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. 

Time keeps flowing like a river

More than 30 years ago I loved listening to Alan Parsons Project and the wonderful songs. This one didn't need to hit my memory because I've been listening to it off and on over those 30 years. The lyrics are lovely, but I don't talk to anyone about what they mean at the end of this song, Have a look at the picture and see if this means something you really do believe (if you can't read the words look on www.reibus.com.au/quotes.html or Google them).

Have you ever said goodbye forever to your friends? What was the reason? I had no adult friends, just acquaintances, during my single parenthood with my kids. I was far more interested in getting them to grow well. I didn't meet any real friends until 15 years ago - and they are still friends. Since I moved to Aus with my ex husband I can't remember ever making friendships which just stuck to me. I didn't really met any people until after 'he' walked out on me, but now I have. Some stuck with me before and after the hospital, and new friends have appeared since I moved to Redcliffe. They're pretty good for me. I rarely see them, but I talk to them. That works for me.

*  *  *  *  *

I think I hadn't said on my latest blog that I had been at a meeting for the Peninsula Poet's Group. It was my first meeting with them, but they were great. I gave two of my poems that night, and they stood up and applaud me (which I found out was supposed to be the usual for newbies, but I felt pretty happy about that!).

That night I'd met Ben Bracco, who was a published writer as well as in this group. He gave me information about a local publisher, Jeff. I rang Jeff last week and set up a meeting with him for Monday this week. When I sat with him he'd never acted at his age - he's a lot older than me but acted same age as me!! His publication consultancy runs from his home, and he will prepare the book for publishing and either print it himself (under 50) or pass it on to the printer (50-plus). The price for 50-plus books seemed to me to be very good. After asking on FB about a loan, some of my friends answered with some hints. The one which seems to be for me is a crowdfunding Pozible site. This says that a video would be worthwhile, so I've been on Animoto - where I'd done the brain aneurysm one earlier - and have mostly finished my story video to be added into Pozible. 

If anyone reading this is interested, please have a look when it comes on! Any generous donation ($25 and more) will get a copy of my printed book in 3-4 weeks after my crowdfund page is closed.

*  *  *  *  *

What's really winding my frustration up? Right now it's the long... long... long time my application for citizenship has been into Immigration, and still hasn't been actioned. Very early last year, before I'd even been told I'd be in hospital, I had sent in my application for RRV (Resident Return Visa) which would allow me to apply for citizenship after a year. I got the RRV in February, and in March this year, 13 months after that, I applied for my citizenship. 

It is now 4 months since I applied, and why, why haven't they told me that I would be eligible?? I realise that

this is quite possibly to do with my position after my brain aneurysm surgery and my stroke. My income is shared between Australia and New Zealand. Yes, it is very low. No, I didn't ask to leave my job. Yes, I was operated on. No, Centrelink wouldn't have helped me if ABIOS hadn't supported me. Seems pretty real to me, and yet it seems too hard for Immigration to realistically approve it. What would happen to my income? Would Centrelink help me? Would I get enough money for my bills?

 

Would I get assistance with some training I really want to do? Preferably at a local uni course, but if need be it might just be a TAFE course. I have looked through a lot of information about this - web development. I truly believe I could easily do it, because I have created a lot of websites since the early 2000s. Most of those I know are no longer around, but I still have some off-line work from many of them. Madhatter's Maskatorium is still on and was done for a friend but I don't think it's much used because they have changed their baseline. Team Waipa, Tigger and Mig, Just Looking, Forum Training, It's Okay to be Angry and Reibus were our own websites, and I still use It's Okay to be Angry and Reibus.

What really does make the future? I guess I am still waiting because, really, "time keeps flowing like a river". Doesn't it?

Living lost

I  would live with a rich old man. It’s only my dream, but it’s a good dream. I wouldn’t have to marry him, but he’d be rich and would keep me comfortable. Oh yes, a good dream.

