Yet again, always evolving, learning, growing, I have moved on! Finishing my book has given me a new lease of life, energizing me from the inside out, and all thanks to me! I can’t rely on others to manufacture my reality, Stuart has proven that. No – it has to come from that warm loving glow within. And it has! I’ve said to myself – thank you Dimity! Thanks for being so you. And now, like my mythical heroine, I’m poised at the beginning of a great new adventure, as an author, and public speaker, reaching out to the world, sharing the love.
Let me recap – there have been a few loose threads that needed urgently tying up. For example, my boss John persisted in believing that he and I had… a relationship. True, when I was at my lowest, I did turn to John for friendship, but I made it completely clear that there were boundaries, that any intimacy between us was of a fleeting foolish nature, and that once I had repaid my financial obligations towards him, that we’d be back to a purely professional arrangement. This didn’t seem to be getting through to John. His hands would grasp at me at the oddest moments, clammy and inept. So I suggested he took a job in the South Island. Down in Dunedin, a very go-ahead city, and close to Invercargill, where he could look after his mother. Or… that I’d find it hard to keep certain embarrassing things out of his annual performance review. Success! He’s gone. We’re now looking for a temporary replacement until the board can appoint someone more appropriately qualified.
But the problems continued closer to home with Bonnie. Oh she was just unbelievable! Trying to push her way into the limelight of my book publicity with outrageous claims that she’d written half the damn thing! Now I know Bonnie is a victim of her hormones and that she’d burned down my house when her PMT got her uptight, so I can only guess what her menstrual cycle was doing to the poor bitch to make her so delusional. But it's always been there with Bon, a festering jealousy about living large like I do, about being my own fabulous person, making big changes, being up to date, wearing nice clothes, being svelte and attractive, having nice hair, sweeping away the old and embracing the new…
So I made Bonnie aware, in the nicest way, of how she risked personal ruin should she pursue her mad plan to gain unwarranted recognition at my expense, that frankly, it would be hell, that she’d be mincemeat. She came to her senses and is now sensibly towing the line again and doing nice things for me like flower displays, somewhat dated, but pretty in a modest kind of way. And I said to myself again, Dimity? Are you effective, or what?
But the thing that has most been nagging at me, and needing urgent attention, is this… baby… of Amber’s. I realized having spoken sharply to her the other day that it really was not the most sensible tactic – all I met with was sullen resistance. So I devised another much more compelling reason for her to reconsider just how devastating going ahead with this pregnancy would be. I took her out to lunch at a nice restaurant on Ponsonby Rd, and treated her like an adult, which she’s not. I praised her dancing, but in fact I loathe all that narcissistic wobbling-about. I spoke in convincing grown-up language. And I gave her a plane ticket to New York, as far away from my boy as possible, while planting in her so-called mind the tragic reality of how hard her life would be with a child. Well, with this particular child. I would make sure of that.
And you know what? Amber indicated that she would take my advice and seek intervention. I was so proud of her. I almost started to like her. But then I thought about it and stopped being so silly. Until that baby was gone from her womb, she was still a menace.
That’s when it happened. Arthur Short, perpetual victim and nincompoop, took it upon himself to… well, to delete me. I was simply going about my business in a harmless fashion, moving the rubbish bin from my drive, when he drove his rustbucket straight towards me. On the street, at speed, with no intension of slowing down. I leapt for my life! Never have I been so scared. His Rover roared past and smashed into a parked car. He was left unconscious, bleeding before his frightened daughters, a spectacle of impotence, inadequacy and rage. Stuart ran to help him, and kept him breathing until the ambulance arrived. I was left shaken in the gutter with skin torn from my hands and knees, wondering what on earth could have inspired such lunacy. How have I ever hurt him?
But there we have it. And Stuart? He’s gone. Off to Western Samoa to work with the health services there, doing medical operations on outlying islands, determined as he is to devote himself to the needy. Caroline is partly to blame for this witless development, but I don’t mind. Caroline had come to us at a time when we really did need her, and she needed us. She’s not to blame for Stuart’s bizarre guilt about being in the top income bracket. But perhaps this is a good thing. We do need time apart. We love each other, but it seems that we just can’t live with each other. And I’m so busy now! I’m juggling my two careers, but when the book is really selling, after my international publicity tour, I’ll devote my time to writing and speaking and touring and really helping people. You see, from being so respected in the field of Human Resources, I have all this wisdom! I’ve heard so many stories! And people really need to hear my advice. Besides, my publisher says I’ve invented a whole new genre…! It’s very exciting! Just think, would any of this have happened if I’d continued to live out in ghastly Kumeu?
Go well. And book is selling at $39.99. Easily affordable. Impossible to put down.
XXXX Dimity.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Friday April 13
I’m speechless. Dumbstruck. Betrayed and undermined by my own family at every turn. What an appalling state of affairs. I’m the only one who seems to take things seriously around here. And for what? Stuart and Julian delight in dragging me down to the level of that grotesque family next door. I can’t bear it! If things had gone the way I’d planned in meticulous detail, none of this current tragedy would be unfolding.
Amber, that dreadful troll from next door has done it. She’s finally succeeded in exploiting my witless son, who seems ignorant of the terrible situation he’s now in – that we’re all now in. She’s having his baby! She’s pregnant to Julian.
