Stephen Witherden’s Website :: Personal

“Goodbye Granny” I said as I got up to leave. “I’m sure I’ll see you again” I lied bravely “I’ll come visit South Africa or something”.
“Hope I’m alive when you do” she voiced my unspoken fear.

My grandmother leaves New Zealand tomorrow morning, after spending some precious months here visiting my father in Wellington. She and I spent a magical week together touring the Marlborough: the top of the South Island. We spent so many hours together in the car that we got to know each other very well. I think I learnt more about her in that week than I have in my entire life. She’s a wonderful person.

“I wish I was a man, and younger” granny confessed one sunny afternoon as I drove us swiftly between nowhere and Blenheim “because then I’d date you”. It’s a strange disclosure that speaks of a yearning for companionship that spans generations and gender. She was very remorseful that she had to delay coming up to Auckland, meaning we wouldn’t have as much time to chat as we had before.

Before I went to my cousins’ place to say goodbye one last time, I filled a memory card with a bunch of photos of our trip and the family. I inserted it into the picture frame I bought her and gave it to her with strict instructions to get people to load more pictures onto it for her.

I didn’t tell her that the memory card came from my camera, rendering it useless. Until I get a new card, my camera won’t take any more pictures. It’s kind of appropriate really, because it reflects how I feel: a part of me is leaving and I don’t think I can take any pictures at the moment either.

I was cleaning out my drawers, going through clothes I need to get rid of, when I came across a little bit of my own personal history: my Deo Fretus t-shirt. Now, Deo Fretus (in God we trust) was the motto of my high school and also the name of the quintet I was a member of for two glorious years. It’s hard to describe the profound sense of nostalgia I felt as I tenderly pulled the tatty t-shirt out of the drawer and regarded its moth-eaten holes.

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At 2:44am on the 17th December, Caleb James Simpkin, my first nephew was born to my sieter Susan and her husband David. It’s a strange yet familiar sensation. My parents both had younger kids and so I am quite used to babies. At the same time, this is a whole new generation I’m holding in my arms, it’s kind of special.

I’ve reset my life counter on the left hand side of the blog to reflect the birth =D

One day before my 30th birthday my granny Cynthia recently turned 84. The last 4 years of her life have been spent looking after her dying husband, so now that he’s passed away, she’s at a little bit of a loss. Life’s been hard these past few years and it’s been a bit of a struggle for her and her family. She travelled here to New Zealand for Christmas, to spend time with the family and, deep down, most of us are thinking this is probably the last time she’ll get the chance.

I walked up the driveway, arms laden with presents. My father, his family and my grandmother were all staying with a friend of his in Hamilton. I entered the lounge. Granny was in the kitchen, of course. I snuck on in and presented myself to her.

“Who’s that?  … Stephen!”

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Those of you who have followed my blog for some years now will remember that I had a run in with an interesting guy while I was in Texas. Stephen (confusingly sharing my name) was my second boyfriend and the first guy that I guess you could say I had anything approaching a relationship with. It all ended rather badly due to a combination of mental illness, pills and a failed healthcare system.

When I last saw Stephen, I’d left him with his new boyfriend and a tenuous but workable support structure. It all fell apart rapidly when I left and Stephen ended up having another crisis which culminated in him living with his birth father, arguably a good thing for him.

He kept up correspondence with me. Through a haze of dissociative identity there emerged this new person, a far more complete and whole person. Still Stephen, but sadly with a little added toughness. I see Stephen as equal parts creative/sensitive, angry/violent and cool/calculating. These three characters vie for supremacy in his psyche. At the moment, the cool character is prominent.

Anyway, you’re not reading this for the pop psychology lesson, you’re reading this because you want to know why the boy in that hole appears to be dressed in army fatigues and why I have a picture of a boy in a hole on my website.

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I hit the bed with a muted thud. It had been a long day and an even longer night. My parents were up from Hamilton and, along with other family and friends, we’d celebrated being together with food, drink and Singstar.

