mid week waffle

How was your weekend? Ours was an uneventful as ever, despite the invitation to a two year olds' birthday party on Sunday. Who, though, schedules a barbecue lunch between the hours of 10am and noon? Gah, not me. I am a recluse who gets ker-freaked out by the mere notion of a pre noon social event, possibly because it includes the word "social event". Poor Daniel. ALTHOUGH! I had a (quasi) valid excuse as I did wake up with an awesome hayfever headache Sunday morning, and as luck would have it, I still sounded like I was coughing up those lungs. This being the case, and the case also being that I don't like caving in to The Hermit Inside, so instead of making the executive decision "don't won't to go so shan't" and being cool with that, I ummed and ahhed for a fucking hour before sending a massive huge text (a text! the nerve! BUT! It was 10am and I didn't want to bug the hostess with decliney type phone calls. BUT! Her text function was down so she didn't get my message until yesterday, by which time it was all "no shit, aibee, you're not coming? Now let's talk about my daughter's gift, the one you still owe her") message to the hostess, giving her a justifiable and valid reason why it'd be best for me to not mingle with the crowd. I mean, who wants to be standing on the outer barking like a seal and having have the other guests all wonder what delicious germ you thoughtlessly brought to the part-ay.

Not me. But it's hayfever, people, not germs, so I still feel guilty for not going.

Daniel's afternoon naps are at the inconvenient hour of too-late-o-clock for us to do anything more constructive in the afternoon either, so the most we usually do is go for a walk, so that's what we did the entire weekend. We walked. A lot. He does like a good outing in the stroller, but the guilt for not introducing him to more stimulating and social situations is enormous. Dude has got to learn to not sleep between anytime between the hours of too early-o-clock and too late-o-clock and 4.30. Or his ma has got to stop being a lazy, reclusive oaf.

GUILT! CONSUMES ME!

Ebay fizzed a bit this weekend too, and while I wasn't chock full of selly goodness this weekend, the few (two?) items listed didn't sell. BRAND NEW SANDALS. Peoples, what gives?! Didn't they scream BUY ME loudly enough for you? I bought them without trying them on because at the time, Daniel was in the front carrier and yes! Sure I'm still a size 6! Except I'm not. Two pairs, one black, one deep chocolate, because I am an indecisive moron. So neither pair fits at all and it took me too long to work that out to them back for a full refund. Gladiator sandals. Are too freaking cute. Are too freaking small. Are unwanted by the ebay community. Arrgh.

That break in transmission was so that I could stand up to get Daniel a drink and trip over a train instead, breaking my big toe and teaching my son a few choice phrases.

Daniel is sitting on my lap eating the last of his breakfast, a meal that takes him three hours to complete. Oatmeal is being strewn all over my hands and my keyboard is looking...quite nutritious, actually. Not much of it has made it into Daniel's nutritional repository this morning.

I'm also going into shock as I just checked the cupboard and there's only one (ONE!) tin of sardines left. Not enough to get me through the day because I canNOT get enough of them. Still not knowing what the fuck is up with that but goiong with it because mmmmm, sardines. In springwater, with no salt added. Le swoon.

Behold, sportsfans, my addiction:

My thumbnail looks pretty, but IT LIES!

meanwhile, this....

....is gratuitous beefcake.

My girlfriend has been all "what the fuck is up with you and the sardines?" so I sent her that pic and she was then all "In springwater? Le blech. If I'm gonna eat one of those....things...it's has got to be drowning in the flavor of succulent and juicy, ripened in the mediterranean, sunshine, olive oil." So YOU KNOW I went out to find some...and photograph them because I really AM that anal.

My name says so: A N n A L.

See? Pronounced "Anna", but with a silent "L".

I'm meeting that girlfriend for lunch today which, of course, is code for "coffee and air". Very nutritious. She keeps me LOADED with her glossy magazine cast offs, while I return the favor by keeping her up to date with sardines and piles of the cheapest trash magazine available, OK! It's hardly a fair trade but a necessary one to keep her up to date with....primarily Brangelina. What is up with that? As you all know, I can't stand that Angelina ho' - and Brad? Is a dick. I liked him until he did the cliche, yawn worthy, predictable Falling In Love With The Leading Lady thing which, if you study the Lives And Times Of Ho Bags International, Edition 2.4, you'll note that Angelina is in the habit of getting involved with her leading men. And then mating with them seconds before gnawing off their heads. All the gossip mags can't get enough of them though, point being, the OK! magazines I've squirreled away will likely chronicle the lives and loves of Hollywood's (and the WORLD'S *gag*) first couple and little else. If you stack all the magazines on top of each other and flick through them really quickly, it'll almost be like a Brangelina movie, one page per frame.

I've got three aqua classes to teach this week too, booyah! Money, scads of it. Not really, but I live my life under an exclamation mark. My initial typo read an "explanation mark" which I kind of do too, thank you, outrageous guilt factor. Anyway, the classes mean a couple of extra dollars to pay for some more non essential items. Like registration and health insurance, which is SO much fun. I mean, if I'm spending a couple of hundred, I want it to register quite high up on the fun-o-meter.

Which brings me to: Seriously, how do single mothers survive without a sugar daddy?

I feed you a lot of bullshit about how I fritter away the spondools but really, it's for the sake of the story. In reality, I'm such a tight ass that I'm in danger of turning inside out. And yet, am so po'! Also, am poet.

I totally need a hair cut too (which shall be paid for by said classes). Mine is sitting somewhere below bra strap level right now, but as I hate my hair so much I'm always mean to it and drag combs through it when it's wet (!) which means, yes, peoples. Breakage. But my hair can suck it. I'll eventually take a whipper snipper to it, which is as good as walking into Supercuts or some exotic place like that, which is the actual plan, and having a few inches chopped off so I can...pin it up again so it doesn't look any different anyway.

