Living for the weekdays

I told a friend this morning about a dream I have. A dream I choose to push up the ladder of importance. A dream that I will honour, despite the fallout from rejected normality.

When I hear people happy that it is Friday, I think of them as having lost the plot. Imagine if you so look forward to Friday because it means you will have two days when you are happy and doing whatever you want. Imagine hanging on for two days a week to release the beast inside and let you canter through what should be the better parts of your life.

I don't want to be a person who looks forward to the weekends. I want to hang out for the weekdays. I want to wake up each morning and be glad that today is today, despite it's closeness to the weekend.

Hump day should only be the days we climb the bell tower and hang off the ropes that ring the dings and dongs across Paris.

This year, I've woken up and gone to work and loved it. I've loved coming home. I've loved weekends. None of it feels forced or endured. Life shouldn't rape you. It should be like making love.

To lose that is unacceptable. I shall chase my weekdays like some of you chase your weekends.

Fashionista Kitty

Apparently, this is me

Received an email today saying that this is the Damana LOLcat.

The best quote about depression I have ever read

“Then there is this: in some way, the quiet terror of severe depression never entirely passes once you’ve experienced it. It hovers behind the scenes, placated temporarily by medication and renewed energy, waiting to slither back in, unnoticed by others. It sits in the space behind your eyes, making its presence felt even in those moments when other, lighter matters are at the forefront of your mind. It tugs at you, keeping you from ever being fully at ease. Worst of all, it honours no season and respects no calendar; it arrives precisely when it feels like it.”

- Daphne Merkin on her forty year battle with depression | Life and style | The Observer

-- via Alice Boxhall

Blow Out

There are lots of things that you don't know about me. I used to play state level netball and basketball when I was in school. It's something I've been doing since I was 9 years old. You know those kids who have great hand-eye co-ordination and extremely good fitness? Yeah, that was me. My sister and I played team sports like netball, basketball, hockey and volleyball. We did individual sports too. We were sprinters and that logically lead to long, triple and high jump.

There weren't any sports that were too difficult.

Netball is the sport that all Australian girls play. Meeting a woman in my age group who doesn't know how to play netball is rare, in this country.



The thing with netball is that it is high impact. The pounding your body takes over a long period of time is quite harsh. Especially if you have an injury. In fact, it is the most violent non-contact sport I've ever played, so injuries are common. One day, I landed very badly on my right leg and blew out my knee. Instead of resting it, I kept playing... for months.

The knee injury got so bad that I got used to limping everywhere and standing with most of my weight on my left leg. Finally, netball gave may to recovery time. Over the years, I get overly optimistic and return to netball. Usually last most of the first season and then the knee gets so aggrevated that I can't walk.

This time, it took two games. Playing volleyball, basketball, walking and running hasn't caused it to flare up but netball did it straight away.

It is time that I admit to myself that netball is a game I once played and not one that my right knee can tolerate anymore. Regardless of fitness, technique or recovery tricks like ice and anti-inflamatories, netball is too high-impact for my poor abused knee.


That sux. Unfortunately what sux more is not being able to walk up and down stairs without agonising pain; not being able to wear anything but flat shoes; and being unable to sleep due to that deep ache that comes from a serious inner knee injury.

Goodbye netball. Hello to more indoor beach volleyball and low impact sports.

Am I officially old now?

Alanis for you

Pussyfoot

Some days, I lack the patience to be diplomatic due to tiredness or stresses. Other times, it is due to the person I am speaking with.

Some people say things that show so little understanding of a topic or situation that it would take a huge amount of effort and time to spell out why and justify every reason at every corner.

That is when I get short-tempered and smack them on the nose and say "bad monkey".

I don't have them killed and this should count for something.

No regrets

Good Friends

Worst

I used to think the worst thing in the world would be to disappear and no one noticed.

Now I know it is to be standing in the middle of the room and nobody notices you are there.

They will look for me

I have often wondered how I person gets up and walks out of the lives of everyone they know and love.

How do you just leave and never contact them again? How do you leave them wandering where you are and how you are? How do you cut all ties?

Now, I find it hard to see this as just black and white.

Recently, I have wanted to get up one morning and say bye as usual and then leave. Leave, never to be seen again. Go somewhere far far far far away. Somewhere that nobody knows me. No one takes a second look. Start all over again. Be nothing to anyone. Disappear. No longer be me.

Some days, I just wish it was quiet.

My Kindle's Insides

This is what the inside of my Kindle looks like. I would like to live in there.

The Best Nail Polish Remover

People keep asking me what nail polish remover I use, so as not to destroy my nails.

It's not about the remover. I use Cutex, which is cheap. You can get it anywhere.

Then I use a good nail moisturiser. Foot and hand creams are fabulous and intense.

You don't have to spend a fortune to look after your nails and keep them divine.

Tale As Old As Time

Awww... I love this song.

Not sure who I most identify with.

Sense and Sensibility

"The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!" — Jane Austen

you bleed just to know you're alive

And I'd give up forever to touch you
Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
Cause sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am

An Angel

My mother is that best human being I know and ever will know. There are good people on this Earth but I see her first hand and I try to learn from her.

Like the Queen of England, my mum has two birthdays. Growing up, we always thought her birthday was on the 21st of July. That is the date of the first moon walk. She was 21 when she listened to that event on the radio, in Papua New Guinea. She was at teacher's college and her classmates went over to hang with the science students and hear about Armstrong stepping out. She was 21 years old.

Today is my my mother's official birthday. That is the day that she was actually born. She knows it even though she was born in her parent's home, in a village named Tufi in PNG. Her mother wrote the date on the back of a door. This is where she kept the dates of all her children. Mum copied these dates down and carried them with her, long after that door and that house were gone. Long after her wonderful mother Damana had passed away, we now celebrate today for mum.

The moon walk birthday is a date that was given to her by the Kiaps. Kiaps were Australian government officials who journeyed in to the villages and remote areas of Papua New Guinea and in this case issued birth certicifates and guessed children's ages. With those guesses went allocated birthdays.

My mother was told she was a certain age and born in July of 1948.

