Just because we're moving doesn't mean I can't blog

Just found this little gem in a bedside drawer:

Yo I'm a mother
I aint no fucker
I got 3 kids
I'm in the Biz
of keeping them in shoes
Shoe Biz
Poo Biz

The toilet gets grimy
The hubby gets slimey
And I'm feeling crimey

Wassup at the market?
Where'm I gonna park it?
Car park's full
RAV's got no pull
Up Punt Road Hill
So what
In the ghetto
You care 'bout all this?
It's all guns and drugs and hos and sheeyit

Well my reality
Don't think it's mundaneity
I'm going for totality
Don't think it's all a girls' lunch
All talk of play
and waxed vee jays
and chardonnay

It's dirty it's tough
And I've had enough
So I might just leave the hood

My hood is St Kilda
Where nobody kills ya
Not these days, anyway
It's all types of gentrification
And Fitzroy St fancy mastication
But still a little side-street masturbation
Condoms in gutters
Blow jobs, beers for nutters
What's the matter?
Anyway.


And then this, from a small boy:

To Melba,

I love you. I couldn't of survived without you. Your the reason I'm still alive. Your the best!

From Small Boy.



People who know the history of this blended family will appreciate how much this means. I need to keep this close to me, and to my heart, so I can continue to do my best for this child, and his sister. I'd forgotten he wrote me this so I'm glad I keep every skerrick of note, picture and meaningful word.

Happy Wednesday everyone, and love each other well.

oh happy, happy day. karma is for real.

i am working on a large diarama post, which will hopefully tide the more desperate of you over the next week, while i toil away, childless, on writerly things.

HOWEVER something just happened, which absolutely made my day, or year really.

first, a little background.

years ago, f i worked at a company. for a few years it was great, the best job evah, we all loved each other, we had such fun. we played cards at lunch time, and i had laughing fits the like i'd not had since secondary school. that's how good the job was, and the people were.

then, the worm turned. the boss, younger than me and very driven and ambitious and with an inner core of long-held rage, started to treat me in an increasingly bad manner. at first, it was really snide remarks, and comments. the cold shoulder. then not giving me much work, making things slowly intolerable for me. the atmosphere was horrible.

one thing i remember her saying to me:

"if i put you on a pedestal, if you fall off, there's no getting back on."

and then stating that i was her hero, that i was on the pedestal.

this should have made me scared, but at the time, it was earliesh days, and the affection was mutual.

then people started falling off their pedestals. her business partner. a supplier. another supplier. book-keeper. one of the designers.

then me.

at the end, i was doing things like cleaning the kitchen venetian blinds, just to keep busy.

i waited while i re-organised finance to buy my ex-husband out of our property, then i quit. i stayed in a horrible situation for months. just sucking it up, biding my time until it suited me to leave.

we had a farewell lunch, around the board table at the office. nothing special, i think we all just had our regular lunches. maybe someone else had bought some biscuits from the bakery, embarrassed that nothing had been planned. i guess she was trying to hurt me, insult me, humiliate me. i kept a brave face on, smiling. i don't even think there was a card, there was certainly no gift, which was so hurtful after the 3.5 years of dedicated service to her and her company, and the people i'd seen gifts given to. i asked for a reference, she said that she didn't give references.

now, i'm sure she had her side of the story. i'm not such a fool to think that it was all her fault, that i was faultless. i'd made a few mistakes. i also engaged in some kind of inappropriate emails with another supplier, where we were sort of laughing at her expense. and i did spend a lot of time at one stage on the internet looking up eminem lyrics. but that was during the months when i had so little to do. she must have read emails, and checked the logs or something. i'd ask politely for work, she would fob me off, saying there was nothing at the moment. how could that be? i could see everyone else was frantic, i'd always had plenty to do, so she was witholding and it was obviously her strategy to push me out, to make me leave, like some fucked-up boyfriend who doesn't know how to tell you it's over.

so imagine my surprise, delight, JOY to find out today that it wasn't just me who got burned. i just ran into a supplier who was really in the inner sanctum with her (this is what she did, had inner sanctums/sanctii, with exclusive members and it was all terribly terrific for her and her acolytes, but bad for anyone else.) when i was there i thought he would be with her until the end. he told me today he has fallen off the pedestal and that he's not talking to them anymore.

i can't tell you how much this pleases me and makes me feel better.

