Jodie + Jodie = Jodie

In a never ending universal conundrum it turns out that my name is Jodie. Surprising huh! I had a best friend at school called Jodie, I worked with a girl called Jodie, and I used to go to a restaurant on the other side of the planet with a girl called Jodie. And to bring it all back to date I have now ended up with a woman I now consider my sister who is strangely called Jodie. It’s enough to make you want to change your name or at least add an H to it.

So it seems that I never knew what happened to my school friend Jodie. I was recently asked if I could find one person from my past who would it be and in all consideration it would always be a resounding – Jodie. The answer is often met with a raised eyebrow whilst consideration is given to the fact that I am referring to myself in the third person and they leave my answer to contemplate the fact that I would like to meet myself in the past. Whilst this may or may not be plausible even to my level of strangeness I am certainly not willing to meet myself, future or past, and I will leave that to people who chew on tofu and rub themselves in patchouli oil. You see it goes a little something like this.

When you are odd you tend to meet up with odd or in fact team up with odd. This has been the story of my life, meet up with odd, become best friends with odd and stay odd forever. Of course there is little in the past to differentiate with my future in this regard and hence why I gravitated toward my best friend at high school Jodie, we were odd or at least I felt I was.

We loved all the same things and were virtually inseparable which suited me fine as I enjoyed her company during the darkest of years in my family life and what hell that was and became. Perhaps to this end she probably never knew that her friendship with me and the time we spent together away from my home in particular were some of the best of my teenage years. They were carefree and exploratory and never had to be explained and I never did. That is until it all came to a crashing end through no fault of my own or at least that was my perception of it. There is no need to loath you with the story of how it all came undone and I still find it hard to think about the night it all came apart but suffice to say that ultimately it ended my friendship with Jodie and a little piece of this Jodie also ended as well.

I was horrified at what occurred, I guess I still am even more than twenty years later some things just don’t really get better with time. I was embarrassed and knew things were irrevocably changed forever I wanted things to be different but they never were or could be. Of course I tried in vain to make the friendship work despite the very obvious fact that it was clear it couldn't but it plagued me. So from that time on one of the best friends that I had was gone and unfortunately for me it hurt a lot. I thought she was the coolest person I had ever known. She was one of a kind and I always felt second fiddle to her she knew the coolest clothes to wear and the latest next best thing but even if I felt she was cooler than me she never made me feel I wasn't cool like her, she always made me feel great about being me and I loved that. I always trailed and struggled with trying to be cool. Guess I am still trying. Aren't we all.

Memories are a grand pleasure of life and I often smile when I think of the times we spent together, doing the things “not normal” teenagers do. We loved boys and we listened to music, okay okay I loved Peter Kapusi she was smart enough to love all boys. We had sleep over’s and concocted great ideas to order home delivery pizza when it first got “invented” just to see which lovely boy would deliver it, umm a girl of course. Laugh! We damn near almost pissed our pants. We dreamt of nights spent with Pseudo Echo and watched every gore film we could get our hands on. We wore clothes that nobody else did, we had hairstyles that nobody else did and we certainly never ever ventured to listen to “their” music so trips to Disco City were executed to avoid anything untoward, we went to clubs that nobody else did and we did it all before anybody else did. I loved the fact that she was alternative and I hope she enjoyed this about me. I can still listen to certain music and remember what it felt like to be me back then. We spent hours planning out our attire for school dances and even more time analysing and picking apart the whole evening afterwards. We had mud fights and food fights and laughed ourselves into stupors and with the naivety of youth I never thought it would end. It did. It was sad and devastating.

I hope she has all the riches that one deserves from life and I know that she would never settle for a boring UN alternative life. I have travelled the globe and met thousands of people and I know that I will never meet another Jodie, when it comes to a childhood friend you never do, it’s just the way life is. I also know that she is the one person who might get a laugh out the fact that twenty years on, Peter Kapusi finally contacted me and he found me through this blog. I never would have thought that this blog could yield such a catch but after reading one line that I had randomly written bang there was the email from Peter Kapusi that I had waited a whole high school career for and nobody could have understood better or laughed along with me more at the irony than my dear friend Jodie.

