Street Talk: The Average Mental Health Patient.

I'm out. Been out for five days now, all of them awful. And I hate myself for having awful days because Syria. Want to scratch my way out of my skin but I can't. I'm stuck waiting for the wind to change. It's like a scene from Grey's Anatomy where Yang just did a heart transplant and everybody is holding their breath ..... waiting for the new heart to beat as it just lays there in the chest.

I'm waiting for my heart to beat.

In the meantime, I can let you know a bit about the average mental health patient. I haven't heard mental health discussed much at all in this election lead-up. It should be discussed more. Everywhere.

The average mental health patient is just like me and you. They wear nice clothes, have iPhones, jobs, large families who love them, houses, cars, sometimes even children.

It's the kindly grandmother, admitted because she says she has nothing to live for anymore. It's the young girl who stabbed herself so deeply in the lower stomach she perforated her bowel and will have health problems for the rest of her life. (She *loves* watching Australia's Got Talent every Sunday night.) It's the young good-looking guy who draws like a true artist, refusing all meds, preferring his illness.

The average mental health patient plays dominos, cards, does jigsaws, walks quickly .... anything to feel how he truly feels. It's the woman who smuggles a thick razor in, ready to cut her neck artery and bleed out in five minutes but can't do it. She just couldn't do it. It's the man missing all of his teeth, eating only mashed potato, never smiling. Until a nurse tells him she can make him an appointment at the hospital dentist.

It's the schizophrenic who has so many valuable things to share during group time. The middle-aged woman who is CRAZY. Just batshit. But dresses herself every morning and does her hair in thick plaits.

The average mental health patient uses up his holiday leave and tells work he's actually holidaying in Bali. The average mental health patient often doesn't even know what they're fighting but they're still alive anyway. It's the gatherings of people outside the nurses station, literally dying to get their smokes.

(The average mental health patient will often prefer mental health nurses to any other kind of nurse.)

The average mental health patient is the man who does the Elvis shake and comments on his Malley bull balls, banging against his inner thighs. It's the mum you walk past during school pick-up. The dad filling his car at the petrol station. The teenager crying in the dark. The seven-year old who makes her first suicide attempt and doesn't really know why.

The average mental heath patient feels love, empathy, compassion. Pain, depression, anxiety. The gamut. They can go on to live successful, rich, better lives.

The average mental health patient is me.

The average mental health patient .... is you.

::

Previous Street Talks:

1. Noelene the Young
2. Megan the Mouse
3. Harpal the Australian
4. Darren the Artist
5. Jo the Interesting
6. John the Telstra Guy
7. Michael the Photographer
8. Peg the Lady
9. Jeff the Preacher Man
10. Andres the Cobbler
11. Honey the Prostitute
12. Mark the Masseur
13. You the Blog Reader
14. Jo the Podiatrist
15. Casey the Uni Student
16. Dream the Horse and Carriage Driver
17. Tamas the Hungarian Accordionist
18. The Dignified Trolley Ladies
19. Alex With The Studded Hot Pink Belt
20. Leaf The Fallen
21. Bel Of The Library
22. Jay And His Big Issue
23. Emma The Adult Shop Cashier
24. Teena, Saver Of Dogs
25. The Luna Park Face
26. Gary The Missing
27. Kristen at the Elephant Bean Cafe
28. Uncle Paul
29. Jess The Mama
30. The Two People At The Checkout
31. Alfie The Pourer

Grief Has No Clock.

My stepdad Jim made me hate Gomez, which is bullshit. I used to LOVE listening to Gomez - especially Bring It On, which they released in 1998.

I kind of narrated Jims death in a series of posts last year.

Half The Moon Is Gone
Rome Is Burning
Leaflines
Smouldering Ruins
Death In Venice
Cutlets
Unknown Seas
Mosaics

It was a strange, sacred, important thing to do. Lots of people who knew Jim would come here - (to this inappropriate blog) - and be updated on him.

Half The Moon Is Gone was written so fucken angrily, in a library. As I was writing it, the guy across me was on the nod SO BADLY he could hardly lift his head. He sat there, and when he woke up with a start, he always looked around the room and sucked his spit back in. And kept drawing with his pen. He looked almost fifty. Kids - drugs waste lives!

Druggo dude got up to go to the toilet at one point. Curiosity got the better of me. I was halfway through one of the biggest posts of my life but had to stop, get up, and go spy on this guys notepad .... it was just cars. A series of cars and utes. Pretty shittily drawn, because he wasn't concentrating properly. I remember feeling disappointed - like, he should have been drawing me a special message, something to ease my pain.

