...is the EX #2

When is it okay to cull an ex from Facebook?

Usually straight away, though it is highly dependant upon how that little “ex” appeared in front of the “girlfriend/boyfriend” title. For one friend, it was an automatic delete-and-block moment after she found out about some unfaithful behaviour. Another, after the relationship ended like a candle burning itself out, is still very good friends with her ex.

Then there is me and Darrell. Okay we weren’t in an official relationship, he never met my parents or friends nor I his and yet we spoke every day for a whole year and spent “dates” in his room. A fling for lack of better word, though I’d be lying if I said I didn't want something more.

And then he got back with an ex - which he never had the balls to tell me. Period.  [This is covered in the last post].

So 8 months have gone now and I want to cull him from my life. To move forward without a constant reminder that he’s with the one who broke the heart I spent the last year rebuilding for him. But would culling make me look bad and bitter?

Okay admittedly I sometimes still FB stalk him. Though I've gotten better with only a monthly check up. And quite recently discovered it is still painful to see him with her. The betrayal - because that is what it is - of our friendship if not our relationship is painful.

If our friendship meant not even a message to tell me he was seeing this girl, when should I bother taking the high road? 

Should any of us bother with fake pretences?

...is dealing with grief* #2

Because I couldn't have said it better myself:

This poem was read for my grandfather at his funeral, spoken my his best friend amidst floods of tears. I have no idea who wrote it, where he got it or it's reasoning for existing. But this sums up my grandfather so precisely, its almost like it was written about him. This weekend we are spreading his ashes in a place he loved. May he find restful slumber.

"Qualities of Greatness”

Great men are rare, their passing then
Is mourned alit, by gods and men.
A man is great, not by wealth or high birth,
But my character and sterling worth.

A man of principles so high,

That none can bully, none can buy.
A man who holds as bond his word,
Who dare be different from the herd.

A man who sees his duty clear,

Is ruled by justice, not by fear.
Who for the poor is quick to fight,
Does only what he thinks is right.

Who has a sense of humour too

Is greatly loved by all he knew.
Who is not afraid to be
Always himself – a man is he.

*this is about me not a friend.

...has developed New Boyfriend Sydrome #2

Cracking Pet Peeves – Or not cracking under the pressure of Pet Peeves.

Admittedly I surrender myself to two pet peeves; traits that hinder my usually calm, collective natural practically useless. And sadly one friend harbours both and every time we meet it’s like tackling my own private Everest. [Or at least one of many I deal with everyday]. Cue Laura*

Pet Peeve No. 1 = Lateness. In my whole life the longest I have been late for a meeting of any kind is roughly ten minutes and that was always due to things out of my control. Act's of god or public transport. Etc.

Tonight I waited an extra 57 minutes for Laura to cometh around for some little things I needed to give her. And during those fifty seven minutes I sat down, got up and walked around, fed the pets and typed a chapter of randomness and whilst growing angrier and angrier until I felt like breaking something. Or ranting - which is my new self harming method.

Verdict: if you are going to be late. Let people know!

Pet Peeve No. 2 = Text conversations during dates. I.e. Laura does this all the time. We can arrange a meeting - and as I said in the last Laura post - they are few and far between nowadays, she'll recieve a text and BAM. Cyber date between her and her boyfriend and I am left feeling like the third wheel. In. My. Own. Home!

One text for politeness is dandy. Fourteen in the space of an hour - just leave and get a bleeding room!

I am still very green about dealing with pet peeves. I guess it helps that I've known Laura for fourteen years so I know her pretty well. Mainly I occupy myself with other things and repeat over and over again that there are more important things in life than being angry about someone's personality traits.

You canny change other people. You can only change yourself to cope and move swiftly along.

...is a make up artist #3

Friendship is measured not by sterling worth but by the humiliation you're perpared to endure:

Just a catch up on the Seven Sin make up for Cole. This one was quite frankly my hardest one as I have a little tiny phobia of wasps and bees and hundreds were around these here woods! My TINY fear does result me from going outside to places like this, but I was blackmailed. Blackmailed and semi humiliated as I ventured looking like this through a whole army patrol who were in the same woodland training I may add!

If you go into the woods today you're sure to get a surprise!