I’ve been completely betrayed. Primarily by my husband. Stuart has been going through a period of supreme self-indulgence over the past few months, ever since we moved into our new Ponsonby home. Somehow this move triggered a late midlife crisis of epic proportions. A few little problems in the operating theatre prompted him to decide that supporting his family and providing for our financial needs was no longer any concern of his. He stopped work and moved into the shed. Impressive, don’t you think? He stopped talking to me, more or less, while I kept working and trying to dream up strategies to keep the family afloat. Meanwhile he became a reclusive hermit, glugging back red wine while spending his time with that lifelong adolescent, Spencer. Julian moves out complaining that he can’t live with the stress at home anymore, and it occurs to me that a little rent money for Julian’s room might help pay the odd bill? So Hemi, my pilates instructor, moves in.
Hemi is so easy. He’s pleasant and fun. He enjoyed listening to me reading the sexy bits from my manuscript – and encourages me to make it hotter! Clearly Stuart is in no position to engage on this level. His idea of hot is cool-to-lukewarm. In the midst of editing my manuscript, Julian appears out of nowhere. Great, I think, he can pick up Ollie from Bonnie’s new place. Julian seems strangely distant. When I ask what’s wrong, he says, blithely, that Amber is having his a baby. That the baby is his! Then he takes the keys and disappears before I can figure out if he’s making a joke, to wind me up, or if he’s serious. Stuart is in the garden, and when I demand to know if he’s heard anything about a “baby” he tells me yes! But I’m not to know about it because it’s “fragile” and the situation needs time to “unfold”!!!!
You can imagine how I felt. Stunned, speechless, heartbroken, angry, with a blood pressure that was going through the roof! That’s when I spot that demented slapper, Amber, at the washingline over the fence, and before I knew it I was shoving my way inside the back door of their filthy house, screaming my head off at the horrid girl. Her father appeared at the same time, just as Amber was claiming that Julian didn’t use a condom - as if it was anything to do with him! It flitted through my mind that Arthur might feel like I did, flattened by this tragic news, but no. He was clearly elated, obviously having no sense of responsibility for the lives he was about to ruin, including mine. He threw me out.
Never in my life have I felt so undermined, so disregarded. Julian failed to return with Ollie until much, much later, clearly freaked out by what had transpired... all I could think of to do was to calm myself with a few drinks while I made the final editing changes to my book. Which is when Arthur, in some deranged state of mind, started thumping on my front door demanding that I open up. Of course I wouldn’t! Then he took to the door with a spade and smashed his way inside. I was screaming for Stuart to protect me, while Arthur barged in over the broken glass and shouted at me that if I was to attempt to salvage the wretched situation he wouldn’t be responsible for what he would do to me! Never in my life have I been threatened in this way. And off he stomped, having done at least two hundred dollars worth of damage to the property.
That’s when it all became clear. Stuart announced that Arthur was a hero. That finally someone had stood up to me. That Stuart himself was on Arthur’s side, and that he felt grateful for Arthur’s intervention. What’s more, when Ollie appeared, and told me that Julian had gone next door, Stuart then took it upon himself to prevent me from returning to Arthur’s house to bring Julian home!
In a state of numbed despondency, I finished the changes to my book and emailed it off to my publisher. Things had come to this. And I finally realized that if anything was to save me, to show me a possible future, it was this book itself. This was my ticket to freedom, from Arthur, from Stuart, and from the socially doomed bunch of cells that was already dividing and growing inside my demented neighbour’s daughter!!!!
Amber, that dreadful troll from next door has done it. She’s finally succeeded in exploiting my witless son, who seems ignorant of the terrible situation he’s now in – that we’re all now in. She’s having his baby! She’s pregnant to Julian.
I’ve been completely betrayed. Primarily by my husband. Stuart has been going through a period of supreme self-indulgence over the past few months, ever since we moved into our new Ponsonby home. Somehow this move triggered a late midlife crisis of epic proportions. A few little problems in the operating theatre prompted him to decide that supporting his family and providing for our financial needs was no longer any concern of his. He stopped work and moved into the shed. Impressive, don’t you think? He stopped talking to me, more or less, while I kept working and trying to dream up strategies to keep the family afloat. Meanwhile he became a reclusive hermit, glugging back red wine while spending his time with that lifelong adolescent, Spencer. Julian moves out complaining that he can’t live with the stress at home anymore, and it occurs to me that a little rent money for Julian’s room might help pay the odd bill? So Hemi, my pilates instructor, moves in.
Hemi is so easy. He’s pleasant and fun. He enjoyed listening to me reading the sexy bits from my manuscript – and encourages me to make it hotter! Clearly Stuart is in no position to engage on this level. His idea of hot is cool-to-lukewarm. In the midst of editing my manuscript, Julian appears out of nowhere. Great, I think, he can pick up Ollie from Bonnie’s new place. Julian seems strangely distant. When I ask what’s wrong, he says, blithely, that Amber is having his a baby. That the baby is his! Then he takes the keys and disappears before I can figure out if he’s making a joke, to wind me up, or if he’s serious. Stuart is in the garden, and when I demand to know if he’s heard anything about a “baby” he tells me yes! But I’m not to know about it because it’s “fragile” and the situation needs time to “unfold”!!!!
You can imagine how I felt. Stunned, speechless, heartbroken, angry, with a blood pressure that was going through the roof! That’s when I spot that demented slapper, Amber, at the washingline over the fence, and before I knew it I was shoving my way inside the back door of their filthy house, screaming my head off at the horrid girl. Her father appeared at the same time, just as Amber was claiming that Julian didn’t use a condom - as if it was anything to do with him! It flitted through my mind that Arthur might feel like I did, flattened by this tragic news, but no. He was clearly elated, obviously having no sense of responsibility for the lives he was about to ruin, including mine. He threw me out.
