Paris, the City of Lights !
That's it I'm in Paris.
I arrived at noon after three hours and a quarter on the train. A bit chilly though and I have left my bathing-suit behind.
My husband gave me the best of all gifts for my birthday: he said that you love me and that he has known it from the start. He can't believe I am not aware of it and does not understand how I can have doubts. He says everything in your attitude shows it too clearly. Is it bacuse he is so much like you ?
But that was such a proof of love on his part, reassuring me when again I was not trusting you.
I have not seen much of Paris yet. The station on arriving and the subway, but good to be back into the flat and to see the shops have not changed. Why should they ?
The connection with the Bojangles is rotten and I am wondering how I can stick to it like I am doing at the moment. In fact, because the songs are much like the ones you were used to edit: no more rocks.
Plenty of good things ar awaiting me. Tomorrow, I will attend the recording of that TV show and I will be back late into the afternoon, too late I guess to be with you: I should be tuned to the radio as usual at half past four pm, and even if I will be able to send you a mail telling you all about my day, I wouldn't be able to hear you reply to it if you ever do..I need to have a break from all this.
Laure wants to take us to a museum. I don't know when. She will keep me busy during the week-end. Now, I feel better after what my husband had told me and my spirits are high, ready to enjoy these days in Paris
jeudi 30 novembre 2006
mercredi 29 novembre 2006
Australian Dream.
One year older!
That's it today, I have grown a year older !
I am listening to Cuban music, Buena Vista Club, the CDs I still intend to send you even if you've let me down on my special day.
This music reminds me of old days in the West Indies when I used to listen to Radio Venezuela. I am not sure you will appreciate such a music. It is so far from the rocks you love so much and that I have to listen to every evening by now. You edit them now to please the boys of the cleaning crew, but I enjoyed better the previous songs you edited for the rest of the night. At least some were meant just for me.
Our president is having his birthday too today. I had the opportunity to celebrate mine at the French National Assembly two years ago. Not a very common thing to do after all.
Cuban music and Fidel Castro's birthday too. I am not that proud though to have been born on the same day as this man. I just wanted to take a few minutes listening to these records before sending them to you. Am I going to send them after all ?
I could not find out if you got the last CD I sent you with a picture of yourself surrounded by roses. When I asked you on the phone you were so evasive it did not put me in the mind of insisting any further. You were all of a sudden in a hurry to hang up: had to do your job, could not understand what I was saying, well I missed the point as usual.
My daughter phoned me earlier and sent me an e-card. I should be going high in spirits. I can't.
I hoped my husband would go and play golf with me on that special day. He, too, deceived me. He, too, has his job to do: not much time to spend with me...
You both are so much the same in character...Your job is a refuge for you not to get too much involved into things of love, a screen to protect yourselves and a way not to let your feelings go out unveiling your inner thoughts.
Concerning the one at home, I have to take for granted he loves me even if he doesn't want to tell about what is buried inside his heart. I had so many doubts in the past trying to guess his true feelings... I am well over it by now.
I thought I would have a few e-mails today, but my in-box is empty. Laure will request a song for me later on in the afternoon. Dan should be playing if ever he wants to. Everybody at Bo's should know then it is my birthday, but I remember mentionning it last year without success. I can't remember who was at the console by then.
The funny thing is that I think you started paying more attention to me than I was to you. My mind was with someone else a year ago, even if I enjoyed being with you all the most.
It was not actually till St Valentine's Day that I came to realize that you meant so much to me when you said on your mike you were single, answering my reply by: " Oh, you know, Mary, I am single but not a lonely heart though with all the people around every night".
Are you still single nowadays?
The first deception for me was soon on its way, for you started ignoring me right afterwards as if realizing you had said too much. I guess the idea of my coming soon made you fret too.
Since then it has been ups and downs for me.
I thought at first you said you were 28. And, of course, I could not expect anything from you as you seemed wondering I could. I replied I could be your mother. Were you cheating or did my ears cheat me ?
In fact, I am not sure, but it is a wonder how I could have been mistaken on hearing you tell your age. I got Dan's perfectly right. It is as if you had wanted to put a greater distance between you and me, the great barrier of ages.
Thinking you so young refrained me from getting too much involved into that relationship.
When you let me know your true age, ten years older that what I was thinking you were, was a trap for me into which I let myself be caught as if it was easier all of a sudden.
The big fool I am !!!
It does not change much for me that you are 29 or 39. There will still be a big gap between you and me. For the first time in my life I looked at the wrinkles on my face and it ruined me.
I am quite young in mind, quote the lady customs officer. I have always got fans among the population of boys in their thirties. They don't mean more to me than few pleasant moments of teasing. Why is it so different with you? Because you are so far away and we have never met in real life ?
I have been preoccupied by my physical appearance for so many years. My mother said I was too fat. But was it her own fault as I was obliged to finish my plate, hungry or not, whipped on my legs till it was over.
I started to see myself as someone not well enough to deserve to be loved. I started starving myself for days without any good results. My mother took me to doctors. I had no self confidence at all .My education had me go to the front of many stages more than once.
I was smartly dressed and in fact admired and distinguished, but it took me ages to realize it.
The lack of love from my family and boyfriends was not of any help.
My husband's attitude towards me distroyed me and I let the fat invade my body as if I was giving it up. Finally my husband avowed I was scaring him being so high in his opinion.
The fitness of my body is a new worry for me now, and I realize what I missed during all these years of doubts. Being one year older is of no help now, for it is not the overweight that is on my mind by now, but the wrinkles on my face and the slackness of my skin. Nobody can actually compete with the wheel of time. I won't do much better than others. I am happy in a sense we have never met: I can still fancy you can think I am better looking than I do. But I guess you are no fool and feel better with younger girls with less worries and all their life in front of them. Shall I become more sensible being one year older?
Of that I am not sure...
That's it today, I have grown a year older !
I am listening to Cuban music, Buena Vista Club, the CDs I still intend to send you even if you've let me down on my special day.
This music reminds me of old days in the West Indies when I used to listen to Radio Venezuela. I am not sure you will appreciate such a music. It is so far from the rocks you love so much and that I have to listen to every evening by now. You edit them now to please the boys of the cleaning crew, but I enjoyed better the previous songs you edited for the rest of the night. At least some were meant just for me.
Our president is having his birthday too today. I had the opportunity to celebrate mine at the French National Assembly two years ago. Not a very common thing to do after all.
Cuban music and Fidel Castro's birthday too. I am not that proud though to have been born on the same day as this man. I just wanted to take a few minutes listening to these records before sending them to you. Am I going to send them after all ?
I could not find out if you got the last CD I sent you with a picture of yourself surrounded by roses. When I asked you on the phone you were so evasive it did not put me in the mind of insisting any further. You were all of a sudden in a hurry to hang up: had to do your job, could not understand what I was saying, well I missed the point as usual.
My daughter phoned me earlier and sent me an e-card. I should be going high in spirits. I can't.
I hoped my husband would go and play golf with me on that special day. He, too, deceived me. He, too, has his job to do: not much time to spend with me...
You both are so much the same in character...Your job is a refuge for you not to get too much involved into things of love, a screen to protect yourselves and a way not to let your feelings go out unveiling your inner thoughts.
Concerning the one at home, I have to take for granted he loves me even if he doesn't want to tell about what is buried inside his heart. I had so many doubts in the past trying to guess his true feelings... I am well over it by now.
I thought I would have a few e-mails today, but my in-box is empty. Laure will request a song for me later on in the afternoon. Dan should be playing if ever he wants to. Everybody at Bo's should know then it is my birthday, but I remember mentionning it last year without success. I can't remember who was at the console by then.
The funny thing is that I think you started paying more attention to me than I was to you. My mind was with someone else a year ago, even if I enjoyed being with you all the most.
It was not actually till St Valentine's Day that I came to realize that you meant so much to me when you said on your mike you were single, answering my reply by: " Oh, you know, Mary, I am single but not a lonely heart though with all the people around every night".
Are you still single nowadays?
The first deception for me was soon on its way, for you started ignoring me right afterwards as if realizing you had said too much. I guess the idea of my coming soon made you fret too.
Since then it has been ups and downs for me.
I thought at first you said you were 28. And, of course, I could not expect anything from you as you seemed wondering I could. I replied I could be your mother. Were you cheating or did my ears cheat me ?
In fact, I am not sure, but it is a wonder how I could have been mistaken on hearing you tell your age. I got Dan's perfectly right. It is as if you had wanted to put a greater distance between you and me, the great barrier of ages.
Thinking you so young refrained me from getting too much involved into that relationship.
When you let me know your true age, ten years older that what I was thinking you were, was a trap for me into which I let myself be caught as if it was easier all of a sudden.
The big fool I am !!!
It does not change much for me that you are 29 or 39. There will still be a big gap between you and me. For the first time in my life I looked at the wrinkles on my face and it ruined me.
I am quite young in mind, quote the lady customs officer. I have always got fans among the population of boys in their thirties. They don't mean more to me than few pleasant moments of teasing. Why is it so different with you? Because you are so far away and we have never met in real life ?
I have been preoccupied by my physical appearance for so many years. My mother said I was too fat. But was it her own fault as I was obliged to finish my plate, hungry or not, whipped on my legs till it was over.
I started to see myself as someone not well enough to deserve to be loved. I started starving myself for days without any good results. My mother took me to doctors. I had no self confidence at all .My education had me go to the front of many stages more than once.
I was smartly dressed and in fact admired and distinguished, but it took me ages to realize it.
The lack of love from my family and boyfriends was not of any help.
My husband's attitude towards me distroyed me and I let the fat invade my body as if I was giving it up. Finally my husband avowed I was scaring him being so high in his opinion.
The fitness of my body is a new worry for me now, and I realize what I missed during all these years of doubts. Being one year older is of no help now, for it is not the overweight that is on my mind by now, but the wrinkles on my face and the slackness of my skin. Nobody can actually compete with the wheel of time. I won't do much better than others. I am happy in a sense we have never met: I can still fancy you can think I am better looking than I do. But I guess you are no fool and feel better with younger girls with less worries and all their life in front of them. Shall I become more sensible being one year older?
Of that I am not sure...
mardi 28 novembre 2006
Australian Dream.
Happy Birthday !
Good days, bad days, more bad days at the moment.
Well, since you've been back from working at the casino, nothing's ever been the same.
I have to rely on your speaking on your mike to hear from you. And as you don't seem to pay attention to me... Well, well...
I was surprised on coming back from my competition day to see you at the console. It should have been Dan. And what a shock on learning you won't be back till next Friday.
I had so many hopes for tomorrow, my birthday !!!
I dare not think you swapped your work day in order not to be with me on that special occasion.
I had so many plans for tomorrow. I would have liked my daughter to request a song for me to let you remind that it was my birthday. Then I would have liked you to sing Happy Birthday to You with the beautiful voice of yours I love so much. Then, you may have played plenty of songs just for me on that day as you did on Pierre's birthday. Oh, what a beautiful day it would have been...
But, no. You won't be there as you were away on yours, another day of deceited hopes.
I don't want to read too much into things as you said I do. But it seems as if you don't want to feel obliged to me on that day, and being off is the best thing for you. Don't want to be bothered or fear of having to call my name again?
I will never know.
The gift I have sent to you never arrived in time for your birthday and seems completely lost by now. The post-office is not answering me.
I am not going to write anything to you as you said yesterday you don't read my mails. It hurt me and still does...
I finished reading that book about Alice Springs and realized how wrong I have been since our guide told us the story on the bus heading to the Alice.
The protagonists did not miss each other at Alice Springs airport as he said. The girl went to the Alice alright and the man was looking for her in England, but they finally got together in Cairns and got married. A happy ending then and not the bad one I thought it was. I should not have told you yesterday I knew too well how the story ends. That may have let you think wrongly about what I meant.
And the deception is greater for it was already my birthday when I sent you a mail telling how I was sad not to be with you on that special occasion. I hoped you would have said Happy Birthday as it is already tomorrow down in Australia. But no, not a kind word for me on leaving and no song for me either.
And to make that day sadder I heard this morning Jim died yesterday. He was in charge of the association in Bayside and was doing a terrific job. With his death I fear it might be the death of the asociation as well. Poor Jim, he drove us around Melbourne and took care of us last year.
Georges says I am the only one able to keep the association alive over here. Unfortunately, my capabilities are not taken into account here.
I can't go back to my friends' either. ted is in a nursing home now and Dawn left on her own. I have not heard from them since June. Dawn cannot handle the computer and it's no use waiting for a mail from her.
We had beautiful moments down there. We went on the Puffing Billy for a ride, to Philip Island to watch the pinguins back from their day at sea fishing. We visited the zoo. Ted drove us on the track the day following the Grand Prix. He took us us to the Royal Golf Course knowing we were golf players. They were so nice to us.
Then it was Sydney, the gardens all the way to the Opera before sailing on a boat in the bay of Sydney. A day in the Blue Mountains, another in Manly (your place). The zoo, the dinner in the Rocks. And off to Uluru the next day.
Uluru I would not think I would be going back again.
And the long trip to Alice Springs on one of Denise's buses.
Denise I was so happy to meet in Paris last year. It was another stay in Paris for my birthday and the joy to meet for the first time that nice lady I only knew on the web or on the phone.
We stayed a few days in Cairns going to the Daintree Forest and the Great Barrier Reef before spending a day in Kuranda. I loved Cairns and its surroundings and was pleased to go back there too this year. But, Alice Springs... I cried so much at the airport on my departure day as I did last May. The vast land of red ochre impressed me. I've got to go back.
But things seem so uneasy with you. I will be missing you all the times: that I don't want to believe but fate seems willing to hamper me in my endeavours.
I will try and try again till I die. But for what ? You are making me wonder if you don't have the idea of putting a brake to our relationship by now as if it does not amuse you any longer. The novelty is gone. You have taken a few steps ahead of me may be, and I am left way behind of you.
Will you ever turn your head back at me and decide to wait for me ?
I am too old and don't have much time left into my hands.
And tomorrow it is my Birthday and I won't be in your company...
Good days, bad days, more bad days at the moment.
Well, since you've been back from working at the casino, nothing's ever been the same.
I have to rely on your speaking on your mike to hear from you. And as you don't seem to pay attention to me... Well, well...
I was surprised on coming back from my competition day to see you at the console. It should have been Dan. And what a shock on learning you won't be back till next Friday.
I had so many hopes for tomorrow, my birthday !!!
