speaking off ass hats

Angelina Jolie.

I'm aware that mine isn't the popular opinion, but still, I think she's an idiot. A self serving, self focussed idiot. Oh sure, she does all this humanitarian crap which does create good in the world but I'm certainly not convinced that her motivation isn't much more than her wanting to do things for her. That the children benefit is a side effect, as it were, and as her motivation doesn't change the outcome, I'm glad that she's doing what she does, so it doesn't matter that she buys into her own bullshit about why she does it.

What bothers me is this renaming of her latest aquasition. If she was in the least bit a true humanitarian, she wouldn't even think to rob this child of the only thing he knows for certain in the uncertain world he's suddenly found himself.

From what I gather, he doesn't even speak English so the only spoken word he'd even recognise is his name.

I can appreciate renaming a newborn to a name that pleases you, the parent or guardian, but how you justify renaming to a three and a half year old? At that age, he knows his name, he knows who he is, and his name is probably the only thing that is his.

The again, maybe the kid begged to be called something else.

He was Pham Quang Sang and now he's Pax Thein Jolie. Pax because it reflects the Latin word for peace, and Thein because it means sky in Vietnamese. Two questions: while the name 'Pax' has lovely connotations and romantic links, what in fuck does it mean to a small Vietnamese orphan? And while 'Thein' again is lovely and romantic and actually does come from this small boy's homeland, does it have anything to do with who he is? Will it mean anything to him when he's grown? Okay, that was three questions but you get my point.

So surely it would have been kinder to allow him the name he grew up with, rather than changing it to something pleasing to his adoptive parent, thus robbing him of everything he knows all in one fell swoop? Sure his new life is bound to be a good one and will certainly be better than what he once had, but until he transitions from that life to the this, his perception of old versus new won't necessarily shine brighter on the latter, so why not make that transition easier by leaving him with the one thing he can recognise as his own?

In other news, Daniel is, in fact, a teeny tiny princess. Or maybe he's possessed. Or it could be the motherfucking HUGE boulders rumbling in his mouth that are behind this positively Cybil like switch in his personality, or it could be that this a new and irritating exciting personality heralds the attainment of another developmental milestone. I would've thought he's too young and possibly too male to be suffering from severe PMS, so I guess if it is a developmental milestone, it's the one involving devil worshipping, a tragic hand to the brow, and possibly an overgrowth of back hair.

Allow me to describe a typical day.

Daniel: cycling between excited laughter to pitiful sobbing to squealing with joy to ying on floor weeping to cheeky giggles to bashing me with his fist while yelling abuse, etc etc
me: *knocks back more vodka*

So this morning while holding a chair, lion-tamer style, and in an effort to keep the little pipsqueak from whacking me over the head with his mitre and/or to keep his head from doing that freaky 360 degree rotation thing and/or to keep him from throwing himself off a cliff in despair, I tossed him a scrap book and some crayons today, and leaping onto the chair and cowered in fear as I waited for his gaping maw to open, allowing the demons within to come spewing forth, but glory be, it never happened.

Instead and for the last half hour, my blonde haired, blue eyed, angelic little neat freak has been sitting quietly on the floor next to me taking the crayons out of the packet and putting them back in again. Repeat, repeat, repeat, proving yet again that when he's not channelling beelzebub, Daniel is totally anal retentive.

He's the only kid I know who, when given the golden opportunity to chew on the contents of his mother's purse, will instead factor in both usage and visual appeal to rerrange the credit cards.

He's just handed me the packet and there appears to be two missing, so it looks like I won't need to be organising a mid morning snack today.

Now he's toddled off screaming and crying and I don't know what the fuck. Now he's back happily smacking the lid of this talking Pooh Bear toy honey pot thing. Seems he likes all of Pooh's electronic voice repeating the whole "hooraaaay, could you please drop in one block?" and none of the actual dropping of blocks thing.

