YES!

I'm going to see him. Adam Lambert. Live. In concert. I bought my ticket online a few hours ago. I'm in "The Pitt", down the front, the most expensive tickets you can get. Thank god the exchange rate is good now, almost 3. If I could have paid to meet him, I would have.

I should be ecstatic. I'm not and I don't know why! My son is angry with me, he doesn't want me to go and accused me of being selfish and not thinking of my family. Hmmm... I told him that if mummy is happy, then the family is happy and by the way, I think of my family every single hour of every single day - if only he knew. He wasn't having a bar of it. He said some more mean things and I told him to go to bed, only to have to rescue him later from his bout of uncontrollable sobbing. I haven't heard him cry so hard in a very long time. He'll be OK though. It's just going to take a little while for him to get his head around it. I told him that even though he's angry, it won't change what I'm going to do.

My daughter is OK with it though and so is ex who spent an hour with me last night talking about the possible logistics of getting up there and back again on my own, safely. That was nice of him I guess. He said I should go and even offered to pay for it. I told him I wanted the best tickets and he didn't even hesitate. He also offered to drive up on the same day just to pick me up afterwards if that was what I wanted him to do. We'll plan later on what is going to happen.

But the important thing is, I'm going and I can't wait.

Defensive dancing

Did you know there's such a thing? I can do it really well. So says my dance instructor. On Tuesdays my two friends and I go to a dance class. We learn a bit of line dancing and some other steps, but there are no boots, no-one puts their hands in their pockets, the music is not country and the instructor is about as far from being a cowboy as anyone could be. Instead, there are 4 odd people. One tall, white chick, one short Chinese woman, one musically-talented, socially awkward Chinese guy and the gay instructor. We have a good time together. We are comfortable poking fun at each other, which is just as well because there's plenty to poke fun at.

The instructor is a man, but oddly, sounds like a woman - unless he's clearing his throat, in which case, his voice deepens. He has a dancer's presence, elegant and passionate and a lovely tight dancer's toosh, which I can't help looking at, since I'm following his feet and have to look down that way anyway. Really! His long black hair, tied back into a ponytail, swishes around whenever he pivots. He's good this guy, really good. He can take a dance and turn it into something wonderful and when he does, nothing else exists for him. He will dance til he dies. I love watching him dance. I love his passion for it. Passion is what makes life worth living. I pay him RM50 a month to come and watch him teach us. When he teaches me, he is patient and fun. He can feel my self-consciousness. He notices my awkwardness, yet encourages me to continue. He doesn't care that my hands feel like sandpaper, or that I've stepped on his toes. He laughs at me when I'm concentrating on my feet to get the steps right and my left hand, which I don't know what to do with, forms into a fist, making it look like I want to punch his lights out. He feigns being scared of me and giggles like a girl!

It's not his lights I want to punch out, of that I am sure. Someone else's maybe, but not his. He's too fragile. Too nice. He's tall for an Asian, about my height, maybe a little more. I have to really listen when he talks because his accent is heavier than most and the 'highness' of his voice adds another layer that makes it difficult to understand him. It doesn't really matter if I understand him or not, as long as I can watch his feet and follow him around his worn, chequered dance floor.

I almost have my feet sorted by the way. I can follow his lead and he's a good leader. He makes me look like I know what I'm doing and that's something. Now that I've learned the actual steps, I need to look up and make eye contact. It's more difficult than I expected. It's awkward and way out of my comfort zone. As he tells me to look at him, eyes up, look ahead, I literally break out into a sweat and my breathing shallows out. Gay as he might be, I'm not used to being physically close to a man and I'm finding it a bit of a challenge. It's intimidating, having someone else in my personal space that is not someone I know *in that way*. I don't like it much, it makes me nervous and then I stumble and step on his feet. Maybe I do like it and that's the problem! (LOL) He tells me I need to be elegant and I think to myself, you have no idea what you're up against if you want to make me elegant. I laugh at the thought and then tell him he's got 12 months to work with me. Only 12, and in that time, I expect him to teach me how to be elegant. It's a tough call. I'm the proverbial bull in the china shop. I always feel big and clumsy, except when I'm swimming. Elegant, me? Hah!

