Lou Sanz

At first glance people often thought Cathy was an ethnic, but the truth was she was just nicotine stained, a result of her mother smoking whilst pregnant with her.

The way her mother had seen it, it wasn’t like a barely formed foetus even had actual lungs and in her defence she had quit after 4 months, acknowledging the legal ambivalence that goes with aborting after 16 weeks; so in her mother’s words “she had done her best”, and hey, at least Cathy hadn’t been her older brother or sister her mother often reminded her.

‘But I don’t have any siblings’ Cathy would remark.

‘Exactly’ her mother reaffirmed.

Cathy was so excited to start her first day of school that she didn’t even let her stunted skeletal growth; a result of foetal alcohol syndrome, dampen her enthusiasm for her first day of school at St Joan of Arc Primary.

However, for reasons only God could account for, Cathy had been 4 days late commencing Prep C after finding herself delayed in bushland just off the Hume Highway with her mother, due to the recent introduction of booze buses onto Victoria’s roads. As such all the best seats, next to all the best kids were taken and Cathy was forced to make do with Andrew Morris; a lad already notorious amongst the establishment for picking his nose and eating it. Cathy laughed to herself, so her mother had been right all along, snot was a food group, something Cathy had learned after her mother had had a rather harsh month at the casino roulette wheel – a game which Cathy had often impressed upon her mother was more one of chance then a learned skill. But her mother was adamant; it was the only way she could see to double the amount of Cathy’s father’s wrongful death payout.

As Cathy’s mother would frequent the various “Happy Hour” haunts around town trying to find Cathy a new father or at the very least an uncle, Cathy would entertain herself by doing more task based activities then most young girls her age, like cleaning the backseat of her babysitter/ her mother’s Honda Civic. Acknowledging that Cathy was now old enough at the age of 6 to take on more responsibility, her mother finally gave her her very own key to the car and showed her how to wind the windows up and down. Cathy felt like a princess that day – it was like being given the keys to her very own castle, minus seat belts, or has as her mother liked to call them ‘optional extra’.

Of course as anyone knows with their own castle/ Honda Civic knows, such wealth does attract undue attention, and so every few weeks DOC’s (The Department of Children’s Services) would happen upon Cathy washing out her arm pits in a bus shelter toilet off the Nepean Hwy while her mother was off ‘dogging’ – something even Cathy knew her mother wasn’t very good at given they didn’t even have a dog ‘oh mum, oh silly mum’ she’s often think to herself.

And so Cathy would be taken away and put in a special home with other various nicotine stained kids and emotionally “back-footed” people and as was always the case, she’d make the most of it. Cathy had only ever stabbed by one of them and so considered it a home away from home. Except of course in this home Cathy had a bed, all to herself – but Cathy could never tell her mother any of this, because her mother didn’t believe in beds, well at least not as far as Cathy was concerned. Like her mother said ‘I’m not going to hand things to you Cathy on a silver platter like I was, life is meant to be tough, but hey sweetie if you can over come the obstacles, like a family predilection for a dependency on hardcore narcotics and sexually ambivalent porn- the you deserve everything great you can get, so in summary you need to earn the right to lie down” a right Cathy knew at just 6 years old she was far from obtaining.

But after a few days like always, Cathy had to leave such luxuries like a bed and heated food and return to her mothers upper-middle class newly renovated Brighton seaside bungalow and sit by the pool, as her mother lay nearby instructing “Florida” the houseboy on the best way to give her a thorough Brazilian wax. She really was a woman ahead of her time. Cathy laughed “oh mum, silly, silly mum.’

Dropping into visit a friend last week the last thing I was expecting was an intervention.

‘Well, an intervention of sorts’ my friend muttered, trying to avoid my look of disdain I was firmly aiming at her ‘a boyfriend intervention.’

‘I’m ok, I don’t need any help’

‘You say that Lou, but we both think Todd would be great for you.’

And by Todd, my friend and her boyfriend of barely 4 months meant, Todd – a guy who’s current interests were ‘mortgages and getting a girlfriend’…well just strap me down, shove a Still Nox in me and let him get started, I’ll struggle and scream at the time but apologise in the morning for my belligerence.

‘Don’t be like that Lou; we both think you’re being stubborn and what for? The sake of your own happiness?’

‘Yes, for the sake of this conversation I’m willing to sacrifice my happiness and not meet with Todd, I have no problem meeting people.’