Grey hairs! which I have several. Gasp!!? Nope, as several is not enough pour moi. I'm eagerly anticipating a head full of those fuckers because grey hair = coarser = thicker looking head o' hair. It'd be easier to maintain the blonde look I don't have too, with rinses and semis and such, than it is to make my brown hair blonde and then deal with the upkeep. Roll on blonde, is what I'm saying.

Obviously I'm haven't been to the gym this morning either. Please see reference to: ho, lazy. My ridiculous brain was all "we could leave, like, NOW! and get a work out in" and my sensible brain said "eat! some food!", which I did, which has put me past the 10.30am threshold. Now my ridiculous brain is all up in my ass saying guilt inducing things like "you could have made it if you weren't SO LAZY. Daniel would have LOVED the creche and you could have acted NOT like a lump of inertia". Sensible brain is all SHUT UP and reminding RB about hypoglycemia not mixing with lifting weights. RB though, is kicking SB's ass.

Which is a rather frightening peek inside my brain(s).

What fun!

sunday funday day before monday

Holy oversleeping, batman. There I was yesterday morning, luxuriating in bed as much as one can with a midget (no I have NOT got back with Daniel's father, hardiharhar, I slay me)(not particularly funny but that was a warm up, it's been a slow day) burrowing into your side announcing "muggah muggah" (which to the uninitiated, is a booger. Dude had excavated his nose and needed me to removed the evidence which, eww) . Anyway, I was being all mother earth sister moon and judging by the light, thinking it must be around 8am when ohmyheck, it was freakin' 9.24. So much for being in touch with Mother Nature, so I didn't make it to the gym as planned. Bleah. For I yam such a sloth, mostly because I stay up until ridiculous-a-clock every night - and I think I do that because after a day of being on call and in demand, that late night business watching dvd after dvd and having all kinds of irresponsible fun is like gold. So yes, overslept and did not make it out the door by the 10.30am I need to leave by to get to the gym and have a work out before the creche closed at noon.

For I am so interesting.

Which reminds me, my god, at the gym? The number of lardass men who strut around in their FOOTBALL SHORTS OH THE HUMANITY thinking they look like hot shit because they can lift a weight is ridiculous. Also, a little nauseous making.

I'm a little distracted too, as Daniel is, after spending the morning destroying the house and my sanity, is in his cot rambling away. It's making me twitch because I want him to sleeeep, go to sleeep - and ha ha, he's just turned on the sleep making music. WORK! PLEASE WORK! It's not working. It sounds like he's dismantling it.

Meanwhile, my blood sugar needs some serious uplifting because I think I'm about to drop kick him to China. Am feeling titchy, is what I'm saying.

*slugs on wine bottle*

I've not had time to eat and be done with the titch as a friend has only just left after dropping round a SHIT LOAD of carnival crap. I'd given her some tickets to go last Saturday and she brought back a whole bunch of sherbet for Daniel and I to...well, given the sugar rush it promises, fly high on, and a whole bunch of chocolate too. Also, a flashing blue light. AWESOME!! Can't wait to get fried and watch that. Anyway, the tickets had been given to me by my neighbour so she bought him a bunch of loot too, and right now, my front room is housing about a ton of assorted and sugar loaded, craze inducing, tooth rotting foodstuffs. I tell you though, I couldn't give those damn tickets away and it took me until Friday afternoon to find someone willing to spend the two hundred bucks you spend after you save the thirty six bucks entry fee. But she had fun and she brought me loads of chocolate. The end.

Speaking of Saturdays, no sleep in for me last week, no ho ho. Not with two (two!) aqua classes booked back to back. What a fucking relief that was too because, like a fool, I'd lost my cell phone's handsfree thingywhatsit the Monday prior. Daniel and I were caught in a deluge of rain bucketing down seconds after we'd left the supermarket, and as I was scrambling to get the rain cover over him and cramming the pile o' crap I conveniently store in the sun shadey thing on top of the stroller (including the damn handsfree) elsewhere so I could get the stupid cover to fit over the shadey thing, and I must have crammed the handsfree onto the sidewalk or something equally as convenient. Meanwhile, I got SATURATED, the boy got a really cool ride in his domed shelter, and I lost my ability to not break the law while driving. Point being, I needed to replace that fucking thing and those two classes meant forty five buckeronies in CASH, baby, which was good thing as I only had forty bucks to last me until the following Thursday, and I needed to replace that which I had lost.

My priorities suck, don't they? Let's weigh it up: hands free versus food on the table. Now ask me how many dollars I had left minutes after leaving the cell phone store. (hint: the number starts with a z)

ANYWAY

The two classes went great, though while teaching all the participants had frowns on their faces and looked really unhappy. It's only when each class was over when droves of them ambushed me and told me how GREAT the class was that I realised, for the fifty billionth time you'd think I'd learn, good grief, the sour faces were because they're working so hard and LOVING it.

Being a guest presenter (ha ha) rocks because you're always New! and Interesting! and even if you DID suck, they'd love the variety anyway.

Sorting out baby sitting for that morning though, what fun. It's created a whole brand new kind of family feud which is wunderbach. Daniel ended up following my friend, a Greek mother who lives up the road from me (and who better than a Greek mother to mind your child? I should leave Daniel there til he's eighteen, he's guaranteed to be well kept and delightfully fed while I sit back and file my nails) all morning while she watched him in between doing all her Saturday morning Greek mother stuff like cleaning and cleaning and cleaning with a bit of cooking thrown in. She's five or six or twenty eight years older than me, I can never remember. Probably because once upon a billion years ago when her son was turning twenty one, her then eighteen year old daughter and (a then thirty two? thirty three? year old) I went shopping with to buy The Dress for the all out, money burning festival that is a Greek twenty first birthday party, and she told me off for being juvenile. I, of course, blamed her daughter who in turn punched me in the arm so I pushed her off the seat, which brought us rful circle and right back to the "behave yourself!!" statement that has me wondering if it really is only a few years between us.

