17. Talk About Someone You Want To Be Friends With

Well, this is an odd topic. I’m not sure how to answer this. I mean most people I want to be friends…I’m friends with. That’s how this “making friends” thing works…I’ve tend to found. So, the only path left is probably celebrity. And off the top of my head, I can’t really think of anyone. I could say something lame or predictable like Jim Kerr. And yeah, being his friend would be very nice…but I’d sssooo be wanting more and that would never be happening (more’s the pity)!

I dunno. I went to see Susan Calman this time last year, and she was brilliant. She said that she feels people are nervous to approach her – and equally she’s kind of nervous being approached – but she likes it. She likes meeting people and she doesn’t want anyone to feel they can’t approach her. So, if we ever see her out and about to just come up and say “hi”! If I ever get to Glasgow and I see her about, I’ll be sure to do just that! 

16. Talk About The Best Party You’ve Ever Been To

It was in the summer of 1990/91. My boyfriend’s sister had moved into a share house in central Sydney. The house was BEAUTIFUL! One of the old, traditional terraced houses that you see in central Sydney. Old style architecture but brought right up-to-date in the interior. 

I met some lovely people. Lots of discussion. Lots of alcohol, music, fun. It was a long while ago now…but I certainly remember enjoying myself and having A LOT to drink! Too much, in fact. I actually passed out rather than fell asleep…

It shouldn’t be what makes a great party! But that bit wasn’t the fun. It was the lovely house, the lovely people, the great weather and the location that makes it memorable. 

15. Talk About The Time You Were Most Content In Life

It was probably from 1999 to 2000. I’d just moved to the UK. I was newly married. I seemed financially secure. Life felt good. All good things come to an end…and so did this time of contentment. It didn’t last long! But for the brief time it did, I was probably the happiest I’ve ever been in life. Roughly 15 months of my life was glorious. Says it all, really…

14. Talk About A Vacation

Well, one return home to Australia was a really harrowing one…but also weirdly enjoyable 🙂 I nearly died out there! But it was also one that I have very fond memories of. 

It was in 2002. I had a severe chest infection (well, what had been diagnosed to me at the time by my local GP!) when we set off. I did NOT want to cancel the trip! Yes, we were insured, but trips back home are so precious (even then when I had only just been back to Oz 2 years previous, and had only left the country 3 years ago!), I really didn’t want to not go. So, despite how ill I felt, we went.

The plane journey wasn’t a comfortable one. I had to be VERY careful about what I ate during this illness. I couldn’t keep much down. I was having to sleep sitting up at this point, because laying down induced a coughing attack, so that aspect of being on the plane was OK. I’m not sure what the other passangers thought of me coughing all over the place. Probably that I was a right contagious git (which, as it turns out, I was!). Anyway, the plane journey was as comfortably uncomfortable as a plane journey could get!

When we arrived in Oz, it soon became obvious (if we didn’t realise it before) that something far worse than just a chest infection was going on with me. I was having severe coughing attacks (constantly coughing, with absolutely no respite – sometimes ending in breathlessness). A few days after arrival, I had a coughing attack so severe, I lost consciousness! There was nothing left to be done. Off to my mum’s GP I went! He ordered a blood test (the first blood test I’d had in my entire life! (I was 31 at the time) I was too ill to care – I am ssooo needle phobic, but I wanted to know what the hell was wrong with me! Before we got the blood result, the doctor suspected whooping cough! The bloods confirmed it. Yes! I indeed HAD whooping cough!

The rest of the vacation, I was still pretty damn ill. I could only drink water. I couldn’t drink anything else. All other liquids induced a coughing attack. The only thing I could eat was one bowl of cereal a day. Anything else I tried to eat also induced a coughing attack.

Towards the end of the vacation, I was beginning to feel a TINY bit better. We (Em and I) and my mum went down to Canberra for a few days. It was lovely to go away with my mum. She hadn’t been away anywhere for many years. And even though she was already quite disabled by this time, we managed to go places and have a lovely time away.

So, yeah. This vacation was hellish but also very happy. The very apitome of my own personal schadenfreude (even though that’s meant to be pleasure dirived from someone elses pain). The direct translation of the word is said to mean “harm-joy”. That’s exactly how this holiday felt!