Sometimes we look for meaning and there is none.

About a month ago it was a year since Jim died. Mum went to my stepbrother Marks house on the day. So her year of firsts, without her Jim, have come to end. (I guess - she just starts on her year of seconds.) I don't think it really makes it any easier. We often say to each other how we can't believe he is gone. You don't ever get over the death of somebody you love. You just learn to live with it.

Also, you know what often happens when somebody in a family dies? Fault lines are brought to the surface. So, my family has been quite fractured these days. It is what it is. We'll see what happens - we've always been quite fucked up anyway.

I vowed to not let it get to me, the first anniversary. But of course it did. I took the boys to our favourite pizza joint so I didn't have to cook. Jim is so very missed. My sisters and I have #threedeaddads. (Our brother has two.) Ads for Fathers Day this Sunday don't *really* get to me. It's kind of like a pinprick on a HUGE wound. You notice it, but it always hurt anyway so you just take it in your stride.

Jims death shook me to my core and took away a lot of my faith. My first stepfathers suicide tore our family apart, ending all of our childhoods in one swift blow. Yet, it was the death of the first guy - the "real" dad, the man whose eyes and long limbs and face and blood I have. THAT'S the death that does me in, continually. I hardly even knew him but the hole he left is huge.

GEE ISN'T THIS A CHEERY POST AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU CAME

On the day of Jims funeral, I tried so hard in the car on the way there to appear fine that I downloaded a Gomez album and played it loud. All the boys in their good clothes sitting in the back. We arrived at the funeral place and I couldn't get out of the car. I just couldn't. It took Tim, my gorgeous firstborn from another mother to walk around to the front of the car, kneel down, and say "EDEN! YOU CAN DO THIS! COME ON ..... YOU'VE DONE HEAPS HARDER STUFF THAN THIS! GET OUT!"

And I did. Jims funeral was the most beautiful I will ever go to, indicative of his beautiful self. He was there, listening to us all. Probably embarrassed at the fuss and attention.

                                                         At my wedding in 2005

I realised lately that mum goes back and reads those posts often, and to this day finds SO much comfort in your comments. Thank you! Thank you. Blogs can be a lot of things. Last year, the comments left here helped a whole host of grieving family and friends. 

Priceless. 

xxxxxxx

Street Talk: Alfie The Pourer

I often wonder why I still blog. Six years on and I still do it, still come here and write bits and pieces. It's a strange thing, really. Blogging keeps me connected to the world - for example right now in a hospital Quiet Room after special permission from the doc. Blogging taught me how to write. Slowly but surely, I "turned up at the page" as Julia Cameron would say and I'd just write and write until I found something there in the words - me. I found me.

The best blogs I love are ones whose owners tell stories just for the sake of it. No agenda. I received an email this week by Alfie over in America who I'd never had any previous engagement with but she reads my blog and decided to email me. As I read her words I smiled and then I laughed, right there in the hospital kiosk. What is it about some people who just pour things out and just really make you feel good? That must be it - the pouring. Alfie just poured out an email to me and it resonated so much. I love it.

I like sharing and connecting and being serious and funny and real. Good stuff as well as hard. Here's Alfie's email - I changed her name but she's letting me post her words here with her blessing. Thanks, Alfie. And man I'd love to eat greasy pizza with you one day at 2pm in pyjamas. (It'd have to be when I'm about 58, after the kids leave home. xx)

::

Hi Eden. I like you a lot because you encourage me, both in general and in the way of accepting more chocolates and lattes into my life. I'm a schoolteacher with students Max's age. 

I've gone to The Crazy Doctor for about a year because what was done to me as a child by other children made it very hard to believe that I'll still matter to anyone if I'm not perfect. Just admitting that took months of sessions. So I am really encouraged by the way you call it like it is. This school year: six brand new subjects to teach, including drama which means plays after school, and my tenure gets decided. Scared and nervous yet SO PROUD that I've learned that stress doesn't mean I'm not good enough. It took a lot of hard work. 

My weird boyfriend with PTSD from his time in the military asked me for a 'break' over the phone hours before we were supposed to celebrate the end of summer at the movies...the night before I went back for planning days. "We're stressing each other out so much, won't you feel better if you have a week to reevaluate?" UM NO ARSEHOLE I HAVE LAMINATING TO DO. 

