I woke up most sad, most sad, indeed. Plans were to go to water aerobics at the Embarcadero YMCA but they were dismissed.No energy for a new experience and, moreover, it would be running away from grief and that worsens the situation. A call was placed to Personal Driver to cancel the trip to the Y and actually laughter ensued.
Me: You are never going to believe this. I wrote on my blog that to get attention from him I would have to turn into a horse or a camel and there appears this YouTube video with him calling two camels by name, them running to his car, getting a treat and then kissing him.
He: Really?
Me: It as rather unbelievable – the synchronicity of it all.
He: But you do not want to turn into a horse or a camel?
Me: Well, one can make accommodations for a man, perhaps, but since I hate sand and hay it is asking too much.
He: It is good to hear you laugh. Don’t be sad.
Personal Driver does not read my blog,
He: Why should I? I get the real thing!
We laughed some more.
Me” Well it is normal to feel sad. I thought it was the love affair of the century and all I got was a fist bump.
He: Perhaps it is better. You would have had to change your whole life.
Me: True and give up my identity and my independence.
Then there is this amusing story. CPI emailed.
CPI: I actually preferred what you said to JKT to terminate the relationship with that multibillionaire.
Me: It is rather ironic. For some reason I said f**k you and the horse you rode in on but JKT did not have a horse. This multibillionaire has hundreds, I think.
I am laughing at myself at the moment. I got nothing from these relationships with super rich men. Joo Kim and I had lunch twice but the first time I paid. No jewels, no nothing and once I grabbed his hand in fear – that was the extent of our physical contact. So I am doing better this time as, I at least, got a fist bump and a now deflated Unicorn. The ‘relationship’ with Joo Kim lasted longer – four months and we cannot forget Alix Residences and Brazenly Authentic which came years later. I wonder if there will be a grand building in Dubai named after me? I am laughing, somewhat cheering myself up.
I cannot imagine two men more different that Joo Kim Tiah and the Crown Prince of Dubai. Well they are about the same age (40 vs. 37), both inherited their multibillions and I suppose they had me in common. But other than that completely opposite. Oh they are both rather short. I emailed something about shortness to Joo Kim.
He: I am taller than most girls.
Me: That is because you date Chinese women.
As you can see I sassed him and I did sass the Crown Prince of Dubai and he is Royalty. Those men are not used to sass but they need it. Joo Kim once emailed:
He: What is the benefit of sass?
Me: I will write you a long explanation of that and send as a pdf.
I did so it must be on my other computer. It was very well researched and thought out. It is strange to be doing this comparison between the two men. I guess I thought the Crown Prince relationship was a work in progress but it ended. Well I guess that is another thing they have in common because they both betrayed me and I ended the relationships.
I promised to include the story written from London called the Secret of My Success and I always keep my word.
MY SECRET OF SUCCESS
People ask me how I did it, how I was able to overcome my childhood, my dismal upbringing and become what I am today. A seemingly self assured, outgoing woman with a zest for life. Previously I have answered shaking my head in bewilderment: “I have no idea, if I did I would write a book about it and make a lot of money.” But today, in this my seventy-third year, I arrive at the truth of it. It came upon me quite suddenly but a lot of the thoughts were present, in rather inchoate forms and shapes. But today it consolidated for reasons I cannot recall.
The reason that I was able to succeed against all odds is that I purposively, almost intuitively, from a very early age, did the exact opposite of what my mother did. The way we approach the world, our abilities and even our weaknesses are diametrically opposed. The more successful I become the greater the contrast. Examples will follow.
Today I woke up to a perfectly organized flat. Even that is diametrically opposite from my mother’s lifestyle. I do not think that my mother every lived in a flat (or in more common parlance, an apartment). She always lived in houses, houses both rented and owned. I would never have called them homes, but that is another difference. The houses were homely but not home like. I am obsessed with comforts, colors and stylish artifacts, not my mother. Then, here is another huge difference. I live alone at present and have at various times of my life. Not consistently as admittedly I have had three husbands and occasionally lived with men. She never lived alone as far as I can tell except for late in her life after my father left her and my brother was forced to relocate to Vancouver for business purposes. So it was never choice and the departure of my eldest brother when he was over forty, was devastating to her.