13. Talk About The First Time You Had Sex

Well, I alluded to this quite a bit in a previous post (see here). I’m not sure I want to go into too much detail! I remember more of the lead up and…erm…foreplay…than the actual deed itself. I certainly remember being MORE THAN ready for it! I’m not even sure if I…erm…orgasmed or not. So long ago now! I probably thought I had. I know I definitely wanted to “do it” with the person I was with. It wasn’t done out of boredom, or a desire to finally just sleep with SOMEONE. So, yeah. It was highly anticipated but probably not everything I wanted it to be. Definitely from the point of view that I thought it would mean the guy involved would want to go out with me, surely! But no…he used me. And I kept letting him use me. We’d continue to have sex on and off (more off than on, to be honest!) for a few more months. Then I met my first serious boyfriend, so whatever kind of weird relationship(?) I thought I had with my “cherry popper” ended. 

 I’m surprised I lasted until I was 18! If an opportunity had come by earlier…I definitely would have lost my virginity A LOT younger than I did.

12. Talk About The Worst Dream You’ve Ever Had

I have recurring dreams. There are three of them that I find the worse. Thankfully I haven’t had any of them in a while…

One: Being chased. I haven’t had one for a very long time but I used to have dreams as a child of being chased by strange people. Usually older, creepy men. One I remember –  I was being chased by a strange man outside my house. I couldn’t escape him. As much as I ran, he stayed in pursuit. I couldn’t go back into my house either. Horrible!

Two: Falling and/or being paralysed. Either falling down LOTS of steps or escalators (I have a phobia of escalators). Or needing to run or scream and having paralysis preventing me from doing so. Again, awful! My most recent of these recurring dreams was of falling down a very large flight of escalators. 

Three: Being chased and/or stung by bees. Some of these bees are NOT regular sized either. Some are the size of rugby balls (or bigger). In case you have not guessed by now, I have apiphobia (fear of bees). Have done since my early teens. I’ve even run out on the street in heavy traffic to avoid bees.

These are the dreams guaranteed to wake me in a sweat.

11. Talk About The Best Dream You’ve Ever Had

Well, I think the best dream I’ve ever had is the dream I have YET to have! I so want to have a dream about Jim Kerr, but can I have one?! Nope!! My brain actually did this to me about a week or two ago. It had me dream of Stuart Adamson! It’s like my brain just used some kind of telephone index option – Scottish, man, singer, group, 1980s – and landed on Stuart Adamson. Yeah, nice try brain! Lol

The crazier thing was the setting for this dream…a nuclear power plant. I KID YOU NOT! How very 80s of my brain too! 

So, anyway, I’m hoping that one day soon my brain will let me dream of Jim – and make it a lovely one 🙂 

10. Talk About The Biggest Fight You’ve Ever Had

Hmm. I don’t know what quantifies as “the biggest”. Most violent? Longest-lasting (in terms of no longer on speaking terms)?!

If it’s most violent…it was probably with my ex-boyfriend and his then girlfriend. He was coming round to see me on occasion (and yes, at one point we did have sex – I’m not proud of myself. I was no longer in love with him. I was using him as such as he was using me – and mine was an even worse betrayal, because I was hoping to get pregnant. Not to get him back, mind! That was never my intention. It was just a VERY brief period of time in which I thought I wanted a child. If I had fallen pregnant, I had no intention of telling him. I wanted to raise the child alone). To cut a long story short, his girlfriend found out that he was coming round to mine to see me. She wasn’t best pleased. Rightfully so. But, he had been seeing her before he broke up with me…so I was kind of claiming it as karma.

Yes, I know!! I really am not proud of my actions! It gets worse. She confronted me at my door. I wasn’t really in the mood to justify myself and I also carried the hurt from what they had both done to me. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted her gone and when she refused to leave, I got physical. Quite badly physical. I’m not going to go into detail, but what I did to her I would never, ever do to anyone EVER again. She could have had me arrested for assault. I would have!

I didn’t stop there, either. I grabbed my ex by the back of the neck and, quite literally, threw him out my front door. Adrenalin pumping through my body from the altercation with his girlfriend, I was able to actually pick him up and throw him out the door!

The next day, I spoke to them both, apologised profusely and kind of made my peace with them. I never really saw them after that. I have no idea if they are still together now. They were together for a while, as far as I know and had children together.

But yes. That was a pretty big and violent fight.