So it's a huge accomplishment that I am able to say, "WOW that was wanky timing" instead of "Oh God, everything I do is shit and I'm shit and I have to try harder to not mess up or everything will fall apart." 

Last year there were a lot of pizzas ordered by delivery in my pajamas at 2 in the afternoon and cry sessions in the parking lot of WalMart, but the path leads somewhere even if it takes a long unglamorous time. 

At roundup last night the weirdest kids who are the scaredest about going into 7th grade snuck around to find their classrooms and I was still in there farting around trying to make the place look homey. I said, Oh my gosh, hi! You get to be in my class! Go check it out in there, it's a mess! Are you excited? Scared? Both! That's normal. You don't look scared at all. I'm glad we'll get to know each other! One kid picked up a weird ass popup book about pirates I thought no one would like and said COOOL. 

The circle of life doesn't fuck around. Love to you Eden. Thank you for your honesty.

::

Basically Alfie is the COOLEST TEACHER EVER. I wish she was teaching Max next year.

Previous Street Talks:

1. Noelene the Young
2. Megan the Mouse
3. Harpal the Australian
4. Darren the Artist
5. Jo the Interesting
6. John the Telstra Guy
7. Michael the Photographer
8. Peg the Lady
9. Jeff the Preacher Man
10. Andres the Cobbler
11. Honey the Prostitute
12. Mark the Masseur
13. You the Blog Reader
14. Jo the Podiatrist
15. Casey the Uni Student
16. Dream the Horse and Carriage Driver
17. Tamas the Hungarian Accordionist
18. The Dignified Trolley Ladies
19. Alex With The Studded Hot Pink Belt
20. Leaf The Fallen
21. Bel Of The Library
22. Jay And His Big Issue
23. Emma The Adult Shop Cashier
24. Teena, Saver Of Dogs
25. The Luna Park Face
26. Gary The Missing
27. Kristen at the Elephant Bean Cafe
28. Uncle Paul
29. Jess The Mama
30. The Two People At The Checkout

Street Talk: The Two People At The Checkout

Last week as I was standing in line at the checkout buying healthy snacks for the movies, I was behind a man who was buying a big bunch of flowers.

I always watch people - what they look like, how they behave, who I think they might be. As he got to the cashier, I noticed something was going on ..... they were looking at each other with kind of quizzical looks on their faces. Finally, one of them spoke first - I can't remember who.

They then launched into a really excited, animated discussion. Even though I had absolutely no idea what the hell they were saying, it was awesome. I wondered if the language was Indian, but it didn't sound like it. They kept asking each other questions and laughing and smiling at each other.

And you know what? It was fucking beautiful. I get so sick of seeing the same old rampant bullshit racism in this country from people. Watching two people from a different culture connect over a transaction was really lovely and inspiring. The man peeled off the price tag on his flowers. I wondered who he was going to give them to.

The cashier bid him a farewell in English and he responded in kind.

So then it was my turn with my stuff and she smiles at me and beeped them through silently. I couldn't help myself.

"What language were you two just talking? It sounded beautiful."

She smiled and told me that it was Nepalese, and they had worked out that they both came from the same region.

I wish I had something else to say to her but I couldn't think of anything except,

"Well, it sounded so beautiful. English is boring."

She laughed and we said goodbye and she moved on to the next customer.

Previous Street Talks:

1. Noelene the Young
2. Megan the Mouse
3. Harpal the Australian
4. Darren the Artist
5. Jo the Interesting
6. John the Telstra Guy
7. Michael the Photographer
8. Peg the Lady
9. Jeff the Preacher Man
10. Andres the Cobbler
11. Honey the Prostitute
12. Mark the Masseur
13. You the Blog Reader
14. Jo the Podiatrist
15. Casey the Uni Student
16. Dream the Horse and Carriage Driver
17. Tamas the Hungarian Accordionist
18. The Dignified Trolley Ladies
19. Alex With The Studded Hot Pink Belt
20. Leaf The Fallen
21. Bel Of The Library
22. Jay And His Big Issue
23. Emma The Adult Shop Cashier
24. Teena, Saver Of Dogs
25. The Luna Park Face
26. Gary The Missing
27. Kristen at the Elephant Bean Cafe
28. Uncle Paul
29. Jess The Mama

Street Talk: Jess the Mama.

(Guys, I can't go out on the street today. I'm sure you won't mind. xx)

Hi Eden,  

About a year ago you blogged about grief, having recently lost Jim and your beloved dog. I felt like I identified so closely with your grief as I'd had a miscarriage after ivf. I sent you an email, to which you replied with very kind words. 

