Maybe I have a complex because...

Once upon a time there was a little girl. And this little girl realised very early on that although her parents loved her very much, she came second in the world. Not because they already had another daughter, but because they had to look after themselves first. So this little girl went into the world believing that she had to learn to look after herself too, but never quite acheiving that.

There was a boy in my class once who scared me very much. He would pinch my bum and bite my lip every chance he got. He stole his sister's toys to give to me, and threatened her if she didn't comply. He had golden curls like a halo and a juicy red lip which he chewed constantly as he drew all over everything, squinting up at me every so often through his thick healthboard-standard-issue glasses. The kids in the class never talked to me so I never really got what was going on, except when we were locked into the cupboard or when they cornered me with him. He scared the bejaysus out of me, and I used to have nightmares that we were married. I think I figured then that I will either marry him or end up single for the rest of my life.

Then there was the time that I had the boyfriend who I wouldn't kiss because I was scared. He used to put scotch in my beer to try and get me drunk enough to hold down. And the boy who locked me in his flat for two days so I couldn't get out. I got into awful trouble for that one. Followed by the man who called me a whore for being passive one minute and refusing to do what he told me the next. Then there was the boy I was madly in love with but could only touch when I was blind drunk from poitin and then we would just talk of how we wanted to commit suicide. Then there was a man I suppose who was into kinky sex who's idea of fun was S&M flavoured. He also called me a whore and then told me he wanted to marry me. Followed by a boy who didn't want to be with me and ended up staying for years. He called me worse than a whore, and said that I wanted to be treated badly. He showed me how totally incapable I was of protecting myself against a man, and brought me through all the stages of life in the space of a few paltry years. He left and slept around a bit, and returned and left. Since then I have managed only fleeting passes, ships in the night as it were. The most impressive was probably the guy in Mexico that tried to kiss me, whereupon I reacted by punching him, jumping over the balcony and running to the end of the garden and over a wall, along a beach and into the sea. I have a bundle of funny stories like that one.

So I think I have to admit I may have a slight problem. Yes, perhaps some is due to past ill-use. Obviously there are some things I just can't even write, let alone admit. And yet, I don't think I am that great a scaredy-boots in real life. So why can't I just let go and get on with it? What is it that will stop me having these panics?

I didn't get up today for a long time because I didn't want to deal with last night. Not that anything terrible happened, but even still I felt terrible. Why?

What do I do now?

A while ago I may have mentioned, a hundred times or so, that I was looking for a drummer. Well, what I neglected to say is that I found him. And at this juncture I am regretting having changed my blog from anonymous to some-people-who-know-me-know-it, cos I am in a pool of confusion and feel like naming everyone and everything.

So the new drummer is from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and he can play drums. We found him at 1 in the morning because I was in Darren's house and we were a bit drunk and I told him that we were going to find a drummer online RIGHT NOW and lo! there he was. For some reason all I could think was "please let him be taller than me" and he is. He is a lovely guy. So no problems there.

Thing is, I have never been someone to have to ask who I am. I know who I am, and while I may not be very proud of that (despite my writing otherwise I am sure) or very happy with it, I have a stubborn streak that says I will be the only person who changes Me. I won't let anyone or any notion change me (except if it is in the case of I was wrong and should be more fair).

So now the thing is that I seem to be hanging around with desperate women, and I am the most single of them all. Yes I talk, but realistically I rarely do anything, and I have a bit of a rep for legging it when the time is wrong. I can't deal with my feelings. I can't cope with wanting to be with someone, because I so desperately want to be a perfectly normal, strong, self-confident, independent young woman. Well I am none of that. I am a girl, not a woman. I don't think I will ever be a woman.

Anyway, so Radt and I went to the Italian cultural centre yesterday, and yes, signed up to become bona fide Italians. Well, that means I got a card for 3euro saying I can buy cheap beer there and go to shows. Although they did speak Italian to me, and I have my first class on Tuesday! However I digress.

After the dancing and music at the cultural centre, I went with Radt to a small bar near where I live, to hear him play. Sort of a band-mate moral support thing. I spent most of the night talking to a 50-something year old teacher who I fell in love with in a way, with his crooked soft mouth and limp. I have a think about limps in slim men. He was so incredibly patient with my Spanish and we discussed everything from taxes through to huts in Cuba. Radt insisted on introducing me to all his friends, which was lovely, and then even walked me home. Very good.

Today after work I met Radt again, this time to get stuff together for a song I wrote and programmed. I am tired on Saturdays, they are exhausting. We listened to lots of music, and very quickly sorted something out. I made some food, he had brought wine and food also. I insisted on making the food, you know why? Yes you do. Because I was scared of eating his food. Eat a man's food and you make him your friend. I wanted him to know that I hadn't intended for him to come and make me dinner, that this wasn't a date. I hate being walked home, I am afraid of this person.