Don't even get me started on the kiaps and their ways, in PNG. If you ever need to suffer some condescension then find an ex-kiap and listen to them talk of civalising the little black people. What a load of cr@p.

Anyway, my mother is officially 63 years old today. She was born in a village in Papua New Guinea. She was orphaned at a very young age. As the second of seven sisters, she brought up the younger ones. She used to babysit to earn money to pay their school fees. Her whole life has been about looking after other people.

I would like to wish her a very happy official birthday. May the year to come be about you and enjoying the life you have made. There are so many people who love and cherish you. We appreciate all that you are and all that you have done.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful, brilliant and kind mother.

Parts of a shoe

The always faboo Shoes of Prey tell us the parts of a shoe.

Bored now

Let me know when we're talking about me again.

Darwinian Fashion

"Ah, Darwin. It kind of divides into rednecks, yuppies and hippies. Anything outside of that just confuses people." -- my friend Lou


So true. Lou is right, as is often the case. I'm going to stick to confusing them with my Mana-isms and make that my thang. Yes, I said thang.

Get your freak on

As I muddy the waters between depression and recovered, the insights in to what goes on in a depressed person's head abound.

Today is a great example of a day that I would have described as "fragile", before I learnt to cope with the negative thoughts. Instead, I realise my brain is hyper-sensitive to the body language of people around me. It takes a small look and interprets it in the worst way possible.

There was a moment a few years ago in Pitt St Mall when I was bumped by a gigantic handbag that a lady was carrying. She turned back and spoke a sincere sorry. There was no malice. It was an accident and no harm came from it. I walked on to work, one block away in the centre of Sydney CBD. It was a typical work day and the place was full of suits, shoppers and buskers.

Once inside the sanctuary of some huge financial institution, I sprinted for the ladies bathroom. There, I locked myself in a stall and cried like I did the day I was born. Maybe I was gulping for air. Maybe I was lost in the self-torture that convinced me that woman with the bag hated me.

Although irrational, it felt true. I was certain that life could not possibly improve and that I would never recover from her bagging me.

Years have passed since that day. Nothing feels that dire these days. Most things are quite funny and leave me in tears of silliness. They are lighter tears that carry you through a moment that could break a lesser Mana.

Today, I'm dressed in cool comic book tights and a flowing white top proclaiming in black ink and rhinestones, my love for shoes. The knee high velvet black boots complete the outfit with a nice upper cut.

In my usual Surry Hills scene, I'd fit in with all the other people who simply don't. I'd walk passed people and admire their comic book tees or purple suede boots on funky jeans, with great haircuts.

In Darwin, I'm a freak. People stare. Teenage girls mumble "oh my god". Mothers pull their children from my path.

You can't say I fit in here. It's not great to be looked at constantly but I must honour who I am and what I want to express. To blend in to Darwin, like all the others would be like a silent death... a drowning.

Does it hurt when people see me this way? Does it make me angry? Do I withdraw and cry?

Nope. I keep on keeping on.

I plan for the next time when I'll get my freak on.

Katherine Airport

There are some things that are so Territorian that you have to laugh so that you don't cry.

This morning, I heard about the Katherine airport and it's problems with kangaroos. Apparently, they get in the way of planes landing there and cause accidents. Skippy the terrorist.

The Northern Territory is not a state of a Australia so responsibility for it lies in the joint hands of the Commonwealth government and the Northern Territory government. Both like to blame the other for all the things gone wrong in governing and otherwise take the credit for all successes.

All the Katherine Airport needed was to be fenced. Kanagroos are quite easily defeated by fences.

The Australian Federal Government did just that. They had the place fenced.

The thing is that they fenced in a mob of kangaroos that were living there and like the proverbial rabbit, they have gone forth and multiplied. Now there is a huge number of plane endargering marsupial terrorists contained inside the land around the airstrip.

Whose fault is this? Who will fix it?

It's the other government's fault, of course!

Yesterday

Workwise, yesterday was a great day. I was so productive that I've almost completely cleared my To Do list.

Otherwise, it was so hard that I'm not sure how I survived it.

So, I hold my breath and try to stop myself from making bad choices and exploding.

I've been pushed around so much lately that I'm angry about it.

Since nothing I do is good enough, I choose to do what is in my heart.

I don't want to hear it, if it isn't nice.

Are we brain washed from birth?

Coming Home

I used to write with such passion and conviction.

Things made me angry. Things made me happy. Things made me feel feelings.

Of late, that has petered out. Somehow lost in a Prozac haze and over-shadowed by real life and responsibilities and... stuff.

It's not that I miss the roller-coaster of emotions that came with depression. Hell no! It just got far too mellow and numb to be on the anti-depressants.

As I emerge from the mist of depression and the auto-tune of being medicated (which did help massively), the passion for life is returning. It's not a hypo-manic ride of good and bad. It is more of an absence of numbness. Being alive again.

Do you know that point when you've eaten a yummy dinner and you feel perfectly full and content? That is how it feels.

Damana is coming home.

Fail

I don't know about the rest of you but I am reminded at least once a week that I am failing as an adult.

There are explicit criticisms about the way I spend my spare time. There are implicit judgements about that fact that I don't have a house or a car or any solid plan for life. Then I'm told that I share too much online. I also don't tell people enough about what I'm trying to achieve in life.

It's starting to get old.

I have done the responsible adult thing. The conformist thing with the marriage and house and husband and friends to have dinner parties with. You all saw how that worked out.

So now, I just want to find stability and happiness in the different parts of my life. Get my savings re-established after 2 years of crippling depression and inconsistent income. Make my brain chemistry function properly on it own, using only the life tools that therapy has taught me and not big pharma solutions. Find a way to trust people again after so much betrayal.

And it comes down to this... whoever wants to judge me can. They can find me lacking. They can disapprove of the way my life is run. They can gather their thoughts and keep them to themselves because I'm frankly sick of it.

Unless you've lived an unblemished life then you have no right to tell me how to live mine. Even then, I'll probably do whatever I damn please anyway.