Never in my life have I felt so undermined, so disregarded. Julian failed to return with Ollie until much, much later, clearly freaked out by what had transpired... all I could think of to do was to calm myself with a few drinks while I made the final editing changes to my book. Which is when Arthur, in some deranged state of mind, started thumping on my front door demanding that I open up. Of course I wouldn’t! Then he took to the door with a spade and smashed his way inside. I was screaming for Stuart to protect me, while Arthur barged in over the broken glass and shouted at me that if I was to attempt to salvage the wretched situation he wouldn’t be responsible for what he would do to me! Never in my life have I been threatened in this way. And off he stomped, having done at least two hundred dollars worth of damage to the property.
That’s when it all became clear. Stuart announced that Arthur was a hero. That finally someone had stood up to me. That Stuart himself was on Arthur’s side, and that he felt grateful for Arthur’s intervention. What’s more, when Ollie appeared, and told me that Julian had gone next door, Stuart then took it upon himself to prevent me from returning to Arthur’s house to bring Julian home!
In a state of numbed despondency, I finished the changes to my book and emailed it off to my publisher. Things had come to this. And I finally realized that if anything was to save me, to show me a possible future, it was this book itself. This was my ticket to freedom, from Arthur, from Stuart, and from the socially doomed bunch of cells that was already dividing and growing inside my demented neighbour’s daughter!!!!
Monday, April 9, 2007
Friday, April 6
“The dawn broke in sapphire splendour...”
Yes, at last, the most incredible changes are underway, and my life has come full circle once again. My dear dear dying friend Caroline, a darling woman so close to my heart, she swept through my world like a zephyr of change, taking away all that was stale while recharging my confidence, my creativity, my cares!
Even though there are still many loose ends in my life – such as my husband Stuart, who continues to live in his shed, getting hairier by the day, he’s become a human hedgehog. When he’s not skulking around at Spencer’s pad, living the highlife of a pretend bachelor, he’s out the back of this house guzzling red wine in splendid isolation, soaking in his primal fantasies. But I hardly see him. Sometimes he uses the shower, but there’s no social interaction, no actual words, nothing to suggest that we are still married. Our decision to commit to each other, and to work towards the harmony of our family? Well, it's all in the past. I called Sandy Grey, to let him know that our sessions are over. I am learning to accept these changes. Not to fight them. This is what Caroline has given me. New peace.
Or Julian, who’s launching himself out into the big wide world, a puppy about to get a few kicks from vicious reality. But again, I’m so in tune with his new plans. He wants to travel overseas. He wants to make the world a better place. And I make a few bucks by renting out his room. I’ve found this lovely creature called Hemi, a dancer, a fitness instructor, light as air – just perfect for babysitting Ollie. You see? Everything in alignment, it's incredible!
Since Bonnie saw sense and made the decision to repair the damage she’d done to our friendship, not to mention the Kumeu house, I’ve been freed from pressure from the bank. Half a million dollars was all it took. Seems a trivial sum now. Now that I’m well on my way to earning so much more, by sharing my wisdom. All those years of listening to people’s stories as a professional in HR. Dealing with the plight of lonely men like John Ackroyd, who continues to mistake our professional relationship for intimacy, bordering on sexual harassment. It's all there for me to reinterpret as fiction. Even the vile Arthur Short, who has held on to his rotten pile next door, tenacious as a limpet, these are human stories that my mythical heroine will use in her personal odyssey. Bonnie is very very lucky to be a part of this new venture – doing the typing while I create a future classic. Not every day that a dumbo like Bon gets to experience such a passionate outpouring, practically being burnt in the crucible of my ideas!
I tried to explain to her the other day, that money is no issue anymore. She moans and groans about the drab little spot she’s living in now with Jase and Max. But she misses the point completely! One creates one’s reality from the inside out – and I’m feeling incandescent! Soon I will attract significant wealth. Between me and my mythical heroine, there’s just no stopping us.
Yes, at last, the most incredible changes are underway, and my life has come full circle once again. My dear dear dying friend Caroline, a darling woman so close to my heart, she swept through my world like a zephyr of change, taking away all that was stale while recharging my confidence, my creativity, my cares!
Even though there are still many loose ends in my life – such as my husband Stuart, who continues to live in his shed, getting hairier by the day, he’s become a human hedgehog. When he’s not skulking around at Spencer’s pad, living the highlife of a pretend bachelor, he’s out the back of this house guzzling red wine in splendid isolation, soaking in his primal fantasies. But I hardly see him. Sometimes he uses the shower, but there’s no social interaction, no actual words, nothing to suggest that we are still married. Our decision to commit to each other, and to work towards the harmony of our family? Well, it's all in the past. I called Sandy Grey, to let him know that our sessions are over. I am learning to accept these changes. Not to fight them. This is what Caroline has given me. New peace.
Or Julian, who’s launching himself out into the big wide world, a puppy about to get a few kicks from vicious reality. But again, I’m so in tune with his new plans. He wants to travel overseas. He wants to make the world a better place. And I make a few bucks by renting out his room. I’ve found this lovely creature called Hemi, a dancer, a fitness instructor, light as air – just perfect for babysitting Ollie. You see? Everything in alignment, it's incredible!