I rolled over and checked my phone. It was about 3:30am, we’d just seen the extended family to their car after a prolonged karaoke-off between myself and my cousin Jenny. Arth had passed out on the sofa/bed, beer in his hand, and mom was on the balcony having a cigarette. I turned over again, closed my eyes and sighed.

Mom was on the balcony having a cigarette.

I tossed again. Mom and I don’t often get a chance to talk.

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As some of you may know, I recently turned 30. It was an unremarkable milestone as milestones go. Last year I threw a nice big party and invited a whole lot of people. This year, I just had a small group, we drank, ate and talked a little. The next day Sam made me a birthday cake complete with 30 candles, a nice gesture on his part.
 
30 seems so old, objectively so. When I was younger 30 seemed to be so very far away. I had this vague notion that I should be retired by 30, or that I should at least have my life sorted out. In many ways it is.

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Well, this is a particularly distressing story to tell, so soon after I related the previous one about my car being whole again.

Last night, I drove up from Hamilton, my car in tact, hoping to make it to a friend’s place for a late Christmas party they were throwing. I made it in time (just before midnight). Socialised and had a few drinks. I then took a little nap to sober up before the short drive home. When I got back to my car (at around 4am), this sight greeted me:

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As I mentioned in a previous blog post. I was rear-ended by an intoxicated chap over a month ago. What I didn’t elaborate on was the painful insurance-saga that ensued.

When the accident happened, I called my insurer: AMI (also the insurer for the other two people involved) the phone-lady told me that they would email me a claim form in the morning. They didn’t. Ok, well, people forget, so the next day I printed a claim form myself, diligently filled it out and took it in to the AMI office personally, my long-suffering colleague Richard in tow for moral support.

It didn’t take long for me to realise that the advertisements are something of an embellishment and not a true reflection of the AMI business model. There was no leggy singing brunette weaving between the computer terminals, handing out smiles and wads of cash to all and sundry. Rather, I sat down with a confused young lady who appeared to be a recent ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) graduate.

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It was soon after my birthday in October when I started suspecting that something was awry in my relationship with Sebastian. He declined a road trip with me, he didn’t come over to my place anymore, and when I visited him, he was reluctant, even begrudging with his affection.

After struggling with him for over a month, trying to figure out what I had done, or how things had changed in his mind, I decided to call it off.

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Well, as I am sure everyone who has ever lived in more than one place knows: moving sucks. Moving sucks big time. As of this very moment, everything has been transferred over from my old place to the new place, the lounge in the new place is strewn with belongings in boxes, bags and suitcases and a fine layer of dust has been disturbed such that it sets off my hay-fever; that said, it’s done.

We bought new furniture: I got a large screen TV & a couch, Sarah a couch and a dining room suite. Before we bought the furniture, however, we had to do analysis as to whether things would fit.

What better way than to use Visio to map out the apartment and move the furniture around? That’s what we did. This image shows the layout of the apartment, to scale, as well as where we decided to put things.

Click on the image for the full layout.

Click on the image for the full layout.

Some of you may already know that I am moving out of my pokey little apartment and into a new one. Some may also know that I am moving in with none other than Sarah.

Yes, as my gay friends are always so pleased to point out: she is my ex-girlfriend.

Don’t anyone get your hopes up, this is seriously a Will & Grace situation, I assure you.

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Well, every now and again you have a new experience. Yesterday was one of those days. I had left work on time for once in a rather chipper mood: I was meeting up with my friend Rick at Sylvia Park to go watch a movie. It was his only evening off for quite some time so we decided to make hay.

It was about 6:10 pm; I was travelling on Beach Road towards the motorway and had come to a stop behind a car waiting in a queue at the lights on Parnell Rise.

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An anniversary is something that happens once a year, in this case, as you can see by my timer on the left hand side of my website, today is the anniversary of my return to New Zealand from Texas. At times like these it’s often seen as an opportunity to look back and reflect on the things that have happened in the year past and look forward to the things that will happen in the year forward.