Black Milk Leggings

A guy on twitter heard me talking about leggings and tights. He's a fan of such things... used by others and observed by him. You come across a lot of them on the Internet. This one was harmless and useful because he put me on to Black Milk Clothing.

This is an amazing trend-setting Australian company, that until recently was running out of it's creators garage.

I considered not telling everyone about these tights so that I'd be the only one I knew with them but I can't hold back. The quality is excellent. The fabric used on the leggings, lace tights and velvet tights I bought is very good. Colours are stunning. Designs are funky. The fit is great and I actually think they could get away with charging a lot more and I'd still buy them. Don't tell them I said that though.

There are more photos in my flickr photostream.

Go buy and try. Trust me, you will not regret it.

Walk a day in my shoes

People - both men and women- keep asking me how I walk in high heeled shoes.

I do my best not to look at them like they are really dumb and asking me how humans evolved to walk and thus free their hands for tool making and fondling each other.

There is one answer... I put my feet in and walk.

There are several tips...

1. When you walk, put weight on to (not in to) the heel as you would with a normal step. Tip toeing is going to kill your foot in a few minutes, unless you are a trained ballerina. If you are a trained ballerina then wear these instead;
2. Start short and get taller. A two inch heel is entry level but I expect you to be settling in to three within a month. Never go higher than 4.5" if you want to walk more than 100m. Your calves will die. Higher heels are for parties where you are driven there and back and will eventuate in some handsome man carrying you through a doorway;
3. Wear the heel with pants or jeans first. Often looking at the height of the heel will result in you thinking it is higher and more difficult than it actually is. Cover the shoe with cool pants or jeans and you won't think about it too much. Do not let the pants be longer than the shoe or you will fall and break something. Once you are confident in the height, wear it with skirts or dresses;
4. Never walk cautiously in heels you are afraid of. It looks pathetic. Be comfortable in a shorter shoe and look confident instead.

Go. Wear beautiful high shoes and be gorgeous.

Muwah!

It is true

Take a bow

My fave pop song atm. It's a kick arse break up song. I dedicate it to my girls who are cleaning the trash out of their lives atm.

Not anymore

This song used to sum up how I felt when I was sick. It doesn't mean that anymore but it does let me not forget that. I do not ever want to feel like that again.

I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
and you could have it all
my empire of dirt

I will let you down
I will make you hurt

Winning

For the regular readers... yes, Mum, Dad and Candace, you will remember that I had a little issue recently with a crazed stalker bogan. He shall not be named here. That's mainly because he hasn't quite worked out how to spell his own name.

Anyway, I was at a stage where I wanted to get a domestic violence order again him. I was told this would stop the harassment from him and his satanic harem of skanks, who wanted to tell me to leave him alone. They aren't the smartest because I wasn't actually having anything to do with him, which is why he sent them after me. Ahh, bogan genius did not peak at the invention of thongs as formal wear.

I nearly got the restraining order, even knowing that he'd love the attention.

Then one of my besties, Cathie asked me a question that changed the way I saw this situation and every one to follow.

Do you want to win or do you want to be happy?

I wanted to be rid of him and happy. Winning may be important to drug-fueled cocaine snorting washed up TV stars but I knew that wasn't what I wanted. No more drama with someone I wished I'd never made the mistake of stopping to talk to. No more death threats in the mail. No more sentences made of single syllable words. No more.

So yes, I chose to do nothing but ignore and endure. Luckily for me, people with small brains are easily bored and wander off to upset someone else's life.

When someone is making your life hard, ask Cathie's question.

Asked and Answered

A guy asked me the other day what I was looking for in love. What would be the traits of my next boyfriend or husband or partner?

I found that so easy to answer.

I am not looking.

He asked why.

I found that so easy to answer.

I am not looking because I already found it once. He was the man I spent most of my life with. The one I married. The one who left me. I'm one of those lucky people who really fell in love like you do in Jane Austin books. It didn't work out but it did happen.

That was it. That was the love part of my life.

Now, it is time for the rest.

He asked if I was still just getting over it.

I found that not so easy to answer.

I don't know. I think this is just who I am now.

Mea Maxima Culpa

It is days like this that make me stop and reflect.

Today is Good Friday. There are many reasons that it is good. Not many of them are religious to me. I don't mind people believing in a higher power but it simply is not my thing. Maybe science beat it out of me. Maybe I've never had a moment where I needed to believe so much in something more that the moment came and claimed me.

So, my main thoughts today focused on why things feels so good at the moment. On why I am content. Why life is full on wins for me and nothing seems to knock me down.

The other day, an acquaintance said to me "Prozac nation" and I giggled in response. Not at the fact that this person put down my inhuman positivity and happiness to prescribed SSRIs but at the fact that I'm no longer on anti-depressants. There was no need to tell them that. Let them believe that true happiness is not possible without chemical assistance. It's a little like someone believing in Santa. You don't want to break their heart and tell them that it is possible without rebalancing your brain via a Pfizer cocktail.

Then that means that I'm happy, even if I don't have a quarter acre block to house via mortgage, my 2.3 children with my hypertension driven same sex partner. Am I insane?

Not anymore apparently.

It all comes down to one thing. Look at the past and compare it to now. Look at the biggest mistake you ever made and see how you recovered. Take in the downs and compare it to the stability found now, in purely existing.

I am healthy, especially my mind. I have family who are my rock. I have friends who actually rock. I have a job I love.

I don't live with a man who strips me back to my bones and lathers on the salt. I don't work with people who push me down to gain vertical ground. I don't have frenemies who cut me back at every progression forward.

Life is good. I have learnt from my mistakes. I have grown from the lessons. The scars that once ran raw are healed and reinforced with emotional titanium.

There is only beauty now. There is only happiness.

If you accept the biggest mistake you ever made and take something from it, then you will be fine. No, that is not true. You will be brilliant.

Acta est fabula.

Time fixes most things

Sometimes, I want to help people but I don't know how.

Watching people I love going through tough stuff is always harrowing. When I was suffering, it must have driven my loved one to feel as helpless and lost as I do know.

What I have learnt is that sometimes you can't do much at all. You just have to be there if they need you and make sure they know you love them.