I revisited your email more than once. I'm writing now to share that after traveling the rough road of infertility, we've been blessed with the arrival of our second child, Madison. She's 3 weeks old today. I can't help but feel loved up and wanted to share it around. 

I hope that you're doing ok. One foot in front of the other is sometimes the best way we can manage. Remember people can see you, even from afar. 

Take care Jess x

Previous Street Talks:

1. Noelene the Young
2. Megan the Mouse
3. Harpal the Australian
4. Darren the Artist
5. Jo the Interesting
6. John the Telstra Guy
7. Michael the Photographer
8. Peg the Lady
9. Jeff the Preacher Man
10. Andres the Cobbler
11. Honey the Prostitute
12. Mark the Masseur
13. You the Blog Reader
14. Jo the Podiatrist
15. Casey the Uni Student
16. Dream the Horse and Carriage Driver
17. Tamas the Hungarian Accordionist
18. The Dignified Trolley Ladies
19. Alex With The Studded Hot Pink Belt
20. Leaf The Fallen
21. Bel Of The Library
22. Jay And His Big Issue
23. Emma The Adult Shop Cashier
24. Teena, Saver Of Dogs
25. The Luna Park Face
26. Gary The Missing
27. Kristen at the Elephant Bean Cafe

Snowgum: The Best Holiday Rental House In Katoomba!

I want to live in this house because mine's too big:

Dave bought the corner block of this land YEARS ago and it it just sat there, patiently waiting for finance and re-finance and time and energy to build one of my favourite houses ever.

It's been hired out as rental accommodation up here in the Blueys for a while now, and is listed on Stayz HERE.

I keep telling Dave that WE should go over and have a weekend away. In our own town. I would move there in a flash.

Snowgum is about a five-minute drive to the Three Sisters at Echo Point, far away in time. It sleeps twelve, is fully-furnished and has a separate self-contained studio. Last Friday night I had a phone call from Dave asking me to go out there and drop off some more towels and wineglasses for the people who had hired it out for the weekend. It was cold, I had to take Rocco with me, and carefully manhandle six fancy wine glasses and I don't even DRINK wine. Annoying.

I knocked on the door, Rocco ran straight in, and the groups of families in there were SO LOVELY, having the best time. It was freezing out but the fire was roaring and the atmosphere was gorgeous. They asked if I wanted a wine and I said if I had a wine I'd never leave, but thank you anyway.

So. That's Snowgum. I told Dave I was going to write about it here and spruik and he said sure .... but I think I should take it a step further and offer a free weekend away for somebody, worth $950. (I think. Sometimes more, depending on the season.) All you have to do is leave a comment on why you need a weekend away - I'm so getting Dave to pick the winner because I get sad when I have to pick because not everyone can win.

Maybe, if you don't win you can email Elisa from Stayz HERE and give her a code of EDENLANDSENTME and she can give you 10% off any booking for the next three months? I'm making this all up as I go along.

(You should totally come up and stay and I can bring fancy wine glasses over and we can talk about the moon or the weather. Or how I need to go invoice Dave now because I think I just wrote him a sponsored post. HA!)

I'll get Dave to pick his winner in the next few days and announce it on the blog soon - I don't know when. (This is why I failed at professional blogging.)

PS Here's my Official Blue Mountains Tourism Campaign, if you're thinking of coming up.

www.rileyrenovators.com

Prevention Magazine. AND RED SHOES

A little while back I was invited to be a part of Prevention Magazines 40 Most Inspiring Australian Women Over 40. I was not long out of hospital and thought, maybe I shouldn't traipse all the way down to Sydney for a photo shoot when I feel so ..... yuck.

But I did. I try say yes to things wherever I can because one day I'll be dead and when you're dead you can't say yes.

So here's this months Prevention Mag:

Here's where I am:

And here's all that's left of the Wicked Witch of the East:

SERIOUSLY BEAUTIFUL. And I'm not even a shoe person ... had to take them off to walk through the lobby.

I feel incredibly honoured to be a part of this, that I was included with some Australian women from all different walks of life. I'm in the Creative section, which tells my blogging story and I LOVE how they mentioned my World Vision gigs.

Thank you for reading my blog - you, right there.  It's a strange thing to be a blogger. But to have people come here and tell me their stories back, or just to read and nod silently - I'm really grateful.

My blog became such a part of me that I'm not sure who I would have been without it.

In Sense.

People keep asking how I am so I thought I would tell you.

Shithouse! Awful! A weeping mass of humanity!