Since Bonnie saw sense and made the decision to repair the damage she’d done to our friendship, not to mention the Kumeu house, I’ve been freed from pressure from the bank. Half a million dollars was all it took. Seems a trivial sum now. Now that I’m well on my way to earning so much more, by sharing my wisdom. All those years of listening to people’s stories as a professional in HR. Dealing with the plight of lonely men like John Ackroyd, who continues to mistake our professional relationship for intimacy, bordering on sexual harassment. It's all there for me to reinterpret as fiction. Even the vile Arthur Short, who has held on to his rotten pile next door, tenacious as a limpet, these are human stories that my mythical heroine will use in her personal odyssey. Bonnie is very very lucky to be a part of this new venture – doing the typing while I create a future classic. Not every day that a dumbo like Bon gets to experience such a passionate outpouring, practically being burnt in the crucible of my ideas!
I tried to explain to her the other day, that money is no issue anymore. She moans and groans about the drab little spot she’s living in now with Jase and Max. But she misses the point completely! One creates one’s reality from the inside out – and I’m feeling incandescent! Soon I will attract significant wealth. Between me and my mythical heroine, there’s just no stopping us.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Friday March 30
I don’t quite know where to begin. Life has taken the strangest turns of late, a catalogue of the unexpected and the unfortunate. The outcome? I lost the house next door. Despite my best efforts, Francesca Hoyle at the bank went with the first offer she got on the place, just to spite me. Here’s what happened.
I’d done my upmost to get my boss John on board with a loan through the company to help me solve my capital shortfall and get the bank off my back, but when the crunch moment came, John was absent – in Invercargill – some claptrap about a mother with a broken hip. Fine, but how does that help me? With the bank selling both houses, I needed more than excuses. I needed cash! When I pointed out John’s considerable shortcomings, he starts whipping himself with a nasty bunch of flowers he’s hoping I’ll accept, as if they would placate me, dashing them against his back, bleating about letting me down. Well, why miss an opportunity to show him what I really felt? I hated him! I seized his tattered bunch of tortured willow and gave him his flabby white bottom a sound thrashing. Strangely satisfying for both of us…
But it was later, while waiting for my husband (again) at Sandy Grey’s marriage-counseling practice that it really hit me. Here I was, struggling like a madwoman to find solutions to life’s endless crises, when I thought of Caroline again, dying, her clarity and wisdom. Her simplicity. How she’d come back into our lives with the express purpose of resolving the past. She’d chosen what was important and let the rest fall way. When Sandy asked me what I wanted, what I really wanted, I suddenly knew the answer. I wanted destiny! I wanted greatness! None of these petty worries about money and getting ahead, but to connect with what is really meant for me. To lead people. Guide them. To create change on a massive scale. To touch many, many lives. We could die tomorrow. The time is now.
It was visionary moment. I saw my future, as teacher, guide. Using the wisdom I had accumulated through years of guiding careers, listening to people’s stories, bringing them hope. So I got Jase and Bonnie over that night and sat them down for a little chat. I suggested that either I could ruin their professional reputations and leave their family life in tatters, or they could sell their own house as reparation for Kumeu and we could all achieve closure. Move on!
I painted a simple and compelling picture of Bonnie in jail, no name suppression, her son tormented and beaten up at school. Of course she blurted out her guilt, blaming PMT for her hysterical reaction when she’d mistakenly thought I’d had sex with her awful husband. She admitted arson. I offered them my South African buyer who’d been keen to pay cash. They could get a cash offer on their own home. Full replacement cost and it’s over.
After a wasted gesture of resistance, Jase saw reason. And within days they’d sold their house. They got half a million from the very buyer I’d recommended, a bit less than the value of the torched house, so I decided that Bonnie could make up the shortfall doing some typing to help me write my book. I was bursting with energy to start this new venture, and if she was available, why not?
It was so nice to get all those details ironed out. At least it would have been, if that bitch at the bank hadn’t been quite so determined to thwart my plans.
And that’s when it happened. Just when I’d re-established order and calm – my office door flew open and there he was, Arthur Short with his hideous bagpipes, a hellish onslaught of ghastly tuneless screeching as he and his rat-like mate paraded around my office, triumphantly celebrated Arthur’s purchase of Number 11 Ginger Street. Arthur had made a cash offer. How did he pull the money together? You just have to take one look at the lowlives he associates with and the answer is clear: through crime, thievery, extortion.
So thanks to my friend Bonnie, to my boss, and to the bank, I was stuck with that terrible man forever, living next door in the house that was by rights mine! How my plans had been thwarted by the meddling of others! Now all I had to fall back on for the future, given that Stuart seemed to have run off, and Julian had texted me so say he’d gone flatting, was Ollie… and the inspiration of my dying friend Caroline.
I’d done my upmost to get my boss John on board with a loan through the company to help me solve my capital shortfall and get the bank off my back, but when the crunch moment came, John was absent – in Invercargill – some claptrap about a mother with a broken hip. Fine, but how does that help me? With the bank selling both houses, I needed more than excuses. I needed cash! When I pointed out John’s considerable shortcomings, he starts whipping himself with a nasty bunch of flowers he’s hoping I’ll accept, as if they would placate me, dashing them against his back, bleating about letting me down. Well, why miss an opportunity to show him what I really felt? I hated him! I seized his tattered bunch of tortured willow and gave him his flabby white bottom a sound thrashing. Strangely satisfying for both of us…
But it was later, while waiting for my husband (again) at Sandy Grey’s marriage-counseling practice that it really hit me. Here I was, struggling like a madwoman to find solutions to life’s endless crises, when I thought of Caroline again, dying, her clarity and wisdom. Her simplicity. How she’d come back into our lives with the express purpose of resolving the past. She’d chosen what was important and let the rest fall way. When Sandy asked me what I wanted, what I really wanted, I suddenly knew the answer. I wanted destiny! I wanted greatness! None of these petty worries about money and getting ahead, but to connect with what is really meant for me. To lead people. Guide them. To create change on a massive scale. To touch many, many lives. We could die tomorrow. The time is now.