And it's piano time. No, wait, it's xylaphone time. And now he's disappeared into the bedroom and now he's back and....

....has pulled a toy onto his head. Ouch.

I'm going to miss him so much and I can't imagine how hard it's going to be getting into the cab tomorrow morning beforre waving him goodbye.

Notgoingotdienotgoingtodienotgoingtodie.

That's all I'm scared of. Leaving Daniel. Just leaving him for the next few days is too much. I still cry some days leaving him in daycare, ferpetesake.

So, um, yeah, I guess this is it. I don't know hwhen I'll be back.

Miss me, sportsfans.

Ass Hats

Or.

It's all about me, because this week, I nominate myself for the Ass Hat In The News award.



No I'm not famous for my publicly airing my talent for Ass Hattery, at least not that I'm aware of, but while I didn't get around to writing about anything about an actual Ass Hat In The News, I did approach the assignment phonetically and so, set about writing this entry as naked as they come and while manifesting some kind of strong regional accent. The ass hat component comes to you care of the I Suck aspect of my non compliance to the rules, making me at this moment in time, an Ass Hat In The Nudes.

Mexican wave, anyone?

Although, if I thought about it a little bit it wouldn't be too hard to come up with something more newsy. Something like that fuckwit Ben Cousins who, only after being suspended indefinitely for being a total wankbag, has had his father make the teary eyed statement about his son's addiction problem. Only it wasn't drug addiction until it his drug abuse got in the way of his football funded lifestyle and instead of being vilified as he should because, come on, he's a Brownlow medalist and he gets paid pots of money to be a superhero so is conceivably a role model to all the wanna be league players kicking a nerfball during recess at school, he's the troubled player who needs our sympathy and concern.

Way to pave his way back to earning those millions, pa.

My point is, what kind of example is Cousins setting? Get fucked up and get away with it? Fantastic. I'd like a bit of that action myself, thankyou.

He's not the biggest ass hat though, he's just one example of what makes league football an Ass Hat extravaganza. The AFL facilitates the multitude of cover-ups that protects these players when they go on their drug fueled rampages and make their underworld connections. The AFL enables them - and our kids - to believe that they are bullet proof, which is just what the youth of Australia needs to learn is acceptable adult behaviour. Jesus.

question

Is four hundred bucks enough for five days of overnight care? Or is it too much? Fuck!

A little over a week ago my SIL told me that, no, on second thought she couldn't look after Daniel while I was in hospital, which is fine and I respect her reasons and her decision but christ on a cracker, two weeks before my scheduled surgery?! She'd offered, not accepted, offered to stay here and arrange the boy's daily daycare routine and to pick him up and look after him each night, then two weeks ago she was saying about having Daniel stay with her and her pool and her stairs to the cellar and her billions of powerpoints connected to questionable wiring, and I was all, um, SIL? My place? And she was all, it'll be FINE, and I was all wringing my hands before realising she'd realise how impossible the whole Move In With A Toddler scenario would be and then I relaxed, said the right noises and waited for her to work out the impossible logistics before coming back to the whole my place idea. Instead, she (and my brother *shakes fist at imaginarily present brother* ) decided the whole dealio was off.

They want me to tell mum so she can look after Daniel and look after me and ha ha ha, excuse me while I compose myself because that last bit? Is HILARIOUS. Seriously, I love my mum, but realistically - and I only need look to my cesarean, never mind the bowel surgery (I know! Glamorous!) from three years ago, or the lump removed six weeks prior to that, to know that I'm toast as far as care from my ma goes.