Still, I will try. I'll try to iron out the awkwardness, work on the eye contact, relax the fist a bit. I really just need to relax and listen to the music. Not think so much. I'm going to keep going because I always tell the kids "if something is hard for you, or makes you uncomfortable, you probably need to do it". So I will practise what I preach. And I do enjoy it. The company is good, we have fun and we seem to get along.

I feel for this guy, my instructor. Someone with his talent and passion deserves more and I think he's been overlooked because of his orientation. His business has dropped a lot since the economic meltdown, so he's not earning much. But even without the drop in students, I don't think he was doing that well. He actually lives at the studio, in a room behind it, which is on the 3rd floor of a shop house. The actual studio is his lounge room with his television, stereo system and a small bookshelf squashed into a corner. In front of that there's one chair which I'm guessing is what he uses when he watches tv. The walls are covered in dance paraphernalia - pictures of elegant dancers and their partners in stunning sequinned costumes. There's a section that is entirely devoted to certificates. It looks like he's hung every judges certificate that he ever got up there. Posters old and new are crammed around it, covering the bare grey walls behind. Then, if you look closely, you can spot bits and pieces of exotic dance costumes, a silver cane, a scarf with bells hanging off it, gold dance shoes, a feather ruffle thingy. His office is a single desk and next to this is a row of plastic outdoor chairs that his students use. The main wall is mirrored, floor to ceiling and there's a dancers bar along the adjacent wall, under the window. Nothing matches and some of it's been here for years and years, but it's his home and really, I couldn't imagine him anywhere else.

When I come back home, I'm going to miss this quirky little place, with this strange person, of whom I've grown quite fond of.

Living together alone.

It's 11pm, the two smaller ones are in bed. Not asleep. the two bigger ones are in their bedrooms, on their respective computers. Alone. It's lonely for both of us I guess, though I know that he enjoys the solitude more than I do. We've got the skill of living together and yet not being in each others lives down to an art.

I knock on his door, wait for an answer. He replies and I open the door just enough to let my voice, but not my person, through. The kids want to say goodnight, I tell him. OK he says, and gets up. He passes me in the hall but their is no exchange, no eye contact, no acknowledgement. We are just two people in the hall, saying good night to the two kids who make our connection permanent. When he says goodnight, he is happy, smiling and warm. The kids laugh and giggle and hug him. I look on awkwardly remembering when the hugs were for me. Women have such long memories. I can't help it. The memories are like physical stamps on my being. When he stands up again, he goes quiet, almost like he's shutting down. Again no eye contact. No goodnight. I almost call him back, wanting to say that tomorrow he can have the car, but I stop myself. If he wants it, he's going to have to work for it. He can talk to me, if he wants it. Otherwise, I'll take it and assume that he's got his day sorted, but really knowing that he hasn't.

I snap out of my thoughts and put him aside. I focus on the kids. It's always about the kids for me, absolutely always. I do my own goodnight routine and switch off the lights, check the aircon settings. 20 degrees C, swing on, fan on full. It's stay that way til midnight when I will check again, set the timer to 4 hours, turn the ceiling fan on and the aircon fan down low. By the time I get out of their room and into the loungeroom, all is silent and I could swear it's just me and the kids. That's how it is most nights.

Just me and the kids.

Holiday pics anyone?

I hope you have broadband. I haven't modified any of the photos so I think they're quite large.

The view from our window.

The very large room.

Down the waterslide.

Pool view.

That's about it. Seriously. There are no group shots, something we totally avoid nowadays and this is from my camera. I think ex has some on his phone, but I guess a few is better than nothing.

Holiday in JB - part 2.

In the last episode, I was headed for the car to take the kids for a movie. We hopped into the car, and as fate would have it, turned the key and nothing happened. I looked around and spied that the LIGHTS HAD BEEN LEFT ON. It would have been easy to go ballistic but I didn't. I did get annoyed but not because the battery was flat but because of the things he said after he came down to try and get it sorted out.

This was not my fault but I apparently contributed to it because:

a) I'd distracted him when we came back from lunch by telling him that he shouldn't park in the member's area and he had to back out and park somewhere else.

b) We didn't help him by reminding him to turn the lights of in the first place. He directed this comment to our daughter and she was flabbergasted that he thought she'd know that he'd even had them on.