Time fixes most things.

Please excuse me while I kiss this guy

"I want your ugly
I want your disease
I want your everything
As long as it’s free
I want your love
Love-love-love
I want your love"
-- Lady Gaga

She's a freak but all the best ones are. Like all music, it's how you interpret it that makes it mean more to you than just beats and sounds.

I remember reading an interview with Seal, in the 90s. He said that he never included the lyrics of his songs in the CD because he thinks you should hear whatever you hear. The song should mean something to you and that doesn't have to be what the song writer or singer said it would be. That has always stuck in my head, especially at times when people correct me for singing the wrong words.

There was a great moment once when my sister and I were playing competition Sing Star. That's Sony's version of karaoke. We were singing Culture Club. It was Karma Chameleon. I can't remember the right line now because I've learnt the correct words. Anyway, we were both singing and our scores were so close. Then we both hit a line and we both sang the exact the same words. They were the exact wrong words too.

We laughed hysterically and then she beat my score. She always does. Don't ever take her on when she is singing Torn by Natalie Imbruglia. She will kick your arse.

I guess the point is that the lyrics are whatever they mean to you. For all baggage and lessons learned. For all experiences that made you smile and weep. For all the losses and battles won.

The world is whatever you make it. It is whatever you see it as.

So what if someone else writes the lyrics? So what if someone with a nice voice sings the song? The meaning you give it is yours. All yours.

Just make sure you laugh if you get the words wrong at the same time as someone else :)

Like the Lama Guy

Some days I feel all wise and shit. Some days I don't. In the last few days, I've worked out some major 42 stuff and feel a need to share it. This is me sharing.

A few of my good friends are single. They are mid-20s+. They spend a lot of time thinking of whether the last person they dated is their next relationship. They spend a lot of time wondering if they should read this in to that and that in to this.

Lately, I have been reminding them that spending time thinking of these things is a waste of time.

Do you remember the days when we were late teens and early 20s? We lived life planning a future for ourselves and having fun. If we met a person that we fancied, we would think about stuff like if they had time between classes to have coffee or if we'd bump in to them in town on the weekends.

It was not a stressful ponder about if they were "the one"; if the wanted children; if they managed money well.

This is not important when you first meet someone. Focus on if you like them and if they are fun or share interests. Over-thinking the future is not that useful. It interferes with other important things like if the person is rude to the waiter or for some horrible reason wears white dress shoes.

Enjoy life. Like yourself. Don't go looking for too much, too fast. That just sucks the joy out of life.

These boots were made for kicking your...

I have never been the kind of woman who dresses for someone else. My clothes and my style exist for me. They are an expression of what and who I am. They are intrinsically driven.

Other women seem very aware of this. They do not assume that I bought a dress to please some random man in a pub. They do not assume that my heels exist to impress a man driving passed in his compensatory car.

My assumption is the women realise that they inhabit the Earth for more than the aesthetic pleasure of the opposite sex.

Unfortunately, too many men that I somehow end up in conversations with seem to assume that my appearance is to benefit them. In particular, the application of boots.

Let me clear this up now. These boots were made for walking and if you don't remember that then one of these days these boots are going to walk all over you.

Maths is for girls too

Honesty

“We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversation with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.”

- Thomas Moore

Now Hiring

Like Wil Wheaton said...

There are a million blog posts in my head, at any one time. There are geek ones. There are life ones. There are things I know will be written and never published. There are things that should be written but they will forever ride the neurons, never to become anything other than bubbles on the surf.

On Thursday, I was thinking about how much I enjoy my current job and wondering what makes it different to the places I have been in over the last few years.

Having worked with the best of my generation, on projects that challenged us; bored us; and always taught us something, it is interesting to find a place I like to be in the midst of a big country town.

Then I read Wil Wheaton's post about winning the actor lottery and that summed it up for me too.

If you can get up each morning and look forward to work because your colleagues challenge and teach you while making you laugh until the tears seep from your eyes then that is a good job. When you know that everything you achieve in a day is helping your client do their job better or soon will be then that is a good job. When there is no stupid office politics because people just want to get their jobs done and do them well, alongside you then that is a good job.

It has been a long time since that has been fully satisfied.

Life is fun. Your attitude helps but being around positive and intelligent people helps too.

The huge difference between now and before is that my attitude is different. I don't sweat the little things. I like life. I like people. It takes a lot to stop me from smiling.

The other big variable is people. I finally work with really great people. They are secure, decent, kind, driven, pragmatic, experienced and professional.

If you want to come and work for us then do let me know. I guess I ask only one thing and it's another thing Wil Wheaton says... "Don't be a dick."

You don't have to live with them

I'm a bit of a social butterfly. I have friends, acquaintences, people I air-kiss and other people whose faces are familiar so I smile as I go by.

In the last couple of years, time to myself has become a wonderful recharging break from the noise, excitement and stimulation of people.

When once I was 100% extroverted, some balance has been found. This is a good thing. I will always be a puppy dog who likes meeting new people but being alone and mindful is leveling the scales.

Now for point of this rant.

When you work with a bunch of people, you see them for around 40 hours a week. That is a large amount of your waking hours. I am not going to suggest befriending them all and spending time hanging out with them on weekends but at least be civil.

Too often, geeks can be so antisocial. They avoid work gatherings or sitting around the lunch table. If they do join then they sit silently and stare off in to space or talk at your about their latest technical discovery.

If any social emails go around, they immediately ask to be removed from the list. They aren't too subtle or friendly about it either.

I don't understand this. Some social lubrication makes work a nicer place to be. It seems sometimes as if the whole idea of people is distasteful.

Nothing changes for me. I still love getting up and going to work each day. It must suck to be so negative and uncomfortable around people.

Come on geeks, we don't have to live together. We just have to work together.

My Offer

“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings.” - Mahatma Gandhi

Your style is you

People talk about style as though it is something that you can go out and buy. An acquirable commodity that will appear if you follow a recipe in a fashion magazine. An emulation of the hottest star.

Style is none of those things.

Style is the ability to find a look that compliments your character and expresses who you are.

