A lot of problems in a relationship stem from the fact the woman in the relationship give too much credit to the man. The woman think that the man is as intuitive about emotions, feelings and things in general as she is. I’m here to tell you that we are built differently and that men are dense. Men need specifics, and men need directions. Communication is important. Don’t assume that we can guess what you are thinking. When you say that “we should know”, we really don’t. Otherwise, why would you be mad at us in the first place?
So if he did something wrong, tell him.
If he did something right, tell him.
You want this, you don’t like that. You don’t like that person. Why? He doesn’t know, so tell him.
Too slow, too fast, not enough, too much. Right there, no not there. Harder, softer.
Whatever, just tell him.
But hey, only once though. Twice maximum. Because a man is not a child. If he doesn’t learn or listen after you’ve told him more than once, why are you still with him? If you are still with him, then err … you got no excuses.
I stumbled across some fascinating posts from two different blogs over the past few weeks. Both talked about urban decay and deterioration. I’ll start off with the topic that most of us will be familiar with: shopping malls that have seen better days. The writer Brian Lutz talks about the neglect, the dwindling clientele and the general malaise of two Seattle area malls that you see here.
One is called Totem Lake Mall.
Originally built in 1973, The mall is split down the middle by a road, separating it into two halves (hence the name “Totem Lake Malls” as seen on the signs.) The mall has faced a long, slow decline since the late 1990s, accelerated by the recent loss of three of its major anchor stores, leaving most of the enclosed mall portion of the property vacant.
Several long-standing stores in the mall have now closed down after the mall’s management did not renew their leases. Among the recent closures are the Flavor Bakery and Cafe (which is apparently moving to a new location in Redmond,) the B. Dalton bookstore and the Orange Julius. According to the post, the Jamba Juice (which, as I noted in my earlier post, replaced the mall’s arcade just a few years ago) and the Seattle’s Best Coffee near this entrance are also going to close, although for the time being both of these are still operating.
The post from the second blog is about the abandoned Detroit Public Book Depository.
This is a building where our deeply-troubled public school system once stored its supplies, and then one day apparently walked away from it all, allowing everything to go to waste. The interior has been ravaged by fires and the supplies that haven’t burned have been subjected to 20 years of Michigan weather. To walk around this building transcends the sort of typical ruin-fetishism and “sadness” some get from a beautiful abandoned building.
…
The floor is littered with flash cards, workbooks, art paper, pencils, scissors, maps, deflated footballs and frozen tennis balls, reel-to-reel tapes. Almost anything you can think of used in the education of a child during the 1980s is there, much of it charred or rotted beyond recognition. Mushrooms thrive in the damp ashes of workbooks. Ailanthus altissima, the “ghetto palm” grows in a soil made by thousands of books that have burned, and in the pulp of rotted English Textbooks. Everything of any real value has been looted. All that’s left is an overwhelming sense of knowledge unlearned and untapped potential.
The posts from both blogs are infinitely fascinating, albeit a tinge depressing. There’s nothing more haunting and jarring than seeing man-made environments void of life and human presence. That is why the scenes in “28 Days Later” and “I Am Legend” where the characters walk about empty urban environments are so effective. The empty streets of London and New York - wow.
Here’s something else that I stumbled on whilst researching this topic. Have you ever wondered what would happen to our planet when humans suddenly disappear?
If man were to vanish from the face of the Earth today, his footprint on the planet would linger for the mere blink of an eye in geological terms.
Within hours, nature would begin to eradicate its impact. In 50,000 years all that would remain would be archaeological traces. Only radioactive materials and a few man-made chemical contaminants would last longer — an invisible legacy.
If you are still not feeling depressed, here are a couple more links to finish off this post with. Both are talking about a documentary titled “Life After People”.
A female friend said that cheating of any kind, whether it be physical or emotional are equally bad. Not that I condone cheating but I think differently. I believe that the occasional cheating of the physical kind, as a form of relief or because he can’t get it at home, with a prostitute is the lesser of two evils. The other evil being a mistress that he sees very often. I’m sure that at least some women would agree with me: better that he eats take-away occasionally than him preferring to eat someone else’s cooking exclusively.
Because if the problem is purely sexual then it can at least be overcome, provided both are willing to change and are still attracted to each other. Ignoring financial and family reasons, I strongly believe that sexual dissatisfaction is grounds for a break up or at least a separation. Either those or the man cheats. It’s not fair to expect the man to just forgo sex, unless he chooses so willingly for the sake of the relationship.
Then there’s another avenue of relief for men which I feel is unfairly stigmatised and that is porn. Men grew up with porn, that’s an undeniable fact. To us, there’s always been two kinds of sex - with a real women or without. When it’s without, it’s almost always with the aid of porn. Just because we are now with you, a real life woman, it doesn’t mean we’d abandon porn completely. And just because we like porn, it doesn’t mean we like doing it with you less. If it is, then it’s a problem.
If the sex life is satisfactory, and you just happen to stumble upon his stash of porn in the closet or on his computer (why are you snooping on his computer?!), don’t make a big deal out of it. If you make him feel guilty about it, then he’s just going to feel repressed. And repressed men are resentful. And on the totem pole of all things bad, I’m sure porn ranks lower than going to a prostitute or having a mistress right? Let him has his porn!