But who wants to read about that? Not me. Every day I light this particular incense I bought from this outrageously priced gift shop ... it was the cheapest thing there. I hate walking around shops and seeing price tags for a pair of leggings for $200. People are fucking starving in the world. (Yes I AM a self-righteous and contradictory arsehole.)

You know when you spend so long in a shop rummaging that you HAVE to buy something? The shopkeeper just kept staring at me like I was a thief. I was so incensed that I bought some incense for $3.95.

Went and picked up the boys from school. Took them to the park, rummaged around my head for the small talk with the school mums (there was a lot of rummaging that day.) Bought the boys a pack of chips and a chocolate milk. Then they had a punch-up in the car.

Sometimes I turn into Medusa Mum.

YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW GOOD YOU HAVE IT NOBODY EVER TOOK ME TO THE PARK AFTER SCHOOL AND BOUGHT ME LOLLIES OR EVEN LOOKED ME IN THE EYES PROPERLY GET TO YOUR ROOMS

We all slam doors as we get out. Fucks sake whose idea was it to have children? Wished I was in France.

Looked around at a dirty kitchen, the wet washing, had to start on dinner.

Took the incense out of my bag and lit it .... bang. The smell assaulted the place. It was wickedly good, and for the first time ever I realised that incense could be used as a tool to bring yourself right back to this very moment, the only one we ever truly have. It was sharp and sweet and quick to burn. It reminded me of Bali and Thailand and India .... how confused I felt when the Hindis burnt incense early in the day, how foreign as a foreigner to smell such strong smells first thing in the morning.

I get it, now. I burn it most mornings, like a kind of meditation tool. It reminds me that nothing bad is actually happening in this moment, that a lot of things are just big and explosive in my head and I need to let go as much as I'm able. (There's just so much!) I googled "Gulab" incense, thinking it would be some magical, mysterious blend of exotic things.

The word gulab means rose ... beautiful, plain ole rose.

If you watch the smoke long enough, you can see the spirits dancing.

Street Talk: Uncle Paul.

Todays Street Talk is not the usual Street Talk.

For about a year now I've been subscribed to the Listserve. It's a cool kind of thing, where one person each day "wins the lottery" of sending out an email to everybody who is signed up ... which is about 25,000 people and growing.

Basically it's just one big email list. The fascinating thing for me as a blogger is that I'm kind of "used" to writing for a big group of people. Seeing what some people spend their email on - their thoughts, beliefs, recipes - everything and anything - is interesting.

I confess to sometimes rolling my eyes at a few of them - mostly the INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES! by kids who are nineteen. But who am I to scoff where people are at? I was nineteen once ... and, quite full of inspirational quotes, actually.

Some of them are just plain weird. Or boring. So I delete as fast as they come in. Some are hilarious .... I will never forget one guy saying,

"You know what? Maybe not all of us are the sparkling stars we think we are."

There's been arrogant people, beautiful people, people who have changed their lives at the age of seventy. At the end of each email is the persons email address, if you want to contact them. I've never contacted anyone, until yesterday.

I asked a guy called Jason for permission to share his Listserve email on this blog. It's about his Uncle Paul.

::

My Uncle Paul was always a goofball. Growing up he was the one who would horse around with my cousins and me. He loved to go fishing, watch AHL from the front row of the arena while yelling as loud as he could at the opposing players and referees, and coaching his kids sports teams. 

Growing up my father would always take me to visit him and his son who was a couple years younger than me on the weekends, I knew exactly how long it took to get from our house to his by the time I was about 5. The four of us were the group of guys who started the family tradition of traveling to the Connecticut Lakes every June for a week of fishing, hiking, canoeing and camping without any electricity or running water, about 20 miles from any sort of civilization in our family. 

He was always the guy who wanted to use the biggest minnow from the trap in the hopes of catching the biggest lake trout. Me and Chris (my cousin) would run around the Springfield Civic Center watching the Falcons play amateur hockey while our fathers watched the game. Paul would buy the cheap seats and just go down to some empty seats on the glass as soon as the game started. From minute one until the end he would bang his mini hockey stick on the railing and heckle anyone who dared skate by. At first I was worried about getting thrown out of the arena just for being around him, then I began to think the ushers and security might have thought he was handicapped by the way he acted and the mullet he proudly sported. 