I dare not think you swapped your work day in order not to be with me on that special occasion.
I had so many plans for tomorrow. I would have liked my daughter to request a song for me to let you remind that it was my birthday. Then I would have liked you to sing Happy Birthday to You with the beautiful voice of yours I love so much. Then, you may have played plenty of songs just for me on that day as you did on Pierre's birthday. Oh, what a beautiful day it would have been...
But, no. You won't be there as you were away on yours, another day of deceited hopes.
I don't want to read too much into things as you said I do. But it seems as if you don't want to feel obliged to me on that day, and being off is the best thing for you. Don't want to be bothered or fear of having to call my name again?
I will never know.
The gift I have sent to you never arrived in time for your birthday and seems completely lost by now. The post-office is not answering me.
I am not going to write anything to you as you said yesterday you don't read my mails. It hurt me and still does...
I finished reading that book about Alice Springs and realized how wrong I have been since our guide told us the story on the bus heading to the Alice.
The protagonists did not miss each other at Alice Springs airport as he said. The girl went to the Alice alright and the man was looking for her in England, but they finally got together in Cairns and got married. A happy ending then and not the bad one I thought it was. I should not have told you yesterday I knew too well how the story ends. That may have let you think wrongly about what I meant.
And the deception is greater for it was already my birthday when I sent you a mail telling how I was sad not to be with you on that special occasion. I hoped you would have said Happy Birthday as it is already tomorrow down in Australia. But no, not a kind word for me on leaving and no song for me either.
And to make that day sadder I heard this morning Jim died yesterday. He was in charge of the association in Bayside and was doing a terrific job. With his death I fear it might be the death of the asociation as well. Poor Jim, he drove us around Melbourne and took care of us last year.
Georges says I am the only one able to keep the association alive over here. Unfortunately, my capabilities are not taken into account here.
I can't go back to my friends' either. ted is in a nursing home now and Dawn left on her own. I have not heard from them since June. Dawn cannot handle the computer and it's no use waiting for a mail from her.
We had beautiful moments down there. We went on the Puffing Billy for a ride, to Philip Island to watch the pinguins back from their day at sea fishing. We visited the zoo. Ted drove us on the track the day following the Grand Prix. He took us us to the Royal Golf Course knowing we were golf players. They were so nice to us.
Then it was Sydney, the gardens all the way to the Opera before sailing on a boat in the bay of Sydney. A day in the Blue Mountains, another in Manly (your place). The zoo, the dinner in the Rocks. And off to Uluru the next day.
Uluru I would not think I would be going back again.
And the long trip to Alice Springs on one of Denise's buses.
Denise I was so happy to meet in Paris last year. It was another stay in Paris for my birthday and the joy to meet for the first time that nice lady I only knew on the web or on the phone.
We stayed a few days in Cairns going to the Daintree Forest and the Great Barrier Reef before spending a day in Kuranda. I loved Cairns and its surroundings and was pleased to go back there too this year. But, Alice Springs... I cried so much at the airport on my departure day as I did last May. The vast land of red ochre impressed me. I've got to go back.
But things seem so uneasy with you. I will be missing you all the times: that I don't want to believe but fate seems willing to hamper me in my endeavours.
I will try and try again till I die. But for what ? You are making me wonder if you don't have the idea of putting a brake to our relationship by now as if it does not amuse you any longer. The novelty is gone. You have taken a few steps ahead of me may be, and I am left way behind of you.
Will you ever turn your head back at me and decide to wait for me ?
I am too old and don't have much time left into my hands.
And tomorrow it is my Birthday and I won't be in your company...
lundi 27 novembre 2006
Australian Dream.
A Delicate Situation.
I could not be with you as early as I had wished. Anyway, I am not so sure you are paying attention to me as you used to. A delicate situation kept me away from Bo's this afternoon. I finally phoned you to know all about the whistles I heard when you last called my name, so long ago...Apparently, nothing unsual to you; It happens everyday with the men getting drunk. Alright for me, though it was but one time I heard them whistling like that.
That does not explain why you don't take any of my requests anymore.
You said you have not read any of my mails, nor seen the pictures I have sent you. A disappointment for me again.
Doubts are invading my mind again.
Nothing as bad as the situation within our cousins' family.
I was surprised to know Pierre's cousin 's daughter was married to a Muslim. A vet according to what they let us know. In fact, he doesn't work and it is not easy to know what he actually does as a living.
They are the parents of twins and they chose Laure as godmother for the boy, named Orphea.
Laure took the job at heart, and we went thrice to meet them. Not easy to know why they were living in an old lady's house. Apparently it was Pierre's cousin's godmother who had fallen down and could not do on her own anymore. The only son of the latter was not in touch with his mother any longer.
We were surprised to get to know about Claire's wedding and the birth of the children: I don't know much about that girl since Pierre has always had loose links with his relatives.
I heard once she was found by the police at the railway station of our town, apparently under the influence of drugs. The same thing happened in Paris later on. But, gossips, who knows...
The children were baptized in the Christian faith following the will of their grandmother.
We spent three days with them in the length of three years.
The children seemed happy, in good health.
Their mother had funny ideas following Buddhist principles, but what,after all she is not the only one refusing to eat flesh and killing animals.
Her husband was not eating pork, nor drank wine either.
Now we have discovered Claire is a mental institution and the children in charge of strangers.
Their father wants the judge to give him the care of his children and we are supposed to write letters to the judge in this sense.
The medical staff who examined both parents are afraid he might take his children away with him to Tunisia.
Well, a delicate situation I had to ponder over and which kept me away from your company this afternoon. May be for the best....
I could not be with you as early as I had wished. Anyway, I am not so sure you are paying attention to me as you used to. A delicate situation kept me away from Bo's this afternoon. I finally phoned you to know all about the whistles I heard when you last called my name, so long ago...Apparently, nothing unsual to you; It happens everyday with the men getting drunk. Alright for me, though it was but one time I heard them whistling like that.
That does not explain why you don't take any of my requests anymore.
You said you have not read any of my mails, nor seen the pictures I have sent you. A disappointment for me again.
Doubts are invading my mind again.
Nothing as bad as the situation within our cousins' family.
I was surprised to know Pierre's cousin 's daughter was married to a Muslim. A vet according to what they let us know. In fact, he doesn't work and it is not easy to know what he actually does as a living.
They are the parents of twins and they chose Laure as godmother for the boy, named Orphea.
Laure took the job at heart, and we went thrice to meet them. Not easy to know why they were living in an old lady's house. Apparently it was Pierre's cousin's godmother who had fallen down and could not do on her own anymore. The only son of the latter was not in touch with his mother any longer.
We were surprised to get to know about Claire's wedding and the birth of the children: I don't know much about that girl since Pierre has always had loose links with his relatives.
I heard once she was found by the police at the railway station of our town, apparently under the influence of drugs. The same thing happened in Paris later on. But, gossips, who knows...
The children were baptized in the Christian faith following the will of their grandmother.
We spent three days with them in the length of three years.
The children seemed happy, in good health.
Their mother had funny ideas following Buddhist principles, but what,after all she is not the only one refusing to eat flesh and killing animals.
Her husband was not eating pork, nor drank wine either.
Now we have discovered Claire is a mental institution and the children in charge of strangers.
Their father wants the judge to give him the care of his children and we are supposed to write letters to the judge in this sense.
The medical staff who examined both parents are afraid he might take his children away with him to Tunisia.
Well, a delicate situation I had to ponder over and which kept me away from your company this afternoon. May be for the best....
dimanche 26 novembre 2006
Australian Dream.
So you're back at last !
I am so happy I feel like shouting it to the world. I was stunned last Friday when Scotty was at the console as I expected you to be. I could not refrain from phoning you on seeing you were back at it today. You said so many hellos in a row and you sounded happy too on hearing my voice. I don't even have to say it's me.
I had a faint idea of it will be like the day you won't be at Bo's anymore. it fortells a grim future for sure...
We had a big party with our mayor. I danced like mad. If only you could have witnessed it !
I got good news from Jeanine who is running the association under hand: she is planning a trip to Australia for next year. My only fear is that she may be mistaken.
She spoke of an event taking place with all the sister cities of Bayside. But the mail I translated for the other Jeanine, evicted from the association by the latter, said the event had to be delayed till March 2008. That mail was dated last June, and apparently the association should have been informed of the news. She said it had nothing to do with the coming of the brass band.Well, this was why the event had to be postponed to 2008: the band said it would not go next year. The people in Bayside wanted to give us more time to prepare the trip for the band.
So if it has nothing to do with the Festival of Music, there might actually be a trip for us next year.
But as the mail was in Georges's hands and has not been translated and forwarded to the other Jeanine, it may be possible that the one I talked to last night was not aware of the news. Seems strange though. She will have a meeting next week and tell me about what will be decided then.
How excited I got on hearing that something might be on its way. Dreaming may be a good thing, but real life sounds better this way.
I long so much for coming back to the Alice. I dare not write it to you, but I hope you won't fly away next time I come, if it ever happens.
I could not help sending you a mail about a little worry of mine.
It has become so hard to get to know things since you were forbidden to send mails during the parties. You never answer me from home. All my questions stay unsolved.
Worse, if you were so nice on the phone, you did not pay attention to my requests.
On coming back from a fortnight at the casino, you started playing so many songs for me, three in a row even. You shouted my name every ten minutes and you ended the party with playing that Addicted song I had not requested, just for HER.
But the following time when you said it was going out for Mary, the crowd whistled. Were there the boys at the bar ?
The next day when Dan called my name there was but one whistle as if someone had forgotten it was not you at the console. Afterwards all went back to normal as you were away on holidays.
Is it the reason why you don't dare dedicate songs for me anymore ?
You may have had a hard time when they forbade you to send mails any longer. It took them quite a long time to find out you were doing it. And was I the only one you were chatting with?
Some days I thought you were with someone else and I did not trust you. I was wrong I guess now. Your manager may have had enough with your paying too much attention to me. And your going nuts shouting your love for France more than once ! After all you have so many listeners on the web and so many people to entertain at Bo's. The job you love so much and that you said missing even on holidays. Anyway I missed you, for sure.
You had a meeting with Liz. She says hello to me. Fine. I'd like her to answer my last mails though. I'd like to know what you said to her.
So you are back after all and I have a new dream om my mind: a future trip to Australia.
I hope this one won't deceive me. And Pierre who dislikes that Jeanine and doesn't want to have anything to do with her...Nothing will be made easy for me.
I am so happy I feel like shouting it to the world. I was stunned last Friday when Scotty was at the console as I expected you to be. I could not refrain from phoning you on seeing you were back at it today. You said so many hellos in a row and you sounded happy too on hearing my voice. I don't even have to say it's me.
I had a faint idea of it will be like the day you won't be at Bo's anymore. it fortells a grim future for sure...
We had a big party with our mayor. I danced like mad. If only you could have witnessed it !
I got good news from Jeanine who is running the association under hand: she is planning a trip to Australia for next year. My only fear is that she may be mistaken.
She spoke of an event taking place with all the sister cities of Bayside. But the mail I translated for the other Jeanine, evicted from the association by the latter, said the event had to be delayed till March 2008. That mail was dated last June, and apparently the association should have been informed of the news. She said it had nothing to do with the coming of the brass band.Well, this was why the event had to be postponed to 2008: the band said it would not go next year. The people in Bayside wanted to give us more time to prepare the trip for the band.
So if it has nothing to do with the Festival of Music, there might actually be a trip for us next year.
But as the mail was in Georges's hands and has not been translated and forwarded to the other Jeanine, it may be possible that the one I talked to last night was not aware of the news. Seems strange though. She will have a meeting next week and tell me about what will be decided then.
How excited I got on hearing that something might be on its way. Dreaming may be a good thing, but real life sounds better this way.
I long so much for coming back to the Alice. I dare not write it to you, but I hope you won't fly away next time I come, if it ever happens.
I could not help sending you a mail about a little worry of mine.
It has become so hard to get to know things since you were forbidden to send mails during the parties. You never answer me from home. All my questions stay unsolved.
Worse, if you were so nice on the phone, you did not pay attention to my requests.
On coming back from a fortnight at the casino, you started playing so many songs for me, three in a row even. You shouted my name every ten minutes and you ended the party with playing that Addicted song I had not requested, just for HER.
But the following time when you said it was going out for Mary, the crowd whistled. Were there the boys at the bar ?
The next day when Dan called my name there was but one whistle as if someone had forgotten it was not you at the console. Afterwards all went back to normal as you were away on holidays.
Is it the reason why you don't dare dedicate songs for me anymore ?
You may have had a hard time when they forbade you to send mails any longer. It took them quite a long time to find out you were doing it. And was I the only one you were chatting with?
Some days I thought you were with someone else and I did not trust you. I was wrong I guess now. Your manager may have had enough with your paying too much attention to me. And your going nuts shouting your love for France more than once ! After all you have so many listeners on the web and so many people to entertain at Bo's. The job you love so much and that you said missing even on holidays. Anyway I missed you, for sure.
You had a meeting with Liz. She says hello to me. Fine. I'd like her to answer my last mails though. I'd like to know what you said to her.
So you are back after all and I have a new dream om my mind: a future trip to Australia.
I hope this one won't deceive me. And Pierre who dislikes that Jeanine and doesn't want to have anything to do with her...Nothing will be made easy for me.
jeudi 23 novembre 2006
Australian Dream.
The Earth, a small planet indeed.
You should be back tomorrow and I feel the need to write again. A good way to vet that stress which overwhelms me each time a new encounter is nearing. How will you be tomorrow and what if you are not back as I think ?
I am thinking of the strange encounters I went across in my past life and I wonder how we could not meet some other day.
I met an Arab prince once. I was in Paris to sit for an examonation. A boy i had met earlier said to me not to worry about accomodation in the capital. He would provide one for me. but he let me down and on getting in touch with him, I had him to book a room in a hotel for me.
We were supposed to have dinner together in a restaurant, but he came to the reception to tell he was having dinner with people connected to his business.
I was fancying a lonely evening with my sweet daschund, Isis, when he came back and said his friends invited me to dine with them.
A big black Mercedes car was parked in front of the hotel. Inside, a chauffeur and an Arab prince.
The latter, though a true Muslim, allowed the dog to get into his car.
The man who drove the car asked me what kind of food I would like to eat and if I was on for exotic food. I said I was brought up in the West Indies and that as far as I was concerned, it did not matter. He then wanted to know in what part of the West Indies I used to live;
I replied Martinique.