Sometimes he's such a hypocrite. He often used to talk to me about how I wouldn't take responsibility for my mistakes and he comes out with this. Can you see how he just doesn't make sense to me anymore? There was no apology, no admission on his part although he did come down and wait with us while trying to borrow jumper leads from the hotel security staff. I know if it had been me who'd left the lights on, I would have been apologizing like there was no tomorrow. Maybe there's nothing to apologize for, maybe that's the norm instead of someone like me who tends to over-apologise.

In the end we took a taxi to the shopping mall which although 5 minutes away, took us 20 because of the traffic jam. Mid traffic jam, opposite the mall we were supposed to go to, I paid the fare, jumped out with the kids, grabbed them both by the arm and ran the full length of the shopping mall to get to the cinema, where they let us in and we ended up only missing 5 minutes of the movie. Well I missed 10 because I was sweating so much it was fogging up my 3D glasses. No matter, it was a kids movie (Cats and Dogs - the revenge of kitty galore).

The kids enjoyed the movie and afterwards we three ate pizza for dinner. In the meantime, ex and the friend who was supposed to go to dinner with him had gone to buy a new battery and install it into the car. When we'd finished dinner, instead of continuing on with his night out, he came to pick us up instead. On the way back, we stopped at an unusual place called the Games Cafe. You sit, drink, eat and play board games, or darts, or wii or whatever you want. We went for our daughter, she loves this kind of thing. We ended up playing a fast-paced electronic version of Monopoly over wedges and cold drinks. With everyone involved, it was a good way to spend some quality time with the kids.

After we got back and got ready for bed, ex went down for drinks at the bar (alone) and I looked after the kids. I guess he needed to de-stress after the battery fiasco. After all, he did get sweaty and I think he needed to wash up twice! Heavens!

The next morning we slept late, and after a simple breakfast, went down for a swim. Breakfast was milo, crackers and biscuits for the kids, coffee and museli biscuits for me and (sliced) cake and coffee for ex in bed, because there was no room at the tiny dining table. During the swim, ex came down to join us in the pool. He doesn't like swimming much but it was like he was trying to avoid me in the pool. He doesn't realise it but sometimes his feelings about me just radiate outfrom him. I know he's embarrassed by me because I'm overweight and yet, not self conscious in my bathers (I'm a long time swimmer so maybe that explains it). He should look at himself, he's no Mr Universe. Even at 84kgs, he sports a pot belly when he's standing up. At his worst, he was 98kgs and I still loved him and never dreamed of putting him down because he was overweight. The worst I ever thought about that was "gee, you're getting a little heavy when you're on top" :) - that was it, that was my worst about his weight. I still wanted to be near him, still wanted to touch him and I accepted him.

So that was the swim. Feeling ever the burden, we packed up and went back to the room together rather than me going first, because that was a stupid idea for reasons I didn't find out about. After packing up and checking out, we went for lunch at the Golden Rain restaurant and it was yummy again. Daughter got shitty with ex because he told her that she needs to start ordering for herself, you know, learning life skills and all that and when she didn't do it fast enough, ordered for her anyway - and it ended up being a spicy dish so it was a completely inappropriate choice for her. He means well, but many times he doesn't get it right - as it is with all of us, but we don't pretend otherwise.

So that was the holiday. I think I handled it well. We had a good time, no one melted down and most importantly, the kids have some nice memories.

Phew!

The holiday - 2.5 days in JB - taken from my standard paper and pencil journal - Part One.

The room is enormous. Really it is. The length of it could accommodate 4 king size beds and that's not including the bathroom. There are 2 king size beds here and I'm lying on one of them, which I will share with my daughter later on. Ex is lying on the second bed, which he will share with our son. He has brought us here on a 3D2N family holiday. We left early this morning, at around 8.30, with his mum in tow. She came with us to do her visa for India so that meant instead of perusing bookstores for some holiday reading, we filled out forms for her at the India visa office. Not that I minded terribly. She's getting on now and although fiercely independent, it's good we can help her in some ways.

