Forgive me Christmas Father, for I have sinned, it has been two months since my last blog entry and I am really....oh what the fuck.....I can't even fake it.I've been busy.
You know how it gets.
Besides I am not even Catholic so the only beads I own are either bright and sparkly and designed to go around your neck and be worn with matching earrings or purple and rubberized and designed for play in the bedroom, and I'm not sure what sort of purgatory I would be invoking on myself if I started saying sorry poems to the Virgin Mary whilst counting off anal beads on the MTR.
Perhaps none.
I read the papers.
They like the twisted ones in the Catholic church.
But back to me.
The year is coming to a close, and I have started my annual " What have you done today to make you feel proud?" summation of my life to this point.
It's pathetic, and a bit heavy, but it's become the habit of my lifetime, and I'm at peace with it.
Those of you with access to either my haiku blog or my facebook page will have no doubt observed my tendency towards public documentation of my days.
If I can sum it up in 17 syllables and/or a photo, I'm good to go.
I think there are some who misunderstand the motivation behind such observances, believing it to be ego based and therefore ego driven, but this is not correct.
I document because I am forgetful, and the pace at which I live has forced me to accept that if I don't write it down or record it, it will be gone from my mind within days, if not moments.
I would like to lay the blame for this early onset 'out of sight out of mindedness' on the excellent years I spent harming my delicate brain cells with class A drugs, but it has, in fact, always been thus.
I have selective memory.
Often my mind makes arbitrary decisions about what is important and nothing is selected.
Therefore I write stuff down, usually in poetic form because it's shorter and it makes me look creative.
Plus , if I diarised the way others do it would reveal my secret fetish for exploring the lives of others.
Yes, I like to watch.
And do, of course,
But watching is my favourite.
I'm a Leo, we cats are naturally curious.
So this year, rather than list a bunch of things I have achieved and create a public wish list of improvements I should like to make to myself in 2011 ( HOLY FUCKING JESUS) I shall instead put down in writing some of the things I have come to observe and state them here without comment or judgement.
And about this I feel very strongly.
I have opinions, strong ones that I am not shy about, but the older I get the more I am certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that my opinions are only that.
Opinions.
My thoughts.
They are relevant only to me and MY lifestyle choices.
There are things I would never do, but if you want to do them, go ahead.
I shall continue to watch from a safe distance and be standing by with gauze and Vasoline should the need arise.
This list is about love.
Observation Number one:
No matter how intelligent a woman is, she can and will, make stupid choices about men.
This has something to do with the desire to be held at night and to be invited to dinner parties that require even numbers.
If the man is handsome and/or arrogant, this is even better.
If he has money that is a bonus, but most woman over a certain age accept that a functioning circulatory system and a cruel streak is just as rewarding as a bottle of Piper Hendrick brought to the table at 4 in the morning.
Younger women do not know this and place a full wallet at the top of the 'must have' list.
They fuss and flutter over his ability to sign credit card receipts whilst holding court in a crowded nightclub with a nose full of blow and permanent hard-on brought about by his own awesomeness.
Older women will love a man if he can make it home by 1am without actually vomiting on himself or her or pissing in his pants.
When that same man dumps her for a younger model, she will cry heartfelt sobs about his inability to appreciate her accepting manner.
She will question herself endlessly and try and rationalise his revolting behaviour by diminishing her own self worth.
She will find excuses and make allowances for treatment that she would never accept from herself.
His 'being male' will be enough for her to cut him so much slack that eventually they will both be killed by the rope.
Then she will snap out of it, and start the process again.
Observation Number two:
No matter how intelligent a man is, he can and will, make stupid choices about women.
This has something to do with a desire to be held at night and to be invited to dinner parties that require even numbers.
Men love to make goals and achieve them.
Men do not have vagina's or wombs.
These two facts seem cruel when placed side by side.
If I was designing a man I would defiantly give him both placed somewhere handy on his body.
I think that if men had built in vagina's the world would be a much nicer place for a whole bunch of reasons.
Men think flattery is real.
They think that a woman will hang off his every word because she has never heard words before.
Remarkably, the younger and more financially disadvantaged the woman is, the more amazing the words seem to be.
When he has run out of words, he can use his penis to express his feelings.
This is a great convenience indeed because his penis is an excellent judge of character and does an awful lot of the thinking for him that would otherwise require his brain, and that brain is busy thinking up words.
When his penis discovers an older woman it would like to meet it tell the man by taking over his whole brain.
He is then free to think, sound and behave like a dick.
When the young, financially disadvantaged woman his penis fell in love with becomes old, she will repay this prickish behaviour by removing his balls.
He will cry heartfelt sobs about the injustice of a life spent dedicated to warming her cockles with his remarkable blood flow and hard earned dollars.
Then he will snap out of it , and start the process again.
Observation Number three:
No matter how intelligent a gay person is, they can and will make stupid choices about love.
This has something to do with a desire to be held at night and to be invited to dinner parties that require even numbers.
I love the gays. I have children who have The Gay and I love them.
Being gay means you run the risk of falling in love with someone whose preferred genital position does not include bits that look like there own.
For woman gays- and this is a bit of a guess- I think this poses less of an issue.
The trendiness of lipstick lesbianism is such that most girls below a certain age will happily admit to a bit of drunken girl on girl action if the mood seems right, and most hetero men will pay money to watch same.
If a lesbian comes onto a straight woman in a bar, a straight woman will most likely be flattered, if not slightly aroused, and there's no harm there.
If a gay man comes onto a straight man at a bar..........well, you've no doubt seen the news reports.
As one of my gay sons said in a moment of massive understatement " it's a bit of a risk".
But when it comes to love, and not just lust, the same rules apply to homosexuals as they do heterosexuals.
Broken hearts an non-exclusive.
Whether you are a man or a woman, the man of your dreams can heal you and hurt you with equal force.
Everything written in parts 1 and 2 applies to you too.
Observation Number four- and my final observation about love this year :
People need love, they need kindness and they need someone to hold at night and sometimes in the day, and they need to feel included and to be invited to dinner parties, even when the numbers at the table don't add up.
The lesson that has been re-enforced to me time and time again by my voyeurism this year is that in order to be loved for who we are, we must learn to love ourselves first.
That means we must stand up for ourselves and demand decency, we must place a value on our feelings and not be prepared to sell them for any less than their worth, and we must not use our hearts as bargaining chips.
I have seen people I love be hurt by the selfishness of others, and punish themselves for being human enough to feel the pain.
I have also seen people I love be warmed by the glow of kindness and friendship and watched with joy as they open their arms to the hope that springs eternal.
What a wonder to watch people who matter fall in love and blossom :)
It gives us all something to hold onto on those cold winter nights eating dinner in front of the telly.
Wow, told you this reflection stuff can get heavy.
Meh, if it helps, I also learned this year that eighties fashion looks shit on everyone no matter how thin you are and that I love blue cheese- and I always thought I hated it, so there you go.
I hope this year has been as interesting and as thought provoking for you as it has for me, and that the new year brings us all lots more stuff to watch, wonder at and write about.
And at the risk of projectile vomiting blood exorcist style due to my complete atheism-
may the road rise up to greet you,
may the wind always be at your back,
may the sun shine warm on your face,
and rains fall soft on your fields,
and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of his hand.
Thank you for being with me in 2010, and Happy New Year,
Wendy.
