Hello!

So Melty Man (MM) and I met up for coffee.  It was lovely- he was smart and funny and (gasp!) gainfully employed.  He is super close to his family and passionate about music and theater and volunteering.  He is about as busy as me and plays basketball, soccer and netball.  He sounds perfect, right?

So I have been playing it cool (who does that? What does that even mean?) and letting him put in the effort to keep in contact and organise another meeting.  And it worked...for awhile.  He has been keeping in touch via text message and last week he asked me to the footy!!

Now, for all of y'all who aren't from Australia, the footy is a big deal.  Especially for boys.  Football (specifically, Australian Rules Football) is almost a religion.  It is kind of a mix between soccer and NFL and maybe a bit of Celtic football thrown in there too.  It is played without pads or helmets and is completely and quintessentially manly.  Hoo boy, pure testosterone is covering that field. 

I love the footy.  I love the fit men and their sleeveless tops and the passion and the speed and utter ruggedness of the game.  So of course when MM invited me along I gave him a resounding "yes" and then proceeded to giggle and text my girlfriends simultaneously to announce the news.  

Then.  MM did the unthinkable.  He messaged and made an excuse.  An EXCUSE people!  He told me he had a basketball game at the same time as the footy and couldn't miss it.  He then said that he wanted to catch up soon and could we arrange something else? 

I was of course lovely and gracious and suggested that perhaps the following weekend would be a good time to see each other.  And... no response. Nothing at all.  This was three days ago! 

Now, friends.  I suppose that I should just relax and be "cool" and wait it out, which I will, because I am all calm and collected and other words beginning with c.  But as a girl who has only ever been in serious, committed relationships, this whole casual dating thing has been a bit of a trial.  I'm just not well versed in the specifics of dating: the waiting, the teasing, the games, the subtle manipulations.  I mean, I don't want a relationship that involves such complicated maneuvers- can't we just be honest about how we feel and our level of interest in each other?  Can't we just enjoy each other's company and see where that goes? 

Sigh.  I just want this to be simple.  And so shall I wait to hear from dear MM, and I will relax and enjoy this charming stage of life called "singledom".  And drink some wine too. 

Kisses to you all! 

in which i am aurally pleasured

Hi y'all!  I have some news!  Melty Man called last night.  Yes, yes he did.  He called to arrange our first ever meeting, and he was lovely and funny and sounded so good.  

Now, keep in mind that I am a Canadian living in Australia, so I sound different to most folks I meet here.  I have gotten accustomed to hearing the Aussie accent, and I often don't even notice a difference at all, but once in while there is a voice that breaks through the everyday sounds that accost my ears. 

Melty Man... well, he broke through.  He is not overly "ocher" (think Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter), but has a rather refined, almost slightly English sound.  He was confident and led the conversation, asked lots of questions and laughed when I was hilarious (but then, when am I not?).  It was, in short, the best five-minute conversation I've ever had.  

We are meeting up on the long weekend- Monday is a day off!  I can't wait to see how it all goes, and with any luck, Melty Man will be just as smooth and charming and lovely in person.  Either way, you shall hear from me soon!

there was shaking and quakey-ness and it was scary

Hi! Remember me?  

So, since last we met, I have tried on 14 pairs of bridesmaid shoes, worked approximately 17 billion hours, and consumed 52 bottles of wine.  Yay! So let me see what kind of news I can come up with to entertain you...

Did I tell y'all Feb got engaged?  Yes, that amazingly manipulative, sneaky, lying, sexually deviant beast is engaged to a girl who used to be a very close friend of mine! I know, right?! It's just bizarre.  I am thrilled to tell you all, however, that I actually couldn't desire anyone or anything less in my life, which is a very good place to be.  Except for the part where we are in the same room together and I feel physically repulsed and also the overwhelming urge to run far, far away.  This happens about four times a week, which is far more than I would like.  But we are dealing with that, people, and being forgiving and trying to love like Jesus would do. Mmm hmmm, yes we are.  

I am a bridesmaid in my best friend's wedding, which is coming up quickly in October.  How crazy is that?! The good part is that this will be a massive, creative, wonderful party full of beautiful decorations and food and people.  The bad part is that I will be paired with Lex (Local Ex-Boyfriend) in the wedding party.  We were dating when the engagement happened, so it was a natural progression, but this also means that I would like to fit into the two-sizes-too-small bridesmaid dress which I bought in order to look amazing and make him feel uncomfortably aroused all day, which means that I will not be eating between now and October. Just drinking wine.  Which sounds okay by me! Hee! 