Hey! I never told you about the healing session I went to a couple of weeks ago. We all sat in a dark on the floor for two or so hours, and while my butt went completely numb, I kind of missed out on experiencing the humbling, uh, experience the others had while having a Oneness blessing daubed on their heads from five individual deekshas on the actual real birthday of the Babaganoush or whoever the inventor of this whole blissful thing is. He's some dude in India who had a school where all sorts of magical things happened and while I love this shit I have the BIGGEST...and this is another story. I knwon the word I'm thinking of but I'm so close to dementia that I can't remember it. Nor can I remember why that woman in a BMW annoyed me so much the other day, I can only remember that she did. Anyway, I love that spiritual shit but I can't help but smother giggles (on the inside) at the whole process and its followers because the hand of god reaching out the sky and touching them on their fool heads? Amuses me because I must be a non believer or something, even though I totally believe. So why do I smirk (on the inside)? Because I am a heathen non believing believer, that's why, and with that much confusion going on in my fool head, it's little wonder that I felt
none of that heart warming healing shit.

It's cynical! The missing word. Is 'cynical', and I have a cynical streak.

Phew.

Wondering what that elusive word was could have kept me up all night. Still no idea about the woman in a BMW though. Rats.

So anyway, I had this healing thingummyjig and was thoroughly disillusioned because come ON god, I want my damn beatific smile and I want my stupid healing energy. Mum was sitting with Daniel at the time, which is something I give to her because truth is, I never feel comfortable leaving him in her care, not that she'd hurt him or anything but people, I don't trust her to look after me, so trusting him to look after my little boy is something I do because should for her sake as much as his. Kids need grandparents and the rest of Daniel's are dead so for better or worse, she's it. When I got home, Daniel was in bed in only a t-shirt and shorts and was wearing the same nappy he'd had on when I'd gone out. I wasn't angry, I was saddened that I was right and that I couldn't rely on mum to attend to his basic needs. I'm not sure what happened or what words were said but mum left to catch a cab and just wandered off to do so, which is something she does when she's pissed and doesn't want to talk, so I sent her a text asking her to let me know she'd got home safe and that I wasn't angry, but that I was sad about our relationsihp. Mum sent a text back saying - and I'd like input on how you'd take a message like this too, please - "if a daughter can feel sad, imagine how devastated a mother must feel". The fuck? I wasn't going to indulge in a text message conversation so I called her and to point out that she, if I talk about anything to do with me, will invariably have a worse headache, a greater depression, more anxiety, less this, more that, and that I wouldn't have my feelings dimished that way, not anymore. I assume it's her way of empathising but I'm kind of over it always being a competition that she must win. So I called her on this, vis a vis her last text message to me, and she said she meant the polar opposite of what she'd written but try as I might, which I did, I could get what she said she meant from the words she wrote.

ANYWAY

This progressed to me positively bubbling over with a lifetime of angst which, as yuo can imagine, is a bunch of all sorts of joyous stuff. As I told mum though, I wasn't angry, I wasn't upset, but that if she wanted to be a part of Daniel's life, she'd better, and this is the upshot, not actual excerpts from the conversation, shape up and this is why.

It was uber-cathartic, but then that feeling passed in favor of guilt, oh the guilt that plagued me the following days because really, if mum actually got what I was talking about, she'd feel like fucking hell, and if it were me in her shoes, I'd want to off myself because of it, but she's fine and dandy and I don't think any of it really sunk in anyway so that was a waste of a day's worth of guilt. Oh, I've got loads more in storage so it's not like I'm gonna run out of my guilt any time soon.

POINT BEING

Maybe that healing thingo wasn't so stupid after all? I mean, I'd never ever have thought I'd have the balls to confront mum with that stuff before because I'm (wait for it) too scared of her not loving me anymore to criticise her in any way (I know, how fucked up am I?), and there I was, emoting all over the place, and essentially risking her not loving me any more.

Um, does anyone know where was I going with this? Because I've kind of forgotten...and I really would like some input on how you'd feel if you'd said you were sad about something and the reply you got was "well if you're sad, imagine how I must be feeling". I still think it diminishes the person in the first's feelings while making it all about the person in the second's, but maybe I'm overly sensitive to this stuff re my mum?