He said he was living in Martinique years before. Finally we found out he was my neighbour when I was 14.
One other day, I was flying from Paris to Stuttgart. In the transit room, I noticed a girl I thought was a friend of mine when I was still in the West Indies. I scrutinized her, but she did not seem to recognized me.
We boarded on the plane and she sat down in the seat behind me. I turned my head around and asked her: "Aren't you Nicole Gnesotto?"
She looked surprised and said yes. I replied at once: "Marie-France!"
She asked the man next to me if we could swap seats and she came and sat by me for the rest of the flight talking about our families, sharing news. I have never seen her again !
Years before I was working in England. I landed in a small airport in England and saw a boy who was a student in a university in Guadeloupe. He was waiting for his luggage which had been left over. We got on the coach to London and started talking about literature. I told him there was a book I like much, but that I had lent it to someone who had never handed it back to me.
He started to blush and replied in shame the boy was him. we agreed upon having a day together in London. That we did but I have never got that book back. I have never seen him after that day in London.
I have met my sister-in-law twice lately. Once in Warsaw, Poland, for the wedding of her son and the following year in Switzerland when her second son became a priest.
She lives 20Kms from my home...
I was celebrating my degrees I got at the end of my university year over here. Suddenly, some friends I had left on heading to Europe appeared at my door.People from the West Indies and even one from Venezuela and a girl from Barbados.
On a business trip I met a man who was running a kitchen unit shop as my husband. His was in Lille and it is the place of my relatives on my father's side. More precisely, Wavrin, a village 10Kms from Lille. I spent two years there at my grandmother's in my infancy.
The man knew Wavrin alright for his grandparents had the house facing my grandmother's.
I spent one week a year on holidays at my grandmother's and knew his grandparents well.
As a student over here I was hitchhiking with my boyfriend of the time. We were heading to the latter's house. A boy was hitchhiking next to us and a car stopped. We all got on it and started chatting. We discovered we were both coming from Martinique. I remembered a boy putting ether in his motorbike and ruining the engine. That made us laugh a lot at the time. He was the one!
How many more stories of the type I could tell.
When Dan wanted to introduce me at Bo's, he said "Mary,....from all over the world!"
That's why I keep hope we will meet one of these days. Of course, if you don't fly away on getting the news I'm coming...
Funny, I did not want to connect myself too early and went sunbathing on the balcony doing crosswords. I had to find out the name of an author. I started to write h,e,a and I said no, it can be. Yes, it was Hearn, your name, Marty. I'm doomed or shall I say, we both are!
You should be back tomorrow and I feel the need to write again. A good way to vet that stress which overwhelms me each time a new encounter is nearing. How will you be tomorrow and what if you are not back as I think ?
I am thinking of the strange encounters I went across in my past life and I wonder how we could not meet some other day.
I met an Arab prince once. I was in Paris to sit for an examonation. A boy i had met earlier said to me not to worry about accomodation in the capital. He would provide one for me. but he let me down and on getting in touch with him, I had him to book a room in a hotel for me.
We were supposed to have dinner together in a restaurant, but he came to the reception to tell he was having dinner with people connected to his business.
I was fancying a lonely evening with my sweet daschund, Isis, when he came back and said his friends invited me to dine with them.
A big black Mercedes car was parked in front of the hotel. Inside, a chauffeur and an Arab prince.
The latter, though a true Muslim, allowed the dog to get into his car.
The man who drove the car asked me what kind of food I would like to eat and if I was on for exotic food. I said I was brought up in the West Indies and that as far as I was concerned, it did not matter. He then wanted to know in what part of the West Indies I used to live;
I replied Martinique.
He said he was living in Martinique years before. Finally we found out he was my neighbour when I was 14.
One other day, I was flying from Paris to Stuttgart. In the transit room, I noticed a girl I thought was a friend of mine when I was still in the West Indies. I scrutinized her, but she did not seem to recognized me.
We boarded on the plane and she sat down in the seat behind me. I turned my head around and asked her: "Aren't you Nicole Gnesotto?"
She looked surprised and said yes. I replied at once: "Marie-France!"
She asked the man next to me if we could swap seats and she came and sat by me for the rest of the flight talking about our families, sharing news. I have never seen her again !
Years before I was working in England. I landed in a small airport in England and saw a boy who was a student in a university in Guadeloupe. He was waiting for his luggage which had been left over. We got on the coach to London and started talking about literature. I told him there was a book I like much, but that I had lent it to someone who had never handed it back to me.
He started to blush and replied in shame the boy was him. we agreed upon having a day together in London. That we did but I have never got that book back. I have never seen him after that day in London.
I have met my sister-in-law twice lately. Once in Warsaw, Poland, for the wedding of her son and the following year in Switzerland when her second son became a priest.
She lives 20Kms from my home...
I was celebrating my degrees I got at the end of my university year over here. Suddenly, some friends I had left on heading to Europe appeared at my door.People from the West Indies and even one from Venezuela and a girl from Barbados.
On a business trip I met a man who was running a kitchen unit shop as my husband. His was in Lille and it is the place of my relatives on my father's side. More precisely, Wavrin, a village 10Kms from Lille. I spent two years there at my grandmother's in my infancy.
The man knew Wavrin alright for his grandparents had the house facing my grandmother's.
I spent one week a year on holidays at my grandmother's and knew his grandparents well.
As a student over here I was hitchhiking with my boyfriend of the time. We were heading to the latter's house. A boy was hitchhiking next to us and a car stopped. We all got on it and started chatting. We discovered we were both coming from Martinique. I remembered a boy putting ether in his motorbike and ruining the engine. That made us laugh a lot at the time. He was the one!
How many more stories of the type I could tell.
When Dan wanted to introduce me at Bo's, he said "Mary,....from all over the world!"
That's why I keep hope we will meet one of these days. Of course, if you don't fly away on getting the news I'm coming...
Funny, I did not want to connect myself too early and went sunbathing on the balcony doing crosswords. I had to find out the name of an author. I started to write h,e,a and I said no, it can be. Yes, it was Hearn, your name, Marty. I'm doomed or shall I say, we both are!
mardi 21 novembre 2006
Australian Dream
Missing you.
You've been away for four days and I am missing you.
Life has not drifted away as peaceful as I expected. Of course, I have not heard from you since you left, and I was sure I would not. You left me stuck at Bo's as you went away. Don't want to be bothered during your few days out of work. I know I am still related to work in your mind.
That makes me realize once more that my days in your company are counted. You've got it all in your hands and there is nothing else I can do.
Pierre had a few crises of his own and I had to cope with them. No little help from you.
Things are going better today. I have received a most expected mail from Paul in Sydney. The man writes very nicely. I would like to meet him one of these days. He wanted me to send him the brochures of the Gannat festival. I hope he will be pleased with them and that will induce him to dig further on into the project. At times I thought I would have to go Alice Springs to negociate the contract and I fear the new technologies will not make that useful. The manager of that festival speaks English according to Georges and I won't be of any use this way.
And, for sure, they won't pay me the plane ticket to fulfil my dream of going back to the land of Aussies.
But this was good news anyway.
I have got no reply from Georges after my having mailed him the news. Well, I must be patient again.
Oh, "You're Beautiful" by james Blunt on the Alice Springs radio at the moment.
"But it's time to face the truth, I 'll never be with you", sings the boy.
I hope this won't be the title of a next chapter in this blog. Who knows!
I read a detective novel taking place near Perth and I have started to read "A Town like Alice".It starts with the mention of Perth. Your ancestor landed in Perth at the end of the ninethieth century and that's where your sister actually lives. Why all I come across these days is about Perth ?
Is it an omen again. If only it was a good one.
I had planned to go Perth for a change on leaving Australia. The man at the reception of the golf club was there a few years ago and has advised me to visit that town. He evn said I should fly there when being in Alice Springs. I didn't have time and didn't want to leave the town of my heart. But a trip to Darwin all the way south to Perth would be a good idea if only Pierre could gather the money for it. That is less sure and it despairs me.
I could plan everything on the web. No use relying on Seb now. He has not answered my mails and should be on his way to Australia by now.
I don't understand what's the matter with the two brothers. We shared the love for Australia and our conversations were all about the country, our hopes on going back there.
Patrick said tome he was trying to become deputy for South Australia and Northern Territory by the town hall over here. He said he would not forget me and wanted me to join in the project.
Why this silence all of a sudden.
Pierre is so angry he doesn't want to hear from them anew.
I am sad for Liz is not keeping touch with me as she promised on leaving Alice Springs for Sydney. You will certainly meet her if you have not already.
The parcel has arrived in Australia on October 30th, but God only knows where it is by now. I fear it might be stuck in the customs and I am wondering if the clay in the keyholder has not puzzled the customs officers.It was silly sending it. I should have remembered how strict they are on imported goods. Australia has funny customs registration laws. I had such a big problem with these two biscuits. I could not even remember buying that box at the Hong Kong airport.
My explanations did not seem to convince the officer. He couldn't understand that we had been travelling on three days and that I was so tired my brains were not fit enough to rememeber two unfortunate biscuits left over in a box we bought mostly to kill time at the airport.
Well, that's how it is over there. Three days travelling to get there and customs officers scanning your luggage for two uneaten biscuits.
I love you Australia and I miss my Scruffy Beard from DownUnder.
Please come back soon. May be, on next Friday...
You've been away for four days and I am missing you.
Life has not drifted away as peaceful as I expected. Of course, I have not heard from you since you left, and I was sure I would not. You left me stuck at Bo's as you went away. Don't want to be bothered during your few days out of work. I know I am still related to work in your mind.
That makes me realize once more that my days in your company are counted. You've got it all in your hands and there is nothing else I can do.
Pierre had a few crises of his own and I had to cope with them. No little help from you.
Things are going better today. I have received a most expected mail from Paul in Sydney. The man writes very nicely. I would like to meet him one of these days. He wanted me to send him the brochures of the Gannat festival. I hope he will be pleased with them and that will induce him to dig further on into the project. At times I thought I would have to go Alice Springs to negociate the contract and I fear the new technologies will not make that useful. The manager of that festival speaks English according to Georges and I won't be of any use this way.
And, for sure, they won't pay me the plane ticket to fulfil my dream of going back to the land of Aussies.
But this was good news anyway.
I have got no reply from Georges after my having mailed him the news. Well, I must be patient again.
Oh, "You're Beautiful" by james Blunt on the Alice Springs radio at the moment.
"But it's time to face the truth, I 'll never be with you", sings the boy.
I hope this won't be the title of a next chapter in this blog. Who knows!
I read a detective novel taking place near Perth and I have started to read "A Town like Alice".It starts with the mention of Perth. Your ancestor landed in Perth at the end of the ninethieth century and that's where your sister actually lives. Why all I come across these days is about Perth ?
Is it an omen again. If only it was a good one.
I had planned to go Perth for a change on leaving Australia. The man at the reception of the golf club was there a few years ago and has advised me to visit that town. He evn said I should fly there when being in Alice Springs. I didn't have time and didn't want to leave the town of my heart. But a trip to Darwin all the way south to Perth would be a good idea if only Pierre could gather the money for it. That is less sure and it despairs me.
I could plan everything on the web. No use relying on Seb now. He has not answered my mails and should be on his way to Australia by now.
I don't understand what's the matter with the two brothers. We shared the love for Australia and our conversations were all about the country, our hopes on going back there.
Patrick said tome he was trying to become deputy for South Australia and Northern Territory by the town hall over here. He said he would not forget me and wanted me to join in the project.
Why this silence all of a sudden.
Pierre is so angry he doesn't want to hear from them anew.
I am sad for Liz is not keeping touch with me as she promised on leaving Alice Springs for Sydney. You will certainly meet her if you have not already.
The parcel has arrived in Australia on October 30th, but God only knows where it is by now. I fear it might be stuck in the customs and I am wondering if the clay in the keyholder has not puzzled the customs officers.It was silly sending it. I should have remembered how strict they are on imported goods. Australia has funny customs registration laws. I had such a big problem with these two biscuits. I could not even remember buying that box at the Hong Kong airport.
My explanations did not seem to convince the officer. He couldn't understand that we had been travelling on three days and that I was so tired my brains were not fit enough to rememeber two unfortunate biscuits left over in a box we bought mostly to kill time at the airport.
Well, that's how it is over there. Three days travelling to get there and customs officers scanning your luggage for two uneaten biscuits.
I love you Australia and I miss my Scruffy Beard from DownUnder.
Please come back soon. May be, on next Friday...
vendredi 17 novembre 2006
Australian Dream
Dreaming.
And if all this what but a dream ?
Marty once said I should be a very romantic one.
To elude my everyday worries, I put my imagination to work and fancy a totallly different life for me from the one I am actually living. Both Pierre and Marty say I am acting like a child and I know it is so true.
Infantilized that's what I 've been made.It is a way for others to put a thumb on you and keep total control over one person. I am perfectly aware of the process suffering from it since childhood.
My parents, especially my mother, were very strict and in order to keep their children in control , relied on means of another age.
Beating was one thing, not only smacking one's buttom nor slapping one's face.
Seeing my father undo his belt brought so many fears into me.The faults were minor ones usually, and very often out of my mother's imagination in order to have me punished, sometimes in my brother's place.The latter made the best he could of his privileged status.
My childhood universe was a very restricted one. We were living in a flat in a building occupied by retired people without children. The motto was silence.
We had to keep quiet, not move about the flat: we were stuck in the hall with toys ,to play with in silence.
We were not allowed to speak if not required.
I have been taught never to ask anything. One day, I was spending the afternoon at my godfather's, one storey below. There was that candy-box on a table and I asked very politely:
"Please, may I have a candy ?"
This was immediately reported to my mother who slapped me in the face for having dare ask.
Not being able to express loud my feelings or inner sufferings, and having to keep silent most of the time, I created a world for myself in which I was loved and granted all the affection I was craving for.
We did not have friends either, having to come back home straight from school and confined there for the rest of the day.
Things changed a lot when we moved to the West Indies. My brother gained total freedom allowed to wander about with his new friend, two years older. I was allowed toplay Monopoly on Thursday afternoons at my parents' new friends'.
Being a teenager and looking older than actually was, my parents started to become anxious about boys getting next to me. My mother started fancying fake things about my going to bed with some of them, and more than once, I was confined into my bedroom after severe beating;
Deeply hurt inside, (as outside at times), overwhelmed by injustice, I would dream of a better world, lying on my bed for long hours.