It was visionary moment. I saw my future, as teacher, guide. Using the wisdom I had accumulated through years of guiding careers, listening to people’s stories, bringing them hope. So I got Jase and Bonnie over that night and sat them down for a little chat. I suggested that either I could ruin their professional reputations and leave their family life in tatters, or they could sell their own house as reparation for Kumeu and we could all achieve closure. Move on!
I painted a simple and compelling picture of Bonnie in jail, no name suppression, her son tormented and beaten up at school. Of course she blurted out her guilt, blaming PMT for her hysterical reaction when she’d mistakenly thought I’d had sex with her awful husband. She admitted arson. I offered them my South African buyer who’d been keen to pay cash. They could get a cash offer on their own home. Full replacement cost and it’s over.
After a wasted gesture of resistance, Jase saw reason. And within days they’d sold their house. They got half a million from the very buyer I’d recommended, a bit less than the value of the torched house, so I decided that Bonnie could make up the shortfall doing some typing to help me write my book. I was bursting with energy to start this new venture, and if she was available, why not?
It was so nice to get all those details ironed out. At least it would have been, if that bitch at the bank hadn’t been quite so determined to thwart my plans.
And that’s when it happened. Just when I’d re-established order and calm – my office door flew open and there he was, Arthur Short with his hideous bagpipes, a hellish onslaught of ghastly tuneless screeching as he and his rat-like mate paraded around my office, triumphantly celebrated Arthur’s purchase of Number 11 Ginger Street. Arthur had made a cash offer. How did he pull the money together? You just have to take one look at the lowlives he associates with and the answer is clear: through crime, thievery, extortion.
So thanks to my friend Bonnie, to my boss, and to the bank, I was stuck with that terrible man forever, living next door in the house that was by rights mine! How my plans had been thwarted by the meddling of others! Now all I had to fall back on for the future, given that Stuart seemed to have run off, and Julian had texted me so say he’d gone flatting, was Ollie… and the inspiration of my dying friend Caroline.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Friday March 23
It has been 3 days since I trekked all the way out there to Kumeu to find Bonnie huddled in a mindless heap, squirting gallons of rescue remedy down her throat, trying to ignore the fact that she’d torched a perfectly saleable piece of real estate. It really felt like going back into the dark ages, horse and plow, mud, depression. Well that was clearly the state Bonnie was in, gasping for air and incapable of assembling a coherent thought to save her silly self. And when I made it clear that I knew what she’d been up to, down she went like a sack of spuds. Passed out, on the nasty lino of her 80’s kitchen right in front of the fridge.
Next development? One Francesca Hoyle marches in to my office with no hallos and starts barking on about the bank needing a clear plan to salvage my finances. Hallo? It's not that easy. Not when you have a clear case of arson – as the insurance company is now claiming – and fire investigations which are likely to take a month! And Ms Hoyle wanting me to come up with the money in 24 hours?? What planet was she from?
If I think about it now, I was so thrown by her demands, and by the shock of the fire, that I barely knew what I was doing. I drove back to Ponsonby with the idea that Stuart would do what he usually did in times of crisis – that he would help. I found him gardening. He didn’t pay the slightest attention to anything I said. I pleaded with him to talk to Spencer and to find work again – work that the hospital desperately wants to give him – work that any cosmetic surgery was screaming out to pay him for – but he spat my words back in my face, mocking me!
And what followed next I will never forget for the rest of my life. I attacked my husband. I hit him, I took off my shoe and I thumped him with it. I chased him in to his garden shed and screamed and said the most awful things I could think of. Julian appeared out of nowhere and witnessed my unhinged tirade. There was Stuart cowering with blood running down his face from the whack I’d just given him, while I stood there screaming blue murder.
Oh, my, god. In a condition I can only now call narcolepsy I returned to the office and wept. For all we used to be and for all that we had come to. A shattered family which barely held together. At that moment my boss John Ackroyd approached me offering tenderness. Again, in my stunned state, I found myself desperate responding to his caresses. One thing led to another… I’m so embarrassed by it all. And I blame Bonnie for bringing me this low.
Everything passed in a blur. John offered the money to save my relationship with the bank. It was a devil’s bargain but I made it. He stared at me with those adoring eyes of his, which normally made me gag, but this time I gazed back with one of those happy stoned expressions Julian wears when he gets home from a teenage party.
Then Jase attacked me in the carpark, attempted to intimidate me. I told him to back off, warning him and his dimwit wife that the cops would be the next to visit.
Then I got home to… Caroline, a vision from the past – and not the happy past either…. My betrayer, my bridesmaid, Caroline, standing there looking like a refugee from the third world, or a Hare Krishna convert, swathed in pinks and beige silks, looking like she was dying…
Well she was. She is. She has weeks to live. She’s as thin as a rake and living on herbal tea and air.