In my case, a number of things have happened this year past. I found a new place to live. I joined outline (an organisation supporting gay people over the phone). I became more involved with my church, becoming a member of the board and preparing a few services with my friend Alastair. I became lonely & wistful then met a new lover. I climbed a mountain, took up running (dropped it again for winter, brr), unintentionally helping trigger my dear friend Andrew’s fitness obsession.

I became an associate at work, got a pay rise, bought more shares , worked on more projects than I care to mention and even managed to get some real work done in the process. I got a second job supervising students at the university which forced me to grow much more than I’d like to admit.  I have made new friends and reconnected with old friends (like Shane who I literally haven’t seen in over a decade). I also threw my first birthday party, ever.

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I awoke at around 7:30am, groggy. Ordinarily I would pull myself out of bed and face the day bravely, plenty things to do; the Ports of Lyttleton need saving, after all. Then I rolled over and went back to sleep. I have an excuse, I am sick with a cold and I need a little R&R. At 10:11am, my boss Irene called me to see how I was doing. “Oh, you sound really bad still” she exclaimed encouragingly.

I lounged languidly for a little then showered and started getting dressed. You see, I had student presentations to attend at 1pm and I needed to sign something at work.

Anyway, you don’t need to know about that stuff. What you do need to know is at around 2:30pm, I was driving home, back South over the harbour bridge, a little tired still, from my sickness, quite hungry since I hadn’t yet eaten. Perhaps I’d warm up some leftover pizza for lunch. I should go get my haircut and maybe do the banking for church while I was there. I still hadn’t completed last week’s podcast and, oh, I should post those letters soon…

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“Oh, Rue!” I exclaimed in delighted surprise, embracing my quarry before he had the chance to return the salutation. “Oh, my friend, my precious friend!”

It had been a good night so far, judging by my level of intoxication: a very good night. Ruellan, an old friend from university had arrived fashionably late with his partner Melanie. The occasion? My birthday!

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In America, the U-turn is a common, accepted manuver. It’s so common in fact that they have signs expressly encouraging you to do u-turn and lanes specifically designed for that purpose.

We New Zealanders find this an hilarious thing because in our country, the U-turn is right up there with peeing in someone else’s tea (or your own tea for that matter). You just don’t do it. It’s just not acceptable behaviour on the roads. To the extent that there are signs saying precisely the opposite: “no u-turn”, even when a u-turn is precisely the most logical course of action. Say, for example, you’ve gone over the harbour bridge by mistake, which happens more frequently than we’d like to admit.

Well, New Zealand has launched into the 21st century with what I believe to be the first (for our country) U-turn traffic light. Feast your eyes! Yes, it’s true, that sign on the right is actually a “U-turn” traffic light, in New Zealand (East Tamaki, to be precise). Below are images of the sign in action:

I live a hectic lifestyle. I think it’s partly my nature. I seem to be constantly doing something for someone I promised them I would do sometime in the not-too-distant future and have put off as much as I possibly can till this very moment because I was too busy doing something else I promised I would do much earlier.

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As you know, gentle reader, I have had limited fortune in the area of romance for quite some time. That is until now. Some of you have met him, some of you have heard about him, some of you are reading about him for the first time now and some of you wish I would just stop talking about him.

For me, it all started at a new years’ party, 2007/8: I got rather drunk and curled up on the couch to have a little nap. I looked over my shoulder and was amused to watch a rather attractive, rather drunk young guy very nearly assault someone over a disagreement about computer operating systems. That was when Sebastian went onto a little list in the back of my head: my list of prospective mates.

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Isn’t it always the way that when life gets most interesting you tend to have less time to reflect on it? One such event that has come and gone so quickly has been a milestone for the project I worked on in Texas. Dean Maguire, the last remaining member of the Kiwi team working in Texas has finally returned home with his family. This raps up our work in Texas and opens a new chapter for Dean, for all of us here in New Zealand.

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