

But I think that now it has become such a large part of my life (because my friends are everything to me) that maybe I can talk about it. All of this came about as I read a comment just posted to an old blog by a very talented friend of mine Miz Wang, who told me my blog on singles outsoursing made her appriciate her boy even more. Hoorah!

Miz Wang is a young industrial design student who applies her natural creativity to making her own line of bags and accessories. I myself am fortunate enough to own my very own Miz Wang original. She is quite the brave soul and in the past six months has been through more then most of us can imagine and certainly more then I can do justice too. But through it all she has maintained the relationship she has with her man. And a good man he is. Recently they moved in together and while this has inconveniently taken my designer link from next door to the western suburbs, I know my girl is happy.

Not so long ago I sat in leicheart's forum with all time gal pal and all round good sort Siana, and her new man. Siana and I both know that if one has a distaste for the other ones boyfriend, the relationship will ultimately fizzle and become a pile of muck much as icecream does in in fizzy drink, so naturally I was on the attack and he was on his "best behavior." But as I watched him attempt a thumb war at the table, make her laugh, and orgasm (as every boy should) over English soccer players and chocolate pudding I knew he was alright, an assesment which I communicated to Siana via a bunch of secret signals and coded looks. Roughly translated they meant, "The boy can stay, he is humorous and likes good movies." And for the first time in quite some time, my friend looked relaxed and truely happy. There's that word again.

While the coupled life isn't really for me, I do appriciate what it does for the women around me who make it work. Another more socially and politically active friend is currently geographically separated from her boy for a few weeks. I admire their relationship because not only do they love spending time together when they can, but they have their own lives and allow each other space to achieve their dreams. Yes it drives them crazy but it means that they always want to spend time in eachothers company.

So what's the verdict? These guys are the luckiest people on earth for scoring the best women I know. Personally I'm not ready to share so much of my life with another person, not just yet, maybe ever. But it seems kinda nice for the ladies out there who are and who do. Right now I think the biggest commitment I can make is to myself and my new shoes, and I kinda like that.

Kind reguards,

Tess and MIDAS.

Time is never time enough

2006-07-02T22:11:00.000+10:00

I am officially bored
I am so bored, that I am thinking of who I can make a bootie call to so that I will no longer be bored.
Bordom is very distructive in my house.

GAH

This is the problem with things being so fast pased these days, everything gets done quickly and leaves you with way too much time on your hands. Take my hangover this morning for example, it took about an hour and a half and then went away. Damn non-commital half assed hangovers. It was like the night before had never even happened (and not in the because i can't remember anything sort of way). The only thing that I give time to in my life is connecting to the internet, and maintaining that connection, as for relationships... well...

First impressions are paramount in todays single world. Often because no one has time for second chances. Of course this works both ways, not only instant rejection, but instant relationships. A good friend of mine has recently aquired a new boyfriend and can count the number of nights spent in their own house over the past couple of weeks since meeting the guy on one single solitary finger (that's one incase you missed it). In a mere two weeks they are welded at the...

Meenwhile I have managed to beat my own personal best and completed an entire relationship from start to akward finish in 48 hours. Impossible you say? Surely I jest? Not so. We met, he was taller then me with a cute accent and great taste in film. The next day he called and we went on what could be separated into five individual dates, talked about work, friends, my crazy family, what he wanted to name his kids (which completely freaked me out), philosophised about love, life, etc.

I got my regular forget it Tess sign from our good friend Donnie Darco right on schedual (about a third of the way into the "relationship") when he picked up the movies soundtrack at the record store and told me I shoudl see it. Naturally I burst out laughing. Ordinarily I'd say "what are the odds" but if you know me at all you'll understand it's more of a case of waiting for it to happen.

We had so much in common and got on pretty well but there was just no spark there so I called it off before it got too complicated. Then I made out with him for a few hours. I figured I had the time considering I'd just saved myself two weeks of annoying indecision.

So now I'm wondering; the only thing we didn't do was sleep together, so does that mean that the whole thing is saved from being called a one night stand and redefined as a 48 hour relationship? And if so, have we been looking at the traditional one night stand in the wrong light, as a sex thing as opposed to a connection test?

What is it going to take for me to want to waste my time?