As far as I know my father was the only man in her life. She married relatively late, at the age of 26. My father was five years younger. Then after he left her I do not recall that there was any man in sight and as a matter of face, she hated men in her later years. Not my elder brother but all other men. She even hated my younger brother which was very hard on him, and I suppose on her. I have no sympathy for her because that was a disaster that she caused, when he was an infant. So she is actually reprehensible.
With me, it is the exact opposite. I was not particularly popular in high school, but I did have a steady boy friend at the end of my high school years. But from then on, holy cow, was I popular. One of my friends who knew me since my early twenties said: “Alexis, you may not remember this, but you were always a man magnet. You could have had anyone you wanted but you always chose the wrong men.” So three husbands, one live in, several serious affairs and several close, close male friends who I did not sleep with and therefore to whom I am very close. I suppose my mother and I do have something in common in that both she and I did choose the wrong men in my case, man in her case.
Our relationship with women is also markedly different. She did have one friend to whom she was very close. But that was really it. She did not particularly like women either. I guess she felt threatened by them but she was openly disdainful toward them and their values. She was never fond of me and was actually threatened by me and I know jealous. It made it very difficult and I recently wrote a piece called Don’t Hide Your Light Under a Bushel which detailed the phenomena – one I had to research. But the gist of it all is that you cannot show your strengths and instead must hide them. A very difficult row to hoe. I actually managed with grace and élan. I have always had women friends, of varying intimacy. Many close, intimate and enduring friendships from every age and stage of my life I have made women friends and actually do so on a daily basis.
I did not have children, my mother, of course, did. Dah! She did not particularly like being a mother, to the younger brother and myself. Her relationship to my other brother is different but proved crippling to him – it was not so much she mothered him. it was like she owned him.
But then our habits are different. My mother lived in chaos, was a hoarder and believe me I know. I was stuck with the task of moving her from the house where she had lived for about fifty years. Unbelievable the crap she kept, the dust, the filth of it all. We would come up with the find of the day, to amuse us. It was gallows humour. For example, the top of the wedding cake, hers and my father’s. It had to be at least sixty-five years old. Another example was a toupee of my father’s which he left when he left her hearth thirty years before, It was scary to find, I thought it was a rat. Of course, it had to be me to find it and to do the disgusting task of cleaning up the house when a spat of ill health struck her and she was forced to live in an assisted living place. Her spat of ill health was occasioned by her stubborn inability to take care of herself, most particularly her blood pressure. I am on blood pressure medicine but almost profolatically. I take exquisite care of my health. I am blessed with good health but have always insisted on the best of medical care and have a wonderful relationship with all of my doctors that ensure their attention. Mother dearest turned off physicians and care providers. Very stupid stance that. But back to housekeeping et. al. I am decidedly not a hoarder, In fact at this moment I have almost nothing with me, my few possessions are in a small storage area in the San Francisco Bay Area,
And I am organized with my stuff. A man, actually my lover, was stranded in my flat when I went to exercise (something my mother would EVER do) laughingly called me a slut and said that I left stuff all over the flat when I ran out the door. But he said that my cupboards, drawers and closets were incredibly well organized..“Stay out of my drawers!” said I. I am remarkably funny. Mother dearest had a slight sense of humor but was unable to laugh at herself. That is the essence of a sense of humour. Boy can I laugh at myself.
I have just come from what one would call a working class restaurant, well that it what they would call it in the US. It is in London near a public housing project so the clientele is of the lower class, they are on benefits (as called here). Sitting at an adjacent table is a woman, of indeterminate age, She is in a wheel chair, she has oxygen attached, she has no teeth in her mouth, her hair is dirty and unkempt. Her physical unattractiveness is matched, perhaps exceeded by her rudeness. She treats the waitress with utter disdain, demanding her bread slices without a note of graciousness. It does not take too much imagination to see that she is doing nothing whatsoever to benefit society or the country she was born in. She does remind me of my mother, in her rudeness, her lack of attention to her grooming and her sense of entitlement. Sitting across the table from her is, in all probably, her daughter. She is a slightly younger, fatter version of her mother. As I write I almost cry for the two of them, no I guess not, just the one of them, the daughter. I can empathize, as mentioned before, and I feel sorry for this woman, most probably taking this rude person out to lunch. I did not have to perform that unpleasant task too frequently because I got a long way from my mother as early as I possibly could. I left the country – same continent but very inaccessible. I remained in that place until she died. I am sure that helped.
More of the story in tomorrow’s blog.