It is a personal thing. A me thing. A comfortable thing.

When you feel at ease in your clothes and don't trip on your shoes, you are there. Just be yourself and dress in what makes you feel good. That is your style.

Your style is you.

Scrum to Scum

It was quite satisfying to finally see that the rest of our population is disgusted with football players in this country. The Sydney Morning Herald published a story about the surveyed attitude of Australians to players from all football codes.

It seems soccer players are seen as the best role models. The most popular answer to which code had better role models was "none of them", which would have been my response.

I can no longer accept the behaviour of these morons and their clubs. They seem to be allowed to get away with the dumbest and sometimes illegal actions, as long as they feel great remorse following it.

That is simply not how decent people behave. We think ahead and consider the consequences to our actions and stop ourselves if it seems plain stupid.

It is not that hard. Do not urinate on shop fronts. Do not gang rape women. Do not let 17 year old fan girls take naked photos of you. Do not act like apes.

There are domesticated animals that behave better than these thugs. We need to clean up these sports and start (at least) toilet training these guys.

Even if they are leaving home at 16 and going to work for these clubs, someone has to take responsibility for teaching them how to become adults. Don't cash up a bunch of kids and tell them that they are gods and then expect much from them.

Australian society isn't impressed. Fix this, Mr Football.

Social Media Jerks

The absolute worst thing about any new medium is the mid-emergence jerks who dictate how to use it.

They are the losers who came to the party when most everyone is already tipsy and then started telling you how to play the drinking games.

I am absolutely over being told how to use, not abuse and to act loose in this new "social media".

They speak of "twittering" and claim to have "blogged it to Facebook". They count their followers and friends as some kind of quantification of their coolness.

It's sad to watch. They are quite pathetic and desperate to belong but also stand on the outer and legislate the behaviour of the sub-culture, based purely on observation.

Stop telling people how to act. Stop defining us like you're some kind of botanist in an undiscovered jungle.

You bore me. You can't sell me anything because you're a joke.

Go away.

Once this sub-culture went mainstream... there went the neighborhood.

Linguistic Suicide

Trust Degraded

One of my New Year's Resolution was to be more open to different kinds of people in the world. To not judge and reject people because they failed to meet a set criteria for those I would associate with.

For the last three months, that attitude has seen an array of characters waltz in and out of my life. It has to be said that I have never made a more stupid of harmful resolution in my entire life.

It was a mistake.

I have been used, abused, fooled, embarrassed, humiliated, hurt and brutally re-educated by the lowest forms of life, crawling this pretty enough planet.

Men have told me all I want to hear and then turned on me. Women have gained my trust, only to betray it so easily.

Wow! What a seedy world there is underneathe that one that I inhabit. There be dragons.

Resolutions are a good idea because they give you a new set of rules by which to try new things and reform your life. They don't always work. It's not often they fail so miserably for me but I guess that happens.

My trust has been degraded but I am learning more about myself and the environment around me. Is this a bad thing? Yes and no. It menas I will be less trusting but that is a good thing. Am I learning? Yes and no. Some of the things I am learning suck though and I wish I didn't have to suffer so much to gain the knowledge. Has this changed me for the better? Yes and no. I see that there is so much bad in the world but the contrast has made me appreciate the good.

For the record, this resolution has stopped dead. There will be no more accepting idiots for who they are and thinking they are deep-down good types. Nope, first impressions. Trust my instincts. Be less bleeding heart and more realistic.

Awea Damana

My mother on the right, with her eldest sister

Spending the weekend with my mother and her eldest sister has been more than wonderful. It shall take me some time to find the exact words for how special it is. Do you know those moments where you sit back and think "This is special. I'm going to remember this moment forever"? It was a whole series of those.

Last night, we sat around my sister's giant dinner table and listened to our mothers (in my culture, your aunts are also your mother and the term for them is mother) tell stories, while we ate the best apricot chicken ever. I can remember this to be how things have always been in our family. Stories are told. There are new ones, random ones and lots of old ones that are retold until they are burnt in to your brain. Sometimes, you correct the story teller and say "that's not what happened" although you were never there.

My mother is the second born of seven sisters. She has no brothers.

In a society run by men and for men, a brood of daughters is considered quite a handicap. My maternal grandparents never accepted that. The result was them bringing up 7 of the strongest and most impressive women that Papua New Guinea has ever seen.

From a village on the coast, over the other side of the Owen Stanley Ranges from Port Moresby to the best universities in the world came 7 sisters who achieved the highest at all levels of their chosen fields.

There are many stories that are tangential to my main one and they will be told in good time, possibly by me or by those who walked the walk. My story is that of my maternal grandmother or Awea (pronounced Av-ia) in the Korafe language from that part of Papua New Guinea.

Today we hear of single mothers who are struggling to get by. They rush home from their second job and passed the supermarket to get something to throw together for dinner.

My awea had seven children to care for after my grandfather passed away. She had her own garden and would gather food for the daily meal on her own. She fixed things around the house that a man would normally do and right before sunset, she would rush out and throw in a line to catch fish to go with the garden staples. Some nights she caught two little fish and other times she got a few more. That was all the meat that the family had with their dinner.

Yesterday evening, I listened to my mother tell the story of how she herself went down to fish to help her mum out. The third sister in my mum's family was a much better fisherman than my Mum ever was but this one day, it was my mother's go to provide for the family.

Mum threw in her line and pulled out a fish that was about 20cm long. It was a decent sized fish for one person and in the end fed all eight of them a small piece each.

Listening to my mother tell this story made me sad in that happy kind of way. She beamed with pride as she spoke of her chance to contribute and how much it meant to her family. This little girl with so many siblings and so little of anything else, had provided for the people she loved.

It is as if that one fish marks a very important moment for my mother, who now will not let a single person she knows go to bed hungry. She gives and gives without end. I often wonder when she will stop and give to herself but I guess after hearing that story again, I actually understood why now. That contribution felt so good that it changed her. It has lasted a lifetime. It makes her feel better to give and know that even if it is very little that people around her are not alone.