Aside

2006-06-22T08:47:00.000+10:00

As a writing student, I am blessed with a free exam period, most of my girls and boys however are not...

GO HUMANITIES!

Also I would like to thank the commenters that continually validate my lifestyle choices (no future career prospects but a lot of dreams and plans none the less)
Ebs: You are absolutely right, whats with the scaff wearing men, especially the ones who team them with skinny leg jeans? I'm so confused (Vinni Barbarino flash back)
Siana: Yay! My blog distracts from the most important thing in your life! That's so awsome I must be doing something right! Love love love ya

And so I would like to wish all the future theripists like Siana, lawyers like Eb, businessman/women like Sakr, Darren and the rest of that highly compeditive market and other professionals the best of luck in these final days of stress and too much chocolate and remind them that they will all be making lots more money them me in the future.

DAMN YOU HUMANITIES AND YOUR UNEMPLOYABLENESS! I REFUSE TO TEACH I TELL YOU!

On that note, Good Luck (in capitals for importance) and love to you all. After all everybody needs a little lovin.

:)

Your girl,
Tess
xoxox

Unacceptable

2006-06-21T20:17:00.000+10:00

A good friend recently told me "It's who you are accept it."

This is the latest in a long line of pop ups when it comes to acceptance and what can I say, I'm superstitious so I figure it's a sign.

Yes, I do believe in signs. Accept it, it’s who I am.

So, I got to thinking about it this week. It's what most of us crave more then anything else (even if we don't admit it) and it's what makes us the happiest. Acceptance and acknowledgement. But something has happened to us lately where by we are finding the concept of this hard to tackle. Why is the possibility of someone loving us in all our cynical, overanalysing, deliberately distancing and high maintenance requiring glory hard to accept?
Ok I may have answered my own question there.

Our society claims to define itself by who we include, the people we open up our homes to and invite to stay over. But looking a little deeper, it's really more of a who can we exclude situation that's been sugar-coated. A friend of mine is having some problems at the moment with his visa. He's been living in Australia for a little while now and in his time here has not only managed to sustain two jobs, study and learn a brand new language from scratch to fluency, but also embrace a whole new world of friends. He wants to extend his stay but has been denied, his lawyers believe this is because he used his Arabic passport to apply.

Fortunately for my friend, he also has a European passport and is going to try again, but what about everyone else?

I got onto the topic with another international friend as I walked him to an exam last night. He told me he was done with the whole politically correct thing. "I think I'll just be racist," he said jokingly. After all everyone else is and why should we care so much really if we're all the bunt of someone else’s joke. When I go clubbing with my usual group I am the token white chick, a good eight inches too tall and somewhat fluorescent. Making it an issue just makes it even more of an issue and soon enough we're all over-sensitive about it. So is it more a question of accepting there is a difference, but not going on about it whatever way you feel?

"I think we should just hate everyone equally" I said in one of my more cynical moments... which just means it was a Tuesday. There's a finer line between love and hate then there is between love and ignorance." See this is what I think, you can't have relationships with people you like because you can never tell them exactly how much they piss you off incase you hurt their feelings, so what’s the point? We should all just date people we hate, fight, and then have make up sex afterwards."

Ok I deviated a little from the point there but trust me I do have one. Which is this;

If we can find someone who can accept us, with all our faults, and we can accept them with ALL of theirs (and I do mean ALL), then maybe the problem isn't so much about accepting what's different or wrong with every body else. Could it be, that maybe, it’s more the whole self acceptance dali lama "learn to love you" thing. Scales, tails, fails, third nipples and all.

My name is Tess, I'm superstitious, I have hand modeled for a milk add, I haven't had successful relationships to date but I do have a strange penchant for unhealthily dark chocolate and on one occasion I paraded around infront of french people in my underwear.

Hmm, I feel better already, although the tanned Norwiegian I met in a lift today probably put a nice spin on things ;)

minor rant

2006-06-20T15:36:00.000+10:00

The list of men in this city who won’t call me has officially expanded to include men who contact me for job interviews and then refuse to show up and don't call me to cancel. The wait staff at Jet Cafe in the QVB were very understanding and sympathetic as I sat there for the better part of an hour today trying to figure out how it is exactly that I get my self into these situations. Do I wander around screaming, please do not notify me of your impending absence, unless you are an ex in which case come on down and ruin my weekend. "gah" I say, "gah".