This morning I woke up at 5.30am in tears. Pretty usual. My brain sometimes just do whatever it wants to – remembering my history, remembering my presence, thinking about everything I have lost in the last 2.5 years. I can’t forget that my ex-husband walked out on me and moved back to NZ. He wasn’t rich. Left me broke. I was working in the same company – seven years. I was on a good salary. I was kissed by my work manager after my ex left – did I tell you about that? I remember it. I can’t forget it. It cost me my job. Left me broke. I had my brain surgery 15 months ago, followed by a stroke. Yes, I’m sure you know this. Left me broke. I ended up on DSP. I now live alone and in depression. 

Google “rich old man” and see what it will show you. So many rich old men who will find young – young – women and live with them and play with them. Depression? Only me. I would live with a rich old man. I don’t care if he finds other women for sex, as long as he takes care of me. “They” seem to take care of people like Ruby Sommers. 

For the first 5 years living in Australia was a dream. My second ex had moved me over here – his choice. We bought a house, I loved painting it, fixing it, changing it, spending my income from work on it. I had told him before we bought it that I wouldn’t feel safe in “our” home, because I’d already lost two homes in NZ, the fault of my first ex. My second ex seemed very confident, but this turned into the third house. We lost it because of my second ex. I should’ve known that it would have happened. Was I stupid getting married second time? Yes, I now know that I was. Losing that house caused us to break up, but not my choice. I will not blame myself. I will not blame myself for how I live now.

I would live with a rich old man. I would go travelling with him. My second ex and I bought an APVC and had holidays 2-3 times every year. We’d been to Melbourne, Gold Coast, Hunter Valley. I’d been to Gold Coast, Hunter Valley and Coffs Harbour on my own. Not chosen, but ex used to come up with a reason not to come. We’d go to Sydney for his holiday. We’d go to SA to buy his car. We’d go to Melbourne to buy his truck. My very few vehicles only bought in Brissie. I never complained to him about his spending. I’d never complain to a rich old man as long as he spent his money on me. 

I’ve never been anywhere else in the whole world except for NZ. Australia and NZ. Now I can’t go even out of Brisbane. I live alone and in depression. I’d planned on going to Penang and visit my sister, but I can’t afford it now. I’d have loved to go to Europe, to England, to anywhere where it is warm. But I can’t afford it now. My life now is the future of my recovery from my brain aneurysm surgery and stroke. Funny that I’d lost my 7-year job within 2 months of CT’d for my aneurysm. They gave a very different unreal reason. I ended up on DSP after my surgery. Not my choice, I had no choice. 

Am I too old to live with an old rich man? If he’s 70-80, that’s okay. I think he’d probably die before me, but that’s okay. I’d just love him to take me out to meals at lovely restaurants, buy me wine, buy me clothes, update my computer, provide me with a new car. Keep me warm! When he dies he just needs to leave me with a very decent income for the rest of my life, and he can do whatever he likes with the rest of his assets. If I was still working – at the company I’d been employed with for 7 years, on my very decent salary – I would be debt free, afford holidays, afford my car. I was kissed by my work manager – did I tell you about that? He’s still employed there. 

In 2007 Charmaine Drugan, a Ten Newsroom woman jumped to her death. She had depression and was on drugs which influenced suicide thoughts. In that same year Jessica Rowe from Channel 9 suffered post-natal depression. Her husband, Peter Overton, said: “That time was very, very challenging, seeing someone you love so dearly.” Jessica Rowe is very, very lucky to have a loving husband who would stay with her through her illness. Mine left. My manager left. I don’t know any other men. Perhaps that is the basis of my depression. 

ReachOut depression website said: “The official use of the word depression, which is often diagnosed as 'major depressive disorder', is used if these feelings persist for longer than two weeks and start to get in the way of your everyday life”, yet “depression is a condition that can only be diagnosed by a health professional.”I went to a psychologist recently, so I’m pretty sure they know what upsets me – or sends me down. I’d been to psychologists off and on in the last few years – so I know what unsettled me and sent me down. I was feeling pretty happy that I was living okay with it. Until 2.5 years ago. It has returned for me throughout the last 2.5 years, no break, getting worse. And only DSP, not enough income. 

I believe that writing about anything in my blog, even about my depression, helps me in my mind. Will it also help my brain? Will anyone turn up in my life to encourage me to get “better”? I would have lived with a rich old man.

Sad I live alone.

Memories...