ANYWAY

We're great friends and I KNOW she loves to mind Daniel but because I am guilt ridden fool, I feel like I'm imposing, even if it's to mind my gorgeous and divine child and even if said minder says OH MY GOD THANK YOU FOR ASKING I'D LOVE TO.

So since that weekend TWO WEEKS AGO, I've been feeling guilty for the stupid bust up with my sister in law and for imposing upon my friend while I worked to pay for a handsfree I can't really afford anyway.

In other spendy news, I got some slutty black nail polish the other day for only two bucks and I LOVE IT. My toes love it too, and feel quite trashy and cheap. See?

witness the ho' toes

DIG ITS BLACKNESS! So goth, but alas, also le sigh. I had such pretty fairy feet once upon a baby ago, but pregnancy turned them into something akin to pork roasts hanging around on the end of my legs. Also, and I'm not sure if you noticed but oh my god, my legs are the wrong way around. HAHA! Check out too, the half empty wine bottle on the counter. SPRUNG.

Speaking of reasons why I drink, he went for a six on last Friday night as we were leaving childcare. Microdermabraded his little button nose right off and oh my, he looked like Rudolph for....about a day.

One nose, over easy. Also, a deek-ha!

He's a lot better now, though he keeps pretend washing his face and making it a little worse for wear. Look at that face though, oh, and dig the "deek-ha!" (sticker, to the uninitiated) on his forehead. It took two showers and a good going over with a skanky old, my god they ALL need work, acrylic nail to scrape it off.

Acrylic nails suck, man. I've got to call NailGirl2 to see if she can do my awfulawfuloohyuck nails as soon as freakin' possible. NailGirl1, who I thought was wonderful, wasn't. She did one wicked good set on a friend of mine that must have been the only good set in her life, because that same friend wasn't impressed with her second set, except her first set was the reason why I went down Acrylic Road in the first place.

What?

ANYWAY, my nails look appalling and need fixing. Must call for help, stat.

Speaking of more reasons why I drink money which, how crass. Which, with my potty mouth, should be my middle name. Anyway, ebay. I'm currently stoked because I recently sold a stroller I'd bought last year for $129 and used once. And I sold it for $122.50! I also feel guilty, I don't know why, maybe because I'm an idiot. I mean, the buyer thought it was worth $122.50, who am I to argue? I'm such a tool though, as I always feel guilty when someone buys something. Anyone buys anything, actually. I'm killing me here, what with all the guilt.

I delivered that stroller direct to the buyer too, and she gave me ten bucks for my trouble, which it was not, actually, but wee! I had 132.50 spondoolies cooling their heels in my purse for...about five minutes, actually, what with all the other non essential, non food items I needed to buy. PRIORITIES! I'm all about them.

so ebay keeps me entertained and I Sell Things, but all scored lately is two things that don't fit. One is a tunic t shirty thing that's brand new but that makes me look like a transvestite, the second is a Bonds hoodie that is way too wide and the arms are too short for my baboon-esque ones. Gorgeous colour though and it will do for wearing at home. I did, however, score some major loot at the thrift store last week. It was, for me, Country Road week. I got a dress for $5.25, an awesome knit for $5.75, and a fantastic pair of shoes for $8.75. Leather upper and lining, brand new and only a squeak too big. The dress and knit I'll likely sell on ebay. The dress almost fits and is GORGEOUS, and is a plain, spaghetti strapped slip dress of khaki wispy fairy material with sequins running down it like rain drops. It sounds like whore wear, what with the mention of sequins but it really is quite classy. If I gained a few rolls it'd probably fit but as my social calender doesn't require anything more than dirty trackpants and baggy tshirts, I'm all about selling it, because I'm all about the money, baby. Yes I am. The shoes I could've sold too, especially as they're maybe a half size too big, but they're used now anyway because I had that job interview and because the internet needs to see more of my feet:

ignore the kid, CHECK OUT MY LOAFERS!

It's a hobby of mine, to go to the thrift store to find stuff to sell on ebay. Really though, I should save my money and instead, systematically go though the pile of SHIT clogging up my spare room. I mean, the quality items I keep on hand to sell to the monied masses. Yes. I'd love to stay at home and pad my income with clearing that shit out, but a lot of your ebay profits goes elsewhere, around 30%, is my estimate, unless you're selling big ticket items. I've started putting all sales into an account that pays for all purchased-to-sell items and ebay fees (and yet, I still use my other daily account for postage so each sale gets an extra few bucks injected into the bank account deposit because I forgot about managing it properly, duh )(and despite the hinky accounting fuckups, don't I sound like quite the mogul?) and since July 1st, because I am at least that organised, I've only made a little over a hundred bucks and I've sold around thirty(?) items. The stuff I buy from the salvos I usually make a good profit on too, because unless I know it's going to sell for sure, like Adidas track pants for example, I only buy what is on a half price ticket and generally the most I'll pay is, say, five bucks if I think I can sell it for ten.

Which reminds me, I got a great pair of bootleg Adidas leggings the other week, and I kept them instead of selling them. I reckon I'll sell them though because I Love Money and Adidas gear usually gets a massive sale price. Once I sold a pair I'd bought for around five bucks, for a little over sixty. Of course, the guilt, oh how it pained me, so I kept obsessively reading and rereading my description to see how I could have led the winning bidder up the garden path with bullshit declarations of "gold lined, diamond encrusted!" or something. She emailed me when she received them and said "LOVE", so I felt a little better than, and realised (and promptly forgot) that an item is worth what a buyer is prepared to pay for it. Deep, huh? And a good analogy on life. Maybe. Which reminds me, I have no idea why because that last sentence was not really a remindy type one, there's the Nike velour track pants I must sell too. Yes, must list, no keep. Booyah!

