I always wanted to be married to a Texan.

Yesterday was very exciting ... our shipping container from Bali finally arrived. We picked a few pieces when we were over there ... a new seat that everybody is banned from putting cushions on. If we make it too comfortable, the dog will make it her new home, and then it will start stinking of dog and nobody will want to sit there and the seat will be a waste.

Ha ... I just saw myself in that pic. Under my arm is paperwork for Rocco's passport (to go to Bali) ... except I can't find his birth certificate. Did I even get him a birth certificate? When WILL I be able to fill out his baby book without wanting to run screaming from the room?

I chose this next piece .... a really cool lamp stand, made from wood with a glass cover. We can get it wired up, or put a big candle inside it.

So, that was all. Until, a certain husband went back to Bali, returning with a big smile. "I picked something else for the shipping container, hon." He always picks big, when he goes shopping. I tell him he should have been a Texan.

A GONG. Um, what does one do with a gong in ones house? Gong the boys when dinner's ready? It's very beautifully made - wood and metal, with ornate gold trim.

Of course, it's a certain persons new favourite toy.

It's such an amazing, soothing sound. I wonder what musical note it is, because he has gonged it all day and I'm still not sick of it.

Yet.

There is no spiritual ailment that the songs of the Red Hot Chili Peppers cannot fix.

I usually walk around the world trying to conform. Today is not one of those days. Today I will not hide my tattoos.

The end of my tether. Whatever image I portray to the world ... I am not that, today. Today my house is bulging with mess, my inbox has exploded, the vulture at the end of my bed when I woke up greeted me with bile. It's been a while.

The ringworm on Rocco's leg is almost gone. I have remembered to rub tinea cream into it twice every day. Max has a swollen finger .... perhaps a beesting, or a teeny sliver of glass. We're not sure yet. Tim is a big strapping boy-man. We have had a hard week, been annoyed at each other. The trickiness and second-guessing of step-parenting crept in. He was in bed the other night; unprompted I took him up a cup of tea and a freshly baked iced vanilla cupcake. He was surprised as I am. I want to teach Tim that families stick together - even when you hate each others guts, you come back and love them. Feelings pass. If I can teach all of my boys this at their ages .... they will have a much bigger head-start in the world than I did.

When I made the cupcakes, I licked all the batter off the mixer and bowl. And when I iced them, I ate so much icing that there was only the barest whisp left for each cupcake. I marvelled at my gluttony, again. At the bottom of my bottonless gluttony lies an insatiability of things that almost killed me.

Icing won't kill me.

::

This morning as I scraped cereal off the kitchen table with my fingernail, I thought about the element of water ... how it's a constant thing in this strange physical world. I wonder where the amniotic fluid surrounding me as a fetus has travelled and passed along? The Ganges, or the Nile. Or pouring out of a rusty tap in Africa.

Maybe some of those same atoms spilt onto my head on my way into the car this morning with all that rain, christening me anew. I hope so.

Vlog: I wasn't joking about the performance art.

Once upon a time I was twenty years old and felt so bad, so low, that I wished I was dead. One night I wrote a poem, about the tooth fairy and how sad that I'd grown up and she wasn't there for me anymore. I sang it to a tune, and hey presto, had accidentally written a hit song.

For many years, I sang it when I was drunk .... usually in taxis, mournfully. I taught the song to my sisters and my cousin, but I've always had it in the back of my mind that one day, my song might get discovered and I could be a real singer, maybe make a thick wad of money.

Guess what? I'm not going to be discovered. I'm too old for Australian Idol and X-Factor. It seems a shame to keep the song to myself .. because it is a bloody good song. So, I'm handing it over to you. This is the song of a chick who finally got herself together.

No longer do I vomit out of cars, stagger stagger crawl crawl like Yellowbeard. No longer do I wish I was dead ... quite the opposite. I hope and pray that my face grows weathered and wrinkled, my hair goes white. Wouldn't that be fabulous?



This weekend I will be ten. It is said that whatever your clean time is ... is your emotional age. So, I don't have to be mature for another ten years. BOOYAH!

A New Voice

Photo: iStockphoto

"The stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own."
— Mary Oliver

You know how little kids walk around and talk gibberish? And you say, "Yes sweetheart, that's right ... Buzz went around the corner and now he's eating bicycles for dinner. Clever guy!"