She saw right through me. I was so unnerved. For all my sophistication, and all the techniques to cover up, to distract, well, all that amounted to diddly squat… Caroline took me back to who we used to be… and who we’ve left behind. The moment I clapped eyes on her I resented the intrusion, but in fact she was a godsend. Just having the evening together with her, I remembered all sorts of things we used to do, the laughs, the nonsense.
She sent me off to work in the morning with no long goodbyes. I can see the wisdom in that too. She said Love your family. That’s the thought I have to hold on to. Love them as they fall apart… Caroline was off to Mexico to a drug clinic for cancer and I would never see this woman again in my life but her intervention was surely heavensent.
I got to my office to discover John was hiding from me… he knew completely well that I had 24 hours to fix up the mortgages. That period was about to expire when she rang. Francesca Hoyle, financial harpy. And in one vicious swoop, she threw my case study into the paper-shredder. Might as well have. The property I’d struggled so hard to put my name to, my investment for my sons, the house next door, Arthur’s house, was now back on the market and there was nothing I could do to stop that.
Next development? One Francesca Hoyle marches in to my office with no hallos and starts barking on about the bank needing a clear plan to salvage my finances. Hallo? It's not that easy. Not when you have a clear case of arson – as the insurance company is now claiming – and fire investigations which are likely to take a month! And Ms Hoyle wanting me to come up with the money in 24 hours?? What planet was she from?
If I think about it now, I was so thrown by her demands, and by the shock of the fire, that I barely knew what I was doing. I drove back to Ponsonby with the idea that Stuart would do what he usually did in times of crisis – that he would help. I found him gardening. He didn’t pay the slightest attention to anything I said. I pleaded with him to talk to Spencer and to find work again – work that the hospital desperately wants to give him – work that any cosmetic surgery was screaming out to pay him for – but he spat my words back in my face, mocking me!
And what followed next I will never forget for the rest of my life. I attacked my husband. I hit him, I took off my shoe and I thumped him with it. I chased him in to his garden shed and screamed and said the most awful things I could think of. Julian appeared out of nowhere and witnessed my unhinged tirade. There was Stuart cowering with blood running down his face from the whack I’d just given him, while I stood there screaming blue murder.
Oh, my, god. In a condition I can only now call narcolepsy I returned to the office and wept. For all we used to be and for all that we had come to. A shattered family which barely held together. At that moment my boss John Ackroyd approached me offering tenderness. Again, in my stunned state, I found myself desperate responding to his caresses. One thing led to another… I’m so embarrassed by it all. And I blame Bonnie for bringing me this low.
Everything passed in a blur. John offered the money to save my relationship with the bank. It was a devil’s bargain but I made it. He stared at me with those adoring eyes of his, which normally made me gag, but this time I gazed back with one of those happy stoned expressions Julian wears when he gets home from a teenage party.
Then Jase attacked me in the carpark, attempted to intimidate me. I told him to back off, warning him and his dimwit wife that the cops would be the next to visit.
Then I got home to… Caroline, a vision from the past – and not the happy past either…. My betrayer, my bridesmaid, Caroline, standing there looking like a refugee from the third world, or a Hare Krishna convert, swathed in pinks and beige silks, looking like she was dying…
Well she was. She is. She has weeks to live. She’s as thin as a rake and living on herbal tea and air.
She saw right through me. I was so unnerved. For all my sophistication, and all the techniques to cover up, to distract, well, all that amounted to diddly squat… Caroline took me back to who we used to be… and who we’ve left behind. The moment I clapped eyes on her I resented the intrusion, but in fact she was a godsend. Just having the evening together with her, I remembered all sorts of things we used to do, the laughs, the nonsense.
She sent me off to work in the morning with no long goodbyes. I can see the wisdom in that too. She said Love your family. That’s the thought I have to hold on to. Love them as they fall apart… Caroline was off to Mexico to a drug clinic for cancer and I would never see this woman again in my life but her intervention was surely heavensent.
I got to my office to discover John was hiding from me… he knew completely well that I had 24 hours to fix up the mortgages. That period was about to expire when she rang. Francesca Hoyle, financial harpy. And in one vicious swoop, she threw my case study into the paper-shredder. Might as well have. The property I’d struggled so hard to put my name to, my investment for my sons, the house next door, Arthur’s house, was now back on the market and there was nothing I could do to stop that.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Friday, March 16
What was she thinking? Why did she do it? Why on earth would Bonnie be so stupid as to torch my home? I mean – don’t get me wrong – You wouldn’t rush to Bonnie’s side to sort out a complicated personal issue, or come to think of it you wouldn’t rush to Bonnie to solve a crossword puzzle – nobody thinks Bonnie is actually very smart – but who could have guessed she was actually as thick as two planks? As dense as they come? To go ahead and actually burn down a perfectly good house which was on the verge of selling? Not me! Never saw it coming!
All this time she was festering away, ever since I showed her that there was a life outside of Kumeu, working out in her tiny little mind in ever diminishing little circles, how she could strike back! Revenge of the unaccomplished! of the fatbottomed! Revenge of the married-to-Jase’s!? Hell I don’t know – did I tip her over the edge when I got a shorter more fashionable hairstyle and went blonde? Did that do it? Oh now I can see that she was taking everything personally. That every move I made in my exciting promising life was a personal slur on her? The fact of it is that I barely think about Bonnie – ever! She simply never comes to mind! She’s not interesting! She’s a Fat Bottomed Kumeu Cow! Well perhaps this is the first time she’s done something truly effective. I’m stumped. Now the insurance company is playing hard to get, making noises about arson, long investigations, procedures, forms, meanwhile I’m struggling along with bridging finance on two homes… You see what she doesn’t realise is that one day, she’ll pay. Handsomely.