Another way of keeping children under parents' contol is to deprive them of any form of economical freedom, by refusing them pocket money and on one occasion to take a summer job.
I was left asking, though someething I dared not do as I said before after that experience I had to go through when a child.
This lasted almost till I got married, for after having had a bit of freedom, I lost my university grant and could not find a steady job.Financially, I had to rely on my parents again. When they came back from the West Indies to join me in Europe, my mother said she would tame me, as if I was but an animal. Funny, being nearly twenty-five. She cut all the relationships I could have set up when on my own. When I started to go out with my future husband, he had to ask the permission from my parents I was supposed to be back home before midnight.
One day, I played Cinderella. It was not my fault at all: Pierre did not want to drive me home before he had found out where his friend had disappeared into the night-club.
I was saved from severe beating by the presence at home of two of my father's sisters. They pleaded my cause. But the only way for my parents to keep their honour preserved was for me to get married as soon as possible. That happened within the six following months. The engagement was hopefully skipped. Not for me though. I had dreamed of having an engagement party and the ring attached to such an event. Well, I was deprived of both.
My mother refused to buy me a wedding-dress and Pierre had to provide it She said she had spent too much money on my brother's wedding six months before. That did not prevent her from buying a mink fur coat for herself. I got married in winter time!
Unfortunately for me Pierre stepped into my parents' shoes with great facility.
He kept his earnings secret to me. I could not even get to know where was the flat we were going to live in and in which he was undertaking works. He had me signed a wedding contract by which he was keeping all his belongings to himself.
I was still a student at that time without resources and he would not give me money. I had to fight hard to have a checkbook for myself. By the way, I still have to ask over and over again before he would give me a single banknote to put into my wallet.
He said to me that the money was all his and if I wanted to have some of my own I would have to find a job.
That I did under hard conditions. My first teaching job was two hundred kilometers from home.
I had to sleep in a bad hotel.
Teaching led me have to drive quite often far from home, and my last job was one hundred kilometers away. By that time my daughter was two. She was partly brought up by my parents and I hated it. My husband was on his own at home and quite satisfied with the situation. I had to share a flat with another teacher five days a week.
When I was appointed for three years further from my home town, aware that after these three years I could be appointed in the up North of France, me living in the South, my husband advised me to stop teaching and bring up Laure the best a mother could.
He had big problems of his own, and had to start a new business. I decided it was wiser indeed to stay by my family and help Pierre a much as I could in his new work life.
He promised me a salary he never gave, to compensate for the loss of my job.
Laure is a big girl now. She has completed her university studies in a very brilliant way and has now a job in Paris as a civil servant. I am so proud of her!!!
Having lost the freedom that earning one's own money can bring, I was like a child.
I had to comply to my husband's wills, beg for a banknote and put all my inner desires aside.
Pierre does feel the need to fufill them, emotionally or sexually. He just does what he wants when he feels like it. What I feel is of no consequence to him.
Being left more than once on my own, confined into a room and I have carried on with my dreaming. I still know where reality stands, well I used to before meeting you , Marty, on that web.
It is hard for me now to tell myself fancy stories to go to sleep. In a sense you are too real.
I fancied so many stories in the past to alleviate the burden of the present. In the world of my imagination I met so many Prince Charmings....These fancied ones would bring me all the love and affection I was craving for. You told me once I should treat with love and affection that old computer which was undergoing one of its ordinary bugs. I replied it was me who needed love and affection. I hoped you did not miss the point.
Being far from Australia two years ago, I dreamed so many times of how things would on my coming back there. I even fancied how I would meet you for the first time at Bo's.
But you took all my dreams away when you let me know that we would not meet your being in Sydney for the length of my stay in Alice Springs. So no use dreaming anymore.
I can't hardly dream by now, for you are too real.
At the same time, you said I was reading too much into things. Did you mean by that that I was drawing false conclusions from the things you said or the way you could act?
When you played that song "Addicted" just for me in the new quiet of the place when the crowd had left, what was it meant for then? When you wanted to know what I meant when speaking of impossible love, were you thinking of our improbable relationship?
The border between dream and reality is so thin. I don't know where it stands at present, especially when you are recoiling from going any further in that direction. There is one of the songs you play quite often about one step forward and two steps back.Is it what you are doing at the moment?
I have to interprete every single gesture you make or word you say. And then my imagination is at work again. Left on my own in front of that computer brings all sorts of thoughts to my mind, the sweetest and very sour ones as well.
I have had a dream. May be...
And if all this what but a dream ?
Marty once said I should be a very romantic one.
To elude my everyday worries, I put my imagination to work and fancy a totallly different life for me from the one I am actually living. Both Pierre and Marty say I am acting like a child and I know it is so true.
Infantilized that's what I 've been made.It is a way for others to put a thumb on you and keep total control over one person. I am perfectly aware of the process suffering from it since childhood.
My parents, especially my mother, were very strict and in order to keep their children in control , relied on means of another age.
Beating was one thing, not only smacking one's buttom nor slapping one's face.
Seeing my father undo his belt brought so many fears into me.The faults were minor ones usually, and very often out of my mother's imagination in order to have me punished, sometimes in my brother's place.The latter made the best he could of his privileged status.
My childhood universe was a very restricted one. We were living in a flat in a building occupied by retired people without children. The motto was silence.
We had to keep quiet, not move about the flat: we were stuck in the hall with toys ,to play with in silence.
We were not allowed to speak if not required.
I have been taught never to ask anything. One day, I was spending the afternoon at my godfather's, one storey below. There was that candy-box on a table and I asked very politely:
"Please, may I have a candy ?"
This was immediately reported to my mother who slapped me in the face for having dare ask.
Not being able to express loud my feelings or inner sufferings, and having to keep silent most of the time, I created a world for myself in which I was loved and granted all the affection I was craving for.
We did not have friends either, having to come back home straight from school and confined there for the rest of the day.
Things changed a lot when we moved to the West Indies. My brother gained total freedom allowed to wander about with his new friend, two years older. I was allowed toplay Monopoly on Thursday afternoons at my parents' new friends'.
Being a teenager and looking older than actually was, my parents started to become anxious about boys getting next to me. My mother started fancying fake things about my going to bed with some of them, and more than once, I was confined into my bedroom after severe beating;
Deeply hurt inside, (as outside at times), overwhelmed by injustice, I would dream of a better world, lying on my bed for long hours.
Another way of keeping children under parents' contol is to deprive them of any form of economical freedom, by refusing them pocket money and on one occasion to take a summer job.
I was left asking, though someething I dared not do as I said before after that experience I had to go through when a child.
This lasted almost till I got married, for after having had a bit of freedom, I lost my university grant and could not find a steady job.Financially, I had to rely on my parents again. When they came back from the West Indies to join me in Europe, my mother said she would tame me, as if I was but an animal. Funny, being nearly twenty-five. She cut all the relationships I could have set up when on my own. When I started to go out with my future husband, he had to ask the permission from my parents I was supposed to be back home before midnight.
One day, I played Cinderella. It was not my fault at all: Pierre did not want to drive me home before he had found out where his friend had disappeared into the night-club.
I was saved from severe beating by the presence at home of two of my father's sisters. They pleaded my cause. But the only way for my parents to keep their honour preserved was for me to get married as soon as possible. That happened within the six following months. The engagement was hopefully skipped. Not for me though. I had dreamed of having an engagement party and the ring attached to such an event. Well, I was deprived of both.
My mother refused to buy me a wedding-dress and Pierre had to provide it She said she had spent too much money on my brother's wedding six months before. That did not prevent her from buying a mink fur coat for herself. I got married in winter time!
Unfortunately for me Pierre stepped into my parents' shoes with great facility.
He kept his earnings secret to me. I could not even get to know where was the flat we were going to live in and in which he was undertaking works. He had me signed a wedding contract by which he was keeping all his belongings to himself.
I was still a student at that time without resources and he would not give me money. I had to fight hard to have a checkbook for myself. By the way, I still have to ask over and over again before he would give me a single banknote to put into my wallet.
He said to me that the money was all his and if I wanted to have some of my own I would have to find a job.
That I did under hard conditions. My first teaching job was two hundred kilometers from home.
I had to sleep in a bad hotel.
Teaching led me have to drive quite often far from home, and my last job was one hundred kilometers away. By that time my daughter was two. She was partly brought up by my parents and I hated it. My husband was on his own at home and quite satisfied with the situation. I had to share a flat with another teacher five days a week.
When I was appointed for three years further from my home town, aware that after these three years I could be appointed in the up North of France, me living in the South, my husband advised me to stop teaching and bring up Laure the best a mother could.
He had big problems of his own, and had to start a new business. I decided it was wiser indeed to stay by my family and help Pierre a much as I could in his new work life.
He promised me a salary he never gave, to compensate for the loss of my job.
Laure is a big girl now. She has completed her university studies in a very brilliant way and has now a job in Paris as a civil servant. I am so proud of her!!!
Having lost the freedom that earning one's own money can bring, I was like a child.
I had to comply to my husband's wills, beg for a banknote and put all my inner desires aside.
Pierre does feel the need to fufill them, emotionally or sexually. He just does what he wants when he feels like it. What I feel is of no consequence to him.
Being left more than once on my own, confined into a room and I have carried on with my dreaming. I still know where reality stands, well I used to before meeting you , Marty, on that web.
It is hard for me now to tell myself fancy stories to go to sleep. In a sense you are too real.
I fancied so many stories in the past to alleviate the burden of the present. In the world of my imagination I met so many Prince Charmings....These fancied ones would bring me all the love and affection I was craving for. You told me once I should treat with love and affection that old computer which was undergoing one of its ordinary bugs. I replied it was me who needed love and affection. I hoped you did not miss the point.
Being far from Australia two years ago, I dreamed so many times of how things would on my coming back there. I even fancied how I would meet you for the first time at Bo's.
But you took all my dreams away when you let me know that we would not meet your being in Sydney for the length of my stay in Alice Springs. So no use dreaming anymore.
I can't hardly dream by now, for you are too real.
At the same time, you said I was reading too much into things. Did you mean by that that I was drawing false conclusions from the things you said or the way you could act?
When you played that song "Addicted" just for me in the new quiet of the place when the crowd had left, what was it meant for then? When you wanted to know what I meant when speaking of impossible love, were you thinking of our improbable relationship?
The border between dream and reality is so thin. I don't know where it stands at present, especially when you are recoiling from going any further in that direction. There is one of the songs you play quite often about one step forward and two steps back.Is it what you are doing at the moment?
I have to interprete every single gesture you make or word you say. And then my imagination is at work again. Left on my own in front of that computer brings all sorts of thoughts to my mind, the sweetest and very sour ones as well.
I have had a dream. May be...
jeudi 16 novembre 2006
Australian Dream.
Gnawing Doubts.
I am not sure my last chapter was explicit enough. I was drawing a parralel between my two men. There are too many similitudes between the two and ,even, Pierre acknowledges it. That makes him smile at times. That is why he knows why I am attracted to you,Marty, and why he said once he would not be able to prevent it. But that leads him to crying too. He is a man and not of the crying type though.Just like you, evading trouble as much as you can and focussing on your work life and the bills to pay at the end of each month. No place for romance.
I have just sent you a long mail, dear Marty, trying to express my feelings at the moment and I am starting to regret it. Just another silly thing on my behalf.
Feeling lonely, with worries concerning Pierre's mental state of health, has led me to think you could be more than a friend to me. Your calling my name, e-mailing me during the parties, shouting your sudden love for France, made me thought I was right at times. But, now that you don't pay much attention to me these days, and that you won't answer me while at home on your personal computer, I am wondering if all this was just you having some fun.
I feel just like an ordinary listener whose requests you pick up at random.
The fact is that even if you play a song for me, you would not let it know nowadays.
I have noticed more than once, that you could be jealous and that puzzled me.
In the summertime, you even did not appreciate my leaving you to meet my friends on the beach. Seb was a big preoccupation of yours. You even thought he was at Bo's one day. I had told you,though, the latter was driving all the way from Darwin to Sydney at that time.
And the day I told you I had met a young gentleman and very good player at the golf club: he, you started making fun with a Swedish girl on the dance foor. It got on my nerves and I decided to leave you and do some swimming. It was not long before you said that it was worth watching that girl doing some swimming on the dance floor, the crawl you added.
On coming back home, connected anew, I told you it was better swimming in a gorgeous water than on a dance floor. One of our little rows !
I remember how you stayed silent for days after receiving a picture of Pierre and I; during last New Year's Eve party.
I had sent it to you, for I thought I was pretty on that one, which is not too often...
Did it hurt you to see me with my husband ?
I did the same silly thing, e-mailing one taken on Pierre's birthday, earlier this morning.
Well, of course, that reminds you I am a married woman and your religious convictions can make you fell the guilt in our relationship. Some of my lady friends say it is just as adultery.
Hey, who knows!
Pierre says we are playing a game of chess, and he believes I will be the loser, not playing in the same category as you.
I know he is right. I am reckless. You are wise.
You are just A DJ doing your job. You said in your first mail.
You were wondering what I was expecting from you.
Are you still wondering or have you enough of me?
Impressive Pierre says I am. He ,even, acknowledges he is scared by me. Can you be too?
I know, I should noy have spoken of Pierre's wealth to you. But it is part of my life, and I want you to know it all.
Pierre has so many belongings I don't even know how many. It may puzzle you that we have so many houses, some unoccupied. It puzzles everyone over here either. Some can get to know where I actually live.I don't know either how much money he has on his many bank accounts.
This has stopped worrying me at present. Carpe diem!
After all I don't know how many pair of shoes I have got !!!
I have been to so many parts of the world and it is not everybody who can spend his holidays in Australia. Three weeks twice, already, living in four star hotels, eating in restaurants.
A life of millionaires !
I would have liked you to come over here and support the Aussie rugby team next year. You explained to me that your are an indie, living on a contract and not paid while not working. The trip would be too expensive for you to afford it.
I may look selfish in your eyes, far from your own life. I am aware of it and I know I would never let down my standard of living. So what do I want? I want you to love me. I must be selfish then.
When Dan wanted to introduce me at Bo's, he started by: "Mary...", stopped and mumbled "from all over the world!".
My life has already led me to many places on earth and the songs you play can remind me of some of them at times, and I let you know. It is awkward on my behalf. One day you played a song about a girl being too high for a boy.
Did you feel I was too high for you?
I was not as a child. My mother wanted a boy so dearly that the disappointment was too big for her. I had to endure the consequences till her death.