If anyone is still awake, god help me, and in other news, my hayfever of late is APPALLING. I took a zyrtec last night so it's a little better today. It feels like I need another already though, except those things are Once A Day jobbies and I may die if I over do it. UNFAIR. I sound like I have the black plague, what with all the coughing up a lung I'm been doing (Over here! Lungs to spare!) but I'm not sick and I'm not contagious, but I have been avoiding the communal spaces because dayum, I sound like I should be in quarantine. I also sound very sexy when I'm not gasping for air or coughing up said lungs. I tell you, I'm a secret weapon right now, against....I'm not sure where that was going. A secret weapon for......something.

Point being, I am a complaining pile of sputtering and snortdom, and thanks to ye olde bahstards that shall be named "Pollen", I also look old and tired. ROCK!

the wombat eats roots and leaves

which is a very vague reference to a prior entry concerning foliage.

It maybe also be suggestive of short, stubby creatures with no neck and a hairy back.

ANYWAY

It's been suggested I consider sleeping with him.

The ex, not the wombat.

In the interests of having a matched set, so to speak.

If this were to occur, I explained in response to this...interesting... suggestion, that there were certain criteria that would need to be met before the event.

First and most obviously, I would need to be a) ovulating and b) blind drunk and on the verge of unconsciousness.

Secondly, he would need to have signed a sworn affidavit stating that he would NOT EVER, AT ALL be an annoying git, and there would be a clause included stating that if he failed to do so, if he wavered from his solemn promise in any way, shape, or form, he'd have to top himself immediately.

So, waddya think my chances are of getting laid?

new leaves, etc

I've not yet covered Daniel's father and his declarations of missing me and wanting to got back together and can't bear the thought of loosing (sic) me to another man and yannow? It'd be a good financial move. Personally? Not so much so.

The hard line I've been presenting to Strep seems to have paid off though. I've been all, "no, can't see the kiddo 'til you prove you're not an ass" because while now he claims to want to be a committed and loving father, before now he's, in order, treated me like shit for five years, left us when I was six weeks pregnant, failed to acknowledge Daniel's birth, failed to even deny paternity much less sign any of the necessary paperwork, forcing me to get a lawyer and threaten to take him to court, contacted me after six months ONLY because he had the actual legal threat of a court ordered paternity test in his pathetic hand and thought "shit!", and then over the course of the next six months (we're up to eighteen months of being a dickhead on top of five years of being an ass) did the equivalent of a fish flopping around on a jetty saying "want to see him, no, can't, too scared" over and over until February this year when, after he'd disappeared for another eight weeks, I told him no dice, smarten up, fool, and then we'll talk. He reappeared every six weeks or so until June, demanding to see Daniel, and I kept saying he'd need a lawyer himself if he wanted access, "please get one because I am eager to legally document every. single, asshole thing you've done over the last couple of years" (the family court would have of course given him visitation but I am a LIONESS when it comes to my kid) . Finally though, yes. My fluffing up of feathers has paid off and Strep has given up a twenty five year, daily dope smoking habit and, thanks to not being stoned every day, appears to have actually changed and seems to be committed to treating both of us with the respect we deserve.

He's respecting my need for distance and time, he's respecting my role and decisions vis a vis him as Daniel's mother, and taruntara, he's finally seeing that he was, in fact, a total tool.

He's literally a different person, one I don't know. Good for the rest of the world, bad for him as, understandably, he's really depressed and has finally bought the clue that let him know that over the last six years, he's been a MAJOR dick and has treated me (and subsequently Daniel) appallingly. I want an easy life where bunnies and kittens roam free and everyone gets along, so it's an effort for me to not just let a platonic relationship between us pick up from here. I mean, no one should get life handed to them that easily.

NOTE, I am not talking getting back with him because, no. I'm talking about accepting who he is now and forgetting the aforementioned dick he's been. It'd be easier to do that, to accept him at face value, but being sensible is being wary and making him earn his place in our lives.

Which requires effort.

The reason, and I'm very proud to say this, he gave up dope in the first place is because I HAVE been hard and unwilling to accept his ridiculous behaviour. It took six months (at least) of me saying no, no seeing Daniel until you quit with the ridiculous and show some semblance of commitment to him, for Strep to realise that I wasn't about to accept him as a father of our child as long as he persisted in being the wanker that left us when I was six weeks pregnant.

I forgot my point.

There probably was none.

Suffice to say that I am NOT even contemplating a reunion because, no. Not after the shabby treatment. Maybe in ten years, when he's earned some trust and has proved he is NOT the idiot I got knocked up by, but now? No, damn stupid move on my part and not a good move for Daniel.

Oh yeah, I remembered. My point was that the last week or two have been a really unsettling.

oh eck

I've got a freakin' job interview tomorrow. No idea what to wear and, of course, no idea what in hell to do with the mess of ick sitting atop of my head.

Sunday night, I was feeling ineffective and like I'm not achieving anything bla bla boo hoo etc, when I had the idea that I'd LOVE to read gas meters to supplement my non existent income. Think about it: you get to run around like the devil is on your tail, reading meters and getting paid for as many as you do. What better incentive is there to run like the wind in a meter reading frenzy than that? Me? I'd like nothing more than to spend all day doing interval and anaerobic training. So I went onto seek.com, typed in the search term "meter reader", hit enter and *blam* the exact job popped up, just waiting for me to apply. So I did. Then I looked at a few other listings and applied for a few others in sales because, why not?

The other awesome cool job would be the one for the sales position for a foreign exchange firm. Money, baby, the smell of it in my hair at the end of each day. Mmm, mmm. Yes. My kind of work.