What else?  Hmmm.  I redecorated my lounge room and... oh wait.  That is not entertaining.  One moment.  

My basketball team won its summer season Grand Final! This is a Very Big Deal for me because it means that I have another sport trophy to add to my bookshelf.  This is exciting because when I "play basketball", it actually translates to "running around the court looking busy and hoping that no one notices that I actually contribute nothing to the game, and actually fall a lot".  So, hooray team! And now training has started for winter season, which equates to "whole gym full of women (and sometimes boys who come early for their practice) seeing me run and fall and pass ball and fall and shoot ball and fall, and then laugh.  And point". 

And. Also. Ooh, ooh!  I have started dating.  Casually.  I'm a casual dater. I have now met two new boys in the last week and gone for coffee and chatted and stretched my social circle.  It has been lovely! Also! (and this is very exciting) I have been chatting with a gorgeous young man who is a brother of an old colleague.  She emailed me a very general, newsy email, and finished with this out-of-nowhere comment about how she has a lovely and handsome brother who remembers me from a year ago when he picked her up from work, and would I like to fall madly in love with him and have lots of babies? (That last bit may have gone a tiny bit differently).

So now we are "friends" on a certain social networking site, and we text religiously, and he is beautiful and tall and masculine but is taking his nieces to the zoo tomorrow, because they are his "princesses" and he is too adorable and I melt when I receive his messages! Our first official "I'm interested in you and let's have babies" meeting is on Wednesday.  Report forthcoming! Hold your breath, it will be worth it! 

(Except please don't actually hold it till Wednesday because that is a long time, and let's face it, I will probably not write that night. But I will try, because I love you, almost as much as beautiful melty man!)

I believe that this is all the good news for tonight, so I shall now try to sleep.  I anticipate that this will be extra hard as I just felt an earthquake.  No lie, friends, I truly experienced quite a noticeable earthquake just now as I was writing to you! I figure that this means that my experiences with Melty Man are meant to be, and are earth-shakingly fated.  Yep.  So goodnight, and fare thee well!  Please tell me how you are doing, because I miss you!  Kisses! 

starting over and overusing the s word

Good evening great wide world of web! Here I sit watching So You Think You Can Dance Australia and considering 1) my dubious desire to be a fit dancer who can "sing with my body" (yes a real quote from the show, and it's all very inspiring and deep and such) and 2) my promise to write and update you all on the last few months. Or, um, year. Or so, you know. And I was just thinking, if it's ok with you, would you mind terribly if I were to just skip over it all and continue on from here? I mean, I know that continuity is important and everything, but really, I have the feeling that I have lost most of my audience at this point and it can't hurt to just start anew, in a sense, even if its just with me, myself, and oh what the hell, I!

So. Yes. Starting new. Basically I will just let you know that I have finally (almost) managed to rid myself of Feb entirely. Perhaps one day I will be able to explain it all to you, but right now it is too much.  Feb is still in my life and in my normal weekly "friendship circle", and I try as much as possible to limit our interaction to just that. Friendly friendship circle-type stuff where we don't actually have to talk, but just sort of sit in the same room and try not to have eye contact or start brawls or street rumbles or anything.

Now, that all said, I am pretty much free! Yay! It's been a long stretch of what was essentially, honestly, truly an enslavement and I am so pleased to be emancipated. So that's enough of that!

New news? Well, I am still working at the not-for-profit organisation (ooo, notice my very Australian spelling, and how I am a true local with the vernacular and 's' instead of 'z' and such down pat!) where I am sort-of-kind-of in charge of promotions and publications. This has proven to be both a challenge and a wildly fun experience as I work in a team of all males. That's right y'all, yours truly Little Miss sits with boys all day every day, and learns about boys and laughs at boys and feels particularly proud of herself when said boys laugh at her jokes. And, as a special coup, I have managed to convince the boys to set aside a special chunk of everyday that is (and I tell you this with every bit of officialness I can muster  [it's a word NOW, ok!]),  Silly Time.

I love Silly Time. Silly Time is always in the afternoon, usually about half an hour or so, but as a rule is never policed. Silly Time is a group time that involves three people- myself, Adonis (lisping Greek coworker) and Caesar (football-star Italian coworker). It always occurs after Headache Time (a special Little Miss-only period that usually lasts from about 2.15-2.55pm) but before Preparing to Go Home Time.