My younger brother benefitted of the situation and I have not heard from him since she died.
He let relatives know about that death two months after it happened, and a cousin phoned me the news on a Sunday morning.
I have come across violent acts from my parents, physically and mentally. They destroyed my life then. I tried and get some loving and affection from the boys I met, but was decieved badly more than once. I have lost self-confidence and can't believe I could be loved .
That is why I am behaving in a very demanding way that may bothers the boys I meet.
Pierre is not affectionate nor sexually aroused. He is doing his best now that he knows you are in a corner of my mind. How strange!
And you are so young, too much for me. You are my swan's song in a way.
You can act childishly too, my big boy! That way of saying football is true men's achievement in nlife. Can't you find any thing more worthwhile?
One day, you wrote to me I was reading too much into things.
It is just what I am doing at the moment.
All I know is that I want to go back to Australia with all my heart. And I don't want to miss you this time.
Pierre said you flew away to Sydney last May, scared of meeting me. The aggressiveness of your first mail was an evidence to him.
I would have liked to meet Seb during his stay in France for him to decide Pierre on going back.
I would like to go to Perth before Alice Springs. Funny it is where your ancestors are from and where your sister lives with her husband and daughter.But no news from Seb...
You asked me once why Pierre is not keen on going back to Australia. Why did you also ask me about what I meant about impossible love ?
Pierre will have to pay for the new lift in our building. We also need a new car. his was wrecked in the accident last January. We need to have new shutters too in the flat.He also said that he feels too old for such a long trip and longs for meeting his friends in Quebec.
He may not want me to meet you...He yells at me he is fed up with my talking about you all the time. I can understand him. I can't help it though.
Many,many questions.
I'd like to meet my friend Denise too. She has always been so kind, but too busy at the same tme.
Elisabeth has left the Alice for Sydney. No news from her since.
I fear the day I may be able to be in the Alice again, you would be away. I know you are looking for a better to earn more money. That's why I am in a hurry to come back. And I am getting older as everyone.
Is it Alice Springs I am longing for, or just you?
By the way, the French town on the road sign on the Todd Mall is Dijon. That's where I was born. My second name is Alice.
I am not sure my last chapter was explicit enough. I was drawing a parralel between my two men. There are too many similitudes between the two and ,even, Pierre acknowledges it. That makes him smile at times. That is why he knows why I am attracted to you,Marty, and why he said once he would not be able to prevent it. But that leads him to crying too. He is a man and not of the crying type though.Just like you, evading trouble as much as you can and focussing on your work life and the bills to pay at the end of each month. No place for romance.
I have just sent you a long mail, dear Marty, trying to express my feelings at the moment and I am starting to regret it. Just another silly thing on my behalf.
Feeling lonely, with worries concerning Pierre's mental state of health, has led me to think you could be more than a friend to me. Your calling my name, e-mailing me during the parties, shouting your sudden love for France, made me thought I was right at times. But, now that you don't pay much attention to me these days, and that you won't answer me while at home on your personal computer, I am wondering if all this was just you having some fun.
I feel just like an ordinary listener whose requests you pick up at random.
The fact is that even if you play a song for me, you would not let it know nowadays.
I have noticed more than once, that you could be jealous and that puzzled me.
In the summertime, you even did not appreciate my leaving you to meet my friends on the beach. Seb was a big preoccupation of yours. You even thought he was at Bo's one day. I had told you,though, the latter was driving all the way from Darwin to Sydney at that time.
And the day I told you I had met a young gentleman and very good player at the golf club: he, you started making fun with a Swedish girl on the dance foor. It got on my nerves and I decided to leave you and do some swimming. It was not long before you said that it was worth watching that girl doing some swimming on the dance floor, the crawl you added.
On coming back home, connected anew, I told you it was better swimming in a gorgeous water than on a dance floor. One of our little rows !
I remember how you stayed silent for days after receiving a picture of Pierre and I; during last New Year's Eve party.
I had sent it to you, for I thought I was pretty on that one, which is not too often...
Did it hurt you to see me with my husband ?
I did the same silly thing, e-mailing one taken on Pierre's birthday, earlier this morning.
Well, of course, that reminds you I am a married woman and your religious convictions can make you fell the guilt in our relationship. Some of my lady friends say it is just as adultery.
Hey, who knows!
Pierre says we are playing a game of chess, and he believes I will be the loser, not playing in the same category as you.
I know he is right. I am reckless. You are wise.
You are just A DJ doing your job. You said in your first mail.
You were wondering what I was expecting from you.
Are you still wondering or have you enough of me?
Impressive Pierre says I am. He ,even, acknowledges he is scared by me. Can you be too?
I know, I should noy have spoken of Pierre's wealth to you. But it is part of my life, and I want you to know it all.
Pierre has so many belongings I don't even know how many. It may puzzle you that we have so many houses, some unoccupied. It puzzles everyone over here either. Some can get to know where I actually live.I don't know either how much money he has on his many bank accounts.
This has stopped worrying me at present. Carpe diem!
After all I don't know how many pair of shoes I have got !!!
I have been to so many parts of the world and it is not everybody who can spend his holidays in Australia. Three weeks twice, already, living in four star hotels, eating in restaurants.
A life of millionaires !
I would have liked you to come over here and support the Aussie rugby team next year. You explained to me that your are an indie, living on a contract and not paid while not working. The trip would be too expensive for you to afford it.
I may look selfish in your eyes, far from your own life. I am aware of it and I know I would never let down my standard of living. So what do I want? I want you to love me. I must be selfish then.
When Dan wanted to introduce me at Bo's, he started by: "Mary...", stopped and mumbled "from all over the world!".
My life has already led me to many places on earth and the songs you play can remind me of some of them at times, and I let you know. It is awkward on my behalf. One day you played a song about a girl being too high for a boy.
Did you feel I was too high for you?
I was not as a child. My mother wanted a boy so dearly that the disappointment was too big for her. I had to endure the consequences till her death.
My younger brother benefitted of the situation and I have not heard from him since she died.
He let relatives know about that death two months after it happened, and a cousin phoned me the news on a Sunday morning.
I have come across violent acts from my parents, physically and mentally. They destroyed my life then. I tried and get some loving and affection from the boys I met, but was decieved badly more than once. I have lost self-confidence and can't believe I could be loved .
That is why I am behaving in a very demanding way that may bothers the boys I meet.
Pierre is not affectionate nor sexually aroused. He is doing his best now that he knows you are in a corner of my mind. How strange!
And you are so young, too much for me. You are my swan's song in a way.
You can act childishly too, my big boy! That way of saying football is true men's achievement in nlife. Can't you find any thing more worthwhile?
One day, you wrote to me I was reading too much into things.
It is just what I am doing at the moment.
All I know is that I want to go back to Australia with all my heart. And I don't want to miss you this time.
Pierre said you flew away to Sydney last May, scared of meeting me. The aggressiveness of your first mail was an evidence to him.
I would have liked to meet Seb during his stay in France for him to decide Pierre on going back.
I would like to go to Perth before Alice Springs. Funny it is where your ancestors are from and where your sister lives with her husband and daughter.But no news from Seb...
You asked me once why Pierre is not keen on going back to Australia. Why did you also ask me about what I meant about impossible love ?
Pierre will have to pay for the new lift in our building. We also need a new car. his was wrecked in the accident last January. We need to have new shutters too in the flat.He also said that he feels too old for such a long trip and longs for meeting his friends in Quebec.
He may not want me to meet you...He yells at me he is fed up with my talking about you all the time. I can understand him. I can't help it though.
Many,many questions.
I'd like to meet my friend Denise too. She has always been so kind, but too busy at the same tme.
Elisabeth has left the Alice for Sydney. No news from her since.
I fear the day I may be able to be in the Alice again, you would be away. I know you are looking for a better to earn more money. That's why I am in a hurry to come back. And I am getting older as everyone.
Is it Alice Springs I am longing for, or just you?
By the way, the French town on the road sign on the Todd Mall is Dijon. That's where I was born. My second name is Alice.
Australian Dream.
Gnawing Doubts.
I am not sure my last chapter was explicit enough. I was drawing a parralel between my two men. There are too many similitudes between the two and ,even, Pierre acknowledges it. That makes him smile at times. That is why he knows why I am attracted to you,Marty, and why he said once he would not be able to prevent it. But that leads him to crying too. He is a man and not of the crying type though.Just like you, evading trouble as much as you can and focussing on your work life and the bills to pay at the end of each month.No place for romance.
I am not sure my last chapter was explicit enough. I was drawing a parralel between my two men. There are too many similitudes between the two and ,even, Pierre acknowledges it. That makes him smile at times. That is why he knows why I am attracted to you,Marty, and why he said once he would not be able to prevent it. But that leads him to crying too. He is a man and not of the crying type though.Just like you, evading trouble as much as you can and focussing on your work life and the bills to pay at the end of each month.No place for romance.
mercredi 15 novembre 2006
Australian Dream
Life In A Mirror
So you are 39 by now, Marty.
I met you on that web when you were 37.
I met Pierre when he was 37. We got married when he 38.
You both are Scorpios.
Physically you don't look like each other at all.
Pierre is not tall, he's got blue eyes and has grown white hair by now.
You are a very tall one with dark eyes and black kair.
But mentally, I would not say the same.
You can act very queer the both of us and have the trick to make me cry.
Though it seems I am addicted to the both of you. As if suffering was my lot.
At 37, you both had a flat in a sea-resort when I met you. I know about yours, Marty, thanks to Elisabeth telling me.
You are fans of football and of tennis, Formule One, rugby, the Tour de France, any sports...
You are preoccupied by your financial situation, the bills at the end of the month. And the phone bills§ Big thing too! Working is a motto for you both.
You can be charming at times , especially to strangers. But at home it is a different story!
Being very independent characters make you fear of intruders. you both like to keep your plans to youselves.
Scared of being deceited, you would never let the other one you may love her. Well, you take for granted she should know according to your behavior. Pierre keeps coming home, at any hour at lunch time, but he comes back. He has never been with another girl. What about you, I don't know, but girls are too close to you and the console, you hurry telling no one should fancy anything about that. Am I that no one?
Possessive, jealous, refusing to let it show. Ready for a revenge.
Your words can be the best weapons for you two.
Suffering of an inferiority complex, especially comparing to me.
Marty is 17 years younger than me, Pierre 11 older.
Your mother, Marty, was an English teacher. So was I.
You scorned me when I told you I was sure you were a Scorpio, but during the World Cup, you knew the French coach was one too.
And Pierre who despises astrology buys books about horoscopes.
I know you won't never tell me I love you , Marty, even if you do.
Guessing is all that's left for me to do .
I have to be careful, you both being so susceptible. But it does not last long and you come back as usual, till ... Marty, I can't be as sure as with Pierre...
So you are 39 by now, Marty.
I met you on that web when you were 37.
I met Pierre when he was 37. We got married when he 38.
You both are Scorpios.
Physically you don't look like each other at all.
Pierre is not tall, he's got blue eyes and has grown white hair by now.
You are a very tall one with dark eyes and black kair.
But mentally, I would not say the same.
You can act very queer the both of us and have the trick to make me cry.
Though it seems I am addicted to the both of you. As if suffering was my lot.
At 37, you both had a flat in a sea-resort when I met you. I know about yours, Marty, thanks to Elisabeth telling me.
You are fans of football and of tennis, Formule One, rugby, the Tour de France, any sports...
You are preoccupied by your financial situation, the bills at the end of the month. And the phone bills§ Big thing too! Working is a motto for you both.
You can be charming at times , especially to strangers. But at home it is a different story!
Being very independent characters make you fear of intruders. you both like to keep your plans to youselves.
Scared of being deceited, you would never let the other one you may love her. Well, you take for granted she should know according to your behavior. Pierre keeps coming home, at any hour at lunch time, but he comes back. He has never been with another girl. What about you, I don't know, but girls are too close to you and the console, you hurry telling no one should fancy anything about that. Am I that no one?
Possessive, jealous, refusing to let it show. Ready for a revenge.
Your words can be the best weapons for you two.
Suffering of an inferiority complex, especially comparing to me.
Marty is 17 years younger than me, Pierre 11 older.
Your mother, Marty, was an English teacher. So was I.
You scorned me when I told you I was sure you were a Scorpio, but during the World Cup, you knew the French coach was one too.
And Pierre who despises astrology buys books about horoscopes.
I know you won't never tell me I love you , Marty, even if you do.
Guessing is all that's left for me to do .
I have to be careful, you both being so susceptible. But it does not last long and you come back as usual, till ... Marty, I can't be as sure as with Pierre...
Australian Dream
One of the bad days I have got to be used to.
Well, as I said before, we could have the most beautiful moments together.
Thanks to our little chats I got the opportunity to know you better and better as days went past.You were born in Sydney, have a brother you cherish most and a daughter. Both you and your brother were born on the same day two years apart. You both left the world of computers to become DJs because of your love for music induced by your mother who taught you the piano. I had noticed the beautiful hands of yours, those of a pianist.
You told me your tastes in music as in literature.
I wanted to know as much about your world and of the Aussie way of life. Inquisitive you said I was. Oh,yes,how true.
You carried on sending me e-mails during the parties and mentioning more than once your Mary on the mike. I even found out how you let me know you had sent a message for me on playing one of my favorite songs. All seemed so easy.
Then some songs became as anthems to the both of us, mostly love songs, telling how far apart we were and how one could be on one's mind or could miss one: a whole range of songs.
You wouldn't go out till late and you stayed there for hours sending me more and more messages. Sometimes, a boy from the cleaning crew would come and let you know it was time to go.
Sometimes, they switched off your computer and you would rush and switched on again. You never seemed in a hurry to go home.
But not easy to get to know about your private life.
You told me on the phone that you were to Sydney to meet your brother and also, your girlfriend, Johanna. I was surprised as you had previously told me you were single.
On my coming back home I phoned you to tell you I had wonderful with my husband as you had wished me in your nasty mail. I asked you if yours were as beautiful with your girlfriend. A grunt was a reply and I started to wonder if you had not told me about her to make me jealous.
Would not believe it though...
Having got your personal address I started sending you mails home and confiding my worries to you.
At first, you seemed reluctant to get such messages and I called myself silly. It did not last long, for soon, you seemed willing to know about them and ready to answer them with love and affection.
I was so happy to have found such a nice friend. I let myself go as far as you could provoke me in order to know more about me. I even opened my heart to you.
