Late night shenanigans

Here I am again, at 1am, wide awake. I met with a close friend today who is home in Sydney for two weeks. She now lives in London and works between there, Glasgow and Nottingham. We had a 2 hour lunch in the Rocks, near where she used to live. We caught up on old times and the intervening 18 months since I had met her last.

She is the funniest lawyer I have ever met and we share the same first name. She reminded me how few available, straight men there are in Sydney and how many there are in London. She said, so many, that you practically fall over them on the streets.

With my current level of friskiness, I had a more than a fleeting moment about going back to London. I did meet some interesting men when I lived there. I just don’t seem to meet any in Sydney. I often wonder if I should move to Melbourne. I love Melbourne and it seems much more relaxed, communal and unpretentious compared to Sydney. I would however, miss going to work on the ferry, seeing theatre performances at the Opera House, at the Wharf at the Rocks and in Darlinghurst; or indie cinema in Newtown, Paddington, Leichhardt or Circular Quay. Get to the point… however, men "appear" to be more appealing in Melbourne.  

Earlier in the week, I met with my Canadian girlfriend and we went to see a play at the Seymour Centre called Love Song Dedications. Prior to the play, I told her the story of my silly indiscretions and she laughed hard with me. I have spent so much time saying I would never ever be caught in this particular Casanova’s trap and how stupid other girls are for being seduced by him. She laughed that I let temptation overcome me and I laughed long and hard at how random it was. It was completely unpremeditated. It had been July since I had been with anyone and I have been obsessing about sex ever since.

We laughed before the play and we laughed throughout. It was completely unpretentious and extremely funny. It sends up a late night radio show that is on air in Sydney that caters for the love struck proletariat and is hosted by the campest radio host. He weaves in between sincerity and irony so easily. There were about 8 different scenes all connected by one person’s story to the next. Each scene culminated in a hilarious sex simulation scene that did not involve any touching whatsoever. The exaggerated moves were a cross between Marcel Marceau and bad porn.

The actors were young and reminded me of the eldest of my three younger sisters who is studying drama. I called her up the next day and told her that I would pay for her and her boyfriend to go on Friday night. She said, "You’re kidding, I go to uni with all of those actors, they are my friends".

I picked up my little friend on Saturday. His mum is in trouble, he has not been going to school as the kids there have been hassling him about all of the trouble she is in. The worst case scenario means that she might be facing some time inside.

I had agreed to pick him up at 12pm, take him Christmas shopping, then to see Casino Royale at the cinema, dinner with my sisters at a local pub and then for a spin in my car through a local suburb that decorates its streets with the most ostentatious Christmas decorations you could ever find. I asked her if it would be too late for me to drop him home at 10pm. She said she was fine with that.

We had a fun time together, however, at dinner his behaviour was inappropriate when meeting new people, including the eldest of my three younger sisters, her boyfriend and my youngest sister’s boyfriend. Given the circumstances he has been in at home, I didn’t feel like lecturing him about it. We drove the 30 minutes back to his place to get there just a little before 10pm. His mother wasn’t there. We tried calling her mobile phone, we buzzed their intercom, we called out, and we drove around. She was nowhere to be found.

I had drive back to the kid’s home to drop off my little sister’s boyfriend back to his mum and then back to my little mate’s place again. In the meantime his mother turned on her mobile to call me to say she was on her way

home. I arrived back at their place and waited another 20 minutes for her to arrive. She was over an hour late and had been at the pub. 11 hours of ADHD.

Yesterday, I lay in bed, wrapped Christmas presents, slept, read other people’s diaries, slept, ate, and watched two DVD’s (“P.S. with Laura Linney and Topher Grace; and "The Weatherman" with Nicholas Cage). I like all three actors but at the end I thought to myself that I will never get those 4 hours back. What a waste both films were, completely unchallenging. Then I thought I would watch Hedwig and the Angry Inch but I was in a crappy mood by then and could not bear the "rock musical" quality to it. I had turned it off within 8 minutes.

I started to think yesterday about how easily I have let myself be manipulated by family, friends, lovers, managers and colleagues. I think that my new year’s resolution is to be a bit more considered about the choices I make when helping people. I found something on the net yesterday that discussed how people who have grown up with alcoholics become very people pleasing, and that they are always in fear of offending anyone or saying no to unreasonable behaviours. It sounded very familiar to me. I am known for my generosity. I have found in the past when I have turned off the cash tap that people, including with my family, people seem to disappear on me. When I put it like that, it sounds as though I am actually paying these people to be in my life and in effect I am.

You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.
Edwin Louis Cole

Anyway, I have done way too much thinking and not enough doing. It is time for me to return to my late night shenanigans.