Nonsensical things. Well, for days now, Rocco has been saying to me, "Mum, I put it in the wall. I put my socks in the wall." Or .... "I put the udder one in the wall." And I'm all distracted and agreeing with him - yes sweetheart, good boy you put it in the wall.

Until, last night, Tim was chopping a salad and feeding Rocco cherry tomatoes. I heard Tim saying, "Rocco - where are you putting the tomatoes?"

"I put dem in the wall."

Suddenly, it all became terribly clear. I took Rocco's hand. Darling boy, where did you put them in the wall? Can you show mummy?

We walked into his bedroom.

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Rocco. Has been putting. God knows what. In his wall. And telling me.

Dave said he will fix it this weekend. The hole that has been there for, oh, two years now. I don't want to know what's in there.

Unrelated - do cherry tomatoes go mouldy?

::

In other news ..... oh I have so much other news. A few months back, I took the BlogHer ads out of my sidebar. Much as I loved being part of the network, it was a huge chunk of my blog real estate I was giving up. I'm not sure where I stand on taking ads on this Edenland blog .... something about it doesn't sit right for me. Maybe because I let it all hang out, balls blowing gently in the breeze? Who wants to advertise next to balls? Why do I even have to take ads here? Answer ... I won't. Simple as that.

My personal blog is to remain ad-free ... I like not having to answer to anybody but myself. I like this blog to stay as it is - a creative effort in understanding myself better. An outlet for frustration/grief/showing-off/pain/joy. Part performance art, part idiocy, part embracing the unbalancednessness.

You're welcome.

But .... I have been working on something, with my friend Sophie. An online-type thing, that's really cool. I like it. A lot. I really believe in its potential and where we can take it, and I'm inviting you over there to let me know what you think. Anybody is welcome to throw me some ideas, contribute, guest blog-post, give us tips on what you think we could do better. We'll be taking ads over there, if you'd like to spruik your blog/etsyshop/mailorderbridebusiness.

It's called Jack and Jill Lifestyle.

And it's pretty freaky to put it out there. It feels like I'm blowing a dandelion out in the world, trying to spread it far, hoping the little blowy things settle in nicely somewhere.


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I have one more secret ..... I am a blogging freak. Specifically, mummyblogging. More specifically, the recent explosion of mummyblogging in Australia and what that means and where it can take us. (Nervous laugh). I find it all so very fascinating - never will I forget immersing myself in IVF blogs and then realising one day ... that you didn't even need a REASON. You could blog about anything if you want to. What?

I accidentally learnt a whole heap of stuff about blogging. So much so, I've been asked to talk at the Inaugural Sydney Bloggers Festival. (Shhh, stop laughing or they'll give the gig to somebody more ..... better.) My topics are, how to have a mental breakdown in public .... what to say when your husband asks you, "what the hell is a blog?" for the 100th time .... and how to hold your head high when all the mums at school know you used to drink yourself into oblivion, many moons ago.

(My topics aren't really those - but if they were, I'd *totally* ace it.)

::

The scab from the burn from the motorbike exhaust in Bali is all ... scabby. I'm pretty sure there will be a scar. It was such a terrible time. I've learnt, sometimes, terrible isn't a "bad" thing. Some events in life are terrible ... and they crack you open in a way that you would never be cracked open ordinarily.

Thank goodness.

Why I Blog Like a Trapped Chilean Miner

I want to know what happened in the first seventeen days.

Will the real story of the Chilean miners ever be told? The dark parts - the parts glossed over with pacts and a "what happens in the mine, stays in the mine" mentality? There have been claims the men came to blows. Some were too depressed to leave their beds, others quietly thought of cannibalism. In the first seventeen days, the men didn't know if there was any hope of a rescue. They broke into three groups, with fist fights common.

I would love to know the dark parts. I need to know all the murky parts in life. Tell me your darkest dark .... and I'll tell you mine. What happened? What did you think? How did you overcome it?

I'm realising I blog like a trapped Chilean miner ... in the first seventeen days. It was years into blogging that I first heard the term, "naked blogger."

Oh great, I remember thinking. Now I'll have to delete my whole blog.

No - I just went public instead.

::

I could tell you about the wonderful weekend we had, driving down to Leichardt for pasta and gelato and then having our first swim at the beach for this season. We laughed, drank coffees .... a certain someone in particular ate every morsel of his ice cream.