‘But you never keep them do you?’

‘I’m a minimalist’

‘Don’t be cute Lou’

‘Can’t help it.’

‘Speaking of which, you’ve got 5 years of that cute stuff left, tops.’

‘5 years more than you’ I spat back

‘Well at least I have a uterus.’

‘What does that even mean? I have a uterus’

‘Do you Lou? Do you?’

‘Yes’

‘If you don’t use it, you know it disappears, shrivels up and dies and then you get cancer because something needs to grow there.’

‘You can’t practice using a uterus.’

‘Can’t you Lou? Can’t you?’

‘No, unless you’ve taken up late term abortions as a hobby.’

‘I can’t believe you just said that. We’re Catholic Lou – you’re general lack of tolerance for others just upset’s me Lou, it upsets me,’

‘I’m sorry’ I mumbled back as I realised I wouldn’t be sticking around long enough to enjoy a slice of the chocolate cake that had sat cooling on the kitchen bench during our conversation.

‘It’s ok Lou.’

‘I best be off then. Nice to see the two of you again. The tomatoes out the front look great.’

‘So should I tell Todd to give you a call sometime? You know before you launch into trying to have a career in comedy again? You know before you get too serious with it all?’

‘Yeah, that’d be great and I have the perfect date idea.’

‘Oh do tell’

‘I’m going to take him down to the train tracks and we can take it in goes pushing each other in front of oncoming express trains.’

‘You know what Lou, don’t bother calling until you grow up.’

‘That’s fine, wasn’t planning on calling anyway, I’ve run out of credit.’

I left my friend’s house feeling less than triumphant, maybe in part because she was slightly right, quite clearly not about the uterus thing but more with the ‘keeping’ thing. When it came to the ‘keeping’ thing, to say I was socially damaged/ inept/ prone to disaster would be putting it kindly, like a friend telling me that I can wear high necked shirts when even I know I can’t pull that look off.

An example of social retardation when it comes to intimacy and dealing with the men in my life was all too recent. I’d met a guy when I went away, we got on, we hung out, and it was nice. When it was time to call it a day rather than say something cool like ‘you must let me buy you a drink sometime’ (Ok, that felt creepy even as I typed it) or something honest like ‘it’d be nice to hang out and get to know you more’ (which once I graduate from high school will be of no use to me anymore) I merely gave him an awkward hug, slapped him on the arm and said ‘so have a good year.’ Yep, I know what you’re thinking, could you get any hotter Lou? Could you be any more alluring? No, I don’t think I could be even if I tried…

And then I went to a party and ran into someone more socially inept then me when it comes to the opposite sex, but more along the lines of he might be charged for a sex crime in the future and I had no interest in ‘keeping’ him. We were already friends, but I had been warned off being around him when he had been drinking from mutual friends, apparently he had some fantasy involving Latino housemaids and well you know me after one Vodka Cruiser…may I clean your banister sir?

‘Hi Lou you should keep that tan Lou, it suits you, how’d you get it?

‘It’s natural, I have olive skin.’

‘I’ve never touched olive skin before.’

‘It’s the same as any other skin.’

‘Can I touch your skin?’

‘No.’

‘If I bought you a drink maybe you’d let me touch it then?’

‘Can we please stop talking about touching skin.’

‘You’re a feisty girl aren’t you Lou…I like feisty girls.’

‘I’m sure there’s a website that’ll help you out there.’

‘Ha, you’re funny, tell me what are your thoughts on casual sex?’

‘That is can never be casual and that it’s not something I’m going to discuss with you.’

‘ooh, way to shoot a man down Lou.’

‘I’m not shooting you down, there’s nothing too shoot, I just don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Well maybe I can come home with you and talk it over, I think it could be fun getting to know each other..?’

‘No.’

‘It’s just my flatmate is a really loud snorer.’

‘You’ll cope.’

‘Be honest with me Lou, am I barking up the wrong tree? Was it the olive skin comment did that put you off? Do you think I’m a racist?.’

‘No, it’s fine..I’m going home.’

‘Wanna split a cab’

‘No’

‘You’re going to blog about this aren’t you?’

‘Yes, probably.’