The meter reader people haven't called yet, nor have the foreign exchange people, but a firm hiring for another firm who needs people to answer phones and field questions about water restrictions or some shit I don't know about called. Three times, and I interview tomorrow.

I'm kind of buzzed I got an interview at all because my resume, while it's been nicely padded out, is kind of gappy. And of course I'm terrified, both of getting the job and of not getting it. And my wardrobe? It scares me. I mean, I can't go along in my trackie dacks, can I? Or can I? Please advise.

on a lighter note

Finally! Five minutes without the freeloader in my lap making it nigh impossible to write a single letter much less a sequence of legible sentences.

I had lunch with a girlfriend yesterday. We met at a restaurant near where she works for an hour of gossip that somehow whooshed by in about fifteen seconds. The next time we meet I think we should go somewhere that uses table clothes so we can save at least half our allloted time on departure by simply grabbing its corners and using it as a makeshift bag instead of playing tetrus with our armpits and struggling to find the best fit for all the bottles, magazines, purses, keys, sunglasses, phones, and whatever the fuck else we took along with us and ended up piling into our arms haphazardly and hurriedly post prandially . Of course we had to unpack everything to pay the (ridiculous) bill, which was $21.40 for a bottle of water, two coffees and a thimble sized serving of baba ghanoush, so next time, I think we should get our money's worth by trying the tablecloth method out, and see if it enables us to also smuggle out some silverware, maybe a plate or two and definitely three chairs.

Yes.

Anyway!

Am wasting precious updatey time by being ridiculous. Meanwhile, the midget is lurking and looking at my lap like it was some kind of Aladin's cave filled with...sitting space, I guess.

ANYWAY

God, would you look at the damn time. I've already got to go and I've also got a little short guy sitting on my lap drinking milk and putting his mitts all over the keyboard. That last bit is a lie. He's actually sitting quietly, but I needed a reason to explain all the typos.

I've got to get a tooth crowned at 10.30 (and here I sit in my damn pyjamas oh my god)
and if that fucker doesn't put a block in my jaw, leaving me a drooling idiot for A WHOLE DAY GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY, I should be free by 11.30, in which case I'll stop by my doctor's rooms and see if I can my results from that freakin' chest x-ray.

Seriously, only me. Good grief.

My hayfever got so bad I was (**warning** ick alert) coughing up blood. Very classy, that. My guess is that I don't have a too-mah growing in there but The Book of Whatever says things like your life force spewing copiously from any orifice needs to be reported to your medical professional. Or the tax office, I always get those two confused.

ANYWAY

Y'all should have heard me speak sometime in the last three weeks. It's coming back now but my voice was SO husky. You'd have needed a cuddle and a cigarette after a mere phone call with me, it was that HOT. I totally could have made a bomb doing phone sex.

Must extract child from lap and cleanse myself in preparation for having my mouth propped open for way to long as evil tools of torture are systematically implemented. I can't wait. I am also a big fat liar.

distance

Sometime since Saturday I decided that this, at least in this moment, is my only option for survival.

Literally.

I feel like I'm dying trying to sort out my feelings about mum. I invest SO much time and energy being reminded of past pain that my present is dramatically affected and my potential for the future has become about managing these feelings and not about what I'm capable of achieving.

That's not mum's fault, because despite being so resentful and full of blame, I do see that we are the Masters of our own universes and where we are is where we choose to be. This is my thing. This is because I've been too scared to take myself away from what amounts to a lifetime of abuse. I don't think I'll know who I am without it, and maybe, and this thought is emerging only as I write, maybe I'm scared because without all that bitterness, what if I'm still a failure? Then it's my fault, my own failings, and I can't use the excuse that this constant crippling angst is the reason I can't make this life a successful one.

My excuse used to be my anorexia. It was a safe place to be because with it, I had a reason to spend life treading water. Ditching the emaciation meant that taking control of my destiny no longer included the permission to be less than my potential foretold. Ditching it meant that I had to face the potential to fail. Ditching it meant I had to be someone rather than be an eating disorder. In losing it, I lost my identity. The time since then have been the hardest of my life. It was easier starving to and maintaining 33 kilograms of pathetic.

Excising my mother for my life means much the same thing. Without this burden, I don't know who I am if I'm not whoever it is I am when I'm being hurt by my experience of her. Which, what? Point being, I'm scared that that once I lose the excuse I'll still be a failure.

I can't explain the money thing. It's not about money and yet, money is the issue. I think I've been afraid to cut her off before because it's the ONLY way I feel mum cares. I equated financial assistance with love. My thoughts absolutely lack definition but maybe I felt she bought stuff because she loved me. I see now that it's merely one more way in which I give her power over, if not me, then certainly aspects of my life.

I want her love but I don't, I want her financial help but don't. Mostly I don't, because it's what she promises that's so alluring. The promises rarely come through though and because I'm a moron, I allow their continuing appearance to leave me unsettled. Per essempio, in the same phone call that mum went apeshit about what an ungrateful ho I am, not five minutes earlier she'd been imploring me to come to HerTown, to stay at a health retreat and be pampered on her dime. It's the inconsistencies that fuck me up, both in love and money, I guess.

Literally the last conversation I had with my father contained something about "not believing your mother when she promises you money". Good advice considering she regularly comes out with offers of this and tells me she'll pay for that. She even promises to buy me a house at regular intervals. Fortunately that pipe dream is too big for even me to believe.

I wish I'd remembered this ridiculousness and drawn on my own experiences when she promised to fund The Project. She stood to gain though, one grandchild, over easy, so maybe that's why I trusted her? God, I am SUCH a hopeful (if by "hopeful" I mean "idiotic") fool. I guess I wanted it so much that I'll believe anything. Or maybe I get off on being let down. Either way, I really need to grow a damn brain.

