today's news

Day 30, and Period Watch 2007 commences.

In other thrilling news, I just purchased a forty dollar raffle ticket, which may not sound like a big amount of spondoolies, which it isn't when one looks at the bigger picture, also known as The Stack Of Unpaid Bills On My Desk That Laugh In The Face Of Forty Bucks, Ha HA!, which explains my rationale for tossing more money into the ether for no reason other than I'm an idiot. Granted, that rationale is somewhere in there with "Just one more cigarette and then I'll, quit", a big fat lie we all know leads to the slippery slope to puffing on those fuckers for the rest of your life.

ANYWAY

It's for a good cause and more importantly, I have a one in nine chance of winning, y'all. I didn't just blow forty bucks, I invested it.

Spring is just around the corner and with it comes the billions of tiny pollen spores that every year, make their way through the appropriate orifices and take up quarters in my chest, throat and sinuses where, once settled, they begin knitting their yearly quota of fuzzy garments. Yesterday morning saw me waking up with what felt like an Afghan wrapped around my vocal chords, a condition that usually has me sounding gin soaked and interesting. This time though, I'm not unconvinced that I didn't, in fact, turn into a transvestite overnight.

Thank goodness for Spring's redeeming factors, one being that the warmer weather means Daniel's onesies can be tossed aside in favor of the lone and untucked t-shirt. This state of perpetual untuckedness means the t-shirt, unlike the onesie, can be raised and lowered at whim. This, of course, it being all about the boy, allows Mr Deebs easy access to his Bee Bah! whenever and where ever the urge to reacquaint himself with his body parts hits, providing hours of fun and a constant, if questionable, source of entertainment.

hes' been like this since Monday

He'd previously been obsessed with his Shape-O Toy, which I guess explains why I found him earlier today trying to shove the star shape in there. News in: it doesn't fit. Nor does the square, the triangle, the vacuum cleaner (!) or, god help me, his breakfast.

behold the manboobs

snippet

Daniel and I went along to the Playschool stage show on Monday morning, not because I'm organised enough to buy actual tickets to a real event scheduled for sometime before 4pm, but because my friend's sister is. Her kids spent Sunday throwing up though, so their chance of seeing Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima, Fergus and a couple of actual humans live was shitcanned, so we went instead. Woot!

Mind you, Daniel doesn't watch TV, and Playschool being a children's television classic, has no fucking clue who these singing, dancing freaks are. Dude got right in the groove though, and whooped up a storm and we both had an awesome time. The end.

Hey dude, wrong way.

to clarify

I don't believe Tina is in any physical danger. What I do believe is that her emotional needs aren't being met. I also believe I identify too much with being raised by emotional vacuums who live, not for their children, but for their insular and self involved world. It bugs me that, while all the dramatics are simple hot air, no one's stopped to think how this real life soap opera might be affecting Tina. She's twelve, which means a) she's on the brink of her own dramatic and hormone fuelled identify crisis, and b) that it's possible that she's taking what she sees and hears and feels at face value and believes that her mum is suicidal, and that her uncle is plotting how best to kill them.

Her parents prefer to wallow in the drama of their own making though, and to dismiss that Tina might be feeling something other than the "Okay" that automatically pops out of her mouth when they ask how she is.

Think back to when you were a kid. You wanted to please your parents, yes? So if your parents' wish was that you were okay, you were okay.

When I was eight, I broke my leg in several places. I smashed that fucker up so much that it still troubles me to this day. We were vacationing at the time though, so my father, not wanting to go through the headfuck of finding a hospital and, you know, attending to his child's medical needs, kept insisting I was fine. So I was. Oh, I calmly and rationally told him "but dad, I heard it snap" (it went off like a gunshot, actually), and he was all "no you didn't", so while I knew he was wrong, I did what I was told and I was fine. Terrified that I'd die, sure, but fine. My mother, while she was all up in the drama (hence my fear of dying from a broken bone), needed me to be fine too because she fights a dirty fight to always be the one having her needs attended to, so I was fine for her too. I guess the drama of a child in mortal danger was her bag, as was facing the adversity of a neglectful husband ON HER OWN, poor thing. Her version of the story is that it was so awful her because she knew my leg was broken and there was nothing she could do. My version is that she could have packed me in the car herself, flipped my father the bird and driven to the next town's hospital. My father, rather than thinking of his child's welfare thought about his wants, while my mother neglected her child's welfare in favor of the drama. She often rattles on about how if it wasn't for her, they would have divorced, when what she means is that if she didn't dismiss her children in favor of her husband, she'd have been left without a man.

Which sounds a lot like Tina's upbringing.

Which is why I worry about her.

because it takes a village?

Strep called last week to talk about stuff unrelated to Daniel, but because it related to his daughter's (herewith "Tina") welfare, I give a shit so let the idiot waffle on for a while about how his ex wife ("Hades") has (after years of stony silence between them because they're so mature god help me and have their daughter's best interests at heart yes they do) been calling him and crying for hours because she's now suicidal, has attempted to take her own life on more than one occasion, and how, among other things, his ex-wife's brother, Tina's uncle (for fuck's sake), threatened to kill both of them while at a family birthday party, and nothing says "Festive!" like a death threat. Tina apparently cried for three hours straight after that one, and Hades, from the sounds of it, is trying to get a new audience because her friends and family are all, according to him according to her, horrible to her and have all stepped back so won't support her through this difficult time.

Note to the insane (Hades? That'd be you): If several (hundred, we're talking an extended, ethnic family here) individuals who all play different roles in your life are essentially saying the same thing (which, word has it, is "smarten up or fuck off, drama queen"), they're the variables, you're the constant. There's a wee chance, my pet, that you might not be the hard done by, poor thing you think you are.

So anyway, Strep called to offload this headfuck onto me because I guess he hasn't got any friends, and hey! I'm always up for a good dose of manipulation. He was all "we had something special, things happen for a reason, I value your opinion, bla di bla di bla", and I was all yawning and filing my nails and saying "quit with the bullshit, what are you going to do about Tina?".