You wanted to know what happened to me in the past which hurt me so much. So I let you know without reserve.
I dreaded your reaction each time I opened my heart to you, but you were so nice!
When you played our songs you could shout you were getting nuts; you shouted your sudden love for France and French girls.
I requested Uptown Girl, you replied you were in love with an uptown girl.
You played that Love Generation over and over again. You acknowledge it once saying that even after having played it over and over again, you still love HER. Big lapsus of the tongue: and Steve, your brother, was by you at that time. That one was happy to say hello to Mary as soon as he took the mike at Bo's.
I was so much with you and slowly I realized I had fallen in love.
Doubts started to invade my brains, for I could help thinking I could not be sure of anything.
Especally when you could behave in a very queer way at times.
Yes, I also had rough hours in your company, when suddenly you would not take any of my requests and stopped answering my mails. The silly one kept begging you to reply: no use.
I e-mailed you home after the parties asking for an explanation and you would just say the next day that you had a very busy party to entertain, that it takes all the energy from you,that you were too focussed on your job. Rubbish ! I hat d it when you tried to apologize that way.
I, then, tried to analyze the situation and found out that each time I had said something that might have rendered you jealous, or feeling you were just a DJ, not worth for someone like me.
I reassured you telling you I loved you as you are and that you did not have to change at all.
The following day, you seemed in heaven, your mind drifting away as I told you mine was.
The worst came one day. We were talking of buddhism. I said I was a murder because I had picked up roses and may have killed them. Yes, I had got in the habit of picking up roses at my golf club to put into a vase next to your picture.
I requested a new song by Rihanna, Unfaithful. It is about a girl in love with another guy and who don't want to be a murderer anymore to her actual man. You took that song for granted and I realized how you could be watchful of the words of the song.
Of course, it helped you tell me what was on your mind and you could not tell otherwise.
The mails you send could be read by others as those I sent in reply. We had to be careful.
But ,strange, since the World Cup, you had stopped e-mailing from home.
You told me you did not want to mix your private life with your job. You had to protect yourself from the girls at Bo's and from the gossips of such a small town as Alice Springs.
As a Baptist, you have been brought up in a strict way and this sort of adultary put wondering thoughts to your mind.
But what about me and my life over here. Pierre has been having rough times since I met you on that web. Life is not easy over here. I have to catch up with it and you were of some help.
Things have changed completely since the Masters Games. You disappeared from Bo's for a fortnight and I was left into the unknown.
I had a big worry on my mind because you told me once you may go and work on the radio full time leaving Bo's for good. The idea frightened me and it came back to my mind. That was it!
I was enduring a big disappointment as well as it was your birthday during that period.
I wanted somuch to be with you on that special day of yours.
I thought that, may be, you were in Sydney with your brother.
Most of all the parcel I had sent to you haad been returned to me. It had been wrongly directed to the West Indies at first.
Of course, I begged you by mail to let me know where you were. No use.
It is Dan who was doing thejob at Bo's who answered my worries saying on his mike that you were working at the casino during the Masters Games.
What a big relief!
But the day you resumed your work at Bo's, nothing for me during long hours.
I asked you more than once if you had finally got the gift, I begged you to make a sign on leaving to let me know. But no....
I got a mail the following morning: you had two very busy working weeks, and you found my behavior childish.Most of all, you were not allowed to send mails while at work.
Once more I had to tell you how much you mean to me, and that I wanted to know if you had that gift, otherwise I would have to put a reclamation to the post-office.
The next day, you were shouting my name every ten minutes, playing three songs in a row for me. In the end, on closing time ,you said you were playing this song for me: Addicted by Simple Plan.You were listening to it on your own. The crowd had left.
At he end of the song I was crying. It was so much like a declaration of love.
I checked the lyrics on the web the next morning to be sure of what I had heard.
I could help telling you how this song moved me.
I phoned you to know about the gift. You had not got it: Mary, it is the thought that counts.
Well, I was in heaven. Not for long.
Since then you have stopped taking my requests nor shout my name.
You program rocks and rocks I hate for the next hour following the closing of Bo's.
No use to know what's happening. You even played MY song From Paris To Berlin for a sexy Foxie who had all your attention during the party.
It ruined me.
Yesterday though, you said Good Night ,Mary and played a song I had requested, followed by three of my favorite, and it was love songs mostly during that last hour.
But today, today! Back to ignoring me and to rock songs that hurt my ears and heart.
Well, one of these bad days of mine. Where is the love?
Well, as I said before, we could have the most beautiful moments together.
Thanks to our little chats I got the opportunity to know you better and better as days went past.You were born in Sydney, have a brother you cherish most and a daughter. Both you and your brother were born on the same day two years apart. You both left the world of computers to become DJs because of your love for music induced by your mother who taught you the piano. I had noticed the beautiful hands of yours, those of a pianist.
You told me your tastes in music as in literature.
I wanted to know as much about your world and of the Aussie way of life. Inquisitive you said I was. Oh,yes,how true.
You carried on sending me e-mails during the parties and mentioning more than once your Mary on the mike. I even found out how you let me know you had sent a message for me on playing one of my favorite songs. All seemed so easy.
Then some songs became as anthems to the both of us, mostly love songs, telling how far apart we were and how one could be on one's mind or could miss one: a whole range of songs.
You wouldn't go out till late and you stayed there for hours sending me more and more messages. Sometimes, a boy from the cleaning crew would come and let you know it was time to go.
Sometimes, they switched off your computer and you would rush and switched on again. You never seemed in a hurry to go home.
But not easy to get to know about your private life.
You told me on the phone that you were to Sydney to meet your brother and also, your girlfriend, Johanna. I was surprised as you had previously told me you were single.
On my coming back home I phoned you to tell you I had wonderful with my husband as you had wished me in your nasty mail. I asked you if yours were as beautiful with your girlfriend. A grunt was a reply and I started to wonder if you had not told me about her to make me jealous.
Would not believe it though...
Having got your personal address I started sending you mails home and confiding my worries to you.
At first, you seemed reluctant to get such messages and I called myself silly. It did not last long, for soon, you seemed willing to know about them and ready to answer them with love and affection.
I was so happy to have found such a nice friend. I let myself go as far as you could provoke me in order to know more about me. I even opened my heart to you.
You wanted to know what happened to me in the past which hurt me so much. So I let you know without reserve.
I dreaded your reaction each time I opened my heart to you, but you were so nice!
When you played our songs you could shout you were getting nuts; you shouted your sudden love for France and French girls.
I requested Uptown Girl, you replied you were in love with an uptown girl.
You played that Love Generation over and over again. You acknowledge it once saying that even after having played it over and over again, you still love HER. Big lapsus of the tongue: and Steve, your brother, was by you at that time. That one was happy to say hello to Mary as soon as he took the mike at Bo's.
I was so much with you and slowly I realized I had fallen in love.
Doubts started to invade my brains, for I could help thinking I could not be sure of anything.
Especally when you could behave in a very queer way at times.
Yes, I also had rough hours in your company, when suddenly you would not take any of my requests and stopped answering my mails. The silly one kept begging you to reply: no use.
I e-mailed you home after the parties asking for an explanation and you would just say the next day that you had a very busy party to entertain, that it takes all the energy from you,that you were too focussed on your job. Rubbish ! I hat d it when you tried to apologize that way.
I, then, tried to analyze the situation and found out that each time I had said something that might have rendered you jealous, or feeling you were just a DJ, not worth for someone like me.
I reassured you telling you I loved you as you are and that you did not have to change at all.
The following day, you seemed in heaven, your mind drifting away as I told you mine was.
The worst came one day. We were talking of buddhism. I said I was a murder because I had picked up roses and may have killed them. Yes, I had got in the habit of picking up roses at my golf club to put into a vase next to your picture.
I requested a new song by Rihanna, Unfaithful. It is about a girl in love with another guy and who don't want to be a murderer anymore to her actual man. You took that song for granted and I realized how you could be watchful of the words of the song.
Of course, it helped you tell me what was on your mind and you could not tell otherwise.
The mails you send could be read by others as those I sent in reply. We had to be careful.
But ,strange, since the World Cup, you had stopped e-mailing from home.
You told me you did not want to mix your private life with your job. You had to protect yourself from the girls at Bo's and from the gossips of such a small town as Alice Springs.
As a Baptist, you have been brought up in a strict way and this sort of adultary put wondering thoughts to your mind.
But what about me and my life over here. Pierre has been having rough times since I met you on that web. Life is not easy over here. I have to catch up with it and you were of some help.
Things have changed completely since the Masters Games. You disappeared from Bo's for a fortnight and I was left into the unknown.
I had a big worry on my mind because you told me once you may go and work on the radio full time leaving Bo's for good. The idea frightened me and it came back to my mind. That was it!
I was enduring a big disappointment as well as it was your birthday during that period.
I wanted somuch to be with you on that special day of yours.
I thought that, may be, you were in Sydney with your brother.
Most of all the parcel I had sent to you haad been returned to me. It had been wrongly directed to the West Indies at first.
Of course, I begged you by mail to let me know where you were. No use.
It is Dan who was doing thejob at Bo's who answered my worries saying on his mike that you were working at the casino during the Masters Games.
What a big relief!
But the day you resumed your work at Bo's, nothing for me during long hours.
I asked you more than once if you had finally got the gift, I begged you to make a sign on leaving to let me know. But no....
I got a mail the following morning: you had two very busy working weeks, and you found my behavior childish.Most of all, you were not allowed to send mails while at work.
Once more I had to tell you how much you mean to me, and that I wanted to know if you had that gift, otherwise I would have to put a reclamation to the post-office.
The next day, you were shouting my name every ten minutes, playing three songs in a row for me. In the end, on closing time ,you said you were playing this song for me: Addicted by Simple Plan.You were listening to it on your own. The crowd had left.
At he end of the song I was crying. It was so much like a declaration of love.
I checked the lyrics on the web the next morning to be sure of what I had heard.
I could help telling you how this song moved me.
I phoned you to know about the gift. You had not got it: Mary, it is the thought that counts.
Well, I was in heaven. Not for long.
Since then you have stopped taking my requests nor shout my name.
You program rocks and rocks I hate for the next hour following the closing of Bo's.
No use to know what's happening. You even played MY song From Paris To Berlin for a sexy Foxie who had all your attention during the party.
It ruined me.
Yesterday though, you said Good Night ,Mary and played a song I had requested, followed by three of my favorite, and it was love songs mostly during that last hour.
But today, today! Back to ignoring me and to rock songs that hurt my ears and heart.
Well, one of these bad days of mine. Where is the love?
mardi 14 novembre 2006
Australian Dream.
Marty and the picture.
Well, I was back in France, sad to have left that country I love so much, missing the wide streches of red land and the sweet kangaroos we used to feed,and ,most of all,the friends we met there.
Happily and surprising I got an e-mail from Bo's. You had started sending e-mails in reply to my requests...Dan had told me though that he could not send mails from that computer. Knowing thanks to Elisabeth you had degrees in computers, I thought you had found the way.
Well, I must say Dan does not want to be bothered by listeners,even if he can be nice. He sent me a mail I got in Cairns, saying he was sorry he could not play my last request before my leaving Bo's on my last day. Pierre was too tired to stay any longer.
Then, we started our game of chatting together during the parties you were entertaining.
Dan did not care to be under the webcam eye,but not you. You kept away from it and the only glimpse I could have of you was of your beautiful hands and your straight and thin nose.Aristocratic ones,I would say!
One day, a funny idea crossed my mind: I tried to catch a picture of you if you ever happened to be seen in full. A hell of a job! I gave up!
Something told me to check into my in-box. I had an e-mail with something attached to it. I opened it and it was a beautiful picture of you.Stunned I was all of a sudden;
I had had the feeling before of us being very close to each other. I was thinking of a song and you would play it! Some kind of telepathy working between you and me.
I have framed this one as a picture of Dan,Laure and me taken while at Bo's.
Your picture stands on the left of the computer and Dan's on the right.
Long months of chatting ahead of us,but not easy to communicate though. My computer was very slow and not powerful enough for that little game. It had more than a bug I can tell!
I had to go on the site of Bo's, start the media player rolling as the webcam on the dance floor. That way, I could watch my two DJs and listened to the music. Meanwhile, I was playing cards on the computer.
But I had to guess when a mail was on its way to rush into the in-box and reply back on Bo's.
This could take me ages and induce a bug to the computer. But it made me so happy to get to know you that way. You told me about your tastes in literature,music,your family,even your ex-girlfriends...But the naughty you like sports over all, and I would soon know what it was going to mean for me.
Marty and sports.
The French Open was on its way. A big event I never miss. I can watch tennis matches for hours getting thrilled. And you are a fan of tennis too.
As the French Open was not broadcasted in Alice Springs, you were eager to get the scores of the games and I started my rushing back and forth from the computer to the TV set.
I kept reporting to you what was happening missing a few actions in the mean time, but I was doing it for the love of you. You seemed so happy by it!
Then followed the World Cup of football. I guess you did not have much sleep these days!
Pierre missed but one match during the whole event. You had a TV set in your console and were watching the matches too. You kept sending me your comments on the different actions occuring
during these days, aand well nights for you.
You watched the first match as working at Bo's and you stayed up there watching the second,still sending your comments. You had to wake up at 4 a.m to watch the third.
The only trouble was that I did not have your personal e-mail address: all mails were sent from the Bojangles.
I had sent you a CD as well as one to Dan before leaving France for Australia. I had to direct them to Bo's. You were on the bad mood of yours at that time and not answering me when I wanted to know if you had got it. I phoned you to know and you said you did not have time to listen to it yet.
We went to spend a few days in Paris with Laure. One evening we were watching a football match and Laure's computer was still on. I don't know why for usually I was not expecting anything from you as you were home by that time of the day.
During half-time I went to switch off the comput. Oh,surprise!
"Are you watching?"
It was you asking. I replied but most of all by then I had your personal e-mail address.
We were watching the matches as if you were in the room, thanks to the magic of technology.
It was very tiring for me rushing that way, typing in a hurry. But, well we were so happy that way!!!
The Tour de France followed the World Cup and you were a fan too.
We carried on with the game of mails. You could watch it during the parties on the TV set at your console.
It was a wonder to me how you could watch these sports events, send your comments and at the same timee entertain the parties, taking requests on your computeer or the phone, dedicating the songs,talking to the people at Bo's often surrounded by beautiful girls ready to attract your attention to them.