ANYWAY

When mum's here I spiral down, and I'm in a worse place emotionally than I was two years ago, despite the weekly sessions with my shrink that are ALL focussed on dealing with this mess of ugh swirling around in my head. I feel like a big and giant raw nerve, and have got to a point where everything is too hard. I dont have the headspace for anything else and I feel like I'm panicking all the damn time, fortunately without the adrenaline rush but with all the chaotic thinking.

I feel so guilty too, because for Daniel's entire life, he hasn't been my primary focus. Keeping my feelings in check and struggling to be whoever it is that makes mum happy while blowing so many of my emotional resources on resenting doing so, that was...no, is my focus, which, yes. Is awesome.

My son is the most important thing in the world and I want him to be able to enjoy his world with none of my baggage sullying what should be an idyllic place full of bunnies and kittens and his mother's love.

We form ideas about ourselves based on how others respond to us, we see ourselves reflected in their reactions. That reflection though, is inherently flawed because we are inherently flawed. We can't help but display a hinky image, so what we learn of ourselves is based on another's idea of the world, we believe we are what we see, and yet what we see is as accurate a portrait of who we are as one of those freaky warped mirrors at a fun fair is of how we look.

I want to stop feeling all the time. I want to be able to process and rationalise without automatically going into high alert damage control. I want to just be me without freaking out because it isn't enough. I want to know how to plan that first step, and I want to just be who I am.

And yes. For that, I need distance.

some whine?

I remember hearing a story about [censored to preserve my brother's anonymity](I'm sorry, what?) Seems he was shooting a room at some luxurious resort in some poor asian country when the maid came in to clean. He went ape shit at her because she was moving things he'd set out, or some such. Man, that offended my over-inflated sense of social justice THAT MUCH *gestures widely* . I mean, he was being paid megabucks - to work, granted, but he doesn't get paid two bucks a day to get down on his hands and knees and scrub toilets All. Day. Long. The maid was doing her job, the person responsible for telling the maid to leave the room alone? Was not, and I don't know. If she didn't do her job, he'd not be able to shoot the luxury rooms because they'd be filthy, and I guess I'm kind of reminded of that, is all. That every one plays an integral and invaluable role and none is any more important than the other. Symbiosis, you know? Annnnd....

I've been feeling like shit lately. Still lacking in motivation and of course, I'm feeling guilty for lacking in motivation because it's been nearly six weeks since the last time someone took a 4x2 to my face and shouldn't I feel like leaping into the air and punching the sky by now? Obviously if it were anyone else bitching about feeling like warmed over crap, I'd be all, fergodsake, you moron! What are you? New!? You've had three surgeries, THREE! in three months. Good fucking grief, that's one. Per. Month. Get with it or grow a brain or something, because it's going to take more than six piddling weeks to get over that much assaulting on your system, geesh. Also, that ridiculous hayfever clogging your head and making you sound like a transvestite? Isn't helping.

But, because it's me who's doing the bitching, my inner self is a lot less forgiving. Do this do that do the other. Which I do, but because I don't feel like doing any of it, inner self is all up in my business and...sounding a lot like my mother, actually. These days when a client cancels, I practically whoop for joy, which is a pity as they're (all two of them) good friends now, and I really do look forward to seeing them. I just don't want to extend myself physically. Or extend myself at all. It's tooooo haaard to write up a work out.

Six week ago, I was swimming practically to China a couple of times a week, and six weeks ago last Friday, I went for a 6.5K run, positively romping it home with more in the tank. Now it seems all I want to do is blob around, expending only enough energy to be hand fed that peeled grape.

Bleah.

My sinuses and hayfever are SO bad at present that I sound like a gin soaked hooker who smokes a packet a day and then some, (actually, I sound kind of sexy and prefer this voice to my usual Minnie Mouse nasally whine).

Double bleah.

And, I feel like a lump of soft curd cheese these days too. Still on the thin side, but squishy enough that you can stick a finger in my side and watch it disappear. The feeling like shit is worse in the mornings, so I decided it was detox time a couple of days ago. Also, it seems I'm a total idiot because I forgot about caffeine shitting all over one's chances of conception and have, after being caffeine free since April, 2005, been chucking back the espresso's like a crazy person for the last two or three weeks. I have an addictive personality, you see, so one of anything is enough to relocate my drug seeking behaviour button and *boom* there I go, from zero to maximum consumption within twenty four hours. So, yes, detox. One coffee only (because cold turkey can hurt a gal IT'S TRUE) in the morning to kick my sorry, whiney ass, no chocolate (don't even get me started) and no grains. I've even nixed those nummy little rice cakes with corn and rye, that taste so awesomely awesome with sardines, and replaced them with...pumpkin, mostly. I 've been meaning to drink lots of water and herbal teas and it's been mixed berries for breakfast, pumpkin and sardines (for I cannot get enough of those little oily, fishy fuckers) for lunch, and then my usual vegetables with kangaroo meat at night.

Side bar for anyone with iron deficiency or anemia: Kangaroo meant shits all over supplements. It absolutely does. I've long had trouble keeping my ferritin levels above Situation Critical despite every thing I threw down my throat to counter my consistently falling levels. The only thing that helped were those HUGE injections that felt like I'd been kicked by a horse, but even they were only a temporary fix and my levels fell again. I even had to poop in a jar and send it to a lab so they could check it for blood. ANYWAY, somewhere along the line I learned that kangaroo meat was wicked fierce high in iron, so I began eating it regularly (if by "regularly" I mean "every fucking day") and strike me pink if my ferritin levels haven't stayed perfectly mid range since. They even bobbed along nicely throughout my pregnancy and for the whole time I was breastfeeding the (as cute as fuck but let's call a spade a spade) free loading parasite for almost eighteen months. So there's yer hot tip for the day. Feeling peaky? Get into some Skippy. For I am a poet!

