Daily Prompt – By Hand

What’s the best present you’ve ever received that was handmade by the giver, not store-bought? Tell us what made it so special.

One of my favourite presents, which I’m pretty sure I actually still have in a box somewhere, was a card that my mum made me for my birthday. I’m not sure how old I was – maybe like 7 or 8 – but it was a period of time where neither my parents could really afford much; everything was going to bills and paying for our house renovations and the mortgage and buying food every fortnight etc etc. I didn’t necessarily want a present anyway, because I never really wanted to celebrate my birthday.

Continue reading

14 Nov – The Ageing Process

Do you enjoy growing old or do you fight against it?

Does anybody actually enjoy the ageing process? At all? I’ve heard from a lot of people that are in their 50’s or 60’s, saying that they’re feeling as though they’re in the prime of their lives, but not once do you ever hear somebody say, ‘Oh my word, I cannot wait until I reach my 60’s because life will just be totes amazeballs’.

Continue reading

31 July – 10 Events

Tell us about 10 important personal events from your life from the last 10 years.

10 events from 21 – 31…

1. Turning 21 and having none of my friends turn up to my birthday.

2. Turning 21 and being dumped by the guy I was seeing because he had a boyfriend.


3. Having a massive falling out with my father resulting in not speaking to him ever again.


4. Getting fired from my first ever job because I threatened my boss.


5. Being diagnosed with depression.


6. Getting told I’d never dance again.


7. Discovering Les Mills.


8. My share-house experiences.


9. My ex-best friends.


10. Meeting hulk.

Daily Prompt – It’s Your Party

Since many are marking their country’s “birthday” in the US today, we wanted to ask: How do you celebrate yours? Are you all for a big bash, or more of a low-key birthday boy/girl?

I don’t really celebrate my birthday. For me it’s not really much of a big deal – it never really has been. Continue reading

Daily Prompt – Memory on the Menu

Which good memories are better — the recent and vivid ones, or those that time has covered in a sweet haze?

Aren’t all memories better than none at all? Personally, I actually have quite vivid memories from my childhood, and what I experienced growing up…

…as for experiences I had a few months ago, or even twelve or more months ago… not a damn clue.
Continue reading

Daily Prompt – It’s My Party

You’re throwing a party — for you! Tell us all about the food, drink, events, and party favours you’ll have for your event of a lifetime. Use any theme you like — it’s *your* party!

Ironically I was only dreaming about this a few nights ago – and I dreamt that I was organising my birthday party – and the theme was Drag Superstar Realness. The reality is, I’ve been watching waaaay too much RuPaul’s Drag Race, and have become just a little bit obsessed with it. I guess it also doesn’t help when we get together with a couple of our friends and go out almost every weekend for the past few weeks to see some performers from RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) perform at a gay club here in Melbourne.

Continue reading

Daily Prompt: Shake it Up

You’re 12 years old. It’s your birthday. Write for ten minutes on that memory. GO.

 

I really don’t remember much about my birthdays from when I was a kid – and my family never took photos to document them, the way that we take photo’s to document our lives today.

I think that for my 12th birthday, I had the day off school, (which was something I’ve always done) and spent the day sleeping in before mum and I went into town and mum took me shopping to buy some new clothes, and we went out for lunch at one of our favourite cafe’s called ‘Scribbles’.

Scribbles was this cosy little cafe that we would usually go to. It was long and narrow and had butchers paper across all the tables, and a small terracotta pot of crayons for people to use to draw all over the butchers paper… hence the name Scribbles!

So we ended up there for lunch, and my aunty ended up joining us, which was lovely. We didn’t go out for lunch very often, but when we did, it was always a great time. After lunch, we headed home, and I got to try on all my clothes.

That night, we had also planned on going out for dinner, and I remember that we got ready, and actually got a bit dressed up. Dinner was lovely, albeit a bit rushed before we went off to the local playhouse to see a show. I can’t quite recall which show we saw (because I usually saw something at the theatre on my birthday) which was great. I think it was something like Little Shop of Horrors or some other musical.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/daily-prompt-shake-it-up/

Daily Prompt: Tainted Love

Ever been dumped by a boyfriend or girlfriend? Was it a total surprise, or something you saw coming? Tell us your best worst breakup story. Never been the dumpee, always the dumper? Relate the story of a friend who got unceremoniously kicked to the curb. Change the names to protect the innocent if you must.