Yes, so it’s day 1 of Falls Festival 2010. So far I’ve been told where the toilets will be set up eventually up and in the mean time to use a well positioned tree, I’m short enough and I’ve also completely alienated myself for the remainder of the festival from the campers to the right of me – a group of fit looking, young 20 something girls, the sort you could bounce off walls and I say that with a degree of jealously and 30 something loathing and envy – I call it ‘lonvy’. (Please note, it is yet to catch on, and before you email me pointing that out, quite clearly I’ve just acknowledged it, so best you go back to emailing Scarlett Johanssen about that dream you’ve been having of late about her, you know the one where you wake up wet and covered in shame…). I’ve managed to not make firm and fast friends here, but not for lack of trying.

Ok, so I was brushing my teeth in the dark, as you do, when I stumbled onto the girls next door trying to erect their tent, and to their credit they were trying to do it without tops on – yes, that porno my ex once dreamed up and pitched to me was about to come true. They scurried to cover themselves up as soon as they sensed my presence, but who was I to rest on ceremony?

‘Don’t cover up on my account’ I remarked, suddenly painfully aware of lack of bra beneath layers of tracksuit jumpers and gravity. ‘It’s nothing I haven’t seen before’ and yes, I said it with all the creepy the weight of a peodophile languishing casually outside a school playground. The girls moved faster to cover themselves up and as such I just kept going with it..’I've got my own pair you see, but they’re just a lot bigger than any of yours.’ Yep, what followed was a well deserved silence. ‘Um, no I didn’t mean it like that, I meant that if I could I would get around erecting tents with my top off too, not that I haven’t erected a tent in my time and I’m sure my pair have something to do with it if you get my drift (note, a blind Japanese whaler would have gotten my drift), if anything I’m just really jealous, cause by the looks of things you don’t need much support do you?…like you’d do a nice strappy sundress the justice it deserved right?’ Again silence, followed by me removing myself from the situation and now I’m sitting in my tent by the light of my torch waiting for them to go to bed before I position myself outside their tent for the evening and just watch them sleep.

Over the weekend a friend of mine (and I can say ‘friend’ cause we’ve known each other over 25 years, so yes, there is an affection there) tried to set me up, once again. Given she’s now decided to breed her efforts have gone from ‘just go chat to him Lou, feel out the situation, see if you like him’ to ‘his parole officer assured me he goes to his drug testing and sex addict therapy sessions like clock work every week, and who says you can’t find a consistent man these days…I mean if you ask me, we’ve just given up looking, I mean he’s never committed aggravated assault and I reckon that shows gentlemanly restraint– eh Lou?’

This new man, well she’d been on about him for over a year, but when she opened this time with ‘come on Lou, he’s like family’ even she knew she’d have to try harder.

‘He works in television’ she declared ‘or as you refer to it Lou – the ‘talkie box’.

Ah, well just lube me up, tied me down, spank the engine and let’s get started!

Unfortunately for this poor guy, let alone me, this wasn’t the first time my friend had tried to get us to both ‘feel out the situation.’

At an engagement party a few months earlier, and herself newly married, she was on a mission ‘to sort me out’ insisting that to do so ‘would right all the wrongs in the world.’

I poured myself another glass of wine out of the box and wondered out loud if my body weight, coupled with my teetering heels could support any sort of rope like device I could fashion together out of napkins and then loop over one of the rafters looming over me without my neck snapping before I lost consciousness and the pain went away. Helping herself to the last cashew nut without even offering to me first, I could tell I was trying her patience.

‘So, you see anyone, or anything that takes your fancy Lou?’

Surveying the sea of industry t-shirts, frosted man hair tips and calls of ‘let’s go to Revolver after this’ I quickly surmised the only thing I ‘liked’ were the well lit exit signs highlighting the two escape points at the bar/corporate function centre that evening.

‘Um, I quite like those things wrapped in pastry with the spinach and potato in it – what do your people call them again?’

‘Pasties’

‘Ooh, exotic…is that African?’

‘Don’t be a dick Lou.’

‘Sorry.’

I fingered at my luke warm pasty and knew that without any tomato sauce on hand; I was a fool to have thought I could enjoy it on its own merits.

‘What about him?’ she pointed to a guy wearing a vest.

‘It’s because he’s wearing a vest isn’t it?’

‘He’s your type’

‘I don’t have a type’

‘Yes you do, especially if you call guys that don’t actually turn out to like you a type.’

‘I hate you.’

‘Hey, don’t blame the soldier who drops the truth bomb, blame the….’ She stumbled.