You can always have half of what I have. That's what my mother taught me. At least then, we both have something.

My mother is wonderful. Her mother was wonderful.

My grandmother, my awea was named Damana. In Korafe that means "star". I am honoured to have her name.

David Brooks: The Social Animal

Breaking the girl

In Australia, there is a big push to not push the less fortunate. I was brought up a staunch Labor supporter. Unions are the saviours of the working class and give the rights we now demand at all levels of employment and society.

This is a lucky country. A country where you can do so much or do so little, if you choose.

Immigrants arrive with a great work ethic and a different attitude to education and social responsibility. Where I grew up until the age of 7, education was a privilege and not a right. It was and still is a third world country. Health services are almost non-existent. People go to hospital to die, not to get better. I never drank tap water with fluoride in it until I moved to Darwin and this is telling in my smile. Every year of school is decided not just on a passing mark from the previous year but also on whether your parents can afford a good portion of their yearly wage to pay your school fees. Some families get to the point where they choose the smartest or most likely to succeed child to send on through school.

This is a different world to Australia where teachers are treated with contempt and blamed for discipline problems and the embarrassing literacy rate for a first world country. We even live in a time when it's politically incorrect to discuss which world (first of third) that someone lives in.

There is so much political correctness that a teacher is not allowed to fail a student, even if they fail. The end of semester reports are all worded in a positive light with not a tinge of truth, in case that would hurt.

Parents punch teachers. Students throw chairs at them. Teachers can't even pat a child on the head anymore. They will actually instruct a child to pat themselves on the back for doing well.

I know a male teacher in the ACT who decided that he was sick of being called to deal with axe wielding parents who were disputing custody issues on the school grounds, simply because he was one of two male employees on campus. He is now a fireman because that is a safer and less stressful job. Yes, fighting fires is safer.

Parents pop these children out and are rewarded a big screen TV in family benefits and then ongoing Blu-Ray costs. Children learn nothing at home and are sent to school and instruct the teachers to start teaching them stuff because their parents aren't impressed that they can't read or add or even construct a sentence.

Julia Gillard used to be the federal Education Minister, in the Rudd government. She clearly stated that the biggest priority in schools is the CHILDREN AND PARENTS.

She did not even once support the role of the educator. She pushed a nationwide curriculum on to teachers and took away their release time to make sure they could satisfy all the statistics gathering for the MySchools website. With all this extra work, they were given less time to do it, more meetings to attend and more work to do from home.

If I have to listen to one ore fool say that teachers get 12 weeks of leave and work six hours a day then I will bitch slap them silly.

I know a lot of teachers. They work more than 6 hour days. The do marking, planning; moderation; reporting to every man and his dog; statistics gathering; psychological support to children, parents and other staff; constant learning and reading; study to better their qualifications; and much much more.

These are highly trained professionals with degrees and other qualifications. Like all professionals, they work a lot in their own time to ensure they keep up with their profession and the changing world they work in.

They are educators, nurses, psychologists, prison officers, data entry clerks, surrogate parents, child carers and play a lot of other roles.

For this amazing amount of work, they receive a maximum of $80K (simply as a teacher) a year and little respect from the community and politicians.

Julia Gillard has made this worse. She is a disgrace and should know better as an ex-Education minister. I'm sure parents and kids and battlers are very happy with her but I'm not.

Parents should be teaching their children when they aren't at school. I knew how to read, write and do maths by the time I started pre-school. So did my siblings and my friends, whose parents were educated and valued education. We were immigrants too and education was a privilege. Teachers were well-respected members of society whose sacrifice and lifelong commitment to learning was valued, in those poor nobody third world countries.

People have to take responsibility for a nation of barely literate people who breed without concern for consequences.

I believe in social responsibility. I believe that all people should be educated for free, given health care for free and that poverty should be eradicated like the disease it is. I'm not saying stop helping. I'm saying, give a little credit where it is due. Stop being so horrible to teachers.

If I was a teacher, I'd scream that I don't get paid enough danger money for this job and walk out and do something safe like fighting fires.

The Great Wall of Ignorance

There is a good friend of our family in Darwin. We have known her for many years. She's beautiful, articulate, intelligent, qualified and cultured. She's been to more countries than most Darwinians know exist. I love hanging out with her. We have walked very different paths but share a similar view of the world - we like our lives and ourselves.

At breakfast today, we shared some stories...

I was talking to some acquaintances and mentioned the day Nelson Mandela was freed and the day he retired. One of the women sitting with us said "Oh, he's not retired." I was surprised and said that I thought he was just a statesmen these days. She agreed and said "Oh, he is a statesman. He's the president of the United States." In shock, I said nothing.

Another day after returning from a holiday to China, a friendly colleague asked how the trip was. "I climbed the Great Wall" was the response. She looked confused and then said "Oh, I thought they knocked that down".

To say some people live in a bubble is to imply that cocoon can be burst and reality let in. I sure hope that is the case one day.

Michael says

Beat me, hate me
You can never break me
Will me, thrill me
You can never kill me
chew me, sue me
Everybody do me
Kick me, kike me
Don't you black or white me

-- Michael Jackson

A good sleep

The best thing about a good sleep is that it puts everything in to perspective.

If those losers want to give me a hiding because I refuse to go out with their leader, then there isn't much I can do right now.

There is no point in locking the doors and waiting for a threat that may never come.

Instead, I'm going to continue with life and being happy. Those in this world who hate their lives and resent me for having it better, are of little to no significance.

They are bullies and this is no longer high school. Let them bring it. I shall face them head on and hold my head high.

My life is privileged and happy. There is no apologizing for the hard work I've done and the path I have chosen, to be here today.

Patrick Swayze said it best: "No one puts Baby in the corner."

Must I be dead?

Today has been lovely relaxed Saturday. My Mum and I hung out together and did our own thing. Siena the kitty and I, had a nice afternoon nap in the aircon while the humidity of Darwin belts those poor souls outside around. After a quick trip to the shop, I scored peaches and an affordable sparkling white with the soul intent of making Bellinis. They are currently my favourite drink, since I can sip on them and not really be drinking much. Sweet and fruity - perfect for the hot tropics.