He's put me in a difficult position because he's an asshole knows I give a shit about his daughter - as I would any child - even though, quite frankly, it's not my business and doesn't concern me at all. There is nothing I can do to help, and I find it extremely upsetting to be so impotent. Not because it's HIS child but because she's A child, and from the sounds of it and based on what I knew of their family dynamics even before his shit hit my personal fan two or so years ago, she'd be better off being raised by wolves.

When he picked her up after that ill fated birthday celebration, she was all smiles and happy and saying what a great time she had, and now he's curious why Tina hasn't told him any of the drama she's been living with thanks to her mother's ridiculousfest. It's never occurred to him that it might be an issue that she says nothing at all. My take is that he's primarily (only?) concerned about himself and his feelings ("why won't she talk to me?") instead of realising this child needs help (versus "what can I do to support her so that she feels she can share her worries and fears?". Or something) because she has a fucking huge load to deal with and rather than be protected by her parents, feels she has to protect them. She's learned that her feelings don't matter in comparison to theirs. This conclusion, by the way, comes from six years of observation and isn't anything new to me. I realise too, that I may be projecting and identifying and psychobabble bla bla bla. She might well be fine, but still, her parents are both so self involved that they can't comprehend that Tina has feelings. She tells Strep she's okay and he accepts it without question, and her mother needs her to be okay so that she can be the high maintenance one in the family. Surely a responsible guardian would say "She says she's fine but she's living in a chaotic world. Maybe I should keep an eye on her?". But he's sitting back and Hades is wallowing in her life of high drama, and they're both reaping the rewards of creating relationships with Tina where she protects them. She parents both her parents. She's looking after them and no one is looking after her.

Anyway, yes. None of this is any of my business and I'm probably identifying too much (YA THINK?) with Tina, but he called and as well as dumping this shit on me, asked for my advice on what to do. So with his permission, I gave it: Hades is unable to look after her own mental health right now, so is hardly likely to be able to look after her child's. Chances are Tina is a wee bit worried that she's going to come home one day to either find her mother's corpse and an empty bottle of pills lying on the floor, or that her uncle is going to murder them both in their sleep. In the short term, he needs to take Tina home with him, and then call a mental health crisis line, his family doctor, a hospital, or a psychic help line to get some advice on how best to be a support person to Hades (if that's what he wants to do. Me? I'd toss her the same phone numbers then run for the hills. I don't do that whole "wa wa I'm going to kill myself" bullshit), but his priority is Tina. She needs him and he needs to talk to someone who has an experienced and educated idea of how to best handle this whole clusterfuck, and he needs to quit deluding himself that doing fuck all is going to help anyone.

And the curtain goes down on last week.

Act II.

He called again Tuesday night, all "I was on the phone to Hades for four hours last night and....*pauses for maximum effect*....it's not good. She's really in a bad way."

I waited to hear how Tina was. You know, his twelve year old, but he was more interested in how heavy it is to listen his depressed and hopeless (and probably stoned, is my bet) ex wife.

"So, Tina is with you then, right?".

No she's not.

He left her there with her suicidal mother and her abusive boyfriend. Oh yeah, I forgot about that part. Hades' boyfriend is abusive. I'm not sure to what extent but abuse is abuse and it's being done in front of a child who's growing up to model her future relationships on what she sees. Awesome. Even more awesome is that Strep thinks that because it's heresay and because he "only" has his daughter a small percentage of the time, that he shouldn't do anything about the reports that knives have been thrown and bodies have been pushed into the wall.

This just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?

I told him that he's a fucking idiot and that Tina is 100% his daughter and that he needs to quit sticking his head in the sand and start acting like a parent.

He thinks that if he took Tina away, Hades would off herself. I told him that a) statistically, people who threaten to kill themselves are less likely to do than those who say that everything's fine, thank you very much, b) he's worrying about a grown up when there's a child who needs his help and is not getting it? Grow the fuck up, and c) Jesus Christ. I also told him I think that it's a big fucking responsibility to be the one thing between your mother living or dying, and that it's criminal that he's colluding with Hades on that idea. Sacrifice the child much?

Identifying. I KNOW.

Still, when she's all hysterical and threatening to toss back a handful of pills with a bottle o' vodka chaser, I don't see what the big deal is about saying "Wait there, I'll come collect Tina and once she's settled in here, I'll call you back and we can talk.". I also don't know what planet I'm living on because, hello, this is Strep we're discussing here and solutions involve actual, real thought processes.

Then I told him then that I'm not his friend, I don't like him, and having thought about it, am wondering who the hell he thinks he is that it's okay for him to dump all this on me. I can't do anything, so why tell me about it? I have my own stress, life and worries to deal with, did he think about that before he laid his shit on my plate?

"What stress?" he asked, "why is your life stressful?".

What.

A.

Cockhead.

I find this whole mess extremely upsetting. Extremely, and I'm pissed that he's involved me in it. Anyone would find this distressing, not because some princess is threatening to kill herself or because her brother has threatened to do it for her, but because there's a child caught in the middle of it and no one is doing anything. It's distressing because it's fucked up to begin with, but it's SO distressing for me because there is absolutely nothing I can do except listen to Strep and help him. Which, is he serious?!

I'm just going to publish this shit storm and walk away.

in which there where little pictures

Remember this? Well, yes. Chocks away.

The first appointment with the Reproductive Endocrinologist was two weeks ago, and I've had one of the mandatory two sessions with the social worker with the next scheduled for next Tuesday. Now all I've got to do is get my Day 21 bloods which, if anyone's interested, isn't strictly Day 21. Essentially what you do is wait to ovulate and then count seven days and then get your bloods done. The "Day 21" tag refers to a regular 28 day cycle, with progesterone levels being at a peak on Day 21, which is seven days after ovulating which, in a 28 day cycle, usually occurs on day 14. Capiche? ANYWAY, yes. Once the Day 21 (or whatever) bloods are done, I wait some more, and then when my period arrives (which becomes Day 1 of your cycle, for those of you using this entry for educational purposes), schedule a scan for day 3, 4 or 5 to check my ovaries for follicles, I don't know why, and on the same day, get more bloods done to get a baseline hormone panel. Or something. I seem to recollect soemthing about that, but honestly? I may have made that last bit up. Then I wait a bit longer and see the RE again mid September, by which time I should have ovulated at least once, my period should have been and gone (all seven days of it what the fuck?), and he'll have all the necessary results.