that last day of work, i walked out with a smile on my face, keeping it cheery. then i collapsed into the car and burst into tears and cried all the way home. that night, i'd calmed down, and had a secret dinner with the other 3 employees and we debriefed a bit, and i told them how hard it had been the last few months.

i often had wondered over the last 5 years or so whether i had been in the wrong more that i was willing to admit. i was thinking about it as recently as a couple of days ago. did she think i stole some blank cds? i'd bought them when i'd done the office shopping, and it was completely above board. did she think i broke her car? i admit, a sound appeared while i was driving it, but it was second-hand and just a coincidence. i never did anything bad to her car. what else? oh, there was the time i asked the book-keeper about my end of year bonus which had always appeared on my pay slip automatically. the boss flipped out about that, and i think even gave me a warning about it. like formally. yes, i admit i had consciously been provocative asking about it, and i should have asked the boss (but was too scared to) but really, was that so insubordinate?

i can't think of anything else, and none of us would bitch about her, even when things got really bad between her and me i never talked about it with anyone at work.

there had been no closure for me, nowhere i could put these feelings, and bad memories, of regret and loss. it was like i'd lost the idea of how i saw myself. as a basically good person. and i always try and do the right thing, i pride myself on it. so "how could she do that to me? couldn't she see me for the goody i am?"

now i have my answer. she did that to me, because of who and how she is, not me, and now i have to feel sorry for her because she is so toxic to those around her, and clearly miserable. but oh, the sweet, sweet glee to hear how there are now a whole list of people she has fucked over since i left. the person who replaced me. the person who replaced the other book-keeper.

i want to sing it to the world. i want to tell everybody. i want to contact the other people who got fucked over. i want to link arms with them and sway side to side and perhaps clink steins of beer together.

seriously. i can't tell you how good this makes me feel. that it wasn't just me. it wasn't personal.

i am a good person and a good worker, and i do the right thing.

this will sustain me for the rest of my life i think. and i have closure now, in a way that i never would have had on my own, without having this quick conversation with this other person.

i feel like dancing, singing, jumping for joy.

small confession

i just went and looked at fits' blog.

i thought, hoped, that maybe, just MAYBE, bettie page's death might have, MIGHT HAVE made her come out of retirement-perma hiatus, and do a little, JUST A LITTLE, WEE, TINY, post.

but no.

perma-abandoned is me.

but hay, i have some diary pics, to represent the younger me. so that's good.

yes i am mostly happy, yes i am mostly content, but leaving scotland broke this lassie's heart

so about a year ago we were in scotland. i had never been and always, always wanted to go. yeah, edinburgh was nice, a beautiful city, rah rah.
but the country-side. och, the country-side.
we drove up from edinburgh to loch ness, and stayed in a little bed and breakfast right on the lake. we did a boat trip, and it snowed while we were out there. they had this piped music on the boat, and it was all scottish reels and the like. i loved it, and my heart was bursting and even though it was so fucking freezing and everyone else went inside, i had to stay on deck and watch the dark waters, and the clouds and really, my heart was bursting with happiness.
princess gave her teddy, oscar, a surname. we became clan mc donald and got him a beer-can kilt. we ate haggis, we ate fish and chips. we drove to the isle of skye and i saw a sign that took me back to childhood, with my dad insisting i stay up late, at about the age of 8, and watch the best movie of all time - brigadoon.
as we drove, i played a cd of bagpipes that i had found in a shop in edinburgh. i wore my tartan scarf which had cost about 200 fucking dollars. cashmere. and i sang oh you take the high road, and i'll take the low road, and i'll be in scotland afore ye! and never will i see my true love's face again on the bonny bonny banks of loch lomond! over and over and i was driving everyone mental.
but i didn't care, because my heart was bursting with happiness.
we got to loch lomond, i pulled over, and said i'd just be a minute. i scrabbled down the banks, sat beside the lake, hearing the water lapping and just amazed that i was there. after about 3 minutes, voices, and next thing i knew, there were the three kids, plus oscar the teddy, joining me and ruining my moment. but i'd had it. i'd had my moment.

loch lomond

memorial to the mcdonald massacre, or was it the campbell massacre. anyway, it was really significant to oscar.

sign on isle of skye.

eilean donan

breakfast at our b&b - loch ness

look at the scotch. can you see the nessie-shaped ice block? look more carefully.

the heart-bursting boat trip.

the boat.

there are lots of good things in my life, particularly a readerly-affair with hemingway at this moment.

but there's no scotland.