..... if my blog were candy coated, I wouldn't tell you about the argument I had with my husband in Crystal carwash, when he made me so cranky I punched him square in the middle of his left arse cheek. (Because he called me pathetic. Which I was *totally* being, but I wouldn't tell you that either!)

I'd tell you how blue the sky was, how great it felt to be alive in that sun in that very minute. How I love these guys, and pray I'm bringing them up as responsible, caring human beings.

As I apologised to my husband later that night, I wondered if there was anybody else in the world who would punch their husbands in the butt. As hard as they could, but it didn't hurt anyway. Because it was his BUTT.

I decided there is - just not everybody blogs it.

All Hail the Bin Juice

I came home.

Oh man, did I come home. Dave watched me get out of the car, laughed as I ran over to the house and kissed and hugged it. Home. I kissed Dave all over his head, told him he has no idea how much I love him. I jumped straight back in the car and picked Max up from school and kissed him - just a bit, because he was at school. He got into the car and I clung to his bony little body. "Max I missed you so much! My beautiful sweetheart guy!"

He laughed. We went to the chocolate shop AND the lolly shop. We picked Rocco up .... he looked up from his dinosaur, saw I was there, and ran around and around like a spinning top, so excited to see me.

We all just loved on each other. I told them all I was never leaving them again. I told Tim I was going to be the best female nurturer in all the land.

Rocco did a big poo in the bath. It had corn in it. I scooped it out with his toy watering can, took it straight outside to the wails of, "It's MINE! Mummy that's MY POO. Give it back to me, he's miiiiiiine!"

I wiped down surfaces, scraped congealed bin juice, changed toilet paper rolls. Folded clothes, went grocery shopping, planned meals, helped with homework.

All the stuff - it's my job .... my main job.

I think I freaked out so much last week because, if I have no children and no husband with me, who am I?

I will find that out, when the time is right.

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I love it - all of it. Except when Rocco did another poo in the bath the next night. And except when I dropped my iPhone in the toilet today, as I was wiping it before I sat down because it was so darn filthy. That pretty much sucked.

But I loved everything else. Thanks to my recent stint in the wilderness ... I am full to the brim of love and compassion and gratitude.

I'm so lucky. Life is miraculous. I'm deeply fulfilled. If I were to leave this earth tomorrow .... I would deem my life a success.

Finally.

The Island of the Gods

The Gods are all around. They have laughed and sniggered and played games on me ... no television, internet, or electricity at one point. Just me, in my hotel room, alone with a brain that wants to kill me.

My heart has won in the end.

It always has before ... don't know why I doubted it so much this time.

It's my last day. I have performed many exorcisms on myself. Thank you for your kind emails. I was worried too! Phew!

I went to the orphanage again yesterday, and stayed for hours. The gigantic tin of biscuits emptied in seconds. The teenage girls grabbed me, sat next to me, sprawling, asking if I had a husband? Where are my earrings from? One little boy walked up to me and asked ... do I have a father? I said no, he died. Recognition flashed in his eyes. Then he walked away. I brought food and eggs and paper and pencils .... I will go back home with a bulging bag of pictures to hang all around my house. Amazing pictures.

Next time I come back, I will arrive with books and toys from my boys rooms ..... loads of stuff they never needed or wanted in the first place.

The coffee was black, with a huge sludge at the bottom of it. I put sugar in it - something I never do. I have not put sugar in my coffee for ... ten years. I have not felt so crazy, and utterly alone for ..... ten years. Lost and pathetic, useless, selfish ... all the adjectives, all not felt so strongly in .... ten years. A decade.

I have learnt. Bono said once that he hopes to always remain teachable ... so do I.

I got split open, stitched back together. The culture and religion and work ethic here are all meshed in each other. To pray to the Hindu Gods, you offer yourself and your life. You walk to the temple twice a day, even if your heart is angry at home, you walk with food for the Gods and your family and sit together, and be happy.

To be creative, is what the Gods want you to do. Finally I understand why the Balinese people are so amazing and talented ... they must be creative, their religion teaches them to have pride in what they do. To make things, create things.

The western Gods are boring, in comparison.