All of these immediate things are dependent on my stupid body doing what it should know how to do but has in the past had oh so much trouble getting a handle on. The good news though, is that it's been doing quite nicely, thankyou very much, since I got my period back in February this year. Obviously it's a first for me because I have never had so regular a period and if I have ovulated (apart from Daniel's original twinkle in my eye popping out right on schedule like it did) in the past, it never knew about it. Now? I practically receive a notarised letter from the Queen each time an egg goes traipsing out of my ovary, all tizzied up and ready to part-ay. This month though, has been a right off. OF COURSE. Everything has gone awry and I've either given up ovulating all together or have super ovulated seventeen times before lunch. Obviously I'm being hypervigilant so am missing what are in truth, fairly subtle signs anyway, and obviously it's driving me crazy, so I'm just going to get my damn blood taken on Friday and lie like a rug about how certain I am that the egg was popped a week ago. The most important part of the equation though, My Period, I can't fake and god help my uterus if it fucks with me and my need to get this particular ball rolling. Which is funny, ha ha, given that the next step after all this bizzo is...wait for it...sperm donor selection! (a tenuous segue, yes, but there, nonetheless)

:::::

I can't believe it's taken this long to find the time to sit down and write an entry either, but there it is. Daniel's even been in childcare on Monday and Tuesday, and is going in again today, giving me a theoretical fuckload of down time -and yet my list of achievements for the week equals a big, fat zero.

Although, I have updated you all on my parts, and.....

I have had a chance to get my nails done, grazie dio! Which also explains the deebs' extra day this week in care. I'd called the girl on Friday and left a message begging her to save me from life as a two bit crack whore, dodgy nails being the main determinant of such things, and my nails were awful. Several of them were quite literally being held together by superglue. GASP. Anyway, lesson learned: BioSculpture Gel nails look freakin' awesome but require more upkeep than your traditional acrylics, and just one extra week between being gelled and being maintained had my nails being a little worse for wear. Acrylics are stronger too and you know where this is heading, don't you? But I'm getting ahead of myself. This isn't a very interesting story, by the way. Not at all. Quite boring actually, a la "then I did this and then I did that and bla and bla and bla". I don't know why I'm even writing about it. BUT, the lass called back Monday morning all "can you come in today at 1.30?" and I took one look at Daniel, who is home on Mondays, and figured he'd do fine locked in the car for a few hours with a sippy cup of milk for hydration purposes and a few rusks to keep him from starving, so said yes. KIDDING. First, I sobbed and told her no, not possible. Then the lightbulb came on and I called the childcare centre who said sure, they'd had a cancellation for that day, bring him in, so I did, and then I spent about a billion dollars getting the gel nails removed because criminy, (also, "quick and easy removal"? Ha ha HA), I must do a bit of bricklaying in my sleep or something, judging by how much my nails went south in the past three weeks, and then had an acrylic overlay put on which I don't like as much as the gels, not at all, because while the gels looked like "hmm, are her nails real or not?", these scream "fake, fake fake, fake!" as much as Jordan's gigantic ta-tas do. But, now I can keep them long for a while without spending a fortune and half my life in the nail salon. Or, at least I will until my professional ethics kick in again, or clients get sick of me leaving scratch marks all over their bodies that they need to go home and explain to their wives, husbands, partners, or pet budgerigars. I think if your nails are stronger to begin with the gels would last better as they only strengthen what you already have, and my natural nails break all. the. damn. time anyway, so still bend and flex and challenge the gel's super strengthening powers at the same places they break, so then the gel, without maintenance, gets weaker at those same points and god I can make even the most interesting story an exercise in Le Yawn.

Herewith the nails :

old nails (attached to hands older than Methesulah)

new nails (and gratuitous baby photo)

Hmm, I've really got to learn how to use my camera properly. Rough translation: you're not drunk, it's fuzzy in the foreground.

Speaking of short folk who poop their pants (no, not Daniel's father)(although...man, He's another story entirely that probably requires popcorn and the number of a hitman on speed dial), life as I knew it is now over. As I type, Daniel is standing on a milk crate and fosscking in the last remining drawer in the kitchen that I could call my own. I have no drawers! Which, hang on. That doesn't sound right.



Point being, dude is killing me here. It started the other night when all was silent and I found him mounted on the drawers he'd pulled out to form makeshift stairs (seriously) and had climbed up on top using his trusty milk crate as leverage.



LOOK AT HIM! Eternal eek, man. My god, I gave birth to a min Sir Edmin Hillary. Doomed, I am doomed. And committed to leaving a truck load of cardboard boxes lying around, stunt man style, to catch any potential falls and hopefully cushion against all those potentially broken bones. DOOMED.

The cardboard boxes shouldn't be hard to find as I have a guilty secret: I hoard cardboard boxeas. You know, in case I need them one day. Which I NEVER HAVE so there's the real reason why I need ot move out of this pokey unit and into a Mansion with fourteen bedrooms, or, as I see it, Two bedrooms and a dozen cardboard box storage spaces. I need an intervention.

As update from the News You Didn't Need To Hear files: we have a High Alert, Code Brown situation here at the Villa de Bee. IfyouknowwhatImean (hint: peeyoo)

In other riveting toddler news, Daniel is learning to dress himself. Behold:



He also reads. Or does something that looks like reading, at least. I think I've mentioned it before but ever since he's been picking up books, if you give him a book with no pictures and only words in it, upside down and back to front, the dude's been turning it the right way around so he can begin thumbing through the pages. Freak-ay.

your time starts now

After having been SO down this past week or so, I woke up and *bling* am back to my regular self again. Still as tired as all buggery but at least I don't feel like throwing myself under a bus because I'm suuuuuuuuch a failure, and all that ridiculous, depressive, dig a deeper hole to climb into, aibee, shit. The tiredness and ennui will pass too, once I get back into working out and working (with my two (ahem) clients) regularly again. Not that I work out that often anyway but enough to feel more motivated and less like a waifish weakling. The gym down the road has a thirty days for thirty dollars deal going on too, and I'm still umming and aahing about it because filling in classes once every millenium means I still get to train for free at The World's Crappiest Gym, and yet I still don't train regularly and ..... would you look at me getting all ridiculously hard on myself? Before I head this last surgery (which wasn't even three weeks ago) I WAS training and me and my black and white perfectionist streak has suddenly made it up that I'm lazy and lacking motivation.