So, yes, my sil opted out of a plan that had been made six weeks prior for a surgery that was happening in two weeks. Shit a brick man, I had eight weeks to organise care for Daniel but didn't do it because she'd offered. So I was up the creek without the proverbial paddle, and a prior knowledge that none of the carers at daycare wanted to do it. So I begged the director to ask the staff again and at the eleventh hour, ie, yesterday, have someone staying with Daniel overnight and taking him into childcare everyday. Neither of us has any idea of what it's worth in a monetary sense though. I'm broke and will be MUCH poorer shortly as I won't be working for at least a month and will be paying for extra childcare, so while it's worth everything to me to have someone Daniel likes and who I trust taking care of him, as much as I'd like to pay her accordingly, I'm not about to donate a kidney to show my gratitude.

She gets paid a hundred bucks to look after some other kid from mid afternoon to 10am the following day, so for say, nineteen or twenty hours. Daniel will only (only?!) need care for twelve, and of those hours, he'll be asleep for at least ten, and rather than it being for only one night here and there, it's for up to five or six nights in a row, so while we've agreed on $400 (if by agreed I mean she, gingerly:$400...?, me: okay) I'm wondering if I'm paying too much, based on her regular fees. Then on the other hand, what does it matter? So I think I'm wrong to question the amount we've agreed on (if by "agreed", etc), and on the other hand, think I'm an idiot for not at least saying, gingerly "$300....?", while on the other hand, there's nothing I can do about it now, and I shouldn't even be questioning it because fercryinoutloud, it's my li'l boppy's welfare we're talking about here, when all the while I know I'm worrying about trivial shit like money because I'm really worrying about much bigger, less trivial shit.

She's a lovely girl, by the way, really sweet, and fortunatley looks nothing like Rebecca De Mornay, and has offered to bring Daniel into hospital, to pick him up at the sparrow's fart on the Monday morning I go into hospital, and to ferry him to and from daycare the following week while he's in there as I recline elegantly on a sofa at home, remote control in hand and satiated by a steady supply of really good drugs.

Speaking of remote controls, that could be a LIE, seeings as how my TV shat its stupid self the SAME WEEK summer programming gave way to such delights as Grey's Anatomy, CSI, SVU, My Name is Earl and all the other stuff I've been waiting patiently to see. I have a borrowed, portable, tiny TV that I need to stand up to change channels on and binoculars to see the screen, but it's not hooked up to anything else apart from itself so buh bye, dvds and any chance of recording the shit I want to see.

This is a situation that both sucks and blows, people. Sucks and blows. Seriously. Especially considering I'm gonna be all hand to the forehead (which is about the only part of my face that won't have been smacked around) and drifting in and out of consciousness on the sofa in a little over a week.

In other news, Daniel is teething and those bottom two molars are still screwing with his cute little self. He's asleep now but this morning has been a miserable one for him. He woke up crying and nothing, apart from being lugged around on my hip, has been able to calm him down since. It's been weeks, months even, of varying degrees of this same misery. God I hope he pushes those fuckers up sometime this week because I want to be the one to lug him around until they do. So how's about some tooth popping vibage, s'il vous all plait? It'd be much appreciated.

he who is easily amused

spooning

Daniel likes to hug me these days, possibly because it gives him an opportunity to shove his hands down the front of my shirt and feel around in there like some kind of miniature pervert. He also likes to carry things around, particularly small things like pens, spoons and drinking straws. Things that don't do really anything for him other than fit neatly into the palm of his hand. He also likes to put things inside of other things, so I keep finding weird objets in even weirder places.

Is way cute. Also, is health hazard, as evidenced by this morning's discovery of him chewing on toast he'd stashed I don't know where I don't know how long ago.

He also loves to shop, but it's a bit of a bear to take him along when running errands, which is why I waited until he was in daycare before heading off to do a million things, the last of which found me at the repairer's to kvetch about his stupid carseat, which is at least half the reason I don't like running errands with Daniel in tow. Putting him in the car, taking him out again, oy. I shouldn't be dislocating my shoulder each time I take him out of the seat, and I shouldn't need a degree in physics to put him back in.