So of course a big part of me is thinking well if you want company why the hell can't you want someone like this? He is intelligent, talented, understands you, funny, same tastes etc etc. Yes, I like him an awful lot, and he facinates me. But I am just not attracted to him. He has a beautiful mouth and dimples. But he has brown eyes like my mother and he looks like a stranger to me. Why does it matter what the hell he looks like? I am so shallow.

So we have eaten and I am trying to coax him into eating the peaches he brought - he won't because I am allergic and won't share them. He apologises. We talk, his friends phone, and phone again. I can hear them (in my mind) asking him if he is still "with his new friend". I just know...or am I just incredibly arrogant? He is laughing and smiling and inviting me to a party on the beach. I want to go and suddenly it hits me just how anxious I am. I need to do something NOW! I need to walk or make something or do a puzzle, something to stop me thinking. Get lost in my physics book. I can't think like this. I turn my back, unwilling to make it obvious I want him to leave, when 3 seconds ago I was so nice and friendly and enjoying his company. I fiddle with the laptop, picking some violin music to bleed away the tremors. And then I feel his hands on my shoulders and I freeze completely. He gently massages my shoulders and I finally pull myself together enough and turn and stare helplessly. "Relax". How can I fucking relax. But he is working on my back for real and the knots are excruciating - I used to have a friend who laughed at my back which she said was like trying to massage a wooden table. His hands feel reassuring and I find myself having strange thoughts like that maybe he is a spy trying to catch me unguarded so that he can stab me. Honestly, does anyone else regularly have these thoughts, or am I just crazy? I find myself tapping aimlessly at the laptop for a good 2 minutes before I realise how ridiculous it is. Someone massages your back, you can't pretend you didn't notice it! But it really feels good, and suddenly the urge to cry is overwhelming. He relaxes into it, and I can feel he is leaning lengthways on the couch, resting his arms off my waist. The massage is almost professional. I find myself wondering if I am just frigid and abnormally scared of men or incredibly naive for not stopping it straight away.

After a good 30 minutes I reckon, I notice the hands are focused back on the nape of my neck. He is tired. But the hands are still circling my neck and hair in that tired way, and I think: this is not a massage any longer. If he were only tired he would stop now. But he doesn't want to stop, so he is still circling my neck. My throat is tight and I can't speak. I am paralised by my fears. Why am I always touched by older men? I realise my fingers are white and pulsing due to the pressure with which I have been gripping them over the last thirty minutes. It pains me to do it, but I pull myself away from him. He sits back and I can't even look at him. "Thank you," I say, before picking up the cups from the floor and bringing them to the kitchen. I fill them with orange juice and dread the next few minutes.

Pulling myself together, I return to the sitting room. Thanks, I tell him again. He smiles and looks concerned. Is it because I am so obviously looking weird or is it that he is looking for an opening. Could it be he thinks now that I am interested in him? "I'd better go," he announces after one of those deathly pauses. I nod and then refer back to the laptop. Will I burn that song for you? I manage to loosen up and act a bit more normal and he sits down to wait. Then he laughs. "Your hair is a mess! Sorry about that!" I grin too. Again, I thank him. "Hope it helped." I nod. I was very tense. He laughs and nods emphatically. "Very tense!" Another few nods. Thank god for Tchaikovsky. I bob along for a bit and then hand him a disk. I put the songs of our band on it and some other stuff I thought he might like so that the disk wouldn't be wasted. He is pleased. "It wouldn't be a waste. Since I heard the song for the first time, I fell in love...." he realises what it sounds like..."with the music." Oh well then!

I let him out and kiss both cheeks as standard. I can see him out the window but I don't want him to see me. What the hell was that?

The Road to Who Knows Where

So I broke my duck. For the first time I can remember, I have been robbed. And it happened on exactly the night I knew it would, so I had left my camera at home and given away my money. Let me explain:

Sometimes when I waken I think I am under the copper mountain, sharing the acrid earthy air with soldiers sheltering from the fight. I don't know if they are relics from some world war, guerrilla fighters in a south American mountain cave or home-made desert men who have learned to live war as a means of survival. My instinct is to kick out and fight. Within seconds I realise it is my flat in my own personal fight that is my every morning in existence, and I get up and get ready for work. I don't open the shutters, just the window, enough to let the clammy air in but not to dispel the dark.

After work I went to the dark red cave that is the sugar club with Nina. I had drawings of sleepy old men in nightcaps and women floating in the stars that I wanted to show her. Sometimes when you show a picture your true feeling towards it is revealed. I found out I liked two of the drawings and despised the rest. Sobeit. We moved on to and Irish bar to find the Lithuanian who had bought Nina drinks last time she was broke, and to repay him in kind. Ray was there, and in the company of a young film noir french lady who had that way about her like many french women that said she knew she was great but that she was still awkward. Ray was obviously making cow's eyes, so we decided it might be a better way to repay his kindness by leaving the two of them alone and heading off. Making our excuses, we headed west, into the Raval. After a pause to untangle some Australians, we made our way to the Chilean bar off San Pau.

