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We all have a love hate relationship with the media I think..
Hate the media vultures who pray on others sadness.
Hate that they manipulate the way that life is portrayed..
Yet love the coverage of red carpet frocks..
I was reading the age this morning and came across this article. This incident has been in the news since 2002, and more so in the last year or so since the men involved have been on trial for the murder/manslaughter of a woman on board a cruise ship in 2002.
Anyway.
The last lines of this article raised a smile from me this morning. Think the journalist is making a comment here?
Guilty: I knew Brimble had been drugged
Geesche Jacobsen Crime Editor
June 30, 2009
A MAN who tried to revive Dianne Brimble on board the cruise ship Pacific Sky in 2002 admitted yesterday that he had been told later she had been given the drug GHB – gamma hydroxybutyrate – before she died.
Letterio “Leo” Silvestri pleaded guilty to concealing from police that he knew Mark Wilhelm had given her the drug, also known as fantasy, in their cabin.
Silvestri, 44, also pledged to give evidence at Wilhelm’s trial, due to start in September.
The District Court heard yesterday that Wilhelm is accused of the manslaughter of Mrs Brimble, and that the prosecution would allege he had committed a dangerous and unlawful act leading to her death, and had been negligent when being told she was unconscious and had defecated in his cabin.
While Silvestri did not tell police what he knew, he told them Mrs Brimble was “fat” and “ugly” and had ruined his holiday.
Silvestri, who appeared chubbier than two years ago, is due to be sentenced as early as today.
I am not usually a violent person.. but there is one woman in this town that needs to be sacrificed to sheep for a slow trampling to death with careful little pointed hooves.
Sure, it would tickle in the beginning.. but then the bruising would start.. and it would get quite hurty quite quickly.. then.. if the sheep were unshorn they’d be quite heavy I imagine.. so then.. I imagine those careful sheep balancing on her tendony bits.. shifting their weight slightly.. then eventually her skin would be slashed to ribbons by those angular hooves.. and then.. she would scream for a bit and then she would die from the pain [or eventually from some nasty sheep hoof borne disease].
The end.
Big sis spent the weekend with me. Two nights. A committed visit.
Spending time with me, in my space, is a rare occurrence for my family. I have no idea why. None.
Anyway. From the barren wasteland that was my social life over the last few months – this week has yielded 3 friends visiting on Tuesday night for a sleep-over, wine and cuddling catch up. My sister for two nights.. Family friends for afternoon tea.. a night out dancing to a friend’s band with my sister and the family friends.. and then unexpectedly.. like.. COMPLETELY unexpectedly.. a text message from my old lover T.. (the ex-lover found last year, now a recovering alcoholic, sober for 5 months.)
The text reads.
I am only an hour away from you.
Oh god.
He is a handful (no sniggering please).. I don’t think I can deal with anymore people just dropping in.
I call him, while driving. I tell him he is on speaker phone and my sister is in the car with me.
T! What the bloody hell are you doing driving three hours north?
I thought I’d go for a drive, then I thought I would try and find you..
My sister is here, we have plans for this eve. Could you give me some notice if you are going to visit?!
I just did. But hey. I am lost and I need to get back to Melbourne tonight – so I am going to drive home.
Hon. I am going to be in Melbourne in two weeks.. Let’s see each other then.
OK.. Then you can play with my snake.
Thanks I don’t want to.. I haven’t changed my mind about your [pet] snake.
[something I can't quite hear]
I ask him to repeat what he said.
My sister fills in the gaps.. she says He said.. It didn’t stop you 19 years ago..
Yowsers.
The man is a handful. Will never quite let me forget what happened.. cheeky bastard.
In my twenties and early thirties I lived a big life.
I spent most of it in inner city Sydney, where it is hard to be unaffected by life. I worked and played with bright, beautiful and funny gay men, (and some straight men from time to time). I spent my days propping myself up, recovering from the nights.. (Sunday – Monday was always a 5am finish and a 9am start to the day).
We’d start at a cocktail/wine bar on Oxford Street (where I saw a big girl stripper once in a bar full of gay men – she was the night’s goddess and was still there 4 hours after her job had finished..) to theatre (best seats for us – we all worked in the industry), schmooze in the foyer like it was our loungeroom, then down back streets and in through the staff entrance at boutique restaurants (at least 8 of us on any one night).. then back to the theatre after all the punters had gone (free drinks and philosophising with bar staff until 2am) and then back to one of our favourite restaurants to drink liquers and try out the chef’s latest creations which hadn’t quite made it to the menu yet.. and cuddle into each other. Cab’s home at 5am.
I wonder why I didn’t ever save money in those years.. yet.. we were like pretty rats.. we’d eat and drink most times for free wherever we went.. or maybe that was just me..
Shivers. Maybe I was the only rat?
Nights and nights and nights of that – years – theatre, shows, music, beautiful restaurants, stunning company, lots of alcohol.. (lots)..
I also remember something frightening. The night my best gay boy friend was admitted to hospital for emergency surgery (he had called me earlier and I had told him to have a cup of tea and a lay down! Not my best doctory suggestion). After I had signed papers to confirm I was his significant other (a tender moment) he was wheeled to surgery .. drugged up he waved and said ‘Off to the theatre again!’
Funny man.
I met him twelve years after he had been diagnosed with HIV. All I knew who had been diagnosed in the 1980’s died within years of the first rounds of treatments. My friend C. not once took medication (other than speed and vodka). The last I heard, he was still well more than twenty years later.
That was my life six years ago. Flat out, surrounded by a family of friends (drunk most of the time).