Welcome to my neck of the woods

I'm always watching...wanting

  Invidia - Envy

insatiable desire of wanting another person's superior quality, achievement or possession.

Enjoy!

...has weird "Rules for Dating"

How to Survive the first Couple of months in a new relationship. Part One: Second dates. 

As many people meet potential partners in a fleeing moment and pass numbers this passage is about after you've met them. i.e. you've met someone at a party and spent several hours together now its about a date.

Cora* my dear dear friend is loved by me for many reasons. Mostly since we are both singletons and so can go out on the town for some Simple Flirtatious Fun! 

However, as with women everywhere, whenever we meet a guy we are forced to repeat the same old story of "will he call? Won't he call? Should I call him? " .... admit it, every girl I know does this! 

Cora recently met a new man and thus told me her 6 rules for talking to new men: 

1. Can't text/call a guy within 3 days or you will seem desperate. [unless he does first]
2. Can't text/call a guy after 3 days as he will think there is another player involved. 
3. Limit any text message with 1 kiss as not too sound too clingy.
4. All messages/calls should sound flirty and fun, without need for him to reply instantly. 
5. NEVER text drunken messages. Give the phone to friends if need be. 
6. During planning of second dates leave the ball in his court.

Mine are:

1. Text/Call when you think it's necessary. Men are just as scared about sounding desperate so leaving flirty messages that needn't be replied too are key sometimes. Personal favourite "Had fun yesterday, I had a good time thanks". If he replies carry forth.
2. Leaving a text more than 3 days could make him think you're seeing someone else. Be straight and truthful. If there's a reason tell him. Or a little white lie works too. Just make sure you're able to back it up. 
3. I always put 2 kisses [xx] at the end of my messages. To everyone. Most people I know do, so 1 kiss shouldn't strike fear in him. Although this works both ways - if they put hundreds...run! 
4. Open ended textes keep a conversation going. I discovered that if you play about with open textes [one he has to answer] and close messages [something that doesn't need a reply] it helps to know if he's interested in talking to you and what you're saying.
5. Never drunken text. Ever. And if you do apologise in the morning and declare drunken memory loss.
6. Second dates? An embarrassing question for both of you. Don't drop hints about how you'd love to watch this movie or go such a place. Just causally ask it - if not to face by phone "hey, was wondering if you wanted to meet up again sometime soon" . Worst thing he says no and you move on. Think ripping off a band-aid - it will sting, you're stomach will flip and then you'll eat ice cream as girlfriends slate everything about him. 

Please note that this is just how I handle the first couple of meetings with a potential partner and in no way should be yours. It all comes with that horrible thing we call experience and reading between the lines.

If in doubt, ask someone for their opinion! 

...can't have children

When Pitter-Pattering Feet will only ever be ghosts of what could have been...

Picture the Fairy Tale: Little girl grows up, falls in love, gets married and lives happily ever after. Something all little girls dream about - and perhaps for many of us out there - is to live happily ever after whatever that entails for the individual. And for Lena* hers was meant to be to have a family.

She met her Prince five years ago and at 22 was a young but blushing bride. Her parents were divorced but it had never fazed her about getting hitched herself and on her wedding day, I asked her why she was so set on being married now and not using the money on holidays to exotic places and such. “You have a lifetime to get married” I said. And her reply:

“I can’t have kids. And for me this is like announcing how in love we are to the world.”

Lena has Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and was diagnosed a long time ago. It means that it is unlikely she will ever conceive a child naturally. I know there are lots of revenues one can go down such as IVF and adoption, but those things cost time and money. And I don’t think that is the main problem. It’s the anger – the sinking feeling of failure that as a woman you cannot do what you were meant to do.

It’s a sad, horrible truth that some women will never be able to have a natural baby – and a sadder truth that there are just as many who can, do and don’t want their children.

I’d had this conversation with Lena over and over again, and sometimes I wonder at whether she has accepted this or not. I guess that it helps the fact that I and our other childhood friend have yet to start a family – and her other friends that have are nearing thirty.  But I worry about what will happen when we do. How much heartache would that cause her?

I asked her to consider adoption or possibly surrogacy but she refuses. She says she wants her own baby – one she grows herself I suppose. And to each her own.