‘Yep, blame who?’ I pointedly asked.

‘..Dunno, but you get my point.’

‘No I don’t’

‘And anyway, he might be gay.’

‘You’re trying to set me up with a gay man?’

‘Would it matter if I was, not like you haven’t tried to climb that mountain before…?’

 ‘I mean he wears vests Lou, come on, that’s hot, he knows how to use buttons, even you’ve got to admit Lou that takes skill.’

And so like a dog who wants a bone, or to bone something (I should’ve Googled this analogy but I couldn’t be arsed) she continued, unrelentingly to try and get me interested in the guy who wore vests and had a flare for buttons and so imagine months later, standing together at mutual friends sons christening,  when she was able to reveal he worked in television – I mean, I’m still amazed she didn’t come on the spot, but in hindsight it was lucky for all in attendance she didn’t, I’d run out of handy wipes only hours earlier.

I stared at her now pregnant belly and realised to blame the parasitic appendage growing inside her for this vendetta she seemed determined to fulfil was probably irrational and to be honest I’m pretty sure an unborn foetus would be rather reluctant to throw in it’s two cents about my personal life given it had yet to fully form fingernails or genitals for that matter – it clearly had no right to an opinion.

‘It’s great he works in television, really good for him.’

‘Is it because you don’t own a television Lou, is that why you’re not even giving him a chance?’

‘No, that has nothing to do with it.’

‘You’re so narrow minded Lou. I bet if he worked in books you’d be all over him.’

‘Yeah, you know me and guys who know their way around a dictionary.’

‘Don’t be crass Lou, we’re in church.’

‘Yeah, you’re right, shouldn’t we be more focused on the baptism right now then say getting me sorted?’

The priest glared at me as I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. To be honest I don’t do church, let alone religion and each and every time one of my friends insist on getting married or indulging in some church based activity I feel a growing resentment festering inside me which will probably give me cancer and then I’ll question my faith and return to the fold – damn those Catholics and their insidious forward planning.

‘Now, everyone feel free to come forward and anoint this child with your touch and welcome him into the house of the Lord and show him that you can guide him through his spiritual life.’ The priest motioned towards us. My friend stood up to go and give this kid a kick start/ head kick in life and waited for me to stand.

‘I’m not doing it, I’ll be damned if I’m going to be any child’s go-to-guy.’ I stated.

‘Wow, first its guys in TV and now a baby, you’re unbelievable – is there anyone you will do Lou?’

‘Sure there is, just not a baby or people that work in television, yep colour me selective.’

‘I’ve got hand sanitiser on me if that’s the problem.’

‘Well why didn’t you mention earlier you had that social lubricator on hand?’

‘Don’t be like that Lou, I’ve got the message – I’m going to stop interfering, you quite clearly don’t want to be helped.’

‘Oh come on, don’t be like that, get me lathered up and let’s go touch us some babies.’ I remarked sarcastically, in hindsight, a little too loudly…

Now, not to go into too much detail but did you know how rare it is to suffer second degree burns from Holy Water? It’s probably rarer still that the priest sprayed the Holy Water on me himself in an attempt to out some supposed ‘spirits’ and to keep me away from one of God’s children.

After the service he apologised as I scratched at the blisters now glistening across my cleavage and police took witness statements and my friend explained to him and the irate parents of the newly christened child that perhaps she was partly to blame for my ill-timed and even I can admit, highly inappropriate outburst but come on, she went on, I’d rebuked the chance to form a meaningful relationship with a guy that worked in television, yes television and liked more of a challenge then the average zipper could offer!

The priest looked at me and then spoke, clearly, making sure his message was heard ‘How old are you Louise?’

‘Um, I don’t really know what that has to do with anything.’

‘She’s 30’ my friend offered up.

‘Well then, I think this is a lot of fuss about nothing, and I’m sure God would agree with me but being 30 and all you’re probably already barren aren’t you Lou and you know what they say – if you can’t fertilise the lawn you might as well just pull it up and fill it with concrete and whack a hills hoist in the middle of it.’