It took a lot of patience on repair dude's behalf, with a lot of fucking about with the seat behaving perfectly and me looking delusional with nothing more exciting to do than think up detailed imaginations about child restraints, and a lot of me surreptitiously shaking my fist at the sky and asking God and all the dead people I know, what the fuck?!, but he kept poking around in there (repair dude, not God) trying to get the seat to malfunction. When it finally did, jamming like it always does whenever I'm not having some burly repairer have a look at it, angels sung and it was decided that Daniel's seat should be sent to Melbourne for assessment, where they'll probably stash it out back and leave it there for a week before calling me to report that they've fixed the problem, it was some technical sounding word that's not in the dictionary because it doesn't even exist. We've got a loan seat until then, one that has the exact same retractor mechanism as my ridiculous seat, is six years old and doesn't require the number of an orthopedic surgeon on speed dial on my phone, so if my seat comes back with a report from quality control saying they've found no problems with it, I'm gonna throw it at someone's head.

Anyway, errand over and bla bla bla, and then I noticed the teaspoon sticking out of the arm pittular area of my bra. It must have been there since the particularly warm hug-plus-grope goodbye Daniel had given me that morning in daycare, and had probably totally impressed repair dude and the multidude of other people I'd dealt with since. Yeah.

Ass Hattery

Over at what the BLOG!? control centre, today is the day those of us sporting a fancy badge nominate our contenders for the inaugural (and prestigious!) Ass Hat Awards, because everyone knows at least one total Ass Hat.

Case in point:

That I can post this entry at all could be considered a fucking miracle if one was not aware of the joy it is to be signed up with the clusterfuck gotalk refer to as their Australian owned, publicly unlisted, fast growing, full service telco company. I've been trying to cancel my broadband since January, and lookit, I'm still here.

I signed up last November on the promise of cheap VoIP phone calls with a free headset and credit and something else for free that I can't remember, a car maybe? and a really rad deal involving a home phone line for the unlimited download, 512k speed, wired broadband they dangled in front of my face (reminds me of how I dangle a small morsel of food in front of Daniel's when trying to avert the wantwantwantywantwant, waah crisis that could be the result of taking him out of the bathroom and specifically, out of the toilet bowl), and also because I am somewhat of an ISP slut. Anyone can have me if they sweet talk me enough. I have no sense of loyalty, none at all, woot! As an aside, that reference to the phone/broadband thing must make me sound about a hundred years old, what with all the speaking of such antiquated museum pieces when surrounded by the many, many, many wireless high speed freaks reading my uber-popular bloggy thing right now, but considering we as a nation, are about a million years behind you when it comes to all things internetty, I'm actually a gal who's ahead of her times, but ANYWAY, a seductive dealio came my way that promised to be WAY cheaper than the plan I was on, so I was all Dude, sign me up. (about the toilet bowl/food thing, the boy's hand are thoroughly scrubbed clean between the two events, so there's no need to A. call child services or B. tell my mother, thank you for your concern)

A little over a month went by and in that time I'd been on the on the phone about fifty eight times trying to get tech support to set up my damn VoIP account because their software worked for shit. Mostly they advised me to upgrade to a VoIP modem which, due to the rocks I have in my head that pass, usually quite convincingly, for brains, I did, cancelling my free headset dealio, saying goodbye to even more spondoolies a month, and saying hello to a two year contract that, I was advised, I could cancel at any moment on return of the modem which, why would you bother calling it a contract anyway?

Then my first phone bill arrived and I put it aside, which is the mature way I deal with the monetary outgoings of this household. I opened it about three weeks later, at which time I about shit myself.