2006-06-20T10:44:00.000+10:00

Sydney is a city made up of people from all over and everything moves twice as fast but it takes three times as long to get anywhere. It’s a place of overwhelming choice; white, black, Asian, Lebanese

*Gay, straight, bi or curious

*Gluten free, dairy free, chai infused...

But thanks to this what you can get in next to no time is a Kebab at three am on a Saturday night, and that's not all.

Lately what I've noticed is that same amount of choice being extended into relationships. Serious, single, open, fling, there are fuck things, dinner things, drink things, he's not really my boyfriend but he buy's me jewelry things. And if you get bored you can have combinations like serious bisexual open relationships. Whatever takes your fancy all of them exist with the same ultimate goal. Sex... I mean companionship. Wink wink, or nudge nudge if you'd prefer.

But apparently even in the single biggest single population in Sydney, suburbs like Broadway, Piermont, and the like, single's aren’t enough. That’s another thing about this city. Sidney-siders are never satisfied with what we've got. Whether it be that perfect job on the other side of the cross city tunnel, the perfect house with the nightmare room mate, or the perfect relationship with someone else’s girlfriend.

So in the competitive tradition of the biggest pond in Australia, its fish are expanding the market.

ITS A MID YEAR STOCK TAKE SALE AND EVERYONE IS UP FOR GRABS!

"If her boyfriend's not doing his job right then he deserves to loose her," One male work colleague told another over lunch in Broadway food court, "It's all about maintaining your position, if you can't do your job right, she's going to find someone who can fulfill her... needs."

I personally have this rule, no dating anyone else until 21 days after the official break up. It seems the whole of Sydney is following my rule because last month every one was breaking up, this month everyone is hooking up, and for the precious few of us in between things are definitely looking up. So have we become the Vince Vaughn of opportunists waiting for the right Brad and Jen to come along, is this the threesome of the new millennium, or is it simply the new way of ensuring the relationship you have is the best one for you? In a competitive market like Sydney singledom, is there a line and if so have we merely crossed it or did we set it on fire and dance naked around it?

As I watched my friends sadistic pleasure as the attractive big brother couple was torn apart last Sunday, I had to ask myself; why? Are we really as bitter and twisted as the 99% cocoa Lindt chocolate that you can buy now, or are we just facing up to the reality of dating evolution? As far as relationships go, when did choice become a bad thing?

The Moral of the Story

2006-06-10T11:47:00.000+10:00

One very young and naieve day, I met a man through a friend who told me he loved the way I carried myself, and said he could find me a job in any of the city's top bars. I met him for an interview at a stylish underground bar where we spoke with the owner who told me he would hire me tomorrow off my new friends word. He was 24, extreemly well connected, and lawyer who'd worked his way up to one of the best firms in Sydney and was looking to move to New York. Here comes the tricky part. He offered to fly me to New York and pay for my accomidation if I stayed with him. I had to admit it was a very attractive offer. Travel to my favorite destination, free stay at the plaza, but I realised he wasn't looking to get me bar work, he wanted to hire me for something else. So I said no. He still sends me text messages, I don't reply. But sometimes, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I'd accepted his offer.

I walked down memory lane this week and passed by all of my ex boyfriends, hookups and friends plus. And I do meen all (well, bar one). Not that there's been that many -eight and counting- but in one week, thats ex-overload. I remember this happening some other time earlier this year. It's at times like these when I think, what would Buffy do? So here's my guide to slaying (not laying) your ex demons.

The Ex-ception
I'm going to start wth the positives because I want to get it over with. The ex who you dated for a while, but it didnt quite work out for reasons both of you agreed on (in my ex-ceptional case, we couldn't talk when we were in a "relationship" because all we did was make out when we saw eachother... it was good... but more of a friendship thing) and now you talk occasionally when you bump into eachother or if you're both online. You might send a humorous text or two if something reminds you of them. And thats it. It's nice, its simple and no one is going to loose any money.