Tonight my green couch was already taken. I knew something was up, but I figured it would be different cos for the first time I was there without Julie. We sat down the back and started on some strawberries and wine and soon enough the place was full. The musician told us a touching (yet drunken) story of his love for the Mapuche of Chile, while a Chileno and Argentinean man bored us with tales of woe. Nina spoke and I listened. Despite my reputation as a chatterbox, I just can't small-talk. There were all kinds of people, singers from Andalusia, punks from Italy, and the night was a full one. For the first time it seemed to be all musicians as we took it in turns to perform songs. By four am it was still going strong, but we decided to leave. We took the road north and I thought maybe I should turn back and go south, the safe way. But we stuck with north. I stopped to give Nina all my money - I was sure I owed her it anyway. "No!"she said."Now you're paying for everything!" Yes but I'll probably get robbed. Anyway, next time you can buy me a drink. She took the money reluctantly.

At the top of the road she turned left, I took the right. The ground was wet with the underground water that they use to clean the streets at night. A BCNeta guy said something to me as I passed, as usual, the men here can be real dickheads sometimes. I didn't answer, like most women who are walking on their own. I heard him speak to someone behind me and then I notice a guy in a white shirt walking about 20 metres behind me. I knew he was waiting for his friend and they would rob me. And I was on the one street on which they would succeed. Fuck. I turned right again, and I heard the tattoo of rubber shoes falling rapidly which meant they were coming. I stopped, and as he reached across my right shoulder I threw my elbow into his stomach. He reacted by grabbing for my throat and I ducked and punched him but he got me by the throat and threw me against a container, pinning me there. Just over six feet tall, this Moroccan was as smooth-shaved as a baby, and I saw the whites of his eyes. He was scared, even though he had me now. His friend in the white shirt was cool as cucumber though, and nodded again at my bag. Blueshirt went for it and I took my chance and bit into his arm and then his hand, as quick as I could. But not too hard, because I didn't want to draw blood, just to leave a mark. I didn't have the killer instinct. Interesting, I mused, while I tried to figure out what to do next. He doesn't want to kill me, he just wants my bag. But the grip on my throat was pretty tight and I realised that even if he didn't want to kill me, he might just do it by accident. I couldn't breathe. I thought about it and let go. They took the bag and ran.

I was so angry. Angry at myself for being caught. Angry for not thinking faster and reacting better. I can't run, but I should have screamed. Not being the type, I naturally didn't think of that til way later. It would have scared them and perhaps brought help. Angry that I should get robbed when I own so little. They would just bin the bag and my notebook and all my notes for songs and ideas for animations and drawings....Angry for not having the common sense to ask them to take the bag but leave my keys and simcard. Raging. So raging, in fact, that the first thing I did was to follow them. In the next street along there was a woman on the first floor of an apartment shouting "they went that way, that way!" The game was up. I knew they were in her apartment and there was nothing I could do. I made my way to the police station and she glared at me silently as I went the opposite direction of her orders.

At the police station I did the usual blocking cards and making a report. The green-eyed guard looked at me in horror as I was wearing a black halterneck and had lovely matching black bruises like cuffs and a collar on my neck, wrists and upper arms. I also was having a sugar crisis, but luckily rather than thinking I was a junkie (as I am certain the other guards did as I stood there shaking and trying not to vomit) he sent out a rookie for some sugar. Then he handed me some packets of....lowfat sugar. I laughed so hard. Still lowfat sugar is still sugar and I stuck it in my mouth and swallowed. Can you understand how disgusting that feels? Sugar is disgusting like that, especially low fat, especially when you feel like vomiting.

After going to the hospital for a tetanus shot (I had small cuts and lesions on my arms) they insisted I make a statement and look at photos. They were sure they knew who had done it as normally robberies in the Raval involve bagsnatching and are never violent. I tried to explain that it was my own stupid fault as I started the fight, but they were having none of it. I made it home 6 hours later when my flatmate was already awake.

I had always wondered if I would be the type to fight back and I guess I know now. I often thought if I would react well under pressure and knew that although I wanted the answer to be yes, that because I am extremely passive that the answer would probably be no. But I am a fighter, just like my dad taught me to be, and although inexperienced and a bit stupid, I was aware of the situation I was in before I was actually attacked, so I passed my own test as it were. Try and explain that to your mother though. As a rule, I try and omit details rather than lie with my mam, but she is just too clever. She knows what questions to ask to get the story. "Next time promise me you'll just let go" she pleads. I know, I know. What if they had knives? They didn't. What if they had? I don't tell her I disarmed 2 people with knives before. How do I tell her that even I don't know what I am doing? "Mam, as soon as I realised I was fighting, I stopped. I let go." She doesn't buy it. Why would she? i wouldn't either, but it's the truth.

Maybe I should learn to fight and make use of my instincts. Yeah, another step on my way to who knows where...
(ps I had a photo but blogger won't let me upload it as usual)