People, it was for over three hundred dollars which, what the fuck? No way. So red pen in hand, I spent some time wading through the quagmire that was my account,and found over a hundred and eighty smackeroos in superfluous chargage. That still left me around twenty bucks over my usual monthly spend, and *yawn*, can I include boring superfluous detail or what? Point being, this VoIP thing wasn't working, especially since I'd not been able to enjoy the benefits of my VoIP because a) it didn't work in the first instance and b) in the second instance, the modem never arrived, a minor detail I'd over looked because on a day to day basis, my mind is occupied with things that interest me more than missing hardware. I figured I'd wear the charges for first month modem rental as it had taken me almost as long to open the damn bill to find the extra charge, but call them and ask exactly how high were they, in re the other charges, but would wear the charge for one of the several headset deal VoIP charges for the same Took Three Weeks To Notice reason. So I highlighted the several billion erroneuous charges they'd thrown my way, the vision in my head being to call them up so we could all have a little chuckle at how silly it all was, tra la. Revisiting that whole 'rocks for brains' thing, I thought too, that I'd stay with them for one more month, you know, to get a clearer picture of what this Australian owned bla bla bla could offer. That, friends, is code for I'm an idiot. Anyway, having navigated my way through their telephone tree, and ...meh, forget it. I'm not going to bore you with the details of what ensued once I was taken off hold, suffice to say by the end of the conversation I was satisfied that the problems were solved, the accounts were cancelled, the credits were issued and liddlelambsidivey and oh, how we laughed etc. Yes sir, by the end of that phone call, I was one happy camper.

Again, rocks. For brains.

The next month arrived and with it, a new gotalk bill, in which had none of the credits and all of the extra accounts remained, and with another additional charge for I don't know what the fuck.

That was in early January, and between now and then, I've been on hold for approximately the same amount of time it would take to gestate a baby elephant and raise it to puberty. I'm not going to detail the vast number of phone calls I've made, nor am I going to bla bla bla on about the details of the incompetent bullshit I've endured, nor the uncredited credits, the slow speeds or the unreturned phonecalls and emails.

Worth menton though, is the cancellation charge for the modem account on my most recent bill. It's for three hundred and sixteen bucks because, wait for it, I never returned the modem.



Do you know what's really funny? Insert waves crashing on beaches right here because that's the time that a gotalk representative telephoned me mid this last little rant. I was all, great, a debt collector trying to shake me down for the now seven hundred (I shit you not) outstanding dollars, but he was a sales rep calling to sell me some of their fantabulous products. Dude admitted to checking my existing account so I'm a little amused that he'd want me to sign up for yet more delight with this bunch of circus freaks. I told him thankyou very much but I'll pass, can you please be a love and pass my file to Michael?

Michael is the last in a long line of wads promising to fix shit and call me back, and who have done neither.

*more waves, more beaches*

That was Tom calling back instead and seriously, this guy should be bucking for a promotion to CEO of this here animal farm. Dude knows his shit, and even if he doesn't, I believe that he does, and that folks, is what good customer service is all about! Our conversation has been termniated on the promise of my kingdom come, my will be done etc, sometime on the 26th of this month. I've been trying to cancel this shitty account with them for over two months and it STILL hasn't happened, but if the beloved Tom were to make magic happen today, I'd be without the internet over the weekend and for at least three more days after that because of something to do with the wholesaling of some shit to other ISPs which...what? As I love my fans too much to deprive y'all of my special brand of joy for that long of a time, and seeings as how I won't need to entertain you, me or anyone else while I'm trashed on some really good drugs for at least a few days after that date, that's why that date.

bla bla bla, the end.



*****

snippet: Daniel has been in his backpack this entire time, amusing himself on my back and with a pen in his hand. Yes sirree, that's oneinteresting facial decoration you got going there, dude. I suspect too, that the back of my neck resembles the face of a Maori warrior.

I feel the need, the need for speedos

Baby Buns aside, did you hear the conversation going on in the background?