The ex who wants to be friends with you..
He or she still wants to be friends, one problem, after they lied, cheated, bitched, and sold naked pictures of you to the tabloids, you do not. You do not want to be friends, you do not want to get back together, and you do not want to leave your house open to robbery for the second time for Pete's sake you just replaced your flat screen. Answer no phone calls, reply to no messages. If they catch you off guard at a function or the supermarket, become increadibly busy and (if you can do it out of sight eg fumbling through your bag for something) hit the button on your phone that previews your ring tone, say you have to run it's an "important call" from one of your three jobs, wish them well and get the hell out of there. DO NOT SAY YOU WILL CATCH UP AT SOME OTHER POINT THIS ONLY ENCOURAGES THEM.

The Ex who wants to "catch up".
I am not a man. But I can tell you right now, no man will ever want to just "catch up" with an ex girlfriend. And from a womans point of view, no way. How many of your old boyfriends do you want to see? Once it's over, it's over and unless you want to re-open the can of worms that was your relationship, (or you're too broke to afford coffee and they're buying) don't go there.

The Ex who needs to talk to you about something important.
Unless it's something you might have caught from them, you don't want to know. Here are some examples;
You: "So you said you had something you needed to discuss?"
Ex: "Oh, um yeah... yeah... its just been busy...um family stuff.... nothing important, so do you want to grab a coffee or something this week?"
or
You: "So whats up? Is everything ok?"
Ex: "Yeah yeah fine..... I just wanted to have a chat, so what are you doing on Saturday night?"
Things to note about this one: Stuttering and pauses, a sign they're trying to get themself out of trouble, that they are a bad lier, and that there really is "nothing important" to discuss. The line is used as an excuse to try and get to you again, most likely because they're having a bad week and want some kind of validation. Don't go there, damaged goods.

The Ex who needs a friend right now.
I'm sorry, a friend? You haven't heard from your ex since you guyes broke up about six months ago and now he or she wants a friend. Tough break. They're not interested in your friendship, they have friends. They do stuff on the weekends, drink together and bitch about their ex's. What he/she means is they need some sex right now. And that, my friend, is all they need. I recently had an old business accociate contact me out of the blue and tell me he needed to talk to someone about a certain sick fettish he had and wanted to talk to me about it because it would help to chat with someone objective. Tell them you wish you could help but you feel uncomfortable about it. Seriously. There are qualified counciling services aout there and some of them are even free.

The Ex who doesn't exist.
This is an interesting one because what can you do? A customer at my work was telling me about a girl that after seeing him in the paper had started to try and contact him regularly claiming to be his ex girlfriend from six years ago.

SIX YEARS AGO.

Since hearing from her he has called all of his friends from that time and none of them remember her. She has sent him messages useing his old name and claiming he used to play guitar for her... he can't play full stop. So the verdict on this one? People are fucking nuts.

What I have decided.
If people we don't even know are bothering us for time and assistance, how can we be expected to give our time to the people we do?
I officially have no ex-boyfriends. I am abolishing the term because they are to much trouble and I think applying the lable of ex may just make it worse. They are only to be known as the past.

And if your past happens to be present, remember, your future is far too important to risk.

It's over... thank god... who's for coctails?

2006-06-09T15:33:00.000+10:00

Sorry, I have had numerous complaints that my blog hasn't been updated in my
usual style lately and have been told to stop putting up my class
assignments as posts to save time because they are annoying and not
me-ish. I have a feeling people are mostly pissed because they're looking
for a "legitimate" excuse to avoid studying for their exams and my little
stories are a way out. Well now that mine are all over and done with, I
am back with a vengeance and here to catch you up on all the bullshit you
haven't heard yet. Beginning with my favorite form of procrastination,
vending machine robbery.

It was Sunday, and my cinematic cultures essay was due the following
afternoon at 2pm. I, of course, had done bubkis. All the research was
there, I just plain couldn't be fucked to do the rest. So I did what any
responsible almost-twenty-but-trying-not-to-think-about-it year old would
do and I called my mother, my grandmother and the girl I have coffee with
to catch up.

Then I went for chocolate.