There were a few miscommunications between ex and his mum and I know I'm taking note of them because I always want to prove to myself that it's not just me he has a problem with. He thought she wanted to stay with us at the golf resort, she never said she wanted to. Just as well, because there is no sofa for ex to sleep on, as he'd planned to do. In fact, although the room is huge and looks out onto a lovely view of the golf course through a floor to ceiling wall of glass, it's lacking in the furniture department. This is a room for two men and their golf clubs. That's it. There is only two of anything - cups, towels, coffee packets, mugs - and anything extra comes at a cost. It's a good thing I packed extra mugs, coffee and food.

We dropped his mum off at her friends place and 'lo and behold, I actually navigated us there from the old map we had. It's the first time, and I'm not joking, that I've been successfully able to navigate from a map in this damned country. I even knew which direction we were coming from (I often lose my bearings) and where we were headed. YES! However, my feelings of joy were soon brought back down to earth when we arrived at the condo and I found that the special walnut cake ex had bought for this family was squashed because someone had placed the vomit kit (towels and plastic bags) on top of it. Ex wasn't impressed and assumed it was my fault (because everything is) and shook his head, smiled condescendingly, rolled his eyes and quietly thought to himself "you can't do anything right without my help"!

I let it go. I had to, as I have to every time. We went from there to the golf resort and again ex got the chance to do his little "what would you do without me" routine after I'd missed seeing the ten foot high sign that said "AUSTIN HILLS GOLF RESORT".

So we arrived and went out exploring after the kids had a bath and I'd showered. I love the hotel showers here and the kids always opt for a bath as the first thing to do on a holiday because our shower at home is pissy and we've never had a bath tub. We stopped for dinner at a restaurant of my choice and the food was fabulous - chicken chop (breadcrumbed chicken) with a variety of sauces served with rice, a tofu dish and some pork. Delish and cheap. Good choice Mummy.

I tried very hard during the holiday to be happy and light, aware of my surroundings, not clumsy and at the same time, take care of the kids. This only makes me look like a stressed out dill, I'm sure. I let a lot of the little things go - the eye rolling, the t-t-tsks, and the "oh-well" half smile that just tells me that he can't expect anything more than that from me, can he?

The thing is, it's not like he's any 'better' - who cuts their cake with a coffee stirrer (albeit a longish plastic spoon thingy, which had a sharpish horizontal edge) when there's a perfectly good pen knife around (albeit in the car glove box and I'd have to get it) When I offered the pen knife he looked at me like I'd offered him a chainsaw. I mean, there was literally nothing else to use, not even a spoon - pen knife or coffee stirrer - and he chooses the stirrer which eventually breaks and I secretly use the pen knife to cut the remaining cake, so we don't have to talk about it again. He had his cake and he ate it (too) without so much as a "hey, how did this cake get cut so nicely..."

It's strange the things we focus on - these are small things in the big picture but they are the things he focusses on too - these types of things are what annoys him. The way I handle the kids at lunch, not packing cutlery and (a big obvious one I admit) not dressing the kids warmly enough for shopping (it gets damn cold in there sometimes, especially for my skinny little son).

My daughter is starting to pick up on the things he thinks about me too and she's dead on. At dinner that day, the 'dress warmly' thingy came up and ex looked at me and was thinking "why can't you think of that?" and daughter spotted it, saying to her father "you were thinking that why can't mummy thin...." and she stopped, realising that she'd probably overstepped a boundary. Ex pushed her to finish the sentence and she wouldn't so I stepped in and told him that she knew what he was thinking. I tried to make light of it because I didn't want her to be embarrassed but she was right! He's so obvious.

That night, ex and son slept early while my daughter and I stayed up and played a board game. I didn't sleep well that night because ex's snoring, which I'm no longer used to, kept me awake. Daughter was up early the next morning and we went for a walk along the road by ourselves. It's funny but as time has gone on, I feel less and less safe here. Or more accurately, more conscious of my aloneness. I don't like it and it restricts what I can do. I need to be aware and watchful, but I know it's the same in every country. The world's not as safe as it used to be.

During the day, we swam, went shopping, out for lunch and planned to see a movie at night, sans ex. He was going to catch up with his friends and I decided not to say anything because I'm a coward and didn't want to spoil the holiday for the kids. So as I headed for the car that night ready to take the kids to the movies...