…well at least someone was on my side J

There was a time, long before arts council grants, Centrelink retraining schemes and selling my belongings on Ebay that I made a living doing something decidedly different, I was a life model. When I explained to my father what I was doing to pay the bills he no longer had too, his reaction was surprising ‘well Louise I’ve always thought you a bit of a role model myself, tell me – are there children involved?’ My mother chuckled to herself as she decanted the final box of wine she’d been saving into my limited edition Sesame Street flask she’d found in a recent spring clean so she’d have something to drink on the way to her line dancing classes and relished in explaining to my father that a life model was someone who took their clothes off for strangers, it just involved a little more turps and a little less masturbation say as you’d find in strip clubs. Once that was cleared up my father’s reaction was a lot more consistent with his character “el aumento de t mi hija a ser prostitute, no con una educación de la escuela privada, nadie ahora le casará. le destinan para morir solamente.” (which loosely translated means ‘no daughter of mine is a prostitute, not when I paid for private school education. No one will ever marry you and you will die alone”).

It wasn’t like I’d sort this lifestyle out, I could barely take my own clothes off in the dark in front of my blacked out mirror, clutching a string of rosemary beads and lamenting the mark my under wire bra made in my chest cavity without cringing, but it was something about this unknown bohemian artistic world that held an undeniable allure for me, a middle class girl from Brighton with a penchant for ill-blended Australis foundation and then there was the simple truth that surely like any good 18 year old Catholic school girl, I’d be a fool to give up the chance to catch syphilis off a 50 year old disheveled hobby painter who’s wife didn’t understand him, nor did the prostitutes he frequented on St Kilda Rd.

Of course I’d be lying if I didn’t on admit on some level that I was excited by the idea of meeting older more experienced men who knew that a way to a women’s heart was not by treating her like an un-lubricated sock puppet, men who would flower me with gifts like limited edition penguin books that had been well thumbed because they’d kept them since they were boys and the pages not only smelt of life experience but of lovers past and present and let’s be straight- at 18 I could do with all the practice/ training I could muster – (let’s just say the idea of bleaching the hair above my upper lip didn’t really come to me in a light bulb moment until about 21 and as such I’d been following a strict diet of beggars can’t be choosers).

I posed for all sorts of people and soon realized that a surprising number of people will pay good money for a young women to sit naked in their lounge room/studio/backseat of their cousins Daihatsu and paint them, and also that most were devoid of any sort of talent and as such most paintings of me often looked liked that of a right handed kid boasting to his mates that he’d given it a go with his left. In fact out of the 5 or 6 regular artists I worked for, only about 3 were actual ‘I vote for the Greens’ proper artists and the rest just wanted someone to talk to and paint naked (and yes, that’s as awkward as it sounds). By 20, I realized that I like most people never ever want to see a swollen prostate again and how it hurts to pee ‘here I’ll show you’ nor did I want to know how you might take out our local government if a revolution was forced upon the City of Port Melbourne.

Many of these conversations and people blended into each other, well that was until I met Francine*. She was the wife of a very, very well known film maker, his 4^th wife if IMDB had anything to say about it and I had come highly recommended to her by the boy who made her coffee at the local café who’d I posed for once (he’d gotten a gift voucher off his aunt for the local Tafe college) and he couldn’t help but rave about my jaw line (obviously this caused much confusion with many potential clients given the insinuations one can make about a girl with a good jaw), bur Francine was different – there would be no look of bitter disappointment of her face when I refused to go down on her.

We talked out books, feminist literature and what she hoped to achieve out of her latest series of paintings. She wanted to explore violence and women and for the first time in my career as a life model I honestly thought that somehow my naked physique, on canvas could have the potential to change the world, that one day it would hang in the Louvre and a whole new generation would stand in front of my image, as if on a pilgrimage and delight in trying to figure out if I was smiling and frowning, yes I might even have gone as far as to have imagined that at some point my visitors would out number that of the Mona Lisa and I would still be alive to enjoy this adulation, but in some horrid twist of fate I’d never get to enjoy the fame properly because the aforementioned syphilis would’ve rotted half my brain away and I’d have been institutionalized for the better half of 25 years.

It was decided that I would pose for a series of pictures about a woman trying to escapes the ‘constraints of society’ (please be aware, these were well before the days that hyperbole became common place). As a progressive woman I was fine with this, more than fine, fuck, I was adamant that this was my fate, well that was until I saw the chains and the blindfold and that whip laid out on the table in front of me. ‘I thought you were going for a more subjective definition of violence’ I offered up, as a reminder of sorts to Francine ‘I thought we decided against a more literal interpretation, you know because of all those damn pesky health and safety rules’.