In comparison, I am reclusive now.
I haven’t missed it, I have liked the change.. but last night.. I wanted it back.
Decided I didn’t deserve to be exposed to ugly art – so didn’t make it to the exhibition opening.. did a drive by and saw that only four people turned up.. eeeeeek.
The mailbox yielded my government stimulation.
A brief chat online with an old friend brought tears.
But things have changed, really.
There is a total sense of shit getting together..
That is why the universe has me here.
(funny how a glass of wine can mellow a girl..)
This weekend will be one full of wine, dancing and bitching about family. Bring it on!
Things are scooting along in my world. I now have friends within a stone’s throw of my house who have invited me to drinks and general loveliness (and promise to be my going out buddies forever more – yippee!). The Urbane man has just called to suggest a night at the theatre in a week and a bit.. oh yay! and here was I thinking he had gone off me..
My sister will be here in less than 24 hours to spend a couple of nights with me, and she actually sounds into it (aside from the bizarre ’should I bring bed linen’ quip)
Today I have talked via phone to a circus performer, have had a meeting with a theatre director (who is going to direct a play based on a dreaming story with some Indigenous young people), have emailed a graffiti artist for a potential gig at our skate park and have sent off a submission for funding for our festival in 2009 and 2010. I have also hooked up some local historians at different stages of writing their local histories so they can support each other (and not have to rely on me so much).
All looks good here at the moment. I have made it through my three months probation and as you can tell by the list of things I have done today – the job has settled in – it seems that no-one else wants it – so I get to stay!
That’s all the happy out of the way..
However I can’t shake this sense of dread in the pit of my bits.. Maybe it is too much coffee.. Maybe it is the dream this morning of a train accident.. (ironical considering where I live).. Maybe it is the fact that I hadn’t been able to do more on the submission before I sent it in. Maybe it’s knowing I only have $150 in the bank.. Maybe it is from last night clearing out old emails from friends and lovers I am no longer in contact with (why did I turn down The Doctor so many times, considering how I feel when I think of him now?).. Maybe it is the reluctant schmoozing I am anticipating will occur this evening at an exhibition opening of some truly atrocious artist.
Melancholy, dread.. there is something not quite right.
I am going to write it off as potentially getting the flu and give myself an early mark.
Oh and just because it is an important day to mark.. here is my favourite MJ song – haven’t seen this version before.. Aaaah Britney is a trashbag.. [imagine if he had done this with Christina.. that would have been fun..]
My [other] sister coming to stay for the first time in several years.
Do I need to bring bedding and a towel?
Kerrie.. I am a single woman, not a homeless woman. You don’t need to bring a thing.
Cheezus.
The sister voted least likely to divorce [it wouldn't 'look nice' in her blemish free world] has divorced. He wasn’t a bad man. He was an apathetic yet car obsessed bore. It wasn’t the car obsession that was the nail in the coffin – it was a whole helluva lotta other things.. but.. anyways.. they now live apart and my sister is shining.
Phone call two nights ago.. She asks me.
Do you get the pity?
Pity?
Do married people pity you?
I think they envy my single-ness more often than not. No I don’t think I have had pity.. not in a while..
She relayed to me a conversation she had with her best friend, a happily married woman, the couple that made up the ‘foursome’ when my sister was married.
My sister asked if she’d like to go out for lunch – something they have done a lot as best friends in the past dozen or so years..
Her friend apparently said.. awwww that’s right.. you have no-one to go with now.. Insinuating that now my sister is divorced she has found herself at a loose end..
It was a throwaway line.. don’t dwell on it. Your friends are adjusting to your new lifestyle as well.. Don’t think about it too much [my sister is inclined to dwell and long periods of depression]
Last night I went to dinner with the flirty funder. We had lunch last week and he was in town again yesterday, so I suggested an early dinner as I had work to do at home in the evening.
Immediately [within the first five minutes] he mentioned his children and wife.
I smiled.
He hadn’t mentioned them in any of the conversations we had had [ok - so they were business conversations - and the dinner was a sidestep from that relationship] or at the lunch last week.
I remembered from a magazine study that men apparently set up their marital status/availability within three minutes of meeting a woman for the first time. So far I have found it more or less a truth.
He had invited another couple and a single bloke to dinner. All fantastic company. Lovely interesting people, we laughed a lot and got on well.
I shared my chips with the man who was sitting at my left as he hadn’t received his meal, while the rest of the table started eating..
As I did that, the woman to my right asked him.. So, Mark, how is Michelle?
And I wondered if she was saying that for my benefit. I was sharing chips with him and therefore he was in grave danger of being seduced?
Maybe I am being hyper-sensitive.
It just struck me as interesting psychology around what it is like being single in a world of couples..
OK.. so.. exercise and weight-loss yada yada bores me rigid.. Talking about weather bores me..
I have been guilty of the weather talk.. and I am sorry to say I am about to say something about exercise..
Today. I jogged.
I have a goal of 5 hours a week dedicated exercise – this week I managed 3 hours.. but today.. I jogged (not for a freaking hour, mind you). Last time I got a bit of a jog going on I thought my legs were going to snap off at the ankles.. Today the only thing I felt was a big fat grin spreading across my face.
The dog was surprisingly encouraging.. He was trotting ahead of me, and then when he looked over his shoulder and saw me running after him he stuck his head down and galloped off like we were racing.
Anyways. Jogging is fun. Writing this here to remind myself.
I just ate some melted chocolate off the page down key on my keyboard..
Eating disorder?
I call it ‘cleaning’..
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