My building has a particularly convenient and lethally addictive vending
machine on the top level. It holds all the best fixes and is restocked
regularly during exam periods to keep us all happy and well chocolated.
I took the lift up and stood in front of the wondrously delicious bounty
of confectionary that lay before me. Snickers (fuck buddy to my
relationship bar Mars) Twirl (traditional and comforting), Twix (the king
of chocolate bars) Boost (a vibrant new-comer bursting with flavor and
eager to please) and several others. I inserted my money and realised
when I heard the distinctive lack of clinking metal that I was not to get
my chocolate today...The machine had eaten my money.

Crap.

Being the rational, capable and resourceful woman I am I applied all the
tried and true methods (and some new innovations) I could think of to
retrieve my cash. I pressed the coin return button, no luck. I tapped the
machine lightly, no luck. I executed a well placed side kick from my
early adolescent Karate days, no luck. I turned it off, I turned it back
on, I tried knives, tweezers, and other metal implements, I tipped it and
dropped it, no luck.
So I called the number on the machine.

"Hello APT this is Irene how can I help you?""Hi my name’s Tess, I’m calling from the roof top of my building. Your
machine has just eaten my money and I think a whole bunch of other
peoples."

"Ok. Someone will be right out but he has to drive from the other side of
the city so he’ll be there around twelve. Will you be there to let him
in?"

Knowing all I really had to do was study and that I wasn't going to end
up at the library anyway no matter how good my intentions were, I
replied...

"Oh um, I’m supposed to be somewhere but ok."

And so, to avoid the potentially disastrous study situation, I waited for
the vending machine man and wondered, how much of the money was it ok to
take? After all, no one else had been bothered to call them, clearly I
was doing a service for the entire building. So why should I be concerned
about getting mine, and my room mates, and a bunch of other peoples lost
change when the machine had eaten up to notes of mine before?

At 12:07 there was still no word. I had a strange feeling that "vending
machine man" fell under the same annoying time wasting category as "the
cable guy" - referring to both the man who fixes your foxtel and Jim
Carey's movie of the same name. I waited on advice from my room mate
until 12:30... ok 12:22... before I called them to check up. I got their
answer machine.

"Hi Irene, its 12:30 and this is Tess calling from the rooftop again, you
must be on your lunch break. Just wanted to let you know I haven’t heard
form anyone about the machine yet and I was wondering when abouts they’d
be coming around. Just give me a call back on this number. Thanks."

"That's it," I said to myself and Darren who was nearby at the time, " I
refuse to be the girl who waits for the vending machine man! I am going
up there myself."

Just then the phone rang.

"Hello Tess, this is Irene from APT Vending. David’s has a slight
emergency with a machine on Paramatta road. He’ll be there at around 1:30
and he'll call on approach, is that alright?"

At this point, I would like to draw attention to the idea of a 'vending
machine emergency'. Just ponder that for me... Top five vending machine
emergencies...
*Disgruntled soccer mum misses out on her snickers
*Little Jimmy trapped behind boost bars
*Little Jimmy's new puppy costs mum an extra $2.50Little Jimmy now trapped under machine as disgruntled soccer mum looses
grip in tilted robbery attempt.
*Weight watchers meeting ends in tragedy as vending machine refuses to
indulge...

Meanwhile I realised I had just set myself up with yet another man who was
NOT GOING TO CALL ME. This plus the little 'emergency' comment pushed me
to the edge. And so I went to the roof top with my room mate and other
in-the-building accomplice, and we launched an all out offensive on the
vending machine.

"Lift man lift, you can do better then that!"
"I'm trying!"
"Quick guys someone's coming up in the lift, LOOK INNOCENT!"

The was pretty much fruitless except for the dollar I found on the ground
underneath it. So we went back to the apartment and watched episodes of
Sex and the City until David (the vending machine guy who turned out to
be in his late 50's with a pony tale) finally called.

I took him up to the roof and he inspected the crazy gizmos inside the
control panel.
"Here's your problem," He said, handing me a voucher for a free drink
with any meal at Tomadatchi restaurant that he'd just wedged out from the
coin track.
"I can trust you to give this to your super can't I?" he said with a wink
as he handed me the thirty odd dollars in loose change that was stuck in
the machine.
"uh huh..."
I don't trust the people that run my building ever since they entered my
apartment without my permission. Also, as I was recently informed by
pony-tailed David, the last time this happened the money was handed into
them and I didn't hear a word about it. I lost five bucks that week
dammit! So I've been developing my own little ways of getting the money
back to the people who lost it. Very Amilie I think. Plus we could all
use a little good Karma from time to time, especially in the middle of
exams. David didn't seem to fussed. So I figure we're all good.