The Hindu Gods are like the Bollywood Gods of the Godosphere - loud and brash and flashy. Very sexist, too. Cheeky buggers.

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I can not wait to see my husband again. Never, in our relationship, have I been so bursting to see him. I will kiss my house, hug it. I will cook happy meals with a happy heart .... with wholesome recipes. I will be there for all of them with no distractions .... keep creating things, in my heart and in my world.

Flying home tonight ..... need to walk around the city one last time, smell the thick deep smell of the soul of humanity again. With my branding on my leg and a deeper insight than ever before.

I am still teachable.

Who knew.

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Boys buying treats before school -

My breakfast nook, the beautiful scene of so many tears -

A very noble Balinese King died. For two months, a huge cremation black bull has been constructed, while his body is kept on dry ice. You can buy tickets, to see cremations every day here. I don't need one .... I cremate myself enough anyway. If you look closely, you can see the old me in the bulls belly .... see that tinge of red hair? I despised myself so much I threw myself in there. The Balinese did not bat an eyelid -

Scenery from my favourite restaurant. One day I will take photos of all my boys splashing in that pool -

Hi. The only photo of me on this trip -

A Sweet Girl named Kayla

This is what Louise wrote on my blog when we found out Dave had cancer:

"You are such a strong and beautiful woman, Dave is lucky to have you by his side.

I want to hold your hand and tell you everything will be ok. But all I have to offer is hope. I hope that you can find some joy in Rocco's birth at this crazy time. I hope that Dave's pain turns out to be something minor and treatable. I am hoping and wishing for everything to be ok.
Thank God for Linda and Leigh."

And this is what she wrote when I came out of hospital with Rocco, asking for people's well wishes and strong thoughts that the cancer was not in Dave's bones:

"Of course you are traumatized sweetheart, what is going on right now is so huge I can't even imagine how I would cope. But you're such an amazing woman, I'm sure that you are holding everything and everyone together.

Best wishes and positive thoughts to you and your family. If there is anything you need please just ask."

The cancer was not in Daves bones.

But cancer was soon to visit Louise and her beautiful family, and take her away .... it was SHE who had to learn how to cope with unimaginable news.

Not fair. Stunned. Only diagnosed six months ago ..... I was sitting on a bed in the middle of my auntie's 50th birthday party, checking my emails when I found out. I cried then, like I cried today, learning of her passing.

Louise 's husband is asking for people to write in the comments section of her blog. He is proud of her blog, and one day will read out the comments to their daughter Kayla, who just turned one.

Louise did IVF to get pregnant with Kayla. Doing IVF is HARD. It's one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Even if you did not know Louise until right now .... there is a baby girl out there who will miss out on knowing her mother. If you could drop by and leave a few kind words. Tell Kayla something pretty, something funny. Tell her your secret to living a good and happy life - you can do it anonymously, you don't need an account. I know Louise would appreciate it.

Thanks.

I need to get off my cross and build a bridge to get over myself. Or find myself. Know thyself? Or use the wood to club myself in the face repeatedly.

Out of my emotional league. Every day I have cried - usually sobbed. One morning I rang Dave and spoke evenly with him, then rang my brother and had a complete meltdown, right there in my delicious Balinese pancakes with sugar syrup.

I've walked for miles and miles, all around Monkey Forest Road, finally worked my burger flab off. Completely ditched the writers festival ..... one of the "helpers" spoke to me so rudely, put me on the spot in front of all the other white people next to me, I felt like a criminal. I was already self-conscious and anxiety-ridden anyway. I left the event - it was on Writing your Digital Future, about writing in the online world, what it means for information and media and blogs, etc.

So ashamed of myself, so stupid, so desperately missing my children and my family. Never, ever coming away by myself again. Last night I psyched myself into going to the Poety Slam, the one thing I really wanted to go to. I met a lady in my hotel who was going as well, so we shared a ride and ate dinner together. She was lovely, regaling me with tales of her travels in the early 70's. When Kuta itself was just a village. We ordered dinner and drinks - lemon squash for me, Kamikaze for her. She talked about the cocktails she has prepared before, asked me if I'd tried them, and I shook my head no. I imagined telling her the truth - Actually, my main reason to come here was not for the writers festival at all. It was to take some time out by myself and celebrate turning ten years clean and sober this month.