So I am Jodie and I have a best friend called Jodie and I had a best friend called Jodie who may never know how much our friendship meant to me.

My Hot Pharmacy/Chemist/Drug Store Guy!

I now live at the pharmacy. Yes that is right ever since I delved into the world known as motherhood I spend every waking hour working out where my local pharmacy/chemist/drugstore is and what time they are open and what time they will close. I have been known to call them up 2 minutes before closing time begging for the last bottle of baby cough medicine then bolting in my spewed upon clothes and making it just in time to watch them turn the lights off. So now my latest dilemma is the hot looking pharmacist. If presumably there is a higher god or intelligence or who knows what then surely the laugh is on me. It seems only when I have to buy something that I would rather not have to ask a hot looking male pharmacist for that I am forced to.

Today I had just such an experience and my thought was "Where in fucks name are those annoying women who always hassle the shit out of you when you are walking around looking like you don't know what you are doing".

I tell you I have travelled the world and it seems I've been into every type of drug selling booth from Sydney to Reykjavik and believe me there is always one of those women who is just aching to sell you some unnecessary vitamins. But where were they when I had to tell the hot pharmacist about my vagina?. So I sometimes wish I could revert back to my childhood because when I was a kid growing up in the suburbs of Sydney there was a chemist called Cincotta in a dainty little town called Merrylands. There was nothing you could not get at Cincotta, camera's, Donkey Kong, chocolates, dolls, flashes for your camera oh and film, remember that stuff, film, and not to mention drugs. Oh and the whole lot could be gift wrapped for free. Cincotta was open all the time and everyone and I mean everyone who lived around there remembers going to Cincotta and picking out there Birthday/Christmas presents. Of course I always chose liquid morphine. So Mr. Cincotta, the actual pharmacist, was thankfully an old man who rarely ventured from behind the counter and he left it to his swarm of "ladies" to assist customers with itchy twats.

So to the hot looking pharmacist please never walk around the counter to assist me ever again because I only end up walking out with a whole heap of shit that I really don't need to avoid telling you what I really had to purchase. Thanks..........

Dear Me......

(Dear Me is an idea inspired by a book entitled, Dear Me - A Letter to My Sixteen Year Old Self, edited by Joseph Galliano, published by Simon & Schuster in which celebrities give advice to their teenage selves. Here is my letter.)

Let me start off by telling you that your life now is no reflection of how your life will turn out. For all of your brooding it will never reflect what is going to happen to you. So all the countless hours you spend dreaming of your future and how it will turn out is nothing in comparison to how good it will be. It is so much better than you could ever dream and dream you do my girl, dream you do. Still you need to know the truth first off and it's going to be brutal. I know that once this is out of the way and you see reason you will understand it is just the way life is and being reasonable is something you are very good at.

First of all, you will never marry Peter Kapusi! Harsh aren't I?. Secondly you will also never marry Dave Gahan, Morten Harket or Julian Lennon. Sorry but the amount of hours you wile away on them will amount to nothing except for the fact it teaches you valuable lessons which is always a good thing, right? So now that is out of the way and you have finished crying yourself into a stupor and emerged from your cupboard you can find out the good stuff.

You will travel the world my dear ending up in far reaching places not least of all Iceland and Japan! I know Iceland, you probably don't even know where that is right now, so look it up because you are going there. You will live in the motherland of England and the United States ta boot, imagine that, you can't can you? You will watch hot mud boil in New Zealand and make your husband, yes you get married! bathe in thermal mud, though he complains about it endlessly, the mud, not the marriage. You will wonder the streets of Paris and dance the night away in New York. Oh and not to mention dips in the Adriatic sea, Chinese food in Hong Kong and relaxing massages in Fiji, and you think you won't get as far as Budgewoi. Boy are you in for a treat, oh and expect it all to be done in Business Class, you marry well my dear, you marry well.