Anyways, I guess I should conclude this series of semi-coherent thoughts about sex here. So what am I trying to say? I’m saying that the sexual game is a complex one and there’s no black and white. Sometimes men are jerks who want their cake and eat it too, and sometimes women over-analyse things even when things are going ok.
And I guess I’m also saying this: my perfect woman has an open-mind regarding my collection of porn. I’m not asking for a lot, am I?
Last night, Simon, my cousin Yvonne and I ventured out onto the Perth Esplanade to watch the annual fireworks show on Australia Day - the Lotterywest Skyworks.
There were masses of people everywhere.
When the show ended, it was a surreal experience walking back into the city on the roads with all these people.
Here’s a clip of the final set of fireworks, going out with a big bang.
I’ve seen the fireworks multiple times on location now, on opposite sides of the river. Although it’s similar every year - fireworks are fireworks - there’s something to be said about sitting amidst a massive crowd staring up at the sky, being mesmerised together. Even though it was hot and humid on the walk there and back, and whilst being there, it was a most enjoyable 30 minutes.
2:23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
2:24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
Their opinion of it?
We’ve all been there. You’re walking along, minding your own business, when a gang of cocky, young bastards start hurling abuse at you. Most of us would just keep walking, or maybe, yell some insults back or flip them the bird. Elisha (commonly regarded as the Luke Skywalker to the Prophet Elijah’s Obi-Wan Kenobi), however, decides to take it one step further. Invoking the name of God, he summons motherfucking bears to come and claw the shit out of them.
What kind of fantastic world is this, where snowmobiles are towed along by tiny polar bears? Oh, what adventures they must have in this ridiculous fucking land!
Little known fact: every one of these polar bears is named ‘Wesley.’
And err, Moorcock. Hee hee. More campy cheesiness on the post.
#6 and #8 are especially true. Nothing that a woman loves more than to see other women being bitchy and catty, and nothing brings that out more than those two things. It’s true! See the post for the full reasonings of those points above.
I only know Heath Ledger from his movies but because he’s from Perth, it feels like he was more than a stranger on film and TV. Because he comes back to Perth at least once a year to see his parents who live a few suburbs away from me, it felt like I could have bumped into him at the local mall even.
The first thing that hit me when I saw the news this morning was: it can’t possibly be suicide. I felt that even if it’s suicide it could have only been that the sleeping pills that he had been taking, Ambien has been known to cause depression. I thought that he can’t possibly be depressed about anything else otherwise.
He loved his daughter Matilda, whom he had with Michelle Williams. Plus he sounded genuinely happy when he was back here during Christmas with girlfriend, Perth model Gemma Ward. He’d called a local reporter and left this message for him:
“I don’t know whether it’s a conscious thing or an unconscious thing, giving me space and respecting my privacy,” he told the newspaper.
“It’s just been awesome.
“And I’ve had the most beautiful time back here and being able to see all my friends and family, let alone the press and the people within the community of Perth, it’s been so lovely.
“It’s really enabled me to be a boy again from home and feel like I’d never left.
“It’s truly been an incredibly therapeutic and a much-needed trip home and just that little touch has made it all that more special to me.”
The other possibility is accident. When speaking about playing The Joker on the next Batman film, Heath mentioned about needing help to sleep and that one tablet doesn’t do it for him.
“Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” One night he took an Ambien, which failed to work. He took a second one and fell into a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing.
Until the coroner’s report is available, we don’t know how long he was dead for (his body was found around 3pm NY time). For all we know he could have died during the night before. Was he that desperate for sleep that he took more than he should? Did the pills and his pneumonia cause a bad reaction?
Whatever the case, a lot of people will miss him especially here in Western Australia. A goddamn bloody shame when his turn as The Joker in “The Dark Knight” is so highly anticipated.
Last Saturday night at Ambar for Kid Kenobi/Malente, I bumped into another stranger who recognised me from my photos and videos of the clubbing events and raves that I have attended in the past two years. We talked for a while and one question he asked stuck with me:
All those photos and videos that you take at these things, how do you have fun?
My answer:
Well, I don’t. Not completely anyway.
This is a question that I have pondered about before - Is blogging cramping my “real life”? The gist is that when I’m worrying about the timing and the positioning of taking good pictures and video, I can’t concentrate on enjoying myself. I’m not getting my money’s worth either. Even my friends have noticed this and they’ve asked me many times to just put the camera away and enjoy myself.
I had persisted with it because quite a few people have recognised me at events and have complimented me on my photos. Most have said to me that it’s great how I helped them remember an excellent day or night out. Plus I usually get a lot of web search hits during the days immediately after the event. All this feeds into the cycle: page views and compliments from strangers make me want to do it, and as I do it even more, the more page views I get and the more strangers recognise and talk to me. It’s a buzz.
But I’ve come to realise that most of the events have taken place at the usual venues, and even I’m bored from taking photos at the same places. So unless it’s a truly special event or at a location that I haven’t shown you guys yet, I’ve decided to put my camera away for the events that I go to this year. We’ll see what happens next year.