I decided to make some meatballs for dinner, when the sun set at just after 7pm-ish. While packing the dishwasher and cleaning the kitchen, I came across a white envelope with my name on it. My name had been spelt "Demana" and my address was scribbled on it in big round writing. I opened it, thinking it was something a friend had dropped off in my mailbox. There wasn't a stamp.

In it was a plain white card containing a threat.

















I did what I was advised and called the police. I reported it and was advised to go in and talk to someone on Monday. It is quite terrifying but my mother is super strong and never gets shaken by anything.

The first police call-centre person that I spoke to was quite helpful. The second guy said to me that there was little that could be done and the police can't get involved unless I'm actually hurt. He said "threats happen all the time". I actually did ask him if I must be physically hurt before anyone cares. He said that is when the police can do something.

This is not the world I live in. I'm not used to threats and people knowing where I live. It's scary. To be told that nothing I'm feeling is valid until something terrible happens to me, makes me feel even worse.

I probably did the wrong thing but I called my ex and asked if him and his girlfriends could please stop harassing me. I wanted to try to reason with him before bringing in the cops. He laughed at me and said that he can't stop people from threatening me. He's not the police. This isn't his problem.

Knowing where I stand is good. I'm not going to retaliate. I'm going to keep collecting evidence and go to the police. I will not be waiting until someone physically harms me or kills me before getting help.

The police can expect a visit from me.

Today I don't feel like doing anything

I don't feel much like Mana today

Totally me, as a lolcat...

If only you could hear what I hear

Maybe I have a trusting face.

Maybe I am so high disclosure that people feel they know me and can trust me.

Maybe people feel for me and want to tell me that they know how it feels.


In the last few days, I have heard so many stories about people being bullied. They were children or adults. They were friends or they were partners. They were afraid and they got strong.

Thank you for your stories. It takes a lot of voice these memories when the people who did these things made us feel worthless. It takes strength to keep going and throw away those horrible times and forget the words that hurt so much for so long.

Keep being good people. Don't let bed people make you less than what you are.

Freer or Fear

I'm in a strange predicament.

After cutting off the axis of idiocy, who abused me the other night, I feel afraid.

Afraid that they will do something more. Something more frightening.

As for what, I don't quite know. Maybe turn up at my front door or send someone on their behalf. Maybe run in to me in the city and hurt me.

Hopefully, they are content with their emotional torture from the other night and will leave me be.

At present, I lock the door of the house when I'm both inside or away from home. I lock the car door as soon as I'm in it.

My heart beats a little faster when I see an old white Camry. I'm jumpy. Usually, I'm pretty blasé about everything. Not now.

I hope this feeling passes soon. The stress is very taxing.

WTH

Intolerable Cruelty

There is a guy that I broke up with. Let's from this point forth refer to him as Mr X. He and I have shared friends. We have stayed friends and hung out over the last few weeks.

Last night, he invited me out with our mutual friends. Told me where we were meeting and when. I was happy to go since I'd been working hard for the money, all week and wanted to get some time with my besties.

I got ready and grabbed a cab in to the city. Arrived exactly on time, as promised. No one was there yet so I grabbed a Bellini and a comfy couch, to pass the time. The party arrived one hour and 15 minutes after I got there. In that time, I'd slowly sipped my drink and read the text messages promising they were on their way "right now".

When my friends walked in, I only recognised two of them. Mr X and another woman who he hangs out with a lot. She's a bit of a groupy of his and has been a little aggressive towards me in the past. With them was another rough looking woman with tattoos. I did noticed all her tattoos were spelt correctly if that counts for much.

To say I was shocked is an understatement. I played it cool and tried to work out how I was meant to react to the situation. I grabbed a drink and agreed to sit and chat with them. After all, I'd just taken a $40 taxi ride to be there and was in a happy mood, despite the confusion clouding my head.

They then proceeded to tell me that he was a player and that I had been played. That he never wanted to see me anyway and I hadn't dumped him since he never liked me. It felt very high school. The three of them admitted to "being together" and I didn't bother to ask them to elaborate. They are a rough bunch while sober and they were doing shots by now. I was holding on to my second Bellini and still wondering how I should react. It was a bit like facing a lion who is mauling a friend. You want to save your friend but you don't want to get mauled. Unfortunately, this analogy sux since I was the friend being mauled and the friend watching. [Work with me here, guys]

After they started laughing at me and calling me naive and gullible, I drank the rest of my drink and excused myself. I got straight in to a taxi and headed home.

I was still in shock when the text messages started flooding my phone. They were ridiculing me and attacking me like a bunch of snapping hyenas. He had shared my number with them so they could hurl abuse at me in a howling unison.

As I emerged from the mental haze, I realised I was upset. I felt foolish and afraid and isolated and sad. That made me angry. I retaliated and said some mean stuff then realised that they are the type of people to walk up and glass me, to express displeasure at my excessive use of the word "bogan".

I turned my phone down. Once I stopped reacting, they stopped attacking. I got home, said hi to my Mum and headed straight to bed. I lay awake in silence - still shocked - from when I got home at 10:30pm to 2:30am, when the phone started ringing. It was Mr X. I didn't answer. Then the voicemail messages started coming. I listened to them. They called me pathetic and a loser. I was upset. I didn't understand. It felt like being bombarded with small pellets. Each did no real damage but in total, the bruises were forming. I turned the phone off.

This morning, I changed my number. This time, I'll guard that number. Next time, there will be no next time.

Interesting thing is that I stopped being upset once the phone was off. I couldn't sleep. In fact, I didn't sleep all night. Tried but no go. Got maybe 15 minutes this morning. It's been more than a day since I slept properly.

I know this feeling. This lack of all feeling. That numbness that comes when my brain turns off the feelings. When the sleep won't come, no matter how long I wait. I'm aware of what is happening to me. It's a slip back in to that depression. Luckily, I'm in a good place and know how to deal with this. Let it run its course. Let the moments pass in a safe place - at home and at work. Let the emptiness fill again with normal feelings. Let people I know and trust know that I need someone to look out for me at the moment. Let the rain come down.