It was my 20th birthday, and I got dumped. Happy Birthday To Me, right?

I’d kinda been seeing this guy for a few months already, and the way I saw things, he was my boyfriend, and I was his. I didn’t really know what else to call it… is there such thing as a casual boyfriend?

Anyway, things were going well. It was still kinda new: we were spending our free time together. He was working full time; I was dancing full time; so we’d spend our nights together. It wasn’t every night, because we understood we both needed space and it was too soon to be joined at the hip. It was great spending time together, and being able to just hang out with somebody. It was exciting for me. I was so infatuated with this guy. He was tall, and very ruggedly good looking. He was the kind of guy who I couldn’t believe was actually interested in me, because to me, he was so incredibly hot and could’ve had anybody he wanted. To a point, he actually made me feel somewhat insecure quite regularly in the beginning, because I couldn’t stop second guessing everything he said and did. I felt as though it was some kind of elaborate set up, as though my housemates had put him up to it in order to crush my emotions later down the track.

Anyway, it was my birthday and I got up early to go and spend the day with my best friend. We went out for brunch, and then spent the day shopping. The car broke down later that day in Camberwell, but we still had a great time together. We then had plans to meet up later that night and go clubbing with a small group of friends.

I got home later that afternoon, and had planned on having a small nap before I had to get up, eat, and get ready.

It was about six o’clock when there was a knock at the door. It was G. He’d come over on a whim to drop off a small present for me. I, however, had already told him that I would just catch up with him tomorrow, because I had a busy day today, and wouldn’t have time to see him because he was also quite busy. But he stopped by anyway.

My housemate let him in, and he crept over to the bed where I was asleep. I had woken up when he knocked on the door, but then just as quickly fell asleep, but I woke again when I heard my bedroom door creek. I had just assumed it was one of my housemates putting something in my room… so I felt quite startled when I felt G lay down next to me and start whispering in my ear.

You know that moment when you’re really sleepy and somebody quietly wakes you up, and you have these whisper-conversations amongst you yawning and stretching and being half-asleep?? Well it was like that for a bit, but it felt really nice. It was a wonderful surprise to be asleep on my birthday and have my boyfriend show up unexpectedly. He was stroking my (wild and out of control) hair and whispered ‘Happy Birthday kid’ into my ear. I rolled over and kissed him hello…

…and then we ended up making out for an hour.

When we finally were able to catch our breaths, I explained how wonderful it was that he came to visit, and he said that he couldn’t let my birthday go past without actually seeing me.

He handed me a small gift. I can’t actually recall what that gift was. He’d been asking me for a week or so prior what I wanted to get for my birthday. I was humble enough to say I didn’t want him to get me anything, but when he kept pressing the issue, I gave him a couple of different ideas, in different price points. I didn’t really know where we stood on the relationship / present scale, so I gave him some options to try and gauge where he was at.

I just remember opening my gift and feeling quite disappointed in what he had gotten me. I didn’t dare show this expression, instead telling him how perfect it was and how it’ll always make me think of him. In my head, however, I was screaming in anger at how stupid he was for not getting me anything that I ACTUALLY wanted. What’s the point in asking me, and then me giving you a variety of possibilities, if you’re not actually going to use it?

So after all that, he says that he want’s to talk to me about something. I was thinking that he was going to tell me that my real present was actually a romantic weekend away together. Or maybe he was going to tell me that he was actually going to come to a gay club tonight (for the very first time) and get over his anxiety about it so he could celebrate my birthday with me. Or maybe he was going to invite me over to his place for a change and cook me dinner or some kind of wonderful, romantic gesture.

That wasn’t however what came out of his mouth.

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do this right now. I don’t think we should see each other anymore.’

I couldn’t believe what had just come out of his mouth. I actually thought he was joking.

He wasn’t joking.