LIES.

Hello perspective, and thanks for that, blogger.

I reckon I'll take the gym offer up though, as their gym is quite nice, has longer hours for the creche, and if I pay for it, no matter how nominal the amount, I may actually use it more. I'm not looking forward to my first run back though, as three days before surgery I ran 6.5k, and I find it really hard to start back at a lesser level. I'd rather give up than be not as good as I was at something, so it becomes more of a mind game than it is a physical challenge. Perfectionist issues man, they doom you to failure.

The segue is that all this renewed vigor had me going back to Target and tossing this and that and the other thing into my basket, and having bought that load, I moved on to the The Other Target and availed myself of their clearance sale too, scoring two items I figured I'd invariably return because my feet are not a size 6 (not unless I amputate the little piggy that stayed home), and while Target sizes screw with the time/space equilibrium on a regular basis anyway, that vest? Looked awfully spacious. It was reduced to $5.04 (I suspect the 0.4 is to keep the mystery) though, from $49, but still, it wasn't really a bargain if I was never going to wear it.

BUT! I love a bargain so enjoyed the hoot worthy thrill of excitement when I found those red leather moccasins (for want of a better word. My brain, she leaks descriptive terms) and the flappy, gappy vest despite knowing they'd be going back toot sweet anyway.

HOWEVER! I took those babies home and tried them on and shiver me timbers if those fuckers didn't fit. All three of them (one shoe, the other shoe, the vest), so Dear Target, your loose adherence to the laws of Size Does Matter, Motherfucker, may piss me off for the most part, but yesterday? Worked for me and my feet and chesty bits thank you very much.

Daniel and I went to one of those play Play cafes with a friend and her six month old bundle o' joy on Thursday. Her older sister is Daniel's age, which is how I met her mother (which sounds like a great title for a tv sitcom), so while BabyM lay like a slug in her Phil and Ted's, Daniel cruised the joint and had a whale of a time. The owners/managers/whatever? Judgment time, folks, because you'd think if you were going into business that catered primarily for shortasses with no table manners and a penchant for pooping their pants, that you'd at least like the little rascals in the first place, but apparently not. Payback time came when Daniel discovered and sorted through the magazine rack (why anyone would place a magazine rack yay high from the floor in a room full of pesky kids is also beyond me)(I sound like we didn't have fun. We did! We did!) and rearranged them (probably alphabetically and cross referencing them according to popularity) all over the floor. Several times. I'm usually a real "ohImsosorryforthebladibladibla" type person, otherwise known as a pain in the rearendicular region apologiser, actually, but yesterday I was all up in my Entitled Mode and figured I'd paid my five bucks for Daniel to enjoy himself while I forgot I had him (What baby? That baby with the pile of Reader's Digests? Nope, no idea. *whistles innocently* ) and enjoy the peace and the coffee and the company, so left him to it and the grumpy assed manager to earn the big bucks. Oh, I am awful.

And waifish and weak. BUT! Despite currently being Stick o' Gal, I've come to the conclusion that I am also Woman, Evolved, because while everyone else peels off the baby weight once breastfeeding commences, I gained a fuckload of poundage and porked up more post natally than I ever did while pregnant. As soon as Daniel was nursing but once a day, it literally fell off me, plop plop plop, just like that, all over the floor, and within a week, I'd lost the seven pounds I'd gained that would NOT budge, no matter what, for that whole meantimey year (and a bit). Oh, and now I'm having trouble keeping it on which, had you told me that a year ago, I'd have laughed in your face before grabbing a handful of thigh and forcing you to look at just how much you were taunting me. POINT BEING, in the event of a famine, the nursing mothers with sleek silhouettes would be scraping to keep their babies fed and happy, while I would be drawing on my newly corpulent stomach and thighs and saying things like "Thank FUCK they're good for something". Of course, a famine is pretty unlikely to come our way so those other less advanced versions of Mother are still better off than me, the nursing porker upper, but IN THE EVENT, you know?

Anyway.

What else? I've not actually been doing much of anything of late apart from de swelling. Yes, that takes up a lot of my time. I'm still swollen, and still have a faint blush of bruise around my eyes. It's amazing how much the body heals in such a short time though as this time two weeks ago I wasn't even recognisable. I'm not kidding. You'd have walked right past me. Even the first operation, the one that involved the actual breaking of bones and moving them around, didn't give me that degree of anonymity.

Which brings me to...how did I get to *mumblemumble* years of age without realising (until spellcheck asked me what in tarnation I was trying to say, because the damn word is "anonymity")(spellcheck also tries to tell me to use a z not an s, which, no spellcheck, you yankee loving bahstard) that anonyminity isn't actually a word? How embarrassing.

look

I'm just going to publish this without even starting it because Daniel is trying to stick a bunny rabbit up my t-shirt and this is the exact reason why this place s so rarely updated. Multi-tasking. Or, as I like to call it. Trying To Do Everything And Not Actually Doing Anything.

We still need to shower (YES IT'S 11.11AM WHAT'S YER POINT?!) so I can get him to childcare, after which I'll be languishing on the sofa until 6.30pm.

Oh, I'm sorry, was I DREAMING? I meant to say so I can wash, cook, clean, bla, bla and bla, and hopefully try and do something worth mentioning here. And I'd like to get to Target because, people? Clearance sale. My GOD. I nipped in yesterday for not even five minutes (because they started closing at 5.30pm, what the fuck?) and walked out with six items all for 92 bucks. Oh, I'll return them all because of size, stain and/or hole issues, but if I replace them all with less shop soiled and more well chosen items, I'll hopefully end up not looking as much like badly dressed shit for maybe three days of the week.