I also went ahead and joined the gym down the road. It's for two weeks to start with as that should be enough time to get back into the groove again, and to see if Daniel doesn't hate their creche. News in, he's the social lubricant in any mob situation so that first day, I returned to find him happily perched on someone's lap, all ready and happy to adopt himself out, and all pissy about having to leave. If my groove is got, then I'll sign up for a three month dealio and keep on training. Yes I can train myself without a gym, at home, and for free. Do I do it though? Nein. Niete. Niente. That'd be a big negativo, sportsfans, which is why I'm throwing money away when I haven't got one of those proverbial brass razoos.

None of this seemed to be working though, all one day of it, so as I'm an all or nothing kind of gal, I did a liver and gallbladder flushy detoxy thing over night, involving about a gallon of olive oil, several lemons, a grapefruit and abut a truckload of epsom salts. It's supposed to make you poop up a storm and clear out yer bits on the way. It.....didn't work. Hopefully it means I'm as clean as a whistle already but, seriously, I must be the only person alive who can consume four tablespoons of epsom salts (note to the curious: it tastes like shit. BLECHBLECHBLECH and then some) and barely feel the need to lift a cheek to pass wind. I'd better feel better for it anyway, because that amount of epsom salt is nastay.

Speaking of shit, I had another fight with my mother yesterday morning. She's been all "you've changed, it was never like this before" and I'm all thinking, "that's because before I almost died trying to keep you happy and now I'll take your shit and raise you an I don't think so". Anyway, we fought, and this time it was about money.

For what it's worth, I do feel my parents owe me. Not money, but they owe me. They owe me for leaving me when I was dying. They owe me for leaving me to waste away. They owe me because they were my parents and it was their job to try and save me. Instead, they left me to succumb fully to anorexia, to a living hell, and they left me there. So, they owe me a life, the life I was meant to have. I'm angry too, because mum insists still that I was the problem, that it all lies with me. She convinced me of that then, and she keeps telling me that now, and I still believe it - and that makes me angry because I'm a parent now myself, and while the part of me she created, the bit with no sense of self or worth, believes her, the other parts knows that if my child was as troubled and sad as I so obviously was, I'd blame myself for them, to ease their burden, even if I knew it wasn't my fault. I'd let them believe it was.

I'm so tired from carrying that burden.

And I can't believe she's controlling me like that, and I can't believe I'm still letting her do it.

A long time ago, mum offered to pay for any fertility treatment I might need. Two and a half years ago, I had fertility treatment, racked up almost three grand in bills, and never saw a cent from my mother. Then I had Daniel and she bought this and that and the other and I was grateful. Never at any point did I ask for her financial assistance. She gave it, though not freely because there's always a price.

I asked for her help once, a long time ago, and it blew up in my face. I'm grateful though, because I need more of those defining moments, moments that allow me to believe my mum is the fucking bitch I see. It was for three hundred dollars and it was like something out of a made-for-television movie because I needed it to pay a hospital because parts of my bowel were being assholes and needed removing. I asked for a loan too, not a gift. In the end I visa'd it, and life went on.

Now though, money's tight, and while I asked mum three months ago about funding Project Twobee, she's unreliable when it really matters so I thought it prudent to verify. Good thing I did because she was all um, ahh, um, before ripping me a new one, getting stuck into me for all the money she's already spent and I'm ungrateful and I never this and that and the other. I asked her if I should cancel future appointments and she said yes. That's when I told her she was a fucking bitch. Just like that. "Mum, you're a fucking bitch.". I've never actually said it before and it felt gooood.

About the ungrateful: I always say thank you for whatever she buys, even though it's usually more shit that Daniel already has too much of, thank you mum, so I don't know what she wants. A memorial statue out front with a plaque? Daily forelock tugging with bowing? Any cent she throws Daniel's way is blood money for me because oh yeah, she get her pound of flesh. I pay it back regularly. Not in dollars and cents, but with a chunk of my soul.

Gifts are supposed to enhance one's life, yes? Her gifts may ease some financial burden but my personal burden is almost crippling. She buys stuff so she feels she has a right to criticise how my choices. She saves things up too, and yesterday got stuck into me for the fridge I bought last year (uh, my old fridge died and what use would it be to buy a cheaper, smaller fridge I'd have to replace in five years anyway?) and the Werthiem vacuum cleaner I bought before that. I don't need to justify to anyone why I bought it, but here's why: it's got so much suck that it will get rid of ANY allergen hiding in your sofa, and I had a baby who would soon be crawling on that dusty, dusty floor. It'll also last five times as long as one that cost a third as much and sucks a quarter as much. When you're poor, if you can stretch it enough to afford it, it makes financial sense to not invest in crap you're gonna be throwing in the bin sooner rather than later.

ANYWAY

Mum's vindictive and judgmental though, and because of her cash injections, both of us belive she has a right to keep picking away at me.

She's unreliable because while she's been buying this and that for Daniel, she's not paid for at least three quarters of what she says she will. She thinks she's paid for it, though, so I still get the brain damage. Once, I asked for it back. For my camera. Massively more than I'd wanted to spend but she went on and on and on about me buying it and she paying me back, so I did, and then she didn't. I've never seen a cent of it and that's nearly five hundred bucks I won't see again when I'd been looking at a budget camera for around a hundred. When I asked her for the cash though, she called me ungrateful and lost her cool because of all the other stuff she's paid for. My opinion? The other stuff is irrelevant if you've stated you'll pay for object A. If the other stuff was voluntarily paid for, and especially if it was for something the handler of the child you bought it for expressly told you prior to the purchase that they didn't want it for the child, you don't get to whine about spending it.

I hate our fights though, because she's my mum and love and all that shit. I give her a mouthful back these days, but I still believe every word she says and waste so much energy, firstly with the guilt of being such an ungrateful, greedy child and trust me, believing you're that much of a waste of skin is uber draining, and secondly because of all the positive self talk needed to counteract feeling like the universe's biggest black hole for her money.