He then sat there and explained to me that he was feeling a bit confused, and was feeling a bit pressured into something that he wasn’t ready for. That something was called ‘a relationship’. He wasn’t ready to be in a relationship with me.

My heart jumped into my throat, and suddenly everything around me froze in time. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I didn’t understand. Only 2.5 weeks prior we had been truly intimate for the very first time. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, but I lost my virginity to this guy. I thought that he was the one… but in saying that, I was just shy of being twenty. I also thought my tight cotton-lycra dance pants were the most awesome thing ever.

So then all of a sudden, ten thousand questions start flooding my brain, and I stopped hearing the words coming out of his mouth. It was like all the sound disappeared, because all I could hear was my inner voice going mental with a constant stream of questions and self doubt.

Oh my god, what’s happening? How could he say that? What’s wrong with me? I knew it was too good to be true! Maybe this was the plan? I bet the girls (my housemates) put him up to this on purpose, just to do this and hurt me on my birthday. I though things were going well! I thought he liked me. Why doesn’t he like me? I waited so long before we had sex, and I explained that and he said he was cool with it! Maybe he wasn’t okay with it. Maybe he was just too frustrated. But I’ve been sleeping with him. And the sex is phenomenal. Maybe he doesn’t like it? Fuck, has he been lying to me? Oh my god, I can’t believe that he’s been lying to me this whole time. How could I have been so stupid?! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME!??

So then my inner dialogue exploded into outer dialogue and all these questions were being thrown at G like a constant barrage of ninja stars.

He said that he really likes me. He agreed that he’d never felt like this with anybody – never felt such an indescribable connection with another guy, but I knew that was just some bullshit line people give each other when they don’t want to speak the truth. He said that he’s cried more with me, than he has in the last few years, because he feels that comfortable with him. He told me that he was just too scared to be in a relationship because he’s too scared to give himself over completely. The thought of it terrified him.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

So I began to question him and everything he said. He was stating the facts and how it made him feel, and I wanted to believe him, but nobody does a complete 180 like that without a good enough reason.

Question after question and question.

Then he said it. The REAL reason behind all his bullshit.

He. Still. Had.  A. Boyfriend.

Yep. A FUCKING BOYFRIEND!! I couldn’t believe it. How could I have been so STUPID!! But then it made sense… of course it was all too good to be true. As if anybody that hot would ever remotely be interested in me, let alone give me the time of day. I had felt that it was too good to be true, and now I knew for certain.

I grabbed the present and threw it at him, and told him to get the fuck out of my house.

He countered by crying.

No. No, no, no, no, no. Sorry. You don’t get to stand there and cry, when you’re the one breaking up with me, on my BIRTHDAY… BECAUSE YOU HAVE A FUCKING BOYFRIEND!! You don’t get to be upset. You just get to be a fucking arsehole. Get the fuck out of my house. I’m done with you. Just delete my number. I want nothing to do with you.’

He continued his weird man-crying and fell against a wall asking me if I was okay.

No, I was just in a pure rage.

How the fuck could you do this? Of all the days, you had to pick my birthday. Seriously.. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!?!?

I stood there trying so hard not to cry, but it didn’t last. The sadness was quickly replaced with sheer rage, and I went crazy at him. How dare you stand there and tell me you’re not ready for a relationship…. oh that’s right, BECAUSE YOU’RE ALREADY IN ONE… oh, what’s this, OH, BECAUSE YOU’VE BEEN WITH THIS GUY FOR A COUPLE OF YEARS ALREADY… I’m not asking you to leave you boyfriend, I just wish I had’ve known about it before I fell in love with you and wanted you to be my knight in shining armour; my prince charming.

I finally kicked him out and watched him go sit in his car and cry into his steering wheel before returning inside and looking for my phone. I couldn’t believe what just happened. I needed to talk it through with somebody, so I went to call D.

I picked up my phone and saw a stack of missed calls and messages, and started going through them one-by-one. Each one of them was one of my so-called ‘friends’ telling me they suddenly weren’t coming tonight to celebrate my birthday because they conveniently had something else on, or they had suddenly come down with some kind of illness.

What better way to fill that giant hole in my chest that G just cut out with a giant rusty knife, than with some super excruciating bullshit which burnt like lemon juice.