You might be thinking, that’s a lot on poor Dim’s plate. That’s not the half of it! My husband has moved into the shed. There. Perhaps the most humiliating moment of our twentysomething years together. He prefers to doss out in the shed with the crickets and wetas than to be beside his wife in the marital bed. The signal this is sending to our two boys is – we’re done. We’re over. And there’s silly old Dimity holding things together in the meantime. Well… Julian saw me on the verge of tears and that’s something new for him to witness. I didn’t cry – but it’s a millimeter away just under the surface of my skin just waiting to happen. Sandy Grey has decided I’m the aggressive one – that I need to do some “homework” on this issue! But who is earning the household crust at the moment? Me! Who is arranging the legal and financial affairs in an attempt to stave off bankruptcy? Me! Looking after the boys and feeding the family? Me! Aggressive? Me?
You know, if I step back, take a deep breath, calm down enough to look dispassionately at the current state of my affairs, I still want what I set out to have. I still want a new life in Ponsonby, I still want to open up new possibilities for myself and for my family, and I still want to renew the possibility of falling in love with my husband again. These goals fit my current needs like a hand fits a glove. Except now, thanks to the combined efforts of my closest friend Bonnie, and my husband Stewart, and Julian, and Arthur Bloody Short and his hideous brood – that glove has been shredded and unpicked until it looks like something a scarecrew might wear on the end of the broomstick for an arm… Oh Dimity how did everything go so wrong?
All this time she was festering away, ever since I showed her that there was a life outside of Kumeu, working out in her tiny little mind in ever diminishing little circles, how she could strike back! Revenge of the unaccomplished! of the fatbottomed! Revenge of the married-to-Jase’s!? Hell I don’t know – did I tip her over the edge when I got a shorter more fashionable hairstyle and went blonde? Did that do it? Oh now I can see that she was taking everything personally. That every move I made in my exciting promising life was a personal slur on her? The fact of it is that I barely think about Bonnie – ever! She simply never comes to mind! She’s not interesting! She’s a Fat Bottomed Kumeu Cow! Well perhaps this is the first time she’s done something truly effective. I’m stumped. Now the insurance company is playing hard to get, making noises about arson, long investigations, procedures, forms, meanwhile I’m struggling along with bridging finance on two homes… You see what she doesn’t realise is that one day, she’ll pay. Handsomely.
You might be thinking, that’s a lot on poor Dim’s plate. That’s not the half of it! My husband has moved into the shed. There. Perhaps the most humiliating moment of our twentysomething years together. He prefers to doss out in the shed with the crickets and wetas than to be beside his wife in the marital bed. The signal this is sending to our two boys is – we’re done. We’re over. And there’s silly old Dimity holding things together in the meantime. Well… Julian saw me on the verge of tears and that’s something new for him to witness. I didn’t cry – but it’s a millimeter away just under the surface of my skin just waiting to happen. Sandy Grey has decided I’m the aggressive one – that I need to do some “homework” on this issue! But who is earning the household crust at the moment? Me! Who is arranging the legal and financial affairs in an attempt to stave off bankruptcy? Me! Looking after the boys and feeding the family? Me! Aggressive? Me?
You know, if I step back, take a deep breath, calm down enough to look dispassionately at the current state of my affairs, I still want what I set out to have. I still want a new life in Ponsonby, I still want to open up new possibilities for myself and for my family, and I still want to renew the possibility of falling in love with my husband again. These goals fit my current needs like a hand fits a glove. Except now, thanks to the combined efforts of my closest friend Bonnie, and my husband Stewart, and Julian, and Arthur Bloody Short and his hideous brood – that glove has been shredded and unpicked until it looks like something a scarecrew might wear on the end of the broomstick for an arm… Oh Dimity how did everything go so wrong?
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Friday, March 9
Gone. Just like that. The latest we’ve heard is that my son Julian has driven out of town with a bunch of dancers on some hair-brained tour, getting pittance wages as backstage boy to prop up the exploitation of these childrens’ supposed talents! And he threw it all away for what? Amber… There she is, prancing about while her dimwit of a dad makes encouraging grunts from the sidelines, the expert critic that he isn’t, and my son troops dutifully along at Amber’s beck and call, losing all the advantage of his education, and all hope for the future? Well if you expect me to chase after him, I won’t. You see, its time Julian made a few mistakes. I’m tired of him using the place as a dosshouse leaving food everywhere and all my nice things smashed and broken on the floor – they could be family heirlooms for all he knows, even though they were really just a few overpriced generic knickknacks from Ponsonby Road design stores… No respect.
Not that I am in any condition to go running after anyone… Arthur Short has dealt me a terrible injury. My back’s been excruciating! Five years ago I tore a muscle while lifting Ollie, and Arthur has aggravated that old injury. Do I look like the physical match for a man who must weigh… well, there’s simply no guessing, but he’s be at least three of me. There he was tugging on the other end of some bit of metal scrap when I felt the muscle rip. And down I went, splat, a cripple. He simply does not understand that Number 11 no longer belongs to him – and I won’t have piles of his crap towering higher and higher in the back yard while the council’s inorganic rubbish collection is underway. I try to help, and what does he do? He assaults me. Simple cut and dried case. There was even a witness… while I crawled home Arthur’s socially-challenged daughter Constance gawped at me from the roof of their garage… no thought passing through her excuse for a mind that I might need help. And not a shred of apology from her bludging father.