However I wish she’d consider it, partly because I want her to be happy. I want her to have the life she has always wanted, and if that is with the pitter-patter of feet rushing around then let that be so. She makes a good aunt, a good god-mother but can that ever be enough?

And as we grow older, as we mature and live through our twenties and then our thirties – how will the world spin then? Will the tear filled phones become more frequent? Or will acceptance set in and Lena will become a great wife, with a fantastic life of dreams she has yet to think up of?

...isn't a "friend" at all

The Fundamental Ingredients Of Friendship

Now, everyone has a different list of what makes a friendship - and I clearly agree that those ingredients decide upon what kind of friendship you want and what you want out of it.

I have my best friend, my girl friends and those in-between ones who help me in their own special way appreciate my existence. And I could just put a Full Stop at the end of that and be happy.

Yet I also have people I don't class as friends. Ones I class mainly as "Colleagues" as I know them either through work or people. These people are built of Fire, if I were to built of Ice - different spieces who hold different purpose and values.

I can't tell you what makes a friend but I can tell you what does not:

• Distrust
• Selfishness
• Self-centeredness
• Egocentricity
• Narcissism
• Megalomania 

How do I know this? Because Joan* has all this boiled down into her tiny frame. Quite frankly she is hideous through and through. Recently she became my manager - before that she was just annoyingly over the top - but after that she jumped into this personality shift.

Things she has done: told me "it happens" when my grandad died. Jumps into conversations she is not welcome into and changes the subject to herself. Has tantrums. Back stabs you, sprinkles posion ivy into wounds to create a mini war in work...and that is to to name a few.

And as I attempt to psychoanalye why she acts like this, I get thrown between a rock and a brick wall. She is a middle-child, comes from a seemingly normal family, does voluntary work with teens...

So is it just that she is made by fire, if I'm made of ice?

Or does the ingredients I use to make friends not the sort she uses. Am I baking cookies if she is cooking chicken?

...is dealing with grief*

*Again, this is not really about a friend, its about me

The Time is Nearing to Say Goodbye All Over Again...

When my grandad died in Febraury, I discovered what Family actually meant. It was the first death I have had to witness first hand and I saw my father cry, my uncle cry and my grandmother destroyed and that in its self was heartwrenchingly hard to deal with. I realised, quite frankly, that being surrounded my them helped overcome this.

My grandad was sick and had been for several years. He had a condition called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (P.S.P.) and, like any kind of Palsy it was slowly taking away his mobility, as well as his eye sight, his speech and ability to swallow...so when he died, we finally had the closure that he wasn't battling against his body anymore. It was over, and he was now - where ever it was - at peace.

Yet when he died, living suddenly changed. The world was suddenly so chirper, so tainted with all this colour that felt so dismissive and made grandad's death feel sort of redunant. I went to work - to keep busy - and was choked on how no one knew, customers were all so happy and smiling and it hurt being surrounding my all these people who just didn't "care".

His funeral came, and I remember standing in the kitchen with all my family, all waiting for the funeral party and feeling dread. It - even know - makes my stomach knot when I imagine seeing the car come down the street, seeing the coffin and knowing that grandad was in there and this would be the last time he would see the house.

One man, a competely stranger stood on the roadside with a hand on his heart as the cars passed. And - whoever it was - I thank him for it. He was a much loved person, so brilliantly friendly that there was a lot of guests and that helped. It meant something bright. And being able to say goodbye then, was almost like a huge weight was lifted and gone. The minister believed so blindly he was in "heaven" and - though not religious - I think everyone else in the chaple knew that too.

And somehow 6 months has rolled by. Spring came and it bled into summer and I felt better. Normal. Then, like a tonne of bricks - several days ago it collasped on top of me and I was left realising all over again that he is gone. It's odd.

...and in a couple of weeks, the whole family will be embarking on a trip to Cornwall, in which we will be spreading his ashes in a place he loved and had hundreds of thousands of memories of. Again, we are going to have to say goodbye. The Final Goodbye. The one that counts because - though his body is gone, he no longer sits in his chair at my nannas house - after this, we will not have anything left of him except our memories. No headstone to visit, not urn to cherish.

Nikki

...was a holiday rep*

Ever dreamed of being a holiday rep? Take Heed...