Sitting and looking through very old family photos recently turned me to a few tears. When Mum died a few years ago I had sat at the computer and put a whole story together, showing photos of her from around about age 3. She was so lovely, involved in stuff that she had never thrown us in or out as we grew up. 

She wore Red Cross dress up in her teenage years, she loved the beach, she danced with Dad and won competitions. She stopped dancing when she was married and had kids, but she had so many other things to do – ran our home, organised barbecues and holidays for us, took us into swim club, helped us with our homework, bought a piano for us and encouraged me to learn the violin and my older sister the guitar. She would encourage us to play outside with our neighbours’ kids, and we knew what time we had to be back in. 

In the evenings, once every week, she and Dad would play cards in our lounge with their friends. We were in bed… that’s where we were to stay! 

Mum never had any real bad illness throughout her life. She chose, after her fifth child, to have her womb removed, but she was not sick. Her mother, my Gran, wasn’t sick, neither was Aunt Audrey, yet Mum’s own brother, Brian, was epileptic and lived in a hospital home and came to visit us every now and then. He died when I was young (somewhere around 8-9 years old, I think) in an epileptic seizure. 

My Dad was the other man who had been caught out with an injury – he sawed off his left fingers working up at Waikato Hospital before my brother was born. That never stopped Dad from being a successful builder his whole life. I don’t think I know of any other builders these days who survive through their employment with only 1.5 hands! 

My brother, Wayne, had been born very normal. Mum loved him – her first child – and yet he became very sick at around 6 months old. She was so upset, asked around and not listening to doctors who wouldn’t diagnose what was wrong with him. She met a person who had been on a conference in the USA at that same time, and who diagnosed something like gastrointestinal (I knew what it was but now I can’t remember exactly!). Mum ‘fixed’ him, but he had suffered a brain injury which has lasted him his whole life. Still, it didn’t stop him with becoming a poet, volunteering with Red Cross, and marrying about 15 years ago. 

Throughout his life Mum became involved with IHC and workshops in which Wayne worked. When the last workshop he was in, which was in an area which had moved into where we used to live, closed the workshop down, he worked in a venture group there, similar to the Lifeline which operates here. These days he’s still living at his home, with his wife, and – as far as I know – listens to his music. Mostly country. 

My older sister and two younger sisters never seemed to have the problems which came with Mum in her males, although my younger sister, Fiona, has apparently become mild epileptic. I hope she will always survive if she has seizures. They can’t ever be as bad as what killed Brian!

Throughout our youth my sisters and I had so many books. Mum, her mother, Poppa and Dad’s mother gave us books, and we grew up with them. I still remember Poppa giving me Laddie, written by Gene Stratton-Porter. (Actually, I never even knew until I looked up Wiki today that Stratton-Porter was female!) Mum and Dad gave us Enid Blyton – Famous Five, Secret Seven, The Enchanted Wood, The Children of Cherry Tree Farm. I loved these! FF and SS would go with us whenever we went across town to Gran and Poppa’s place on alternative Sundays. Cheryl and I would read one each that day. 

When Mum was younger – before she got married – she loved swimming, and later when we were around she and Dad would take us to the local swimming club. I was somewhere around 7 or 8 years of age when I did my mile certificate. 

Back to the health. Dad had diabetes, and had strokes after he retired; I think the first one was at my sister’s Kinohaku property where Dad had built her a wee cabin. I know that he had had at least 3 of these horrible things. That was what, in the end, killed him.  After he died Mum lived alone, still in the house that Dad had built for all of us (he’d built this second house that he and Mum had together ever lived in!). I moved to Australia in 2005, and sometimes I really regret that Mum wasn’t entirely looked after by her own family. She died in 2007, also from diabetes which she’d gotten a few years ago, and it was shutting her down. We should know about this, but I don’t really think everyone will ever understand, yet diabetes was the only real illness that Mum had. And which didn’t come on to her – or Dad – until they were old. 

At the start of this I spoke about how the men in Mum’s family seemed to get illnesses. Why am I writing about them? Because I am so very grateful to my father and my mother who kept us healthy, kept us in a safe house, loved us.

And I still do love them. Think I will forever.