Week ending

It's been a week like most others. Exam results have come back and the kids passed the bloody things. I'm OK, no meltdowns lately, despite all the questions that keep raising themselves. We are preparing to go to Austin Hills Golf Resort Johor Baru on Tuesday where the plan is to hang out as a family with the kids and just relax really. That's the plan... but we all know that plans can go to shit with very little provocation.

My girlfriend back home asked my why I needed to go and I thought about it. I don't need to go and I could pull out. But it would weird the kids out and they'd start whining in a way that's hard to say no to. And I'd have no car here for three days, which is never a good thing. And all my friends are going away, so I'll be here by myself and that, people, is never a good thing. That sense of emptiness and having 'nothing' here is so overwhelming that I'd rather risk a trip with ex and the kids. No, better to go I think. And ex has been ok lately, so I think I can manage it. Of course, he's out of the house most of the time. In fact, we hardly see him, but he does spend some time with the kids at night, after he comes back from the office. He drives our daughter to school a couple of mornings each week and tries to spend time with our son playing lego. Which is better than nothing I suppose. He's at the office again today, a Sunday, but I think more because we are going away during the week, so he's doing some catch-up. So he should.

There's something I need to say to him though but I will have to wait for late at night, in case he doesn't take it well - then we have all night to meltdown and recover in time to meet up with the kids again next morning. I need to say something like - please remember this is a family trip, time to spend with the kids. I don't think it's appropriate for you to go out til all hours and see your 'friends' while we are there and then spend most of the next day sleeping while I look after the kids. And if you want to take them out on your own, I'm happy to stay back and stay out of your way but you've got to tell me you want to go on your own and not assume I know.

Uggh, oh how I love talking to him.

*

Adam Lambert is coming to Malaysia. (He is in Melbourne too, but I'm not even close to being there when he is). You think I'd be thrilled - I'm not because I don't think I can make it there and I really want to be. It's on a Thursday, mid-week, three hours away from where I live. I'm also a little self-conscious that an overweight, mid 40's mother of two is not the kind of person that you'd see attending these concerts - not here anyway. I'm about as far away from being a 20's-something Glambert as anybody could be - and not just in age. Glitter is not my middle name and although I'm the proud owner of 6 black t-shirts, none of them have glitter or sparkles on them! :) But I do still love his music and his approach to his life about what is happening to him. He's a very grounded individual and when he camps it up, it's meant to be ridiculous and he knows it is. I love that he doesn't take himself too seriously and is enjoying every moment of his tour because he knows how lucky he is to be living the rock star life.

*

Spoke to mum this week. I speak to her every week and we talk about nothing really, just the daily crap, as we called it. But this time she did something she only rarely does - she voiced her opinion about something I've done and it doesn't agree with mine. You see, I've bought my sister's car so that I can have a car when I get back for a holiday and for the time when I move back. It cost me 2.5K which I had and it's in good condition. It's a 7 seater van thing and while I don't like vans, I can see the practicalities of having one for this time in my life. I can put things in it - suitcases, boxes, people, kids, stuff. Mum thinks I'm jumping the gun and was hesitant about voicing her opinion (but did anyway) and that it was too soon to be doing things like that. I think she's trying to protect not just me, but herself. She wants me home, yesterday. And I know she's had to shelve her real feelings about me being here so that she can come to terms with my decision and be able to speak with me 'like everything is normal'. It's been hard for her, I can appreciate that, mostly I think because she's missed so much of the kids younger years. And she doesn't want to get her hopes up that we are finally coming back. I don't either, because we all know nothing is 100% certain. Anything could happen. But I've got to be positive about this. I've got to make it happen and keep my focus on it. So, I will save some money if possible. I will look for schools for the kids when I'm back in December. I will buy a car as soon as possible. Next year I will pack and start sending stuff back for my sister to put in storage for me. I will find out what I need to do to become an active 'casual relief teacher' again. I will do the things I need to do as part of my commitment to myself to get back home and move on with my life. If I get disappointed, and I may, I will deal with that when it comes.

In the meantime, it's on with life here. I'm taking the kids out this afternoon to get some things we need for our little holiday. We'll visit my mother in law and sister in law if time permits. I've got housework and daughter has to finish her homework before we go. So we're busy, busy and reasonably happy.

Cheers to you all.