But I did not say that because there is so much involved in that statement I wouldn't know how to explain it. Ten years ago I was a different person than I am now. Change is possible. Recovery is real, it exists. Active alcoholism and addiction is a worldwide epidemic and getting worse, people think there is no way out. But there is, and myself and the boys I have brought into this world are living testaments to that.


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Here I am in my luxury hotel, crying and sobbing over how low and lonely and terrible and guilty I feel. How DARE I come on a holiday by myself. A rich bitch. I am never doing this again. My driver asked why I was not going to the festival much - I said, I prefer the Balinese people more than the white people. He laughed and laughed. I asked him to drive me to a huge grocery store, where I bought a 25-kilo bag of rice and bulk cooking oil and noodles and cordial. And some brightly coloured balls and toys and wind-up airplanes. We drove an hour away, to an orphanage tucked away in a rural street. There are 126 abandoned kids here, between the ages of 8 and 14.

About twenty children were there when we drove up, my driver Wayan gave the lady in charge the food and I handed them out the toys. It was Christmas. I showed them how to play with the plastic bowling set and they laughed. Some boys about Max's age latched on to the soccer balls, headbutting them with skill. They had a swingset, in the middle of the dirt. They all looked clean and looked after. I hoped they were safe, and nobody preyed on them .... the lady was in her late sixties and was the only adult there.

Tomorrow I will go back, to take more rice and cereal and eggs. And books - the lady said no, they had books from the government .... but they were just maths and english books. I will hunt down some fun, bright interesting books with pictures. Maybe some of them will fall in love with books, like I did when I was a child. Maybe I will create my own writer and readers festival, in that very orphanage.

I will always visit there. If Dave and the boys and I come back at Christmastime, I will take them there - Dave can help advise the builders how to fix the place up. It's dreadful. My kids can learn about giving to other people, and how important it is. How lucky they are to live in a nice house with both parents.

Driving back, my driver said,
"Miss Eden, you are a good person, not many people do what you do."

I said no, I am selfish because it makes me feel better to give.

I am a selfish, anxiety-ridden arsehole middle-aged idiot who needs to get over herself.

My other driver, Eddy ... asked me where can he take me - the volcano? The beautiful mountains? There was only one place I want Eddy to take me - to see his brand new baby, born two days ago, still in hospital. He said OF COURSE! Beaming and proud. I have a teddy bear and a book for the baby, I need to get something else for the three-year old brother who may be feeling left out.

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I have been feeling dangerous. So many people smoke here, I felt so lost and fucked-up. I sat at a ramshackle table with some really poor people. It stank like garbage and it was the most comfortable I have felt the whole time I have been here. I offered to pay 1000 rupiah for a cigarette off this guy, (10 cents) .... he gave me one. I haven't smoked in about seven years. Sometimes I'm so sick of being "good." I lit it, and bum puffed about half, not inhaling once. It was MENTHOL. (Thank you, Universe.)

I am a terrible bargainer. I hate haggling - haggle over something that will cost me $7 instead of $5? No. So all the ladies kind of smirk that they are pulling a swift one over the dumb western woman, but I let them. I won't need another summer dress for a very long time.

The only time I have felt ok is when I'm getting a massage. A two hour massage with hair cream treatment and facial, costs $60AUD. Only then do I feel better ... like, they are honouring me with their touch and it helps to honour myself. Have not felt such self-loathing in YEARS.

I have gone on motorbike rides, around town. It's fucking exhilerating ... of course I burn my leg on the exhaust pipe, so have been hobbling around with a pink and blistered mark.

Finally, I popped it today, Using the back of my earring, the yellow juice dripping down my leg. I'm sure it's symbolic - of something, I don't know what. Maybe my tattoo is wrong? Maybe I need to Know Thyself LESS. Forget myself, my stupid brain with its stupid thoughts. And stupid, ridiculously self-absorbed feelings that do no good whatsoever.

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Eddy just rang, and is picking me up in ten minutes to go and see a healer.

Something tells me I need it.

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For the first time, I'm not even editing a blog post. I apologise for the raw. Always with the raw.

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Comments off here. Please go and show some love and support on one of my very first online-friends blogs. Louise. She died, from cancer. Leaving behind her one-year old daughter conceived through IVF, her beautiful stepchildren, and loving husband. Tomorrow I will light a candle and burn some incense, in her honour. Desperately sad for her family, the unfairness. I can't believe it.