She rolled her eyes at me and laughed ‘come on Lou, you’ve got to break a few eggs to a make an omelet’. Whereas I did agree with her on the whole issue of eggs being needed to make an egg based dish philosophy, I did struggle to see how that had anything to do with my being bound and gagged to a chair for the better part of a day, 4 hours drive away from the city and with a mobile phone whose battery had just died.

Now let’s be clear, I’m not opposed to a little bit of ‘how’s your father’ but it usually involves ‘safety words’ and to be blunt not with people who are paying me by the hour. ‘Maybe if you don’t tie me up properly…’ I muttered. ‘And what would be the point of that Lou, to deny the world truth?’

‘What if we made a deal not to tell the world? You know just keep it as our little secret?’

‘Don’t you want to help the women of the world Lou?’

‘Yes, I’m all up for that, I’m just not sure how entirely I’d be doing that, legs spread, chained to a dashboard.’

‘You can’t argue that we’re not on the same page Lou, visually you chained to a dashboard would be a very striking image’

‘Yes, and so are snuff films but the general consensus is that no one in a civilized society needs to see either of those things’.

Francine took another line of coke and eyed me up and down and I felt a pang of guilt, after all I was all that currently stood in her way of being able to create her opus dei, well at least until she got back to town and hired another girl to lure out to the country with the promise of revolution.

‘I’m sorry’ I told her ‘I can’t be tied up for art, it just makes me feel exploited and to be honest it goes against my whole feminist philosophy and I thought after everything you said it would go against your philosophy too.’

Francine paused for a moment.

‘Listen Lou, I’ve never been particularly that interested in changing the world, I’m just an old women wanting to get her leg over and what with your chronic acne and poor posture I thought you’d be a sure thing, but hey that’ll teach me to judge a book by it’s cover.’

She fingered the strap-on she that had somehow magically appeared from her hand bag and lamenting her defeat dropped it back into it’s home of darkness before taking another line of coke and a swig of wine and I couldn’t help but think to myself that it was going to a long, naked walk home.

The phone call started out simply enough ‘I’d like to start by saying thanks for coming in for the job interview last Wednesday’…yep, I muttered as I realised a little too late that another chocolate bar had melted in my handbag ‘but unfortunately you didn’t get the job’ they continued – shit, my entire train pass was covered in Mars Bar – (note to self: start diet tomorrow). I went to hang up, but the caller continued ‘it’s not to say your CV wasn’t impressive, and your presentation was impeccable with the exception of your shoes’ – excuse me? My shoes? ‘yes’, she continued –’they were wet.’ Of course they were wet I thought, I mean it was torrential rain outside that day, and short of a valet carrying me inside or gracious men covering the wet pavement with their coats, my goddam shoes were going to get wet.

I muttered my thanks and went again to hang up, when –’and there’s something else’ – oh fine I thought as I forced myself on the train and barely managed to escape the clutches of some sweaty man who was going around declaring himself a patron of women’s hair (but I love da blondes he muttered as he stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a clump of blonde hair) – ‘it’s just, you lacked that certain something, that special quality that it takes to be – (a what? A glorified typist? Please….), that little something extra we were looking for, basically at the end of the day you weren’t well special enough.’ And with that she hung up.

As if on cue my mother called –’ok, pay up – I knew you wouldn’t get it.’ She was right and supportive but to be honest I wasn’t really surprised I didn’t get the job, it was more the comment about not being special enough – like was she saying ‘special’ in the retarded sense? Or special in the way that we’re led to believe we all are, and then I realised it, for the first time in my life I was being called average – sure I’d been called lots of things, but average – nup, not one, and that I idea was so distracting that I didn’t even realise I’d boarded a train in the wrong direction, an express train in the wrong direction and everything suddenly smelled of urine!

Turning to my left I noticed a women squatting in the corner relieving herself – as one does on public transport. Suddenly a firm tap on my shoulder drew me from my dazed state and a tight-lipped older woman accosted me from behind – she started going on about how she’d over heard my conversation and she just wanted me to know that all the Chinese were special, she’d lived there for 2 years and sure we all looked the same, but we were all special, and how dare someone say I wasn’t special when you could tell by my shoes that I struggled to come to this country and make something of myself. All I could think while she continued to ramble on about how she ran a refugee support group, was how much I hated express trains to fucking no where and more importantly how do I break it to this women that after spending 2 years in China she was still at a loss to spot the difference between a Chinese person and someone of Irish/Spanish decent.