It seems I'm dealing extraordinarily well with the situation. In the past, this would have devastated me. People I've spoken to this morning have said they might not cope so well. Me... I'm doing ok. It's a bump in the road. It's a blip on a radar. It's a learning experience from hell. It's all going to be ok.

Depression does not own me anymore. In fact, no one does. Not Mr X and his harem of banshee bogan skanks. Not the cloud that once engulfed me and made the air so hard to breathe. Nothing. Nil. Nada. Nuts.

Yes, it was cruel what they did. The world has some really nasty people in it. I am naive and a little too trusting at times. I'm learning though.

It's all about Gummi Bears

I've changed my phone number again. Yes, that is twice in a month. Before that, I had the same mobile number for almost 7 years.

Optus was actually a great help with this service. They were understanding and helpful. They didn't charge me the $55 fee that I was expecting, even though they told me that the next time would cost me. I guess they are reasonable when they discovered the number was leaked without my consent.

Why the change to my one unique identifier? Why the rush to the gates of anonymity? Some may even be wondering why they haven't received the latest incarnation of my ten digit name.

The reason is that I'm guarding this one with my life. Most folks email or DM me so I texted my number to the last few people who I have texted. If you do feel the need to call or text me then do send me an online message and I'll hook you up.

Hopefully, life will settle down and I'll stop bouncing here and there and everywhere.

Fall Again by Glen Lewis

Yeah, the you tube version of the video sux but I've loved this song ever since I heard it in the movie Maid in Manhattan. It's just mellow and sweet.

Universe v You

There is a form of negative thinking that used to dominate my thought patterns. It is now so easy to identify that I find it impossible to follow it down the road to negativity.

The negative thinking consists of one single premiss - that the universe is a force that is countering or trying to negate your happiness.

The typical thought starts with words like "whenever something good happens, the universe kicks my arse" or "I'm never allowed to be happy" or "something always goes wrong".

I used to honestly believe that with every positive moment in my life, there came an equal but opposite negative and painful moment. As if I sat on the scales of Libra in the stars and rocked back and forward at the will of some unstoppable force.

If you think like this... stop. This is not what is meant by karma. There is no invisible flattening wave that waits for your good cheer and then pounces.
Now, if something bad happens, I look at what may have lead to it. It's usually things I can see in hindsight or the actions of others that are beyond my control.

This world view takes away that feeling of helplessness.

Shit is going to happen but so will good stuff. Like most seemingly random events that are the result of a million prior choices, they aren't necessarily related to each other.

No one and nothing is out to take your happiness from you. I promise.

Discovering the world

At 34, the world is like a blur that is coming in to focus. Some days it is as if I stood up too fast and reality spins a little and then gauges itself.

All my life, I have walked a flat Earth. People told me that the planet was round and I even saw pictures of it from space. Still, I walked a flat earth. I knew in theory it was not as flat as it seemed to me but knowing something in theory is not always truly knowing it.

Today seems to be one of those days when the Earth feels round or at least roundish. Everything is a little more real.

As of now, I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Maybe it just is what it is... round.

Am I boring?

My friend Megan always tells me that when someone says something unkind to you that hurts you, you should always ask yourself why they are saying it. She says this in a sophisticated Scottish accent and always sounds wise.

Truth is that the truth itself can be delivered in a way that does not destroy a person's self image. I have heard people say "there is no positive criticism" but I do not agree with that. There is always something you can learn from criticism. Even if all you learn is that the person giving it is not a nice person.

On Boxing Day last year, I ran in to an old school... acquaintance. Can't say this person was a friend but we got to talking and became friends. There has been two decades between when we initially met and when we met again as adults. In that time, we have traversed very different paths. There is no chance that our lives would ever cross, except for pure chance. When you least expect or even need it, Chance will kick you in the bum.

From the day I can recall recalling anything, I was taught not to judge people. That people are all created equally and that even if you do not agree or understand a point of view, the person expressing it has a right to have it.

As in all theory, there is the painful reality that takes that theory and body slams it to the ground and then jumps in its minivan and backs over it repeatedly.

The mistake I made in my understanding of what I was told was that I thought this meant that everybody was like me. That I should expect from others, the same consideration and decency that I display in my day-to-day life.

Oh deary, what a shock it has been to find that the world is not full of well-meaning Damanas!

The two months since that Boxing Day my newest friend exposed me to what I can only describe as the Underbelly of Darwin life. There are people who spend most of their measly income on drugs and drink. Muscle men who inject illegal steroids through needles with gauges that I've only seen in cartoons. Women who beat other women. Men who were obviously bullied at school and go out almost every night in the hopes of drawing blood or putting someone in hospital. People doing drugs like speed at work. Strippers, enforcers, teenage single mothers to fathers who could be their fathers. Incestuous groups of friends who are confusing the gene pool. Domestic abuse. Oh, so many other disturbing things.

I have been told over and over by such people that I'm a boring person with an office job. I have no edge. I have no street smarts and that makes me dumb. If computers were turned off, I'd die and they would survive because they run this world. That there is nothing smart about spending time finishing school or studying at university. That life is about hardship and looking after number one. Oh, so many other disturbing things.

In the last few weeks, I have stepped away from this world that I am glimpsing through mostly fist covered eyes. I've seen the basic survival of these people. Their inability to want any more than what they have and to be at an uneasy peace with that. The constant raging torrent of anger and hate that thrashes through them. The way they constantly judge everyone they see around them, as if trying to find some reason they are better... some reason why their lives are ok.

At first, I was shocked... then sad... and then meh.

If this is the real world, then I like my boring, safe, predictable world where no one wants to "smash me" and I'm not constantly freaking out about seeing police cars. My boring vanilla world where people have common courtesy and are civil to each other, not because they are forced to but because they are mostly happy with life and don't see the need to be angry.

Why am I writing this? Maybe because I am not that street smart. I never knew this world existed. Truth is, I don't much care for it. I'm happy for it to be an underbelly. I personally prefer a slow cooked pork belly served with apples poached in champagne.