Dating is like fishing...

If it is, I shouldn't do it! Oh something to talk about!

Fifteen years ago, in New Zealand, my children were pretty much grown up, and I decided I needed to meet people. So I joined Find Someone Online (it was actually a different name but was connected with FSO) and started chatting online. I loved it, so many people to talk to! I met a lot of people (mostly women) who are still my friends 15 years later. I would travel from my home, Hamilton, to visit friends in Auckland and Wellington, party, dance, play pool, walk areas, and come home to go back to work. I'd go out again, same thing.

Eventually I was hooked by a man I later married, and he suggested we move to Australia. We came to Brisbane in 2005 and I've been here since then.

Many years ago, before FSO, before my kids, I used to ride motorbikes. I felt the need to ride again, so I bought another one when I joined FSO. I loved it, and in Brisbane my husband and I bought ourselves motorbikes and joined Ulysses. This I loved too - we'd ride just about every weekend, whether south through the Gold Coast and into NSW, west through Aratula and Cunningham Gap and around Lake Somerset, north to Maleny and Kenilworth, or east along the coast. By halfway through this membership I had my V-Star, which I absolutely loved!

My husband had a motorcycle incident in 2010, only 5 years since we'd moved here. He was run off his bike, rolled on the road and ended up with head and shoulder injury. Three years later he decided he'd had enough of living in Brisbane and he moved back to his kids in New Plymouth. He left me in Brisbane just before I went into PA Hospital for my brain aneurysm surgery, and I suffered a stroke.

Living alone is sometimes very, very hard for a person like me. I can't now work, sometimes I can't even speak, but writing is usually what I do every single day. Okay, yes I know I haven't written into my blog for 2 weeks, but writing isn't always just that! Right now I am waiting for some funding that I am really hoping I can get to publish my first book. Did you ever see the project? You really should.... and help me!

Anyways, two years ago, just after my husband separated, I joined the RSVP. "Get started for free!", it said. This was very different from FSO and the way I was "able" to contact any man who intrigued me. It seems, I didn't find out until after I had joined it, I would have to pay RSVP in order to talk to any person! I tried it for just one month, and ended up walking away from it. Until this year, when I rejoined it probably mostly because I'd actually forgotten anyone I'd met off it!

For me, that seems not good. If there are any women - or men - on this site who have had a stroke, live alone, need company but really find it hard to talk to any people even without paying to do so, they surely live like me.

So this month I heard of a different dating site, called Planet Earth, which I felt would have been very good. "Join now" it said, "and start meeting incredible, green, conscious singles." I went into it, joined it, filled out my profile, answered so many details... and found out some stuff that they had not advertised. For instance, if you want to put in more than 3 photos, you can't unless you are a paid member. If you want to talk to any one you can't unless you are a paid member. This online dating site is bad. Just like RSVP. Bad. What am I doing??

My own days are just for me. I write, I do quote pictures for my Reibus site, I work at the Redcliffe Art Gallery each Monday and Friday morning, I am now a trained STEPS leader, I am signed up as an events volunteer with MBC. I have my daughter and two friends up this way whom I see every week. I had an article about me published in the local newspaper, and I'm getting written about in the Synapse magazine. I have a Pozible link which I hope will get me funds for my publishing (are you helping me???). I am now working on an old china cabinet to repair it. Living here, living alone, is me. It's taken me two years to realise this, but now I am enjoying it. Yes, I will sometimes get very upset. Sometimes I won't talk to or see anyone. Sometimes I'll visit them and love chatting and hug them at the end of that visit and come home and just get back into myself, I need to do that.

But right now, I love my life. Enjoy your own.

"I have brain damage...deal with it."

Many years ago I saw one movie with Sharon Stone starring in it. Basic Instinct in 1992 has vanished from my memory, but I do remember that I didn't like Stone, and I was never interested to watch any more of her movies. 

