Hearts and flowers? Not quite.

When one's birthday is so quickly followed by Valentine's Day, it can be depressing when one is single. Just one occasion after another in which to NOT receive presents or attentions from a special someone.

Actually, it has been years since I have had someone to acknowledge those occasions in my life. Whenever I have had boyfriends in the last few years, they tend to handily leave me before or after birthdays, Christmas and Valentine's. Leaving me solo for all these occasions and not on the receiving end of presents - which I like.

So this year, yet again I am bereft of cards overflowing my letterbox, and without flowers crowding my awaiting vases. Although throughout the day I did receive one text message of love. Yes. Yes I did.

Oh. You want to know who from.....?







My Mother. Yes. My Mother.





Depressing isn't it?

What is more depressing is that this is a regular thing for her. When I was about 14, and pining for a boy to love and adore, I received a Valentine's card. It was anonymous and quite sweet. I was so excited. Consider a young girl who is "smart" but not "pretty", feeling low, and getting a card which promised so much. And then consider a day or so later when her mother reveals that she actually sent the card.

I know in her mind, Mum probably thought it was a sweet and loving gesture. But from my point of view, it just was one more reminder of feeling not so pretty and always smart. The sort of girl the boys don't want.

Fast forward 20+ years, and this same "smart" and not "pretty" girl, recieves yet another message of love from noone but her mother. Oh yeah, that was a life-affirming moment. Oh well.



Oh, yeah, and I did get a well wishes for the day from Bond. That also went down a treat. Thank fuck that day is over again for another year.

Just one small step for a woman...

There was a time when I LOVED cooking. And I did an awful lot of it. Dinner parties were often. Every week I would experiment with new recipes and ingredients. And everything was always wonderful. I enjoyed it all. The planning of the food, the cooking and preparation, but mostly I enjoyed the sharing of it with others.

Many years of singledom has meant that I don't cook so often for others anymore. Combinations of the finances involved in fancy dinners, availability of friends who are not committed to children and long-distance friendships, have all contributed in part to the waning of the feasting.

I used to still maintain the fervour of cooking for myself - for quite a while - but now it all feels too hard. Meals have become more laboured, and honestly, they just don't taste as good as they used to.

So it is with much shame that I admit my final degeneration. I have, after many many years of always preparing everything from scratch*, bought one of those packets of flavouring to which one is instructed (by the handy pictures on the rear), what ingredients are required to make the "delicious" meal presented on the front of the packet. I was embarrassed purchasing it. I felt embarrassed cooking it. I am only
one small step away from buying frozen dinners. What have I become? And importantly, how do I turn back from the face of Hell?


*Pasta (including tortellini - hand chopped), pastries, all manner of sauces, jams, pickles.......

Some professional chit-chat and some melancholy rambling

I have had quite a week at a conference where the most taxing thing I have had to do is keep up with companies trying to sell me things in consuming alcohol. Every night there was another function by a vendor forcing alcohol and food upon me, and all the while I was trying to keep my professional demeanour.

What was that - could I hear a pin drop in disbelief?

Ok, so perhaps my demeanour was a little more relaxed than other people in the same situation. Can you blame a girl when she meets not one, but two completehotties ? Of course, one was an infant with no interest in a middle-aged woman, and the other was some sort of religious nut-bag (he had a cross tattoo covering his entire upper arm FFS !!!). Nevertheless, I made friends with some vendors who have declared that they would love me to come to the next big Physics meeting, in LA in a week, just so I can continue partying with them.

Oh yes, I was a consummate professional.

Did I mention that Bond is apparently planning on being at the meeting in LA as well?

I have to own up at this point that things are confused in my head at the moment with regards to Bond. Yes, even more confused than normal. The hot boy from Brisbane that I met, of course never rang, or emailed. So my heart still finds itself yearning still for Bond. My head knows exactly what it should do, but my heart won't let it. So the confusion goes on. I want to say to him "Fuck off and stop fucking me around",
but something is stopping me.

Perhaps that something is the total fear that no other man will find me attractive, the way that Bond did. I fear that no other man that I find amazing and interesting and sexy, will think the same of me, the way that Bond did. I still find him the most intriguing man I have ever met - and some of that is probably the fact that he wanted me.

I am so lonely. Lonely beyond comprehension. There was a time when I could say I had really close friends. But I don't have those anymore. Those people are all ensconced in couple-dom and have quite happily abandoned their single friends - or at least me. And somewhere along the way, the singles I know are not my closest friends - and in fact have people who fulfil those positions already.

I suppose I just want someone who wants/needs me. And that is where Isabella comes in isn't it? I had hoped to make this a slightly more up-beat post - but, well, bite me.