Exhausting love life update coming up as soon as I can and also my
annoyance at Cosmo magazine after I sent them some of my stuff and an
article that is oddly similar miraculously appeared in their latest
issue... very suspicious... It's been a strange week...

Lots of good karma to you all and good luck in your studying, Tess

Text in terrigal

2006-06-03T10:45:00.000+10:00

I half expected him to say “Platform nine and three quarters? Think you’re being funny do you?” Though in my opinion, my request made perfect sense.
“Where’s good to go? One ticket there please.”
I wondered how many people had asked this man’s opinion before. He seemed a sensible enough bloke, he had the grey hair indicative of wisdom and an honest face. Why did he doubt himself so much?

I ended up at the info desk where the Indian man asked me if I had done darling harbor, martin place etc etc. I told him I lived here. He seemed shocked. I could see it running through his mind like the stock market shares on those big red lights, if you live in Sydney, why would you possibly want to go elsewhere? But I got results.

“One ticket to Gosford please.”

A friend of mine goes to Gosford to see his grandmother; he doesn’t think much of it so I thought I might check it out. I have to admit I felt more comfortable heading north. Coming from the northern beaches, I’d looked out over Barrenjoey headland and up the coast countless times, and was always curious if anyone up there was looking back. Was there even anyone there? Did life exist beyond the northern beaches?

I got my snacks from the shop on the platform and told him to keep the change so I could dash onto the train. If I was a fashion magazine I’d call it retro chic. Very seventies, pale pea green vinyl seat covers. Yummy.

I went upstairs and passed a father lecturing his kids, something about “experience” and “good for you”. I hoped it would be the same for me. I wasn’t entirely train savvy… I took a train from the airport once, it didn’t go to well but at least I didn’t waste the sick bag.

Sitting down on the pea green vinyl and trying not to lean against the grubby window, I started on my rations and did some recon at Strathfeild on the sort of people that might be going Gosford way. Two girls with badly dyed black hair and a meat pie got on. They sat down across from me.
I wondered if I’d be happy to come home. I put on my headphones and watched trees creeping in slowly. Thought about what it took to get me on this train.

Weird.

A short blond woman with a baton woke me from my self reflexivity and asked me for my ticket. I got out my concession card and passed the exam. The girls across didn’t. It took them a good fifteen minutes to go through the entire contents of a dark blue bag. Suspicious. My guess is they were causing a distraction so that the guard wouldn’t notice a drug smuggler or money laundering scheme going on in the next carriage. The guards were pretty nice about it though, especially for people carrying batons and two ways. “It’s not in the pockets of your jacket?”
“No, No I checked.”
I asked if it would help if they could pay, I’d lend them the money. The guard gave me a cautionary look and said she couldn’t take money. Apparently not.

Spotto a To Sydney-> sign. I’m officially out!

Spotto track workers up ahead… wait a minute… We’re on a bridge is that safe?

The train curves into real bush now as we get closer to being somewhere. It’s so nice out here, its so beautiful… it’s raining.
Fuck
The one day I pick to be adventurous and it rains, it’s my year ten formal all over again.

Spotto random blue house all by itself rusting away next to the river bank.
Spotto Gosford quarries. Getting close now.

The guy in front of me has the coolest little hat ever. It reminds me of the hat the eccentric teddy bear man (so named because he carries a small white teddy bear with him to the movies) who comes into my work wears. I wonder if this man is eccentric too. Maybe they’re related. Maybe he stole teddy bear man’s hat in a fit of jealous kleptomania. I’ll have to investigate when I get back.

Still beautiful, still green, still raining.
Fuck.

I can smell it now. The leaves and the water. That freshness that you can only find at Coles in the city. It took a while to get through the smoke and dust.

Lantana.