*Okay, okay, NOT really my friend as she is my elder sister, but you get the drift...*

So, ever dreamt of becoming a holiday rep? Living in exotic places, sunbathing, drinking and having fun every day on a holiday that never ends? Well, you definitely need to read on.

My sister, Sam wanted to become a holiday rep since she was seven and we met one during a vacation. She became hugely smitten on him and then, once back in miserable Manchester, smitten on the idea of  working in a sun bleached environment with a cocktail in one hand and a microphone in the other. And eleven years later, she flew out to the Island of Menorca just off the coast of Spain for her dreams to start...

And yes she loved most of it... though in training you aren't told about the day-long delays which requires you to stay at the airport, the emergency phone aka the tw*t phone which customers call through the night asking where to find kebabs, their friends and toilet paper...

This post is about one week taken from her diary. I would never suggest that this could happen to anyone else, a 1 in a 1,000 000 week...but the worst of the worst nonetheless...

WEEK OF HELL:

Friday: Home at one a.m. up at three to meet customers at hotel lobby by four. Left hotel and heading to airport when a small blue car raced by the coach, up the road and was lost behind a sharp corner. Driver definitely drunk, car all over the place. Coach followed the road and turned said corner to find the little blue car under another coach. Car mistaken for jet ski. Male occupant hanging out of what probably used to be a window. Could not react, had to keep passengers calm and asked them to draw curtains. 

Sunday: Still seeing dead body hanging out of windows, car smashed under bus every time eyes are closed. This morning was called to local hotel where a three year old child had let himself out of the apartment during the night to go "swimming". Was discovered at six am. by maintenance man. Already a bad week.

Tuesday: Blistering storms have prevented holiday goers to leave the hotels. Good thing? Well whilst playing games with the local entertainers, a thirteen year old girl tripped on slippery tiles and had marble table collapse on her hand. Fingers were amputated. 

Wednesday: Sixty year old man dies of heart attack in the reception of another popular hotel. Doctor was called but took hours to arrive, and as dead bodies cannot be moved, he had to be draped with sheets and hidden as best he could from view of others. 

Friday: Local scuba diving instructor killed as he taught a new leg of people the art. He went too close to the propeller and was killed somewhat instantly I guess. Body had to be brought back on boat with the class. 

Again please note: this very true week happened only once in the six years she was working as a holiday rep, and I don't think any other rep has ever had a week quite like it. I guess I'm writing this as the start the next few posts, mainly aimed at losing someone.

Anyone with questions about repping or whatever, feel free to ask. After all, nothing beats experience!

Nikki

...is a fake anorexic #2

A Nice Way to say "Shut the Fuck up"?

NB. Jane is not Ana, and I hope people who think I'm ignoring a potentially fatal disease read my previous post on Jane, before judging.

Sometimes going to work is like I've stepped back in time and am back in high school. And I hated high school. I have to deal with gossip, bitching and arguements and of course, Jane. And, at 23, I am now pondering if there is ever a nice way to say "shut the fuck up!"

So, two new fads that Jane has come up with are A: extremely expensive protein bars from the USA that are 200 cals and are meant to be both breakfast and dinners. Okay, for anyone wanting to lose weight they are probably very effective, but when you're Jane you NEED to take it that one step too far.

And that means insisting - to everyone - that this will be the only food intake that day. And the famous quote she has ever came out with "I want to be Heroin chic!". I know, you're asking why right?

B: Today I had to endure her express she was on a "diet" 9 times in six hours, went into detail about only eating salad and constantly moaned she was dizzy and her legs were wobbly. Urgh. Of course she screamed the place down when a friend offered her one hard boiled sweet to taste its sourness and refused to eat anything... until said friend had gone and I caught her eating several of these sweets in secret.

And no matter how much I love Jane, this is getting old very quickly. Now the summer has come I am in a sink, swim or slap scenario. I cannot handle this false act. Anyone else I would have probably left in tears by now, but Jane is my co-worker and my friend so its not like I can slap her and scream at her...

So time for the ole faithful: the little white lie. "Jane, you're worrying me when you talk about this stuff, so please be careful and tone it down for me so I don't worry all the time, okay?"

I'll keep you up to date on how Jane and my relation is coping.