Early this year, when I was working as an administrator on the Facebook page Brain Aneurysm Support Australia I had found out that Stone had a brain aneurysm way back in 2001. The UK Express reported on Oprah's Master Class interview of her in 2014. She had given a few details about her aneurysm and what it had done to her.

Reading this changed my opinion about this woman. I didn't see any comments after this article, and it seemed pretty real. I felt very sorry for her, because her aneurysm and stroke hit her very similar to my own brain aneurysm and stroke. 

Yesterday I found a Jezebel article which talked about a Harper Bazaar article which appears online but is to be printed in the September magazine. The author in Jezebel, Bobby Finger, seemed to like/enjoy Stone, and his use of her words seemed to be pretty good. He re-used these words with a few different issues. "I have brain damage... deal with it." I agreed with him, felt very close to Stone. And then I made a mistake to read some comments.  

KristenfromMA said "Shitting on TV people: so classy." Eh? Had this woman really read that Stone was feeling apart from the show she had mentioned, because of her brain damage? Did this woman realise that Stone hadn't put them down, but said that she "worked with the finest people in the industry" and that she was "really at the back of the line here"? Did she know that Stone had an aneurysm and a stroke? She said "I’ve always thought she was an asshole. To use her unfortunate illness to excuse it really sucks." Excuse me?? Her "unfortunate illness"? "Really sucks"? "What a phoney"? Was that before or after the aneurysm and stroke? Did she pretend to get better? What do you know about brain aneurysms? Or stroke?? 

Murray-Present wrote that he had "always thought she was pretty much of an asshole". Kinjslostmyaccount said that she was "pretty clearly borderline or narcisstic personality disorder". Didn't mention anything about her brain aneurysm and stroke. 

These sort of comments flowed on in the Jezebel article, showing me that so few people knew anything at all about brain aneurysms and stroke. Someone who had a pre-episode opinion about a person would quite probably take their opinion with them after the person had uninvited surgery. Someone would show that they don't care, in the least, about how an illness and/or surgery has affected the person. Someone would know absolutely nothing about brain injuries. And they just don't care! 

When I started as a volunteer administrator for Brain Aneurysm Support Australia I made up my mind to let people know about brain aneurysms and stroke. I have done so much Googling for articles and information, and so much of the professional information is excellent - and should be read by EVERY person. I know that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Flickr, Reddit, Pinterest, You Tube, Digg blah blah blah are just social pages which unfortunately allow bad opinions, bad videos and bad information to be sent around the world. What I don't know is why people just don't accept that a person can have brain injury. ABI. TBI. Absolutely. And in Sharon Stone's life it has taken her 14 years to work her way around it.

I know that I will have this same sort of life. My brain is damaged. I had a stroke. So, from today, I will use Sharon Stone's words. 

I have brain damage... deal with it.

... and keep on learning

I still belong to LinkedIn. It was, two years ago, very good with my work. Now I have changed my profile to reflect where I am now. Sometimes I'll read stuff which is posted on LinkedIn. 

This morning I found an article by Dave Collins, who was connected to me on WHS. A couple of days ago Dave had posted an article by Rob Sams titled "I'm Still Not That Into Safety". I read that, and went into the comments and met something possibly very much about me. It talked about "wicked problems".

I went into Wikipedia and searched it out. A "wicked problem" is described as "a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize." Whilst much of the discussion talks about work problems, this description set me off. 

In the Wikipedia page there are some discussions about "Characteristics", which, perhaps about work, seem applicable to me. In 1973 Rittel and Webber listed 10 characteristics:

1. There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.
2. Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good or bad.
4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly.
6. Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan.
7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
8. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
9. The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution.
10. The social planner has no right to be wrong (i.e., planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate).

These characteristics include economic, environmental and political issues, but do not, in this discussion, seem to include people, and yet that is ME that I see! This, for me, is the result of my stroke. In my now-life, every Wicked Problem is essentially unique! 