I was feeling so unique, thinking if the world could know...Bo's parties are broadcasted all over the world and requests come from all parts of it.
My life had been totally changed. I was spending hours on the web with you till I saw you put your backbag on and bagged off.
I would not read my Time Magazine anymore. Anymore sunbathing on my balcony.
I could not help telling everyone about you and me. My husband started to be jealous as my daughter. You even told me once you would not like to deprive my loved ones of my company.
Well you were, but I did not want to tell for fear you would put a brake to the relationship.
Life was made easier for me as my friend Daniel gave me an old computer of his ,Windows XP.
Quickier for me to go from the site of Bo's to my in-box and back.Less bugs too!
As time was passing by and the sports events were over, we became more and more personal in our chats. Ups and downs ahead of me....
Well, I was back in France, sad to have left that country I love so much, missing the wide streches of red land and the sweet kangaroos we used to feed,and ,most of all,the friends we met there.
Happily and surprising I got an e-mail from Bo's. You had started sending e-mails in reply to my requests...Dan had told me though that he could not send mails from that computer. Knowing thanks to Elisabeth you had degrees in computers, I thought you had found the way.
Well, I must say Dan does not want to be bothered by listeners,even if he can be nice. He sent me a mail I got in Cairns, saying he was sorry he could not play my last request before my leaving Bo's on my last day. Pierre was too tired to stay any longer.
Then, we started our game of chatting together during the parties you were entertaining.
Dan did not care to be under the webcam eye,but not you. You kept away from it and the only glimpse I could have of you was of your beautiful hands and your straight and thin nose.Aristocratic ones,I would say!
One day, a funny idea crossed my mind: I tried to catch a picture of you if you ever happened to be seen in full. A hell of a job! I gave up!
Something told me to check into my in-box. I had an e-mail with something attached to it. I opened it and it was a beautiful picture of you.Stunned I was all of a sudden;
I had had the feeling before of us being very close to each other. I was thinking of a song and you would play it! Some kind of telepathy working between you and me.
I have framed this one as a picture of Dan,Laure and me taken while at Bo's.
Your picture stands on the left of the computer and Dan's on the right.
Long months of chatting ahead of us,but not easy to communicate though. My computer was very slow and not powerful enough for that little game. It had more than a bug I can tell!
I had to go on the site of Bo's, start the media player rolling as the webcam on the dance floor. That way, I could watch my two DJs and listened to the music. Meanwhile, I was playing cards on the computer.
But I had to guess when a mail was on its way to rush into the in-box and reply back on Bo's.
This could take me ages and induce a bug to the computer. But it made me so happy to get to know you that way. You told me about your tastes in literature,music,your family,even your ex-girlfriends...But the naughty you like sports over all, and I would soon know what it was going to mean for me.
Marty and sports.
The French Open was on its way. A big event I never miss. I can watch tennis matches for hours getting thrilled. And you are a fan of tennis too.
As the French Open was not broadcasted in Alice Springs, you were eager to get the scores of the games and I started my rushing back and forth from the computer to the TV set.
I kept reporting to you what was happening missing a few actions in the mean time, but I was doing it for the love of you. You seemed so happy by it!
Then followed the World Cup of football. I guess you did not have much sleep these days!
Pierre missed but one match during the whole event. You had a TV set in your console and were watching the matches too. You kept sending me your comments on the different actions occuring
during these days, aand well nights for you.
You watched the first match as working at Bo's and you stayed up there watching the second,still sending your comments. You had to wake up at 4 a.m to watch the third.
The only trouble was that I did not have your personal e-mail address: all mails were sent from the Bojangles.
I had sent you a CD as well as one to Dan before leaving France for Australia. I had to direct them to Bo's. You were on the bad mood of yours at that time and not answering me when I wanted to know if you had got it. I phoned you to know and you said you did not have time to listen to it yet.
We went to spend a few days in Paris with Laure. One evening we were watching a football match and Laure's computer was still on. I don't know why for usually I was not expecting anything from you as you were home by that time of the day.
During half-time I went to switch off the comput. Oh,surprise!
"Are you watching?"
It was you asking. I replied but most of all by then I had your personal e-mail address.
We were watching the matches as if you were in the room, thanks to the magic of technology.
It was very tiring for me rushing that way, typing in a hurry. But, well we were so happy that way!!!
The Tour de France followed the World Cup and you were a fan too.
We carried on with the game of mails. You could watch it during the parties on the TV set at your console.
It was a wonder to me how you could watch these sports events, send your comments and at the same timee entertain the parties, taking requests on your computeer or the phone, dedicating the songs,talking to the people at Bo's often surrounded by beautiful girls ready to attract your attention to them.
I was feeling so unique, thinking if the world could know...Bo's parties are broadcasted all over the world and requests come from all parts of it.
My life had been totally changed. I was spending hours on the web with you till I saw you put your backbag on and bagged off.
I would not read my Time Magazine anymore. Anymore sunbathing on my balcony.
I could not help telling everyone about you and me. My husband started to be jealous as my daughter. You even told me once you would not like to deprive my loved ones of my company.
Well you were, but I did not want to tell for fear you would put a brake to the relationship.
Life was made easier for me as my friend Daniel gave me an old computer of his ,Windows XP.
Quickier for me to go from the site of Bo's to my in-box and back.Less bugs too!
As time was passing by and the sports events were over, we became more and more personal in our chats. Ups and downs ahead of me....
lundi 13 novembre 2006
Australian Dream
Australian Dream
From Darwin to Alice Springs.Seb was waiting for us at the Drawin airport. Good seeing him again after our last meeting four moths ago.He hugged me affecionately and did me good after that nasty mail I got from Marty in Cairns.But there was many more sufferings ahead for me,that's for sure.Especially now that the love story seems to have come to its end.And again through a song !We spent the first night in Darwin in the company of Seb and the following day we headed to the Lichtfield Park. We were supposed to go to the Kakadu Park instead, but the cyclone Monica had devasted it and it was closed.We enjoyed three beautiful days and gorgeous sceneries. We went to see wonderful falls and Seb was always very affectionate to me. funny, I thought he would be more interested in my sweet young girl...We run over a poor red kangaroo in our way to Katherine gorge where we saw many more of the.The sailing on the river was great too.But then we had to part and we left Seb driving back to Darwin at the bus station.The trip was a long way to Alice Springs.Not too many on board: three Aborigenes and a young English couple.Starting at 4 p.m we arrived in the Alice by early morning.The bus dropped us almost in front of the Bojangles and I could not help having a picture of me taken in front of that place.Bad surprise on arriving at the hotel. No room seemed to have been booked for us by Denise.She was to care for us for the next few days and it worried me,especially when I heard she was not in the Alice at that time.Happily I saw Anthony Ash,the boy at the reception I used to talk to when at Aurora Resort the previous year.He was glad to see me again. He loves watching the Tour de France.Finally Anthony came to our help. Denise had booked but one week at Aurora and we had to move to the Diplomat for the following week.We settled down and we phoned Diane at Emu Run Tours. She told us Denise had to go to Sydney on business and would go to meet her family in Brisbane before coming back to the Alice.She expected to be with us the second week of our stay.She wanted us to come to the motel in Undoolya Road and that's how I walked past your house,Marty on the day of your leaving for Sydney.I discovered Denise was not only running a bus company but that motel too.Diane,her employee,was doing the job for her as she was away.Denise had booked us on her bus for the next morning as planned.We headed for the second time to Ayers Rock. We stopped at Mt Ebenezer, a motel in the middle of nowhere as it is often the case in Australia; A small bus took us to the Kings Canyon.A very hard walk to the top! Pierre could not reach the top. Poor man!I was playing Priscilla,Queen of the Desert, dragging a gilded bag all along with me. That made Tony,the guide laugh.The following, the rock!We walked around it before having a BBQ with champagne: traditional. And guess who came with his glass of champagne? The English boy who travelled all the way from Katherine on the bus.This world is so small after all...The road back to Alice Springs was a hard one. Driving by night is so dangerous in Australia.I saw camels, herds of cows and, of course,kangaroos. But the driver was cautious not to run over any of them. I kept awake,talking with Tony. He called me his lovely. How nice of him!Diane told me on meeting that Peter had left the Alice to settle down in Mataranka.That was our first stop with the bus after leaving Katherine.Once more I was missing a loved one.Denise's bus took us the following day in a tour in the West Mc Donnell ranges.For the second time I was in Simpson Gap and Stanley Chasm,but the trip took us further west this time to the Red Ochre Pits and Glen Helen.Nice day again.I had been connected to Bo's since I left France, but now I was in the place.Anxiety at entering the bar.We walked past the dance floor to the restaurant. A waiter welcomed us and I asked him:"Have you ever heard of Mary from Montpellier?" He answered yes in surprise and I replied:"It's me!"He then looked at me and said: "Marty". I reassured him telling I knew Marty was away in Sydney.He seemed sorry for me.He added he liked the songs I requested.A very nice boy!Then Dan appeared in the room. I touched him lightly on his back. He turned around and I said:"Mary". "Oh,Mary!"followed by a big hug.For the first time I could dance on that floor I had been watching for so many days on the screen of my computer.He,too,told me about Marty being in Sydney,but he knew I knew.We spent the following day resting and walking about the town.We saw plenty of kangaroos on walking to the Telegraph Station: a wonderful experience for us,people from the other side of the world.On the evening we met Denise who had to come back earlier than planned. She was to fly to Brisbane the next week-end for her son's engagement party.The following day, we moved to the Diplomat. It is situated just behind the Bojangles!Sadly Laure was flying to Cairns in the afternoon,on her way back to France.The flight was 7h30 late on schedule.A big bother! Well, she left in the end and the two of us left took a taxi back to the town.Tje next days were made of rest,swimming,walking to the golf,the School of the Air,the bowling,lunches at the Red Ocher Gril,Aurora and a few nights at Bo's.Elsabeth.On having a computer I checked for Alice Springs News and even sent thel my comments on my first trip to Australia.One day,a few months later, I was surprised to see them printed.Later on I read an article by Elisabeth about a young cyclist, rival to Cal Britten.The Brittens hosted us while in Bayside and were very proud of their young champion hoping he would be champion of Australia.As the article was not published in full on the web ,I asked Elisabeth for more.She answered me very nicely wanting to know how a French lady could be interested in her newspaper and was willing to meet while in the Alice.I met her at her office before Laure left and we decided to have a drink at the Lane.In between we met Steve at Bo's. The man from Perth had just lost his best friend and was in a sad mood. He cared for a few drinks for us and said he was working as a spy for the Australian government,having been to Aghanistan.When I asked him about Marty, he said that man was evil and yhat I had to keep away from this man. What a blow! He said that man had a girl working at Bo's fired in a very nasty way.He said he was a bloody liar, especially when I told him,Marty did not drink.Well,all I could see on my screen was two very different DJs.Dan would refill his glass every two minutes and smoke heaps of cigarettes during the parties.He would play five songs or more in arow, not paying much attention to his listeners.Marty would drink water,not smoke and what a nice way to entertain the people at Bo's or on the web.I was stunned and I started to say to myself I did not that man after all,even if we had wonderful moments together. The mail I got in Cairns came back to my mind and I started to wonder if it was a good idea to carry on with the relationship.When with Elisabeth I asked her about the DJs, and she said she preferred Marty,that he was a good friend of hers and that they were used to go swimming together.Elisabeth is from England,living in Australia for two years. She swam across the Channel on her own.She is 26 and looked so fragile though.But what puzzled me was the fact that I had told Marty how I had come to know Elisabeth and how she was e-mailing me: he never mentioned he knew her.Most of all as the day of my coming was nearing;he started behaving in the queer way I mentioned earlier and stopped meeting with Elisabeth.Even Dan told me he was weird at the moment.The last we spent in the Alice eneded at Bo's in the company of Elisabeth and her parents who were visiting her those days.Sad to be hugged by Dan for the last time.The day before it was dinner with Denise at the Overlander's Steakhouse.We also spent the last afternoon in her company. She treated me with a book, a Robbie Williams album and an Aborigenal painting.And it is with tears in my eyes that I boarded a flight back to Cairns.On arriving home,I connected to Bo's first thing.Marty was at the console resuming his work there.I e-mailed him at once: "We could not have done better!"And then I had a big surprise: he answered me on a mail in my in-box.The beginning of a new way of being together and Hell was awaiting me.