A Manic Confession

Yesterday, I kissed all of the kids goodbye. I hugged Rocco so tightly, wondering if this was the last time I'd ever hold him and if so, would he still grow up ok without me? How much of an impact do I have anyway? I bought Max his favourite magazine and walked out with lingering I love you's. I kissed Dave goodbye. Drove to Sydney airport and got on a plane, flew to Darwin, ran outside to take a photo because I'd never been to Darwin, came back inside, took a photo of kangaroo jerky at the kiosk ..... and got searched by security because of my strange running around behaviour. Then I jumped back on another plane, to take me out of Australia, back to Indonesia. To Bali, to the International Ubud Writers Festival.

The freedom I feel right now is outrageous. It's scary and dangerous and WONDERFUL.

I don't think I've ever had a holiday by myself before. I didn't want to come. Dave has been back to Bali twice, since our trip in August. We both fell so hard for it - he wants to buy land and build a contemporary Balinese house, complete with family temple and connecting rooms and a pool and an outside bathroom. He lives big, this Dave. I'm just hanging around in the background, minding the children and cooking, scraping poo off toilet bowls, wiping garbage juice from the bin. Which is mostly fine. Truth is, I find it a struggle to even exist in the world., let alone go gallavanting across it. (How cool is the word "gallavant." People should use it more.)

So Dave went twice, and he came back and I said, man, there's this writers festival and he's all "GO!" And I laughed and said there is no way I could go. He asked me why and I told him the truth ... that he couldn't mind the kids properly. I wasn't joking, wasn't saying it to be mean. For the almost entire time of our relationship, I have been the kid-minder. He has been the "do whatever he wants-er."

I decided not to go. Until Dave badgered so much that I agreed - oh ok, I will go to that island paradise then. I booked my flights and accommodation on my credit card. On the plane, I sat next to two teenagers who were Tim's age, across the aisle from a boy Max's age, who was sitting next to a young one who was Rocco's age. Somebody kept farting, so I felt completely at home. I missed my boys so much - ached for them all. The two year Harry on the plane kept talking to me: "Are you coming to my Bali?" I said yes sweetheart, I AM coming to your Bali!

Paradise. Never have I been struck so much by a physical place ... I even looked up its history on wikipedia. I KNOW! It's fascinating - the people, the culture, the climate, the sacred temples scattered everywhere. It has a depth that I've never felt. This is where I want my ashes scattered - it's my home. My Spiritual Home, at least. Even if we don't end up buying or building or whatever big plan Dave wants to do .... we can always visit. Maybe I can't ever live here .... maybe it's like wanting to have summer the whole year round. It's just too greedy.

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As I was packing my stuff in the overhead storage on the plane, I felt how I always do before a flight .... like I'm on an episode of Air Crash Investigation, when all the passengers are happy and getting ready for their flight, chatting. Before they all die in screaming terror after the ad break.

I thought, if the plane really does crash ..... I didn't even tell the computer I was coming.

So, computer - I'm here! Hi! Where are you? Are you ok? Why do you read my blog? Who are you? Have you ever seen a grown man naked? How would you act, in a foreign country by yourself? Debonair? Approachable yet with a sense of mystery?

This freedom is freaking me out.

How could Dave trust me like this? What if I accidentally get arrested - or eat a parasite, or break my leg? What if there's another bomb, but I end up chatting to the would-be bombers before they explode it ... and our conversation is so amazing that they decide to not go through with it, and I'm a hero but nobody ever knows? What if YOU are the hero of your own life, you just don't know it or refuse to believe it? (Hint: You are.) What if I get abducted? What if I have a dreadful time? What if I have an amazing time?

I need more coffee.

The World is Smaller Than You Think

In a strange twist of coincidence, both of my dead dads were computer genuises .... back in the day. My real dad, Bill, worked at IBM in Sydney in the very early eighties, and my stepdad David was a self-taught computer whiz who always had the latest in technology. We had a "computer room" when I was a kid, I remember typing out game programs from this huge thick book. At the end of four hours, I coded something like, a pixelated rabbit bouncing down the street.

We also had the very latest in Atari .... oh yeah. Pitfall, Space Invaders, Defender, Frogger, ...... my sisters and I were allowed to play Atari whenever and for however long we wanted to. Probably because it kept us quiet, but man it was fun.