I'd taken Daniel to the beach for the first time ever one evening sometime in February. Dude was excited, sqeee-ing so loudly from the esplanade that he attracted an audience before we'd even hit the sand. No shit, we stood up there like rockstars, looking down at all the spectators, their faces turned our way, watching and waiting for us to make our way down the ramp and onto the beach, so I wasn't surprised when once there, someone broke from the adoring crowd and made their way toward us. "Hello", she said "Hello" I replied, and shoot me now, but god I wish I wasn't such a polite fuck because she settled in for a chat and stayed and stayed and stayed, and I totally allowed her to monopolise that special time with my boy enjoying the beach for the first time ever. I ask you, how hard would it have been to say "nice to meet you but I'd like to be able to focus on my son now, especially as it's HIS FIRST TIME!! HAVE A HEART!! GROW A BRAIN!! GO AWAY!! etc!! ". Okay, maybe not that last bit but, whatever.

and I have a lump of coal where my heart should be, apparently, because Daniel had a wonderful time, I had a wonderful time, and even clueless woman had a wonderful time, and that's what really matters, doh di oh doh doh.

the real me

Once upon a time I feared dying because I didn't want to lose my life. Now I fear dying because I don't want to miss a moment of Daniel's.

The other night as he sat on my lap and stuck his fingers in my mouth and looked up my nose and searched for my belly button as he poked and prodded while asking "beh-yoo?", I held his arm in my hand and made a circle, touching my thumb with my index finger around his little boy bicep. Then I held my hand in the air and made that same circle and for a long time, I just looked at it. It was an inch and a half in diameter. Maybe two, and I used to be able to make that same circle around my own bicep. I used to hold my arm in my hand and my fingers would meet.

I still can't believe I survived that hell, and I still find myself placing my fingers along that point on my neck, searching for a pulse and feeling that reassuring blub blub blub blub reminding me that I'm not about to die right now, this minute. Then there's the next minute to worry about so I keep finding that spot and listening hard, and I don't know if I'll ever be free of the fear of what I survived killing me before I'm ready to go.

I don't know how it started. I remember quitting smoking and not wanting to gain weight, and I recall not eating much and thinking I was just getting used to how much I could eat without gaining or losing and then somewhere in there, I just stopped eating. I lost a fuckload of weight and I shit you not, it worried me. I even went to the fishdoctor (not that he doctored fish, it was more to do with his rather unfortunate facial features) and told him that I was losing weight, I didn't know why and What the Fuck? And I wasn't even lying. Man, schtoopid *hits self upside of head* Anyhoo, he told me to come back if it continued, which, um...yeah. We all know how that turned out.

It was an obsession by then because not eating would be very, very hard hard to do if you weren;t that focussed. Anorexia isn't about hating food or not wanting it, it's all about food. Every waking moment was spent on thinking about what I would eat if I just lost another pound because then I'd have a pound I could stand to gain, and then I'd lose another pound so I could eat even more, and then another and another and it went on and on and on. My grades fell and I went from effortless A's to barely pulling D's. I was studying to be a radiograpehr at the time, my second year, but my lecturer's called me that last term and asked me what the fuck? and told me to defer the rest of the year and take some time off. I was so thin by then that I was running on brain power alone, and not needing to put one foot after the other anymore to make it to school, I virtually collapsed. The timelines are all blurred but there was some time spent in hospital after that. My weight kept dropping but I seemed to adapt to each pound I lost. I was dulled by the enormous amount of anti depressant the hospital shrink had me on, but I'd spend hours poring over recipe books, imagining what the glorious pictures would taste like and imagining eating it when I'd lost that extra pound. Eating, not eating, reading imagining, bla bla bla, and that was my life. Somewhere in that whole mess of thinking, I learned how to purge, which is a somehow less ugly way of saying "puke my guts up until my face was swollen", and it became all of me. I'd become completely withdrawn by then, and I'd been left alone too with my parents moving to Italy. The treatment facility pulled the plug too, practising some fucked you kind of hard love where if you didn't improve they punished you by cutting you loose entirely. Granted my conspiracy theories provide me with a rich inner life, but these places were funded by government grants, and people dying on their watch didn't write cheques for future funding. I remember feeling like such a failure even before then though, because the treatment assumed one wanted to get well, and I didn't want to. I didn't get how I'd missed the vital bit where I learned how to want to get better. I wanted to want that, I really did.