I then got a call from two of my friends who were already on their way in from Geelong. They were about 20mins away from my place, and told me to get my arse into gear. I quickly showered and got myself dressed, and then started received a stream of text messages from G. He’d obviously realised how much of a cunt he had just been to dump me on my birthday, and tell me he’s not able to be in a relationship, because he’s already in one. Perhaps the worst possible timing ever!!

The boys turned up, and I ended up asking them to come inside and we started talking. I ended up confessing to them that I’d been seeing G. See, I hadn’t told anybody about G. It was a secret for me. A couple of my friends thought that I might be seeing somebody, because I was never around to hang out with them, but I never admitted anything to anybody… except now.

So, almost three hours later, it was approaching midnight, and we were well and truly fashionably late, so we picked ourselves off and headed off to the club. The cherry on top was having more people cancel on me and then the boys leaving after only an hour and a half. I distinctly recall it being 2am, and I was all by myself. I was sitting on a couch upstairs at this club replaying the entire day back in my head, piece by piece, and realising how much of an epic clusterfuck the entire day was. I was more surprised that I wasn’t at home in bed having some kind of emotional breakdown.

Instead, I just needed to dance. And I did. And boy did I dance. I decided that for the rest of the night, I wasn’t going to allow myself to have any more inhibitions, and I just let loose. I remember catching a tram home around 6:30 – 7am as the sun was rising, and feeling as though I had just had the best night out ever. And it was all on my own.

However, all night I was still getting messages from G. I told him to fuck off and stop messaging me with his messages of self-regret. He made a choice, he has to live with it. It doesn’t mean he gets to message me constantly and still try to make me feel better by telling me how much he loves being with me. Sorry, I’m not having that shit.

UGH. I can’t believe that I lost my virginity to somebody who turned out to be such a cunt.

I felt so stupid for falling for him so quickly. I can’t believe that I had been such a dickhead. How could I have been so gullible. I always thought I was so smart with this kind of stuff, and yet I turned out to be so dumb.

I don’t think I was ever the same after that. It really changed me and my outlook on relationships. After that, I never wanted to be in a relationship. I wanted to only ever have casual flings with guys, because I never wanted to allow myself to get that close to anybody ever again. If I don’t allow myself to get close, then I won’t end up getting hurt if things don’t work out.

Turns out it just fucked with my head more than I had anticipated, and was the beginning of perhaps one of the most destructive relationships I’ve ever had. More of my fucked-up relationship with G can be found here. There are so many of these kind of scenarios that I had with G, I knew that it was wrong from the beginning, but I just couldn’t bear to completely cut him out of my life. It became such an on-again, off-again type of relationship that actually did far more harm and far more damage than good.

I’ll never be the same after that relationship, and not in a good sense.

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/daily-prompt-tainted-love/

Daily Prompt: Sweet Sixteen

Write a post inspired by your sixteenth birthday.

I was never really one to make a big deal about celebrating my birthday – that kind of died off when I was about 8 or 9… I really just didn’t find the fun in having a party, and I knew that mum wasn’t entirely keen on the idea of a party either – so it worked out for the best.

From the age of 9 or 10, my birthday just became a guaranteed day off school, and mum and I almost had a ritual where I’d get to sleep in, then we’d go into town and go shopping, and do something like go have lunch at a nice restaurant and then go see a movie, or go out to dinner and then go see a play or some kind of show at one of the theatres in town.

That was heaven for me.

As I got older, and I feel somewhat guilty for even thinking it (let alone repeating it now), but I kind of grew out of that ritual. My birthday just became another day. Nothing special. Sure, I would get a couple of presents from my friends, but I never made a big deal out of it. I didn’t have parties or anything – it was always something really low-key.

For example, if, by chance, I did want to do something, then I’d make a suggestion to the group that I might go out for lunch… if anybody wants to join, then they’re more than welcome to… or if it was hot enough, then I’d go to the pool, or down the river.

I don’t actually remember what I did for my 16th birthday.

And it’s because I don’t make a big deal out of my birthday. I do however have some vague recollection that we had some kind of big group birthday, because for something like eight or nine days in a row, there was somebodys birthday.