I got this awesome dressy tunicy thing like I'd never ever think to wear. It wasn't even fifteen bucks (reduced from the big four oh!) and it's all voiley and soft with frills (Frills? I KNOW!) and it even doesn't make me look like a transvestite, which frills usually do. I thought I could go all mutton dressed as lamb and team it (because now I'm a fashionista I can use awesome fashionista words like "team" instead of "wear") with opaque tights and boots and look stupid anyway, but at least I'll be doing it in swirly emerald green and black gorgeous girly shit. I also got two tunic jumpers because YUM. One has to go back because of some ugly assed stain on the hem that I didn't see when I whipped it off the rack and put it into my basket (I LOVE the basket concept of clothes shopping. It reeks of excess and opulence to me. As in, I'm so RICH I need a frikkin' BASKET to carry it all!) and I hope so much that they have the same at the other Target because this Target only had this one. In large. Which I am not, but it was so pretty, albeit stained to within a fuck of its life. The other tunic is going back because....purple? Hmmm. Then I got another tunic jumper (are we detecting a theme here?) that simply MUST be returned because *gag*, another tunic top that needs to be exchanged for a larger size and then probably returned anyway, and...that's how many things? Five? I'm sure there's another one but maybe I'm delusional.

ANYWAY

That's the plan for today, so much to do and here I am, still sitting here, unshowered and with a bunny up my t-shirt.

exhibit A (or why I should drink less coffee)

I don't know what it is, because the decaf I drink is pretty good and tastes much like the real deal, but then I see the green lid, nescafe espresso jar and my neurons go nuts and I can't help but toss the decaf aside in favor of all its caffeinated goodness. At least three times a day, which is AT LEAST two times too many for my pansy little addict's system. These last two or so days have seen me so tired too, that I've really relied on the beans to get my ass off the seat, which is likely when it's the best time to give it up. I mean, when one is that amount of exhausted, one really shouldn't be using coffee to get that extra bit of zoom out of one's body when the zoom just isn't there to begin with. I think the last week or so has finally caught up, and if I reflect back on the week or so following the last two surgeries, and if I bought a stupid vowel and got me a damn a clue, I'd realise that it's the week AFTER the week after surgery that really knocks me around. I think (again) because I don't (can't) really take it easy, that crucial week directly after being knocked unconscious multiplies on itself so I fall twice as hard the following one.

My brother is in town at present, after being out of Australia virtually constantly since April or May or sometime, so his wife organised a dinner with them, my mum, and me and Daniel. I practically cried when she called and said "we're all going to mum's, be there at x-o-clock, bring the floor show (aka Daniel)". "Okay" I said, "but I am NOT running around after that kid!". I'm never usually able to be so....assertive? with my family (I KNOW! Me! Lacking assertive powers! What the big eff?!) but I was so exhausted when she called that the visions of an evening spent running getting up and sitting down and getting up and sitting down repeatrepeatrepeat and saving Daniel from either destroying the priceless trinkets collected by the owners of the house mum is staying in, or from frying himself by sticking a fork in a non-childproofed power point exhausted me even before we got started. See, whenever we go to my brother and sil's house, a house, I might add, with open cellars, unfenced pools, huge non toughened glass walls, totally accessible displays of expensive glassware, electrical cords openly running in and out of their big, fat assed computer, and possibly a Molotov cocktail or two stashed under the sofas, they all sit around like logs and I spend a few hours saving Daniel from certain death-and I'm not one of those panicky mothers who about shits herself whenever little schmookie trips on a shoelace. Oh no no no. I let Daniel get in all manner of situations before intervening (call child services!)(although I do stand a safe distance away, pumped and ready to leap into action should the need seem to be arising)(note: "seem" not "when it's already too late and he's mid plummeting headfirst into the cement slab floor", for I am that amount of responsible) but at their place? MY GOD, so you can imagine how relaxing it is for me when we get together to sip (amazing) wine and chill out.

Need a hint? It's NOT.

ANYWAY, Wednesday night went okay and my sil took my desperate commands to heed and made sure I didn't have to do much at all except eat a delicious array of curries from one of the restaurants her family owns. My this is an interesting story. ANYWAY, I was so tired that by the time we got home, I was feeling so ill that I chucked Daniel into his cot bed, turned his sleepy bye music on and let the kid fend for himself, then I dragged myself out to the sofa and DID NOT MOVE until about three am because, had I even blinked, I swear I would have tossed my cookies. I thought I had food poisoning to be honest, but as no one else, including the midget (who ate buttered chicken and rice like a true curry eating champ) felt even a smidge of nausea, and because it followed me around all yesterday, and because I was so frieakin' tired again too, and yawned, god help me, the yawning okay, I'm retiring this boring assed story RIGHT NOW.

Among the many things I would like to be (rich, an astronaut, a superhero) one of them is to be platinum blonde. I would simply adore to go bleachbleachbleachybleach blonde. I blame my latent ho' who, for what it's worth, hates my natural coloured mop o' ho hum. The drawbacks to my desire to look like a two bit whore are the upkeep, my aversion to change and the fact that my hair would fall right out of my head. I'd be the baldest platinum blonde around. Which kind of defeats the purpose. And the reason behind this seemingly Where The Fuck Did This Train Of Thought Come From? is that my friend's son just bleached his hair so fucking blonde that the hairdresser had to soak his head in milk afterwards to prevent his skin from shrivelling up and peeling right off his skull. I LOVE IT. FakeName P? You are SO lucky. Boys always get that kind of luck though. The eyelashes, the hella good hair. It's so unfair! I don't quite understand it, then I wonder if it hasn't got something to do with to call The Peacock Theory. Boy peacocks have got all the pretties: the feathers, the froofy bits on top of their pretty heads, the feathers, but I bet they're as thick as shit so need the fanfare to get the girls interested. Meanwhile, the peahens slop around looking like shit and probably wishing their tails were awesome too. They're ugly, but I bet they've got quite the brain inside their dowdy little heads to make up for their housfrau outer shell. Then again, they can't be too smart because they fall for the pretty boy who with that amount of froo froo? Have to be as dumb as a box of rocks, so okay, scratch that argument. (Look over here! a segue!) Which reminds me, years and years ago my friend was in England, Kew gardens? Cue? Whatev. Point being, it was some famous gardens where men are men and the peacocks roam free. Who knew peacocks could fly? Not me, that's for sure, but they can, and one flew overhead and pooped on her head, and peacocks being considerably more than bantam weight do massive poops so my friend was literally knocked off her feet and her day was kind of ruined. You know how usually you can smoodge off a bird poop with a hanky, some spit and a bit of delicate tapping and blotting? This one needed a high pressure cleaner. Ha ha HA. Okay, not as funny on the retell, but man, I HOOTED when she told me that story.