Australian Dream
dimanche 12 novembre 2006
The day following St Martin's Day
All started when I discovered my town was sister city to Bayside,Melbourne and that a trip was under way. I joined the association in charge with linking the two cities and we took off for Australia March last year.Being used to sail or fly over the Atlantic ocean in my past days, a long-haul flight was not frightening me.I could not imagine it would take us three days to reach the world of DownUnder,leaving on a Thursday and landing in Melbourne the following Saturday.Most of all I was so happy to renew with the English language.My husband is not from a family of intellectuals, and he is not one either. Since I married him,thirty years ago,I have lost contact with the language. We went but once to London.I studied English in French universities for seven years and was an English teacher for some few years,but all was long gone when I reached Australia.And surprisingly enough,I cried on leaving the land of Aussies.Back to France, they nicknamed me the Australian,for I could not help speaking of the country to everyone I met.Australia became my favorite topic.I had to go back there by any means.Lucky I was to meet Patrick and Seb Cros.Pat is a reporter and writes articles on Australia and his brother is a tour operator. Seb runs two businesses: one in Darwin, the other in Sydney.Seb was willing to sell us one of his tours,and he helped me convince Pierre,my husband,to go back there.We had our thirtieth wedding anniversary last January, a good excuse to plan such a trip. And finally,Pierre wanted Laure,our daughter to discover the land.We ,finally,took off on April 21th.My first trip took us from Melbourne to Sydney,then Ayers Rock,Alice Springs and Cairns. I went in a romantic mood on arriving in Alice Springs, for our guide told us about a film:A Town Like Alice. I did not know then how I would hate that Alice Springs airport,nor that I would experience something almost similar: missing the one I loved so much to meet as he flew to Sydney on the very day of my arrival.I had a good contact with Peter,our driver. Speaking English helped a lot.He gave me a bear hug at the airport on my departure day and that moved me.Back in France, I sent him a postcard and I expected an answer for two long months before I got the idea of phoning the bus company. A charming lady answered me that she had the card but did not to whom she should hand it over. Was it Peter,the German man? I remembered the latter told me he was born in Germany.Luckily enough, he was back working for her the following week-end. In fact, he had not worked for her since I left Alice Springs.I waited for an answer in vain. He never replied,even after having got the Xmas gift I had sent him.On the other, the lady at the bus company has become a good friend of mine.Denise is a bit older than me but we look much the same. She has had quite a few rough times in her life. Her husband she cherished died when 42 and she was left on her own to bring up her for children.She is a dancer lover,same as me, but a car accident when she was 18 injured her legs badly taking away her dream of becoming a ballet dancer.She met Wayne in Sydney, ten years younger, and they started the bus company in Alice Springs. Unfortunately, they parted last year and she is on her own again to cope with the business. Laure said to me we looked like two sisters when we met in Paris last December.The Bojangles.Something changed my life greatly when Laure gave me her old computer and could surf on the web.It was not long before I met Pat who was back from the Alice.He asked me if I had been to the Bojangles when in Alice Springs. I had not.He explained to me that it was a bar and restaurant with a dance floor and that the shows were broadcasted on the internet each night.So it is with a bit of anxiety that I connected to Bo's for the first time.I did not know it was a long way to Hell.They have two DJs working there and they take music requests from the internet,the phone or SMS.I sent my first request and waited till I heard the DJ say:"this one goes out for Mary who is listening over in France". Suddenly, Alice Springs was so close again.They have four webcams rolling on different parts of the place. I started scrutinizing the screen searching for Peter,hoping he might drop at Bo's for a beer.I started to like the moments in the company of DJ Marty better than those with DJ Dan.Marty played a better music to my opinion. He was commenting on the people at Bo's.Most of all,he was adding a few words to the requests before playing them.That's how our funny relationship started.I started to send longer mails,telling about my life over here and Marty would reply on his mike."I could not play golf this morning,it was too cold and the links were frozen""You would not have played golf here either,Mary. It's too hot!"Or,"Mary is sad today for her husband has just had a car accident"Slowly I stopped watching at the bar to stay focussed on the dance floor and the console. Peter had lost his interest.I started missing the days with Marty. I noticed his looks, his scruffy beard,his long dark hair,his casual clothes.Dan was still saying "this goes out for Mary",but what a surprise when he started saying:"Mary,oh Mary, I love you". It took me quite a while to find out his girlfriend was called Mary. We sorted it out with a big laugh.Marty, long way to Hell.We developed a relation based om my mails and your replies on the mike. It took a certain time to find out you could send messages through the songs you played. At first,I would not believe it.The count down had started and you were the first one to know when I was going back to Australia and Alice Springs.The weeks preceeding my departure,you turned queer.You stopped playing my requests. I begged you more than once to know the reason why,but you would not answer me.I started to smoke as never as you kept me waiting in vain.I decided to phone Dan. This boy shouted on the mike:"Mary says DJ Marty doesn't love her anymore,but,you know,Mary,I still love you".By that time,Dan had got used to finish the party with a request of mine: "Welcome to my Life" by Simple Plan.You then started to play my requests again,but without dedicating the songs for me. I was going nuts.I decided to phone you then. You said Dan had told you I was on my way to Australia soon. As if you did not know...You asked me for my dates I had given to you thrice before.Xhen I said I was arriving in Alice Springs on May 1st, you said: "Oh,Mary,I'm sorry,I'm leaving for Sydney on that day". You added you would stay there for a fortnight, the length of my stay in the Alice.The day I got back home I connected to Bo's on the web and you were back at work.I sent you a mail saying we could not have done better.The news came as a blow. Nobody,even Denise,understood why I had decided to stay for such a long time in that town in the middle of Australia.It was meant to meet you at last and you did not seem to be aware of it.Cairns.After that phone call,you took my requests and things were going a bit better.Since I connected to Bo's on the first time, I said I would connect everyday without missing one day.I have almost succeeded.After travelling for three days with a stop in Hong Kong, Cairns was in sight.I checked into my in-box at the hotel for a mail from Seb. Seb was living in Darwin at that time and we were to meet there.Big surprise,it was a mail from you waiting for me.Such a nasty one!You were advising me to enjoy my holidays with my husband and you said you were just a DJ wondering what I was expecting from you. I have forgotten to mention you told me on the phone you were to meet Johanna , your girlfriend,in Sydney. That puzzled me a lot for you had told me on St Valentine's Day that you were single.Well,what a blow again!I replied at once,giving you my age,and saying I was not expecting anything from you.Hard to tell,though.I was deeply hurt and had to hide it.Hopefully I was busy visiting Cairns and its surroundings,with Pierre and Laure.We enjoyed a day on the Great Barrier Reef.Well,it was not new to me,but Laure was discovering the country.I had on my mind my future meeting with Seb.He would welcome us in Darwin and drive us through the Lichtfield Park to Katherine.We would go on a local bus from there to Alice Springs along the Stuart Highway.Life seemed brighter thinking of what was ahead of us.Hell with you,Marty!!!
The day following St Martin's Day
All started when I discovered my town was sister city to Bayside,Melbourne and that a trip was under way. I joined the association in charge with linking the two cities and we took off for Australia March last year.Being used to sail or fly over the Atlantic ocean in my past days, a long-haul flight was not frightening me.I could not imagine it would take us three days to reach the world of DownUnder,leaving on a Thursday and landing in Melbourne the following Saturday.Most of all I was so happy to renew with the English language.My husband is not from a family of intellectuals, and he is not one either. Since I married him,thirty years ago,I have lost contact with the language. We went but once to London.I studied English in French universities for seven years and was an English teacher for some few years,but all was long gone when I reached Australia.And surprisingly enough,I cried on leaving the land of Aussies.Back to France, they nicknamed me the Australian,for I could not help speaking of the country to everyone I met.Australia became my favorite topic.I had to go back there by any means.Lucky I was to meet Patrick and Seb Cros.Pat is a reporter and writes articles on Australia and his brother is a tour operator. Seb runs two businesses: one in Darwin, the other in Sydney.Seb was willing to sell us one of his tours,and he helped me convince Pierre,my husband,to go back there.We had our thirtieth wedding anniversary last January, a good excuse to plan such a trip. And finally,Pierre wanted Laure,our daughter to discover the land.We ,finally,took off on April 21th.My first trip took us from Melbourne to Sydney,then Ayers Rock,Alice Springs and Cairns. I went in a romantic mood on arriving in Alice Springs, for our guide told us about a film:A Town Like Alice. I did not know then how I would hate that Alice Springs airport,nor that I would experience something almost similar: missing the one I loved so much to meet as he flew to Sydney on the very day of my arrival.I had a good contact with Peter,our driver. Speaking English helped a lot.He gave me a bear hug at the airport on my departure day and that moved me.Back in France, I sent him a postcard and I expected an answer for two long months before I got the idea of phoning the bus company. A charming lady answered me that she had the card but did not to whom she should hand it over. Was it Peter,the German man? I remembered the latter told me he was born in Germany.Luckily enough, he was back working for her the following week-end. In fact, he had not worked for her since I left Alice Springs.I waited for an answer in vain. He never replied,even after having got the Xmas gift I had sent him.On the other, the lady at the bus company has become a good friend of mine.Denise is a bit older than me but we look much the same. She has had quite a few rough times in her life. Her husband she cherished died when 42 and she was left on her own to bring up her for children.She is a dancer lover,same as me, but a car accident when she was 18 injured her legs badly taking away her dream of becoming a ballet dancer.She met Wayne in Sydney, ten years younger, and they started the bus company in Alice Springs. Unfortunately, they parted last year and she is on her own again to cope with the business. Laure said to me we looked like two sisters when we met in Paris last December.The Bojangles.Something changed my life greatly when Laure gave me her old computer and could surf on the web.It was not long before I met Pat who was back from the Alice.He asked me if I had been to the Bojangles when in Alice Springs. I had not.He explained to me that it was a bar and restaurant with a dance floor and that the shows were broadcasted on the internet each night.So it is with a bit of anxiety that I connected to Bo's for the first time.I did not know it was a long way to Hell.They have two DJs working there and they take music requests from the internet,the phone or SMS.I sent my first request and waited till I heard the DJ say:"this one goes out for Mary who is listening over in France". Suddenly, Alice Springs was so close again.They have four webcams rolling on different parts of the place. I started scrutinizing the screen searching for Peter,hoping he might drop at Bo's for a beer.I started to like the moments in the company of DJ Marty better than those with DJ Dan.Marty played a better music to my opinion. He was commenting on the people at Bo's.Most of all,he was adding a few words to the requests before playing them.That's how our funny relationship started.I started to send longer mails,telling about my life over here and Marty would reply on his mike."I could not play golf this morning,it was too cold and the links were frozen""You would not have played golf here either,Mary. It's too hot!"Or,"Mary is sad today for her husband has just had a car accident"Slowly I stopped watching at the bar to stay focussed on the dance floor and the console. Peter had lost his interest.I started missing the days with Marty. I noticed his looks, his scruffy beard,his long dark hair,his casual clothes.Dan was still saying "this goes out for Mary",but what a surprise when he started saying:"Mary,oh Mary, I love you". It took me quite a while to find out his girlfriend was called Mary. We sorted it out with a big laugh.Marty, long way to Hell.We developed a relation based om my mails and your replies on the mike. It took a certain time to find out you could send messages through the songs you played. At first,I would not believe it.The count down had started and you were the first one to know when I was going back to Australia and Alice Springs.The weeks preceeding my departure,you turned queer.You stopped playing my requests. I begged you more than once to know the reason why,but you would not answer me.I started to smoke as never as you kept me waiting in vain.I decided to phone Dan. This boy shouted on the mike:"Mary says DJ Marty doesn't love her anymore,but,you know,Mary,I still love you".By that time,Dan had got used to finish the party with a request of mine: "Welcome to my Life" by Simple Plan.You then started to play my requests again,but without dedicating the songs for me. I was going nuts.I decided to phone you then. You said Dan had told you I was on my way to Australia soon. As if you did not know...You asked me for my dates I had given to you thrice before.Xhen I said I was arriving in Alice Springs on May 1st, you said: "Oh,Mary,I'm sorry,I'm leaving for Sydney on that day". You added you would stay there for a fortnight, the length of my stay in the Alice.The day I got back home I connected to Bo's on the web and you were back at work.I sent you a mail saying we could not have done better.The news came as a blow. Nobody,even Denise,understood why I had decided to stay for such a long time in that town in the middle of Australia.It was meant to meet you at last and you did not seem to be aware of it.Cairns.After that phone call,you took my requests and things were going a bit better.Since I connected to Bo's on the first time, I said I would connect everyday without missing one day.I have almost succeeded.After travelling for three days with a stop in Hong Kong, Cairns was in sight.I checked into my in-box at the hotel for a mail from Seb. Seb was living in Darwin at that time and we were to meet there.Big surprise,it was a mail from you waiting for me.Such a nasty one!You were advising me to enjoy my holidays with my husband and you said you were just a DJ wondering what I was expecting from you. I have forgotten to mention you told me on the phone you were to meet Johanna , your girlfriend,in Sydney. That puzzled me a lot for you had told me on St Valentine's Day that you were single.Well,what a blow again!I replied at once,giving you my age,and saying I was not expecting anything from you.Hard to tell,though.I was deeply hurt and had to hide it.Hopefully I was busy visiting Cairns and its surroundings,with Pierre and Laure.We enjoyed a day on the Great Barrier Reef.Well,it was not new to me,but Laure was discovering the country.I had on my mind my future meeting with Seb.He would welcome us in Darwin and drive us through the Lichtfield Park to Katherine.We would go on a local bus from there to Alice Springs along the Stuart Highway.Life seemed brighter thinking of what was ahead of us.Hell with you,Marty!!!
samedi 11 novembre 2006
St Martin's Day, later in the day
In fact, I am French and a trip to Australia in 2005 changed my life completely.
I travelled quite a lot in my youth, but nothing like Australia. I was born in France, but brought up in part in the French West Indies, sailing across the Atlantic ocean five times. My dearest wish ,on being back to Europe ,was to go back there as soon as I could. I did it twice with my husband and even with my daughter the last time.But ,now that I have discovered Australia,all I am dreaming of is to fly back to the land of Aussies,and , most of all to Alice Springs.
Last year, our guide told us about the film "A Town Like Alice" ,as our bus was approaching the town. Very romantic story! How I hate that Alice Springs airport! Too much crying each leaving day...
And as in the film, I missed you, Marty.
I will see tomorrow if we will be in touch again thanks to the web. Each encounter of this kind scares. I am dreading your attitude,especially these days.Poor French lady in front of her computer.
I travelled quite a lot in my youth, but nothing like Australia. I was born in France, but brought up in part in the French West Indies, sailing across the Atlantic ocean five times. My dearest wish ,on being back to Europe ,was to go back there as soon as I could. I did it twice with my husband and even with my daughter the last time.But ,now that I have discovered Australia,all I am dreaming of is to fly back to the land of Aussies,and , most of all to Alice Springs.
Last year, our guide told us about the film "A Town Like Alice" ,as our bus was approaching the town. Very romantic story! How I hate that Alice Springs airport! Too much crying each leaving day...
And as in the film, I missed you, Marty.
I will see tomorrow if we will be in touch again thanks to the web. Each encounter of this kind scares. I am dreading your attitude,especially these days.Poor French lady in front of her computer.
St Martin's Day
Somewhere in France, Nov.11 th, 2006
Today's St Martin's Day.
For how long have we been in touch together, my dear Martin, my Dear Scruffy Beard from Downunder ? More than a year for sure and suddenly I am realizing all we have been through during these long months.
When you are having your dinner, I am having my lunch. When you wake up, I go to bed. How could we meet some day !
You asked me ,one day, what I meant by "impossible love". May be, it is just this: doing things the other way round...
Unfortunately, it is more complex than that.
We both have been in the same place twice without meeting. I was even walking in your street, passing by your house the very day you left for holidays in Sydney.
For someone living in France ,it is not too bad.
Today's St Martin's Day.
For how long have we been in touch together, my dear Martin, my Dear Scruffy Beard from Downunder ? More than a year for sure and suddenly I am realizing all we have been through during these long months.
When you are having your dinner, I am having my lunch. When you wake up, I go to bed. How could we meet some day !
You asked me ,one day, what I meant by "impossible love". May be, it is just this: doing things the other way round...
Unfortunately, it is more complex than that.
We both have been in the same place twice without meeting. I was even walking in your street, passing by your house the very day you left for holidays in Sydney.
For someone living in France ,it is not too bad.
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