Further on in the discussion on the Wikipedia page, Robert Horn talked about Social Messes, and listed the following characteristics:

1. No unique “correct” view of the problem;
2. Different views of the problem and contradictory solutions;
3. Most problems are connected to other problems;
4. Data are often uncertain or missing;
5. Multiple value conflicts;
6. Ideological and cultural constraints;
7. Political constraints;
8. Economic constraints;
9. Often a-logical or illogical or multi-valued thinking;
10. Numerous possible intervention points;
11. Consequences difficult to imagine;
12. Considerable uncertainty, ambiguity;
13. Great resistance to change; and,
14. Problem solver(s) out of contact with the problems and potential solutions.

For me, this is so much description of ME! Yes, of my brain. Yes, of what I do every day after my stroke. Yes, difficult to imagine. And yes, so much "considerable uncertainty, ambiguity".

This description of Wicked Problems is something that people (men) will relate to work. Not to people. Not to our brains. Not to how we react every day. Not how we got this problem. But for me, this is a winning description. So many stroke survivors I have met in the last few months seem to have the same sort of problems which I suffer, which are mentioned on the characteristic list. This could really be a wonderful start of a recovery field.

The Wicked Problem. Perhaps I am way behind by relating this to ME, but hey, my stroke will eventually receive this. 

And maybe it will work!

To learn...

"To Learn" means using your brain - at least, the cerebellum within your brain. Mine is not what it used to be, but I still think I can learn. Right now my brain is looking at Facebook. I'm pretty much past watching so many different Facebook pages which I have been logged into for what seems like a long time. I think I'll have to drop some of them. 

I Googled information about Facebook - past the start of this group - and found some information which is almost unbelievable. Like, on 29 July 2015 Ubergizmo noted that Facebook has grown to 1.49 billion monthly users. In 1876, according to Ubergizmo, when the first telephone call was made, the world population was 1.49 billion. Really?? I already knew that the world population has doubled within the last 50 years from the 70s, from 3.5 billion to more than 7 billion now, yet it had taken 100 years from 1876-1976 to double. So sad. 

Huff Post Tech in 2013 gave us 11 reasons why we should quit Facebook. I liked this article, because some of it seemed so right for me! Like, "1. Nobody actually wants to just read about what you're doing anymore." Sad, but yes, that's real. And "6. Facebook makes you feel less positive about your life." Oh yes, I agree with this! Except that these two are only my "right". Maybe I should give up Huff Post, like Facebook... 

The Radical Life gave the "REAL Reason to Quit Facebook". They said "Hidden in the celebration of its greatness, I believe, is a long list of even greater things you didn’t do because you were too busy on Facebook." Really? Yes!

Many of my friends have pretty much dropped out of Facebook - at least, they don't use it every day. They became bored with the sort of stuff you see in this website - so many pictures of children, pets, adults, climate, singers, protests... anything. So many pictures - what are they called? Picture quotes? Quote pix? Motivational posters? Demotivational posters? Well hey, I pick a picture and a quote and attach them together and post them on my Reibus website, so I guess I can also just call them picture quotes. I started to post some of them onto Facebook, but now I think I was playing their game. So I don't think I will do it any more. Or not as often. Oh hell, I'll probably just keep on doing it...

For anyone who reads this, get to know me. I'm older than the majority of population. I no longer work because of medical reasons (my brain aneurysm and stroke, which I write about on Aneurysm Aphorism). I have two websites and three blogs - two of the blogs which are kept up to date not quite as often as they should be. I have written a book which has a fund raiser for publication - so far with only 3 supporters (I love you!!). No-one "owns" my websites or blogs, except for me. I don't make any funds from any of those. Believe me, I would love the funds that Mark Zuckerberg has made (billions!) or just a part of them. If anyone reads my websites or my blogs - yes, you can help me out with some funds! Thank you!

Now, anyway, I probably won't quit Facebook. But I think I'll cut many of the pages that I have "liked" - which now frustrate me - off my Facebook membership. Eleanor Roosevelt, the past First Lady of the United States who held the post from March 1933 to April 1945, said something which means a lot about me. It's in my last picture quote.

Thank you, Eleanor.