AUGUST 27, 2003: SUPER SIZE HER FOR ME PLEASE
So today involved lying in bed until 5 to 8 when I realized that if I sat on my fat arse all day I would feel like shit later on- worse than if I went to the gym. So that is what I did. I grabbed the nearest clothes, dressed the two of us and succeeded in catching the early bus into town.
Got in there, went to the gym and exercised on an empty stomach and finished relatively early because I used the stationary bike instead of the treadmill. I mainly did that because it is harder work yet I can still read a book whilst I am peddling away.
I am finally close to finishing Graham Greene�s The Human Factor which I am thoroughly enjoying. Ergo the reason that it is taking so long to read. If I am enjoying something I read it slowly so that it takes longer to some to an end, despite the fact that I want to know what happened. After I log off I will finish reading it, or have a nap if Missy is asleep.
Whilst I was in Birdtown this afternoon (though it felt later and should really be evening now according to my internal clock) and I ran into Julie (I know that isn�t a nice name but I am having difficulty finding one). The story behind her involvement in my life?
She lived in unit #3 in the set of flats where I first lived. I lived in #6. I am a rather aloof person, though generally I don�t mean to be. I think may make this assumption due to the fact that I drag my feet and have a constant scowl. I don�t realize it, but that is what Marty, Julie�s then boyfriend, said. Apparently he had tried to say hello to me several times and I just scowled at my feet and walked on.
I don�t drag my feet anymore.
I met Julie during my two week long binge with Janet. One evening, whilst drunk, we were sitting on the front porch so that Janet could have a cigarette (as I was attempting to quit smoking myself it was banned from the flat) when this huge (as in FAT) girl comes out of the door and comes and talks to us. The first words out of her mouth to us was (directed towards me): �One of my friends likes you.�
WELL, I was drunk so I thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to get laid! So we chatted and Marty came outside and they rang their friend. Within an hour of finding out that they were in my house (because as long as I knew them the phone was never connected) he was over visiting them. They said that it was the fastest he had ever answered their calls, and I later discovered why. The �man� that they introduced me to was Maverick.
(A nice thing just occurred. I was going to say his age, but I can no longer remember his birth date.)
Julie was fat, as in unable to buy clothing from even a Target. She and Marty smoked dope incessantly and took whatever they could from others, such as food, so that they could spend their money on drugs and alcohol.
On of the most interesting facts in their relationship was that Marty beat the living crap out of Julie on a regular basis. There was one night in particular that I remember as I was sitting alone at home (because Maverick was at bingo) and all I could hear was screaming and yelling from their place. It became so horrific that I was about to call the police when they arrived. Willy from next door had already done the honours. Marty would not let the police in the door so they had to rip it off its hinges to get in. There was blood everywhere and she was black and blue.
However a mere week later she was on her way to the back of Bourke to pick him up and bring him home. I don�t understand it and never will. That is a total lie. If you are emotionally needy and what not it is easy enough for a person to take advantage of that. I was one of those suckers, though the moment that Maverick hit me I was out the door.
Eventually they were kicked out of their flat> I saw Julie once in the mall I was told that she was pregnant but due to her size she had many miscarriages before and I doubted that she would succeed in having a kid. Especially if Marty kept beating her. And cheating on her. There was one occasion where he made it perfectly clear that he fancied me. Must have been a thing for fat women.
No, that isn�t true. I don�t like what he did to Julie, but he and I got along famously. We just seemed oddly comfortable around each other.
Anyway, this afternoon I ran into Julie. She has 2 kids to Marty, with whom she is no longer with. She�s still obese, but not super sized. She has a new boyfriend who apparently treats her like a princess.
The kids were cute. A little 17 month old boy and a 4 month old girl. There is no denying paternity. I swear, most children you cannot tell at a young age who they look like more, but these two looked exactly like the father. No kidding, the little girl was a spitting image.
Let us hope it doesn�t stay that way as she gets older and becomes more feminine, because Marty is good looking for a guy, but I doubt it as a girl.
We swapped numbers and we�ll see what happens. I doubt she�ll call and I know that I won�t. But it was nice to see that she had sorted things out and got the children that she always wanted. I�ll have to tell more stories about them later, though most of them involve drinking. And that is it. Oh well, cheers.

1,022 WORDS POSTED BY SAMANTHA AT 1424HR. COMMENT.

THE HUMAN FACTOR
��I�ve never shot anything in my life, not even a human being.�
�Ah, yes, they are the best target. To tell you the truth, birds bore me too.�
The Human Factor is the story of Maurice Castle, a member of the British Secret Service, working in sub section 6 involved with trivial matters concerned with the state of Africa. Somewhere in the section a leak has become obvious and an internal search is warranted, though it is Arthur Davis, Maurice�s counterpart, who is the prime suspect.
Greene explores not only the paranoia and stupidity of the Secret Service, and their inability to understand the human complexities that become a sore point for many of the people involved (�Fear and love are indivisible�so too are fear and hate. Hate is an automatic response to fear, for fear humiliates�) but many other political and social factors that segregate people across the world.
One of the main separations between Castle and the people that he works for is the matter of apartheid. Whilst during his service in Africa Caste met and fell in love with Sarah, an African woman pregnant to another man.
Greene displays with great poignancy the manner in which the discretion involved with a career in the secret service leads to neuroticism and isolation. Castle is one of the lucky ones, with a wife and a child that he loves (despite paternity), though he is unable to completely involve her in everything in which he is involved for the sake of her safety.
One of the best things about Graham Greene is the style in which he writes. It is simple, yet elegant. One of the main attributes to his writing, other than being rather witty, is his ability to extract emotions and memories from the reader with his ability to describe situations with a sense of reality. In one such scene Greene writes with much more clarity and realism than I have ever before, the sense of being drunk, to the point that you could empathise with the situation (�As he walked down the street towards the palace he was aware that he had drunk more than he had drunk for many years at this hour of the day�He had spoken far too much. About his father, his mother�he was not very clever with his fingers, and the small leaf of the tin (of sardines) broke before the tin was a third open. All the same he managed fork out half the sardines in bits and pieces�His lunch lasted less than four minutes, but it seemed to him like quite a long time because of his thoughts. His thoughts wobbles like a drunken man�s�).
There are so many intricacies involved in this book that it is best to just read it and search it for yourself, feel the loneliness and the love of Castle and his counterparts, the sorrow for poor Davis and a fear of human stupidity in a situation of power.
I am not one to feel empathy for the bad guy in the book, but here the bad guys are the good guys and the good guys are the bad.
Do you know what I liked best- Maltesers got a big mention. Product placement, brilliant.
And the fact that even back then Greene succeeded in ridiculing the British dependence on US involvement.

556 WORDS POSTED BY SAMANTHA AT 1424HR. COMMENT.