Point is, years later, as a grown woman with a family - I have met some of my best friends in the computer. Bloggers are people too, you know. We can reach through each others screens, support, love, help build up. Make changes, get enlightened, get real.

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I had the privilege of meeting Mel from Stirrup Queens.

It was so amazing to hug her, this lady who does so much for the infertility and loss community. She mostly cried when we met; I mostly cried when we said goodbye. I thanked her for sending me support at a time in my life when I needed it the most. She's beautiful, inside and out.

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I've read Heather since 2008. Finally, I met her (and Gramma and Annabel) at a party she was hosting for one of her sponsors:

I met her through my friend Gemini Girl. Heather is wonderful. Beautiful. Hilarious - one of the best bloggers around ..... and life has made her into a wise Soul, at a very early age. She went on her honeymoon in AUSTRALIA. I keep pestering her about coming back down and staying with me. She will, one day. Armed with bug spray, because she hates spiders too.

At the Sparklecorn party, on the last night of BlogHer, my roomie and entourage all left. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to it yet. Especially not when the DJ played Jay Z .... singing Empire State of Mind.




But then, I got self-conscious and started to feel strange, all alone in a sea of bloggers. Right then, Heather appeared from nowhere and grabbed me, pulled me up on the stage, to dance with her and her friends. We all said hi to each other - there was a *lot* of pulling blogging business cards out of cleavage. Really. (I'm looking at you, Shauna Glenn.)

You would call Heather a "big" blogger ... for her to pull me up was like a lovely analogy ... there's room for all of us, on the blogging stage. There is. (That's if you actually want to BE on stage.)

::

A few days afterwards, TB was coming to meet me in my hotel lobby. I was really nervous. TB doesn't stand for tuberculosis ..... she used to blog at Tob.acco Brun.ette. Now she blogs at The Clamor. (Even though it's supposed to be 'Clamour' - what is it with you Americans dropping your u's?). TB always needs to blog. She makes me feel normal. Look how gorgeous she is -

Smart and sassy and so fricken hilarious. We talked and talked and laughed. We were both shy at first, but that quickly stopped. Dave came down and met us, we all had dinner together. Then we both needed to go to the bathroom - I said oh, TB I HAVE to get photos of the toilet. She was all, o-kaaaaay. But seriously, check out this toilet!

I was relieved to find that she was just as amazed as I was, at the toilet. Thought she might have been all, "Oh that's what ALL the toilets are like in NYC, you hick."

::

I met many more bloggers over in the Americaz - and I plan on meeting many more. I went to a Sydney bloggers meetup last week. Where the hell have all the Australian bloggers been? Well, they have been right under my nose, apparently.

Lucky my nose is BIG.

::

Right now I'm at my MILs, lounging on the bed, reminiscing and blogging. Dave just collapsed next to me after taking all the kids to the beach in the rain. "It's your turn." I'll probably never write the recap of our trip - maybe when we're in our sixties and all the kids have left home, then I can sit down and think properly. In the meantime, my blogging is always rushed and sporadic, bursts of inappropriate banter and ridiculous thoughts.

(An exact replica of my life, really.)

I met Jenny from The Bloggess and she wrote me a poem.

A few months ago, my big tough Australian in-remission husband Dave and I were at BlogHer 2010 in New York. It was a triumphant holiday, kind of like, "FUCK YOU LIFE .... HE DIDN'T DIE!!!"

Dave and I were walking through a sea of bloggers at the Hilton, and it struck me that he had no idea who any of these people were. "Wow. You could get stuck in a lift with Dooce herself and smile politely and talk about the weather."

"What's Juice?"

::

Part of the festivities one night involved Jenny from The Bloggess sitting at a table with an old-fashioned typewriter, banging out psychic poems for people. I *had* to get a personalised poem from her.

So I did.

She was so gracious and gorgeous, sitting there with her confidence hair extensions. She looked at me and said, "Hmmmmm, now what am I going to write about you?" I told her I was the Australian she met the night before, in the toilets. She remembered my thick fake-snake bangle (which I bought for $9 at Westfield Penrith) .... and she started tapping out my psychic poem/reading.

She gave it to me .... along with a sticker.

Is it strange that I really want to frame it?