God, where was I?

How out *drumroll* my face? I've got an interesting stripe of purple and yellow across my cheeks but apart from that, I look entirely normal. Hang on, lemme see of I can take a not too disgusting pic...

gratuitous baby photo

Okay, it' s pretty disgusting, but it'd be a LOT more so if the mirror I used wasn't so "soft focussed" (ahem) by its patina of crud. And, holy CRAP! Tell me my house doesn't look so cluttery. My god. I hate the clutter. How did that happen?! Yannow, maybe I should take some (all?) of Daniel's finger paintings off the walls (YA THINK?) and try removing all that SHIT stuck to my fridge. While we're talking hate, the other things I hate are the (not pictured) craptastic toys all over floor and my scrawny chicken neck. Good christ. What IS that thing and where did it come from? Mars?! Jesus.

(PS, the collection of lighters? Are to light my dumbass stove top)

stripped

My dressings come off at 2.30 today and for that, I am truly thankful. That patch of human across both cheekbones hasn't seen either the light of day or soap and water for nine (NINE!) days - and I'm SO FREAKIN' looking forward to washing my hair under the shower and without having to bend my head back so far I get vertigo in a futile effort to keep water off my face.

Yesterday was Orthodontist Day, and it's all systems go there too. Relief much? Hell yes. I was convinced he was going to tell me my teeth were too old and fragile to band, so when he said we can do this this and this and that, I about pashed him off right there. That's the good news, the bad news is that since my initial quote from three (3!) years ago was, uh, quoted, the cost of banding has gone up almost a hundred percent. The other good news is that, apart from being able to straighten my teeth in the first place which, woot! it's not an upfront payment dealio and I get to sell random body parts as needed so I can pay for appointments as I go. What thsi all means though, is that I've come full circle and the last part of this whole "we will rebuild" bizzo has fallen into place and in two or so months I'll be a metal mouth. Going to the orthodontist three years ago is what started this whole surgical dealio journey, and now I'm back in his rooms to finish it up. Maybe I should have pashed him? You know, to mark the poignant moment or something.

Let it be known though, that I'm still pretty fucking peeved that I've got to do all this ridiculous (expensive!) stuff NOW because had my parents NOT been too lazy and cheap to send me to an orthodontist IN THE FIRST PLACE, it would have been a weeny little case of move that tooth here and, presto chango and ta da!

And it's little wonder I can't get a less crummy, more informative entry written. Daniel keeps taking off his shoe and sock (left foot only) and wandering around saying "do? suh?" like a little homeless man wanting to be redressed. So redress we do, and have done about fifty jillion times.

His other new game is to stuff things in the printer and then look at me while saying "OH DOH!", his eyes wide open, his hand clapped over his O shaped mouth, "wad ee wa wad ee wa ooh?". Translation? "Oh no!! What are we going to do?!" as apparently random toy is "stuck" and as I'm the goose that went along with this cute (once) game in the first place, we have to count "wundoowee!!" before I can whip the toy out of the space so order is restored. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Repetrepeatrepeatrepeatforeveeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

hey YOU!

news in

Three surgeries in three months really will knock the wind right out of your sails. This last operation, the smallest and possibly the most insignificant of the whole bunch o' crap that's been done to my face, has knocked the nimbostratus right into me and knocked the high flying and kind of whimsical cirrus unicus right out of me. Pain? Has been non existent. The itching though, my god. My eyes swelled up to gargantuan proportions on Tuesday, and hung around to send me mad crazy with a hunk o' burning itch on Wednesday, and I ended up spending sixty bucks on eye drops and anti histamines and all manner of anti itch creams (including vagisil. Not for my undercarriage, mind, but when I had chicken pox a few years back, vagisil was the ONLY thing that stopped the itching, so I put it on all over my chicken pocked self and felt no itching WHATSOEVER. You can imagine the pharmacists face though, when I walked in and asked for a crate of the stuff. Ha HA! So yes, I bought a tube of it last night, along with the eye drops, the antihistamine tablets and the other tube of no itch cream, and smeared it all over my eyelids-and it worked! My eyes were a lot better from then on, weee!) after the itching and burning on my eyelids became so unbearable I thought I was going to go crazy. Mum had called to say she couldn't pick Daniel up from childcare (I'll get to that later) , and maybe it was the physical stress of getting up and dressed and out and about, but minutes after getting in the car to collect him, my eyelids went nuts and burned like I never would have thought possible. One of his carers brought him out to so that I wouldn't have to face anyone while looking like this (I honestly looked appalling)(still do, come to think of it. Now I look like an appalling me though, when earlier I was unrecognisable appalling) and then *bam* I hightailed it straight to a pharmacy I've never been to before because Mr Sociable (currently in the other room and NOT sleeping, gah, for about thirty seconds because you all KNOW I'm not a cry-it-out advocate, but thirty seconds of waaah? God, save me. Or give me five minutes without either a short guy hanging off my leg and begging for more or five minutes sans the wah. One or the other, PLEASE...oh....wait...wait for it...yes....a snore! Cool. Hallelujah and thank you baby jesus) got his talent for witty repartee from his ma, and had I gone anywhere else, the staff would know me well enough to engage in a conversation beginning with OHMYGODWHATHAPPENED?! and I just wasn't up for it, what with being distracted with wanting to rip out my eyeballs and all...where was I? Oh, at the unknown pharmacy, where I begged the guy behind the counter to do SOMETHING. It's a quiet, dingy store with way over inflated prices, ostensibly to make up for the absolutely zero customers they get in a year, please see above reference to "dingy", so a) after an extended time with no human contact, dude was excited to finally have some damn company, and b) thrilled to make a sale. I'm sure too, that my palpable desperation told him that had he said "that'll be five thousand dollars, ma'am", I'd have thrown him my visa card and yelled "Charge it!". Man, it was THAT bad. And normal, according to message relayed to the nurse co-ordinator (I ended up seeing at the hospital after the pharmacist suggested I mihgt be having an allergic reaction to the dressings), who mostly stared slack jawed at my amazing kaleidescope of colour and swelling in between giving the prof a detailed description of said over the phone. His verdict was reassuring, if not more than a little annoying as I'd called his rooms earlier that day to ask about the eye bizzo, prefacing it with "I reckon it's the swelling doing it but..." and his nurse said "Oh dear. I've never heard of itching being a problem". Which was great. Had she said what the prof relayed, which was, "It's very common and due to the swelling. It's nothing to worry about" - WHICH IS WHAT I SUGGESTED IT MIGHT BE IN THE FIRST PLACE - I wouldn't have stuffed around all night getting it checked out. Criminy.