Silly Time is very simple. Basically it boils down to this: three creative people who have been sharing an office all day long let go and release all the ridiculous impulses they've repressed for six hours in the name of Being Professional. Anything can happen during this period. We've been known to hold dance-offs, people. Dance-offs can get very competitive so I don't encourage them when we have a big project to finish.

This week Adonis was away seeing George Michael in Sydney (George Michael!) and so Caesar and I forged into Silly Time all alone. After some discussion and a bit of giggling, Caesar and I decided that it would be very clever and very silly of us to reverse Adonis' entire workstation, down to the photos on his bulletin board and the sugar packets sprawled haphazardly on his desk. We moved his phone, his paper clips, his filing cabinets, and his pens. (Interjection: upon re-reading this I discovered I made a horrible typo on the word "pens"! Look at it, folks: pens.  now tell me you don't see the typo that was made and would, had I not fixed it, you would have been shocked and appalled  to read that I moved that particular thing on a man. And a co-worker, no less!) 

Anyhow, Caesar and I muffled our snorts of laughter as we perfectly angled Adonis' white-out, his stapler, and the crowning glory, his scales. (Yes, Adonis keeps a body-weight scale next to his desk at all times. This will likely take its own future post to explain.) After admiring our handiwork, Caesar and I declared an end to Silly Time and settled back into our respective work, feeling supremely self-satisfied and extraordinarily clever. (Look. Sometimes work is hard, and sometimes work is boring, and we just need to feel like something, ANYTHING has been accomplished in a short amount of time.  Y'all stop judging what makes me feel good!)

So Adonis comes back into work on Monday, and being the Greek god that he is, he sunnily wanders into the office, late as always, says hello, and settles into his desk.  Caesar and I exchange glances and smirk, trying to withhold our hysterics (see: work hard and boring, distractions welcome) and wait for the hilarity that is certain to ensue.  

And what do you think happened, internet-ers?  It took Adonis TWENTY MINUTES to recognise that everything, and I mean everything on his desk, down to the tiniest stray staple and the Canadian maple leaf shot glass (courtesy of moi!) was reversed.  I mean, people, this was wild stuff! And then, when the madness of his situation finally set in, what do you think Adonis did?  I'll tell you.  He said, "Ah.  You guys switched my phone to the other side.  Now is that a productive use of Silly Time?"

And so, dear readers, (should any of you still exist), that was the day  I realised that my silliness factor has gone down significantly.  I mean, I know that part of this lackluster response is due to Adonis' sad inability to recognise humor in its purest form, but it also has to reflect a little bit on my diminishing talent for true silliness, doesn't it?  

So I have come face to face with the stark realisation that I need to get back to my silly roots.  I mean, come on y'all, I understand that there are only so many times I can say the word 'silly' in this post and I need to stop, so I will draw it to a close with this: please help me get back to my s-ness! It will be my goal over the next few months to find my silly and put it into play at work and at home until no one, I repeat NO ONE is able to resist it.  And all will be drawn into my evilly silly plan for the WORLD! Yes! Yes! 

Ahem.  And with that, I am back.  Back from personal heartache and tragedy to blogging once again and focusing on me.  And I will be working hard to remember who I am and where my confidence has gone, and really embracing the Little Miss within... whether she be Little Miss Happy or Little Miss Angry or Little Miss Bossy or Little Miss Sunshine or Little Miss Independent or Little Miss Needs to Move Back to Canada to Realise Her Potential or yes, even Little Miss Silly.  

It all comes down to this, y'all: I can't wait to find out which it is! 

well, hi!

So. I can't even go back and read what my last post was to update you because, really, I am mortified to read anything that I may have wrote about FEB and the fact that I got back together with him just to let my heart be broken all over again. I actually just can't face reading those posts. I can't remember what they say, but I'm sure they don't deal with the emotional, mental, and physical abuse that he put me through. I'm certain that I don't detail the rape, the spiritual anguish, the feelings of worthlessness that I endured for him, so I won't address them now. Not this time.

But I have news of a new man, and I'm not sure if he is much better. Perhaps writing about him will help me to work through my feelings. We shall see! In the meantime y'all, I'm so pleased to be back! I have a feeling I'm on my own now though.... I miss you wall. If there is anyone left, stay tuned.