So I thanked her for her sentiment and she grinned a cheeky smile adding that my English wasn’t half bad – I thought it best not to mention I had a Masters in that very subject and with that I flung myself from the train and onto the tracks below.

I think I attract idiots…work with me on this

Let me tell you an inspiring story. I went on a date once, with this – I’m going to call him ‘idiot’ for the purpose of this story. He seemed nice enough. Seemed to know an awful lot about me…but I’ll get to that later…

It was my own fault really; I shouldn’t have even been out to dinner with him in the first place. I was already seeing someone, and even though I’d made that abundantly clear to the idiot, he still insisted on us being friends, and as such friends eat dinner together and I couldn’t argue with that sort of logic, but when he turned up at my door dressed in a pressed suit and holding flowers, well I should’ve been concerned, because my definition of ‘smart casual’ was a little more relaxed and involved me wearing the same pantyhose from the night before. He insisted I take the flowers  -after all the petrol station was giving them away to any customer that spent more then $7.00 at the pump.

I texted my boyfriend to tell him I was being kidnapped, and when he told me to ‘have fun with that’; I decided that the evening was going to stop short of reckless abandonment.

As we drove up, and up into the hills, away from the taxis’ and buses, away from the authority of the law I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d left with my mother with any decent photos of myself, should police and searchers need a point of reference for identification…he even told me that for shits and giggles he’d Googled me, searched the archive section of the state library and had a cool pic of me in his wallet, just in case he found himself in a situation where he needed to describe me to someone…’5’3″, brown hair, olive skin, last seen in the presence of someone in desperate need of help…’

I’d met idiot boy at party with work colleagues I was in the process of barely tolerating at the time. He thought I was funny and cute – a pocket puppy I think was the term. I was drunk, miserable and hadn’t seen my then boyf in over 6 months – I would’ve accepted a dinner invite from someone on day release…

Finally we arrive at the restaurant -or should I say winery. We were led to a remote table for two, complete with candlelight and our own private waiter. Had it been a Monday night I wouldn’t have blinked, but I couldn’t help but think that for a Saturday evening, it was a little more then decadent.

I excused myself to the bathroom, where I broke my rule and called my boyf in Oxford – demanding that he come and take me home NOW! He made up some dreadful excuse about being stuck at work, or being in another country – but either way I didn’t want to hear it and promptly hung up, dropping my phone in the toilet at the same time.

Back at dinner, an arrangement of food and bevies had been delivered to the table. I wasn’t impressed -he’d ordered for me, and that was one liberty I wasn’t having, but I didn’t want to give him any hope, so I let this charade of a chat between friends continue.

As for the caviar was plated onto our gold leafed plates and I took out some nail polish to stop a ladder in my pantyhose, idiot pulled out a small box, neatly wrapped – David Jones I think and a card.

It wasn’t a public holiday, my birthday, Hanukah, Saints Day, nor the running of the bulls…what was he like? Before I could fill my wine glass he opened with the notorious line of ‘you’re special’ – oh Christ I muttered. ‘Thanks’ I responded ‘but you do know I’m seeing someone at the moment, and you’re really nice and everything, and I’m sure-’ He placed finger over my mouth, my red Coral Colours Lipstick smudging over my face, and he opened my card…now I don’t know how many of you reading this have any been in the presence of a serial killer, but I think I was pretty close, as I was forced to sit there listening to him recite his card – an ode to me- yep, he’d taken every letter in my rather long name and found a word that perfectly described me, but when he told me I was like a flower, and I vomited a little in my mouth I knew it was time to set the record straight.

This did not go down very well at all – let’s just say that after carefully explaining that I wasn’t going to advance on his intentions he called me a ‘bitch’…’a prick tease’…and my personal favourite ‘a not very nice person’.

But the kicker was, he got up and stormed out – fitting me with a $270.00 bill + tip, a broken phone, not enough money to take a cab home and a really embarrassing tear in my stocking and not to mention a fucking awful pink card with my face superimposed on it, over his – creating a ‘perfect unison’.

The dish pig in the kitchen was lovely and kind enough to give me a lift back to town, and oh what fun we had as he told me he’d never met such a pretty girl on his day-release program- and no need to worry, he was was heavily medicated – and with that we cracked open another beer.