I guess this case of flattusapancakitis is also due to the emotional load I inevitably carry around when mum is in town. Which she generally is. Out of the three surgeries though, this is the one mum has been around for most: not at all for the first, found out about it three days later for the second, and here the entire fucking time for the third, and being here, it was planned that she'd take care of Daniel, and according to her, me, for the duration. Not my choice, mind, firstly because had she actually looked after me, hell must have frozen over and secondly because I'd have preferred to chuck Daniel in child care on the Monday and possibly the Thursday in addition to his usual three days, and then thrown Daniel's previous sitter a hundred bucks for that night plus whatever extra to take him to childcare for the entire week. We'd organised it all a few weeks ago anyway, but when mum chimed in and offered, I thought I should do the right thing and shove my concerns aside and let her be Daniel's grandma, so gave Kay the flick. Man, I felt bad about that too. NO matter what I do, I feel I'm letting someone down. Wah, etc. Anyway, as it turned out, everything went wrong, which truth be told, is what I expected. At least this time around I didn't have stars in my eyes and hope in my heart when mum began acting like a mother and offered to help out her damn daughter. Yes, that IS my bitterness showing.

Bottom line is, she ended up doing one (one!) of the six road trips needed to get Daniel to and from childcare, and didn't help me AT ALL, either with Daniel, with the stupid work needed to get him fed, clothed, watered and cleaned, or with the damned housework. On the one single day she was here, she stood around gazing at Daniel while I cooked, cleaned and generally got in touch with my inner housewife. Yes, I could say something, but experience shows that I'd rather fester resentfully than deal with her inner petulant and defensive child.

Thing is, it's not all her. I...collude. I think that's an appropriate word, because I don't let the past go and I don't accept her for who she is, and I don't just roll my eyes and just get on with it when who she is clashes with who I demand she be. I get so pissed off that she thinks it's her right to be a part of Daniel's life. It isn't. It's a privilege, and one I give to her because I'm trying SO hard to put our history aside so that she and Daniel can create on of their own. Then I get so annoyed that she thinks she was (and is) Saint Mother and that her life sucked because of me.

I want to let go of the hurt, but I don't know how to get past being left to die. Mostly, I feel indignant, and the words "how could you?" swim through my head with boring regularity, but when she swans in acting like nothing ever happened, my anger rises and...bleah. How could she leave and how could she expect me to forget that? A father I can understand leaving a child more than I can a mother, and having become a mother myself I now judge my own a lot more harshly than I ever did. Could any of you? Could you leave your child behind to not just die, but to die alone? Or if you were the one left behind, could you accept that past, live in the present, and move into the future with the person who condemned you?

I know some people can, and I'd love to move on, but I'm not Oprah Winfrey and much as I want to let go, I don't. I'm hanging on to the anger and hurt and I don't know how to let go. Considering I'm hanging on so tightly, I don't think I want to.

Thing is, I don't think I'd know who I was if I did.

a story with holes in it

My dad, the big old Italian man who one would think would have had my ears pierced at birth, what with him being from Italy and all, aka the Land Of Hoopy Earrings, would NOT let me get my ears pierced, not until either a) Hell froze over or b) I turned eighteen. I think he thought hoop earrings turned virginal little girls into bikie sluts and molls or something, and he must have looked long and hard at the potential for sluttage I'd pick up from all my little girl friends, most of them Italian and all with their own potential being coaxed out by the hoops in their five year old ears.

ANYWAY, when I was twelve, my parents wanted me to sit for another scholarship exam. Bleah. I was all face down on my desk crying "noooo!", so they dangled the carrot of "you can do anything you want to after the exam is over" in front of the back of my tragic head (what?), so I lifted my head long enough to tell them that I wanted to go to an ear piercing salon to get my virginal ears pierced, right after I sat the exam that promised to save them a buttload of cash and ruin my weekend. For I wasn't just smart, I was wily, and from my forehead-to-desk position, I heard them whisper frantically among themselves about the hole they'd blindly dug for themselves and.....okay. They agreed to pierce my ears, but! There would be NO hoops allowed for according the hushed negotiations, it was hoops that would condemn me to a life as a bikie chick ho', and not the actual holes in my ears. I was hip with that because what did I care? I was twelve! A hole in each lobe was a hole in each lobe! Whoopee!

So the exam was duly sat and the ears duly pierced - with studs - and hoops were never to be worn. Ever.

Despite all efforts though, my newly holed lobes hurt like a fucker for EVER, and I got infection after infection after infection. Age and wisdom has taught me since that this wasn't entirely normal and that my dumbass parents probably should have taken me to the doctor sooner than the ENTIRE YEAR it took them to do so. Finally though, the doctor was consulted and he diagnosed an allergy to rhodium plating and prescribed...wait for it....hoops.

HA!

So hoops were bought and inserted, my ears finafuckingly recovered from the assault of the rhodium, and because I sat for and won each successive scholarship exam I sat for, my parents had to suck it.


:::::


On a totally unrelated note, iMovie. People, does it suck or do I?