My friend Ebony calls and tells me they have the best hot chips in Woy Woy, I thought about it but then I got to WoyWoy station I wasn’t convinced. Stayed on the train. I figure I’ll go to Gosford, look around and if I don’t like it I’ll go to Newcastle.

Gosford. Not that impressed. There’s a bus in front of me. Why not? I get a ticket to Terrigal where the bus is heading and venture forth. The drivers got a cool accent, like a New York tour guide. It’s costing me more to catch the bus 3 sections then it did to get to Gosford but I’m willing to let it slide. I figure Terrigal might be the headland I’m looking for. It’s about the right distance away from Palm Beach. The bus is a mix of retirees, parents and their kids and punk teenagers. The bus takes me past like eight bridal shops and a ride on mower place. I bet they race them on slow days. This says to me that up here people get married and own ride on mowers.
Spotto LJ Hooker Erina, Erina gardens, Erina fair… Not in Terrigal yet. Their Maccas has palm trees. Spiffy.

Someone’s lost a wallet. I help the driver check the bus but without luck. My second humanitarian failure of the day.
Ten minutes later I’m still on the bus as the driver rollercoasters it down a random hill and past pretty houses.

Where the fuck am I going?

If I had lots of money, I think this is what I’d do. Just ride around on busses and trains all day. There’s something really free about not having a clue where you’re going.

And then, there it is;
The ocean.

I get out at Terrigal and remember my friend’s parents have a Chinese restaurant here… Dragons something. I figure I’ll have a look for it. Terrigal’s cute. There’s a bunch of Thai restraints and fish and chip places, the usual surf shop and the token acceptable chains, Subway, KFC and Bakers Delight. The supermarket is tiny and the place is littered with cool boutiques, very beach side chic. I have no idea where the restaurant is so I pop into Perry’s, a little fast food place to ask for help There’s a lady, a boy moping, and two gothic girls who seem like they go to high school with mop boy sipping milk shakes.

“There’s no Chinese restaurant in Terrigal.” The lady at the counter tells me. She’s large with spiky red hair and looks like she’s over it.
“Yes there is!” says the boy holding a mop that resembles his hair, maybe the mop is holding him? I can’t tell, “’round the back of this street, just take a left!”
The two Goth girls look up from their milk shakes, “No there’s not, that’s Thai”
“Oh, yeah, same shit.” he argues.
“No it’s not!” says one of the Goth girls. “It’s an entirely different country!”
Mop boy clearly has the best intentions and I thank them and have a look around.

I gave up on trying to find the restaurant and instead looked for some hot chips. Its still raining a bit and I wore sandals and jeans, both of which are now muddy. I noticed a little kiosk out on the headland and figured I’d head there. This turns out to be a good idea and a popular one. There’s a rugby game going on at the oval across the car park and some mid life divers getting ready to take the plunge on the beach. I walk past the men scaling fish and the pelicans looking to nail some leftovers to my own eatery of choice. The lady at the counter is very nice and very tanned. She hands over some chips and I venture out past the divers to the rock pools to eat and explore. Little waves role over and crash on the rocks. They turn somewhere between green and blue and for a second everything goes crystal before it crashes into a million pieces. There’s sand at my feat and I ballet dance across the rocks like I did when I was a kid. I’ve always loved rock pools. The ocean. Everything about it.

Something else I’ve noticed is the number of memorials around. When you live in a place you pass them every day and never look at them but when you visit you take a closer look around. All these monuments to people that meant something to someone. There is a plaque on one of the rocks.

Gary “Nutty” Lambert
8.8.1955 – 4.3.1994
He toughed us all
The way he lived
He strove to win
Bur loved to give
Taken by the sea he loved

I blow Gary a kiss and head up to the top of the headland. There’s a look out on top and I figure if I get up there I can probably see Palmy. Some cute Asian tourist couples are coming down the hill as I sweat my way up it, ahead of a mother with two little kids I’m determined to prove I can make it to. The top is amazing. A 180 degree view out over the ocean and the headland points out beneath me like a compass. I look south and find that there’s a fucking headland in the way and I won’t see Palmy today. But I don’t care so much now I’m here. It’s beautiful. Terrigal beach curves around to my left and behind me beautiful houses dot the hillside. To my right another headland stretches out and in front of me is nothing but horizon.