Now Stuart tells me that someone – without a doubt its that same seriously troubled girl I just mentioned – taped John Ackroyd when he was around here the other evening, fumbling and bumbling til he got his clammy paws on me out of sheer gratitude for the strictly professional attention I give him. Not one of the proudest moments of my life, but neither was it one I needed publicised to my husband!
But in a bizarre turnaround, this tape seems to have worked in the opposite way to which it was intended, making Stuart insanely jealous and bringing him back to me. He’s been so lovely to me since I hurt my back, looking after Ollie, talking to Julian at his work, really connecting with the family again. He even came to one of our appointments with the counsellor Sandy Grey, I was staggered, it was a very beneficial session. Just being there together, me on the floor whimpering with agony, Stuart wincing at my pain, I got such a heartwarming impression that he still wants a part of what we’ve built together…. Stuart was unexpectedly amorous that evening, which, in combination with the painkillers he was feeding me, left me feeling quite elated, all the cares of the world just drifting away, as I lay there flat on my back on the bedroom floor! Isn’t it incredible how things work out? Just when I thought my husband was out of my life – poof! gone! – I felt his tongue working its magic… down… down below… you know where I mean, with such skill and focus… the last thing I thought about was my freshly ruptured spinal cord, or my son driving about in the middle of the night, or Bonnie demanding to get her money back out of the deal I struck with Eric to secure Number 11.
How dare she! Some sorry tale about Jase needing his first holiday in five years to get to the Gold Coast… an investment not a loan… whatever!? I doubt he even has family over in Australia, lecherous penny-pinching Scot that he is, and I’m furious with Bonnie for trying to change the terms of the deal, or letting that slithery husband of her’s interfere with her independent financial plans… One day I’ll get Bonnie to go to one of those seminars for women about how to run their own life, like I do, how empowering it can be. Bonnie relies completely on her dimwit controlling husband. She can’t even buy milk at the corner shop without his approval! In 2007, its just not on!
Maybe I’m being a little cruel. Jase did give me a lovely back rub just after I hurt myself. I should be grateful for that! Well, I’ll be grateful when all the money for the bank is sorted out, Kumeu is finally off our plate, Arthur is finally out of our lives, and we can forget we ever lived anywhere other than Ginger Street.
Not that I am in any condition to go running after anyone… Arthur Short has dealt me a terrible injury. My back’s been excruciating! Five years ago I tore a muscle while lifting Ollie, and Arthur has aggravated that old injury. Do I look like the physical match for a man who must weigh… well, there’s simply no guessing, but he’s be at least three of me. There he was tugging on the other end of some bit of metal scrap when I felt the muscle rip. And down I went, splat, a cripple. He simply does not understand that Number 11 no longer belongs to him – and I won’t have piles of his crap towering higher and higher in the back yard while the council’s inorganic rubbish collection is underway. I try to help, and what does he do? He assaults me. Simple cut and dried case. There was even a witness… while I crawled home Arthur’s socially-challenged daughter Constance gawped at me from the roof of their garage… no thought passing through her excuse for a mind that I might need help. And not a shred of apology from her bludging father.
Now Stuart tells me that someone – without a doubt its that same seriously troubled girl I just mentioned – taped John Ackroyd when he was around here the other evening, fumbling and bumbling til he got his clammy paws on me out of sheer gratitude for the strictly professional attention I give him. Not one of the proudest moments of my life, but neither was it one I needed publicised to my husband!
But in a bizarre turnaround, this tape seems to have worked in the opposite way to which it was intended, making Stuart insanely jealous and bringing him back to me. He’s been so lovely to me since I hurt my back, looking after Ollie, talking to Julian at his work, really connecting with the family again. He even came to one of our appointments with the counsellor Sandy Grey, I was staggered, it was a very beneficial session. Just being there together, me on the floor whimpering with agony, Stuart wincing at my pain, I got such a heartwarming impression that he still wants a part of what we’ve built together…. Stuart was unexpectedly amorous that evening, which, in combination with the painkillers he was feeding me, left me feeling quite elated, all the cares of the world just drifting away, as I lay there flat on my back on the bedroom floor! Isn’t it incredible how things work out? Just when I thought my husband was out of my life – poof! gone! – I felt his tongue working its magic… down… down below… you know where I mean, with such skill and focus… the last thing I thought about was my freshly ruptured spinal cord, or my son driving about in the middle of the night, or Bonnie demanding to get her money back out of the deal I struck with Eric to secure Number 11.
How dare she! Some sorry tale about Jase needing his first holiday in five years to get to the Gold Coast… an investment not a loan… whatever!? I doubt he even has family over in Australia, lecherous penny-pinching Scot that he is, and I’m furious with Bonnie for trying to change the terms of the deal, or letting that slithery husband of her’s interfere with her independent financial plans… One day I’ll get Bonnie to go to one of those seminars for women about how to run their own life, like I do, how empowering it can be. Bonnie relies completely on her dimwit controlling husband. She can’t even buy milk at the corner shop without his approval! In 2007, its just not on!
Maybe I’m being a little cruel. Jase did give me a lovely back rub just after I hurt myself. I should be grateful for that! Well, I’ll be grateful when all the money for the bank is sorted out, Kumeu is finally off our plate, Arthur is finally out of our lives, and we can forget we ever lived anywhere other than Ginger Street.
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