I've got this .mov file that plays beautifully on my computer but that YouTube says is...unsupported, I think the error message was, and that won't play for anyone I email it to. My first assumption (as it always is) is that I've not done a crucial something when saving the fucking thing, so I've looked here and there but there doesn't seem to be anything I need to do to make it work apart from click 'save" and then remember where I saved it to, and criminy jickets, isn't iMovie supposed to be idiot proof anyway? I guess if I emailed the entire .mov folder, the stupid thing would play for the recipients, but isn't the .mov file supposed to contain everything it needs to play itself? And I'm only doing the emailing thing anyway because I can't upload the fucker to YouTube in the first place.

World, what gives?

home again, redux

I've been home since around 11 Tuesday morning. After surgery beginning sometime after 8.15am and after the anaesthetist tried six times before getting a line in (him: "..and it's not a good one..." me: "!"), he gave me what he calls the "sleepy drug" and hello, big snooze. Monday subsequently passed really easily and in between sleeping off the anaesthetic, there was only some capadex to ease the virtually non existent pain. Which was lucky because the Prof is still on his Say No To Pain Control! drive, and has since included codeine in his NoNoNO! list. I am, however, seriously impressed at how easy Day 1 was.

Day 2, yesterday, dawned after a pretty frickin' disturbed night. No pain, just how the fuck do they expect anyone to sleep in those godawful beds with those godawful blankets wrapped around their shivering bodies? I was awake for real at crazyearly-o-clock, and the Prof did his rounds in the pre dawn dark, which was around five minutes after I woke up. No pain killers again yesterday too and home at the aforementioned 11am.

My face? Well, despite not hurting a whit, is truly awesome and really kind of icky. I look pretty fucking bad, man, with two black eyes that are swollen out to here *gestures widely*. There's a bit of swelling from the screw removal too, on the left side of my face that goes down to my jaw, and a minimal amount from the fat transfer on the right. Which turned out to be a fat injection and not the dermal fat graft* I (thought I) signed up for. The former is the preferred option as it's less invasive, bla bla bla, but the second, which requires two incisions and a whole lot more surgery and is also considered to be more "reconstructive", is free under out medicare scheme. It's also less likely to be reabsorbed so I'm less likely to need to be shitting the bricks I am as, because of this fuck up, it looks like I've got to find another two fucking grand TIMES TWO! to pay for what seems to be a misunderstanding.

Me, yesterday morning after inspecting the big assed bruise on my thigh when there should have been an incision along my abdomen: uh....dermal fat graft?
The Prof: No. You said....
Me (thinks) : what the FUCK?!
Him: *checks watch*"..."
Me (squeaks): Okay
Him: No. Not "okay". You said....
Me (really, really really quietly as in not at all): didnotdidnotdidnotEVER!
His nurse (whispers quietly in my ear) :We'll talk Friday
Him: *already gone*

So yes, it's another fuckup. One my face is most grateful for this time, but one I'm not very partial too, and nor is my bank account. I did NOT say ANY of the shit he cited about not wanting another scar because I already have a scar in the exact same proposed scar area (thankyou Dr Scalpel McCutty!) and the c-section scar in the exact same donor area, so why would I give a flying fuck about "another scar"?! What "another scar" It wouldn't BE another scar, it'd be the same scars, and probably done better because shit man, you should see the scar for the bone graft area! NOT THERE! Almost, and it's only been three months. Dude might be deaf as a post or delusion or whatever, but he sure can sew a mean stitch. I'm left wondering though, and not totally in jest, do I have an extra personality that pops out when I least expect it and who knows all about me and my life and who(m?) I have no knowledge of?

You can already see that the extra fat in my right cheek is going to make a real difference to the almighty imbalance that fool, Cutty McScalpel created around seven years ago. I'll tell that story one day, maybe, if you pay me enough (say, 2K?)(x2!), ahem, suffice to say this dipshit with a knife literally cut a huge hole in my face - for no real reason - and left me with a large dent that looks kind of weird - and especially so since the reconstructive surgery kind. Me, yes, I appear to be as foolish as peep toe sandals in winter, but actually at the time, I was just a very trusting and injured soul (aw). Him, though. He's an arrogant asswipe who should be kicked in the nuts 'til he sings soprano.

Anyway and oddly enough, I felt fantastic all day yesterday, with no pain and just the god awful, boring swelling that kind of interferes with my field of vision, making it really quite annoying. Oh, and the dressings. All over my face, practically, making me some kind of hybrid between Rocky Balboa (V1.0, where he's between rounds with Appollo or Pluto or whoever the fuck and he's requesting that Paulie cut him (eww) when his eyes blow up to gargantuan proportions and he ends up looking like he's wearing Pamela Anderson's norkage as some kind of Barbarella-esque goggles) and Hannibal Lector. The Mask Of Doom has got to stay on until at least Friday, and until then, good bye personal hygiene. My eyes are driving me nuts this morning, all goopey and yes, sorry, should warn when about to talk squick. The swelling seemed to be going down already yesterday too, but swelled up again over night, rekindling the visuals of norkage staple gunned to eye sockets, so that I have to kind of look over my eyes to see the damn screen just to write this. Swelling is good though. It eliminates wrinkles. Big time. Ha ha. Seriously, I look like a twenty two year old who's been beaten with a 4x2.

I actually feel a lot like warmed over crap today, way more so than yesterday, and while Daniel putters around trying to play with me, I'm doing my best impression of a neglectful mother by pointing over there and asking him "what's that?", while hoping he'll leave me alone to go over there and investigate. He sat on my lap for a bit earlier and poured water all over us both and I kind of...pushed him off. That made me feel muuuuuch better. Yes. Mum is taking him on her personal version of a death ride to childcare later this morning, so I'll get a break from all his wonderfulness. A break which I'm sure will be liberally sprinkled with all kinds of guilt for feeling hella relieved that he's not here with me. Awesome.



*yes, this link is for enhancement procedures to a body part that I don't even own, but it offers the best and most accurate explanation of dermal fat grafting, so in essence, if you;re giggling right now? Please shut up. Thankyou. Signed, most cordially, the management.