Anyway, bla bla self absorbed bullshit bla bla poor me bla. Being emaciated kept me safe in my mind as it threatened my body. It protected me from hurt because the more you starve the less you feel. I think I'd always felt lost, unloved, abandoned, unworthy, and even when all that was validated by my own parents not thinking I was worth saving, I didn't anymmore. I just felt nothing. And in re that not worth saving jive, jesus, if I'd been ill for a million years then yes, I'd understand the tough love approach they took, but I'd been sick for less than a year. I attended my therapy sessions twice a week: once with my psychiatrist and once with my counselor. I demonstrated a commitment to at least finding a want to get better, and it pisses me beyond fuck that they weren't there when I needed them. It pisses me beyond even that that they not only left me to die, they left me to die alone.

Thing is, sunshines, if I wanted to die I would have done so, but I didn't, and the very people who are supposed to love me beyond reason kept on waiting and waiting for me to get on with it because that was the plan. I die, they get on with it. They did what they wanted and didn't want to think about what I wanted because that would have taken an investment in time and an unconditional love and jesus christ, their own child? How could they? How dare they? Which brings me to my new want, I want to want to let go.

But in the meantime...

There was this voice in my head yelling and yelling and yelling at me to stop the lunacy because it was mad crazy but I couldn't listen because of that other voice. I hung on so hard to starving because if I didn't....I don't know. Something bad would happen, like I'd die or something, which is fucked logic because not eating kind of kills you too. People always talk about how scared they are for the person who has a life threatening eating disorder, but seriously, does anyone ever stop to think about how fucking terrifying it is to be that eating disorder? I say 'be' because it consumes you so much that you lose who you once were. It's terrifying because you're still inside that madness, trying so hard to get out but you can't, you just can't. It's terrifying because you know it's you who's doing this to you, and it's terrifying because as much as you want to, you can't make it stop because it is you.

Someone asked my just last week about what I did to stay alive, but I don't know what I did. I guess I lived instead, which would be deep if it wasn't so ridiculous.

I was 33 kilos by then and purging became so easy by then that all I needed to do was lean over the john to do it. Other people my age were traveling and living and working and loving and creating families and lives and making memories that enrich their existence to this day, and I spent that same time crouched over the toilet and speaking to god on the great, white telephone. That was my life and those are my memories.

I never stopped working though, even if it was only a few hours a week, and I never treated myself like I was physically ill. I kept on keeping on and pretending that everything was AOK, and I tell you this so you don't think I'm a total parasite and an utter failure. There's still two voices in my head, and that's the stronger one. The second one, the more subdued and unsure one tells me that they should be ashamed of condeming me to, at worst, death and at best, a lifetime of torment. It tells me that I should be proud of where I am and what I've done because I've done it alone and bla bla bla. Try as I might to think otherwise, I still think that voice is full of shit.

I've gained weight but I still have an eating disorder. I don't think people want to hear that. They want to believe that I'm fine and well and not a problem anymore. They want to believe I'm setting a wonderful exaample for my son. I'm not, I'm not and I am, and I'm not. I binge when I'm stressed and I'm stressed a whole lot of the time. The more I binge, the more I purge and the more I purge the more disgusted, disappointed and sad and trapped I become. I'm caught in a never ending loop and it's me who's left me there. I wish my problem was smack of coke or ice because there's rehab for that. I'm so scared this is going to kill me. I don't know what to do because to do anything I have to tell someone, and I'm too ashamed to do that. I think about food more than I think about my son. I love him so much and I hate this so much and yet this is more my life than he is.