If I were to put a 1-10 number on Pauls ambition in life I would set him at a 4. He didn't appear to aspire to be any greater than he was and as a janitor in a elementary school no one would consider him professionally successful. My dad told me when they were in high school Paul excelled at metal fabrication, one of the better fabricators he has met and that was as a teenager. Unfortunately the lubricant used in commercial fabrication changed, Paul was allergic to some part of it and his career ended. Maybe that is when his professional ambition ended and his just took what he could get. How many elementary school janitors do you know that have about 20 years in the school system by the time they are in their 40s? 

As I grew up Paul kind of became my go to if I had some free time and was in his area, as well as being my first to call if I wanted to go on some little fishing excursion. I really loved being a young adult and driving him around, being able to make plans with him to do... whatever there was to do. When I spent the summer before I went into the military doing landscaping work I invited him along every day since he was out of school, when he declined I would just go buy him lunch from the classic diner down the road from his house. After that summer I left for the military and my closeness with everyone back home kind of started to dissipate. Don't get me wrong, I lost none of my love for him and the rest of my family but I spent the 95% of my time over 1000 miles away. I would visit once or twice a year, spread my time across all the friends and family I left behind. 

In 2008 I had left the military but stayed in the south far from home. I was working in a restaurant when my dad called me repeatedly in the middle of dinner rush, so I stepped outside to talk with him, knowing it was some sort of emergency. I knew he was a mess as soon as he picked up, he was on a business trip but something bad happened at home, he didn't have all the answers but had to tell me what he knew until he could get home on the next flight out of there. 

Paul had jumped off a bridge into the river, not just any bridge but the South Hadley bridge, probably 100 feet off the water. The real problem was the Dam. Not far down river, maybe 1/4 mile, was Holyoke dam, a massive dam that poured over violently, so violent that when I was young we would go below it and my dad would use it as an example of how dangerous water could be. Paul went over the dam. Someone had spotted his body a ways down river, broken in so many places I don't even want to remember, but alive. It didn't take long to realize it was a suicide attempt, one that should have been successful. He was held in the hospital for the required time but released to go home under the supervision of family. 

Everyone around crowded around him for support and comfort, and we all wanted to know why he would do something like that, his daughter was in high school, his son had just graduated, his life seemed to be about where he had wanted it for the last couple decades. I finally was able to talk with him the day after he was released, he sounded in pain and very medicated, I asked why he would do that and if there was anything I could do for him. I would do anything in the world for him so he could ask anything of me. He said he was confused and tired, rambled about car trouble for a little while then I had to let him go because it became incoherent. 

Before we hung up I made him promise me that if he ever thought of something like that again he needed to call me, he was my family and one of my best friends. 

Shortly after that there was a small unsupervised window while one person had to go to work and the next was coming over. He did it again, only this time it worked. 

On August 19, 2008 Paul D. Bliss killed himself. He left behind 2 children, 1 wife, a mother and father, 5 brothers and sisters, bunches nephews and nieces, friends, coworkers and people who he never even met but would have been better for being a part of his life. 

I don't tell you this so you go out and tell the people you care about that you love them. I just wanted to talk about Paul. It still hurts to talk about Paul with my family. It's hard, so I will tell a bunch of strangers. 

Thanks. 
Jason Bliss

::

There's so much that I could say but I won't. This is not my story but it resonated so deeply on so many levels. Thank you, Jason, for having the guts to share it. It's why I blog ... the stories. Storytelling. That ancient act, that art that will never die.

When Jason emailed his "yes" reply to me he apologised that it was so abrupt, but he had been inundated with emails from so many people and he had to reply to them all. THAT'S when I cried. People were touched, reaching out to him with words and some love, maybe just a "Hey, dude. I'm sorry."

That's all.

Previous Street Talks:

1. Noelene the Young
2. Megan the Mouse
3. Harpal the Australian
4. Darren the Artist
5. Jo the Interesting
6. John the Telstra Guy
7. Michael the Photographer
8. Peg the Lady
9. Jeff the Preacher Man
10. Andres the Cobbler
11. Honey the Prostitute
12. Mark the Masseur
13. You the Blog Reader
14. Jo the Podiatrist
15. Casey the Uni Student
16. Dream the Horse and Carriage Driver
17. Tamas the Hungarian Accordionist
18. The Dignified Trolley Ladies
19. Alex With The Studded Hot Pink Belt
20. Leaf The Fallen
21. Bel Of The Library
22. Jay And His Big Issue
23. Emma The Adult Shop Cashier
24. Teena, Saver Of Dogs
25. The Luna Park Face
26. Gary The Missing
27. Kristen at the Elephant Bean Cafe