She says I pick and pick at her, which I do, because I'm angry, remember? It's ironic because she's had me picking for a year and I grew up with her picking at me. If I were vindictive, I'd say suck it, it;'s payback time, but I'm not so I won't. I hate that I pick and I pick because I'm pissed that she and dad were irresponsible parents and I'm pissed that consequently, my life is like this. Hand to mouth, hand to mouth, ugh. I've worked hard to get this life too, that's the other irony. Life will get better because while I'm sitting here tapping out the internet's whiniest entry, I'm not just sitting on my butt. I don't rest on my laurels and I'm still working toward a better life.

That's why I'm trying for Twobee. Because while I'm poor and shouldn't be even thinking about sustaining another expensive child, it won't always be like this. I can't wait to reproduce though because I'll be too old by then. I figure that if you want your dream, you go for it, never mind that sometimes it comes a little out of the sequence you'd prefer it to be.

this took me ages to write so appreciate me, motherfuckers

Well then, yesterdays' exam sucked. Not because the ultrasound didn't show that my parts are ticking along nicely and on schedule, because they are, thank you very much. It sucked because the monosyllabic bitch perched at my feet treated me like a slab of meat and I felt dirty and violated and unclean, and for a moment, I even felt despair.

Fortunately I've done this before and understand I wasn't feeling that way because of the process, but the people involved, so I ditched the despair in favor of indignation. The dirty and violated and unclean? Meh, I washed that off in the shower as soon as I got home.

I don't care how much anyone gets paid to do this job, it's a fucking universal privilege to be so closely involved in the creation of life, so while I'd have preferred the disinterested bitch driving Bingo, the Magic Wand home had at least thrown me a glance as she waved her hand toward the exam table, instead of concentrating solely on the task at hand, which was lubing up and multipley condomming the business end of things, a task that she could have, fercrisake, attended to a leetle more discreetly because there's a time and a place, yannow? And the time is NOT now and the place is NOT right where I can see her doing it...where was I? Yes, so while I'd have preferred her to not be a bitch, is what I'm saying, I'm quite content knowing that it's that these indelible qualities about her are the same ones making her own life suck, karmic reward being what it is.

The main product any reproductive unit is selling is hope. The tests and procedures are invasive and embarrassing and are mostly performed while you're naked from the waist down, and you do all this despite there being more chance this won't work than it will. When you've been dehumanised that much, when your hopes have been dashed because of what life has already thrown your way to bring you to this point, you need help to create more hope because by that time, hope is all you have left. It offends my sense of social justice then, that so far this unit is populated with uninvolved, uninterested, and unlikeable staff who, while they do their job, do no more than that.

Fuckheads.

So anyway, the exam took four minutes and that was that. I go back next Thursday and things start rolling from there. If I'm put on the pill, this month may be the last in a long while that I ovulate naturally. It may be the last month then, that I can take up that billion to one chance to get knocked up the old fashioned way, which is kind of poignantly significant - and sad too, if I allowed myself that.

The lawyer came over last night -the relevance of which is forthcoming - and while I didn't go into the nitty gritty of my day because seriously, there's nothing sexier than talking about your uterine lining, I did tell him about Le Grande Plan. He thinks it's a great idea and bla di bla di bla. Then I asked him if he'd like to father our child, and told him he's got a week to decide.

For the record, I don't want his baby to cement a relationship between us. It's got nothing to do with a romantic "us" and everything to do with two sensible people who have, in theory at least, what it takes to achieve an amicable, workable parenting situation.

The good news is that he didn't push me aside as he bolted for the door. The bad news is...there really isn't any. We left it here, this thought hanging in the air, and then we moved on to talking about, probably his money or my ass, both being subjects closest and dearest to the respective, materialistic, and hedonistic lumps of coal we like to call our hearts. When he was leaving the told me he'd think about it, and that was that. He left, I put Grey's Anatomy in the dvd player and then passed out on the sofa.

And....there was a message on my phone when I woke up this morning.

It was from him, and it said "ok".

!

?

!?

Now, while I'm disbelieving on the one hand ("what on earth did he send me an 'ok' for?"), I'm quietly thrilled on the other that, if that billion to one chance comes around again, both my children will have tangible fathers.

non event

And there went Period watch 2007. Over before it even started, and this entry is brought to you by the number 2. As in day 2, as in I don’t know what the fuck is up with my (insert bunny ear air quotes) womanly times (end bunny ears) but whereas once upon a time it was Bambi and all ready to scamper away the second you so much as thought the word “boo”, now it’s that bitch at the bar, baseball bat in hand and ready to crack your skull if you stand in the way.

And while I still find it hard to believe that this helluva time of the month is a normal event, I’m still vaguely chuffed that it arrived smack bang thirty days after my last trip down the River Flo, which arrived thirty days after the last, and so on and so forth. Never. In. My Life have I been so regular. I'm also high fiving my brilliant self for getting my bloods drawn last Thursday, aka Day 23, because it was the EXACT day progesterone levels should be tested in a thirty day cycle, and I must have ovulated on the day I suspected. Lesson learned? I rool.

So anyway, I’m all bleeding and yet not dying, and am eagerly anticipating the “introduction” *polite cough behind the hand* of the sonographer’s handy dandy transducer on Tuesday morning. Well, not anticipating it, more like anticipating getting the fucking exam over and done with. “Wear a skirt” I’ve been told, presumably to freak me right out and possibly because the public hospital the reproductive unit is associated with is too cheap assed to provide hospital gowns.

Do not like this public hospital dealio. Much prefer the old unit with its magazines and waterfalls in the foyer.

BUT! My old reproductive endocrinologist is here and without him as my advocate, I might not be doing this at all