It was one of the most expensive weeks of the year, because we all had to buy presents for the other eight people – sometimes requiring an entire weekend of planning and shopping with other members of the group.

I remember one year we had a big group party at one of my friends places. She lived just outside of town and back then, I had a huge crush on her. I know, how wrong was I!! (But in saying that, she turned out to be a lesbian anyway, so it’s not as though we were going to be able to pursue any kind of romantic relationship anyway hehehe). Anyway, I remember being at her place for a big party, and I’m sure that it was a group birthday celebration.

Some of the kids were drinking… I was quite happily snacking away of Cheezels, lollies and pizza and hanging outside near the bonfire. Back then it was all about Dawsons Creek and how it literally mirrors all the dramas within our social circle – and each of us was a character of the show, because of the life that particular character on the show.

I originally started off as Pacey (played by Joshua Jackson), and then I became Jack (the token gay guy). Ahh the days of the Creek. It’s so embarrassing looking back on it now, but back then, it was our entire world.

Sigh. Ahh the joys of overly emotional teeange life.

Anyway, I remember this one night we were all outside chatting away and being drama queens, and one of the things that we used to do was break off for small (and serious) one-on-one conversations with people… especially if it involved two people liking each other.

So I’d be sitting there talking to one of my friends and then I’d notice two of the girls disappear for a while… then they’d return and one of the girls would ask me to go for a walk and have a heart-to-heart. Basically, I’d get grilled about my feelings for this particular girl, and being all shy (oh, and not to mention incredibly sexually confused) just played coy and kept saying that I’d rather we just remain friends… and by the night we, of course, ended up being dared to kiss each other in a good ol’ game of Truth Or Dare.

I’ve always hated that game…!!

That was basically all T.O.D. is – daring people to kiss each other. But as teeangers, oh it was so much drama. And if anybody bailed on a dare, then they’d end up being interrogated about it later that night

‘So, why didn’t you kiss her?’

Well, I didn’t want to.. I mean, I wanted to but I was too nervous.

So why didn’t you kiss her? You like her right?

Well, yeah, but I felt too nervous – everybody was watching.

So, stop being a little pussy and just do it. You like her don’t you?

Yeah, but I don’t know if she feels the same. And what if I kiss her and I’m a bad kisser? What if she’s a bad kisser? What if I have bad breath? What if she has bad breath? Eww. What if she doesn’t like me? It’s just too much pressure.

Well, I know for a fact that she likes you, and she wants to kiss you.

How do you know that?

She told me. I’ve always known. I’ve known for a while actually.

WHAT? How long has she liked me?

A while now… a few months.

Well, why didn’t she say anything?

She’s probably too nervous just like you. Do you like her?

Yeah of course, but I don’t want to jeopardise the friendship… she’s one of my best friends, and if it doesn’t work, I don’t want to not be friends with her…

Sidenote: If a guy says that about a girl… he’s gay. I know from personal experience. I was that guy!!

OH MY GOD. THE PRESSURE!!

What made it worse was that there was a whole bunch of us staying the night, and basically the whole night became a very, very long sleepless night plagued with questions of will they? won’t they? regarding us kissing.

I think it was about 4:30am or so, and I went in to talk to her, and we were talking about it for quite a while – she felt just as uncomfortable as I did, and we kissed on the lips. Just a kiss. No tongue. No open mouth. Just a kiss. We then sat back looking at each other and just burst into laughter. We opened the door to her room to find a handful of the others hiding just outside, trying to listen in on what was happening.

We announced that we kissed, but no other details were divulged. Shreiks of wwwwoooooOOOOOOOoooooo echoed in the hallway… and then it was the Spanish Inquisition on every single detail of our secret lip-lock. Who said what? Who leant in first? Whose hands were where? How long was it? What did it feel like? How do I feel now? Will I do it again? do I want to do it again? etc.

By this stage, I just wanted to sleep.

And just like the ridiculously dramatic will they? won’t they? relationship between Joey and Dawson down at the Creek, our ‘relationship’ became an exact replica of that.

OH. THE. DRAMA!!

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/daily-prompt-sixteen/