If the travel isn't enough for you well you end up meeting every musical hero you ever dreamt of. Ready! Okay! You will attend after show parties with Depeche Mode in Los Angles, yes that is right my girl sipping champagne with the lads at the Hollywood Bowl, if you don't mind. You will meet Tony Bennett and have his driver drive you back to your hotel in L.A, yes L.A. You spend an afternoon chewing the fat with Iva Davies and you chat up Howard Jones, not to mention bumping literally into Prince. Oh and I have saved the best till last. You kiss Billy Idol, on the lips!! Gasp! Yes, let me reiterate, a proper kiss on the lips. See things aren't too shabby at this point huh?.

But what about the rest! Well you will start working in a place at the age of 19 that is so unusual and different that there is no way of explaining it to you at 16, even though it is only three years away. Suffice to say that the people you meet through this experience are without doubt the most vibrant, amazing, creative, intelligent and crazy bunch that exist on the planet. You don't feel you fit in at the moment but by the time you are 21 you will be the toast of the town let me assure you. The people you surround yourself with will lead you out of your darkness and into a whole new way of life and the lessons they teach you turn you into a strong, confident and vibrant young woman who doesn't take any shit from anyone. You will work hard, but you will be rewarded and working hard is something you are never afraid of.

Okay Okay I know you are salivating to find out who you will marry. Well my dear you already know him. He is in your life everyday and it turns out that he will eventually spend every other day of your life with you as well. You manage to get it together in New York of all places but there are some hurdles to jump before he finally leaps and you are happy to go with the flow. It also has something to do with you being patient and reasonable oh and he is as well. Once you are together he is the love of your life, your partner, your friend and someone who is able to be with you in your darkest hour and your finest hour and always respects you for who you are. A rare trait in many people. So if you tell him that he is cute occasionally and scratch his back he is like an old dog, loyal, loving and dependable. And no it isn't Peter Kapusi - Get over it!

You will have two children, yes two! Don't panic, you don't have them until after you have travelled, eaten out at a bazillion restaurants, partied like it was 1999 for many many years before and after 1999 and finally found that if you didn't have a child then there wasn't much more trouble you could find for yourself so you add two people who can do that for you. The big surprise is that no you are not having boys. It will be girls, girls, girls. They are funny and cute and you will love them more than you could have ever expected and they will love you so much it will make your heart heal.

As for your friends, well what you see is what you get. Once you make a friend they are for life. You always have an abundance of friends and there are a few who fall by the wayside but it isn't for want of you trying. So 99% of the friends you have now will still be by your side in another 23 years and they don't appear to be going anywhere soon.

As for work well you will be earning more money than you can poke a stick at but it takes a while and you will toil in dead end jobs for a while I'm afraid but that will eventually change. In the end you will be the topper most of the popper most and it will come when you least expect it.

So where will you live?. Well you will eventually own your own home. Strange concept isn't it?. In fact if you are smart with your money, and let's face it you are not little miss spend thrift you may even end up with more than one. Let me just put the location down as a place that you have always wanted to live and leave it as a surprise because frankly you need something to keep you brooding and sitting in your cupboard listening to Depeche Mode it's what makes your teenage years so memorable and your skin so palid.

You learn young that your life is only going to be good if you make it that way. Nobody will help you, only you. So you make the most of your life my dear, you really do. At the moment your life is nothing short of fucken horrible. You feel rejected and tortured for who you are, who you want to be and who you want to be with. It won't take long for this to change and the lessons of loneliness and exile you feel will help you be compassionate, honest and tolerant of all people no matter who they are and no matter where they come from. So in the end you will be many things to many people an artists muse, a mother, a best friend, a lover and a fighter all in good time. You won't always sit in your bedroom listening to the same album over and over wishing your life away eventually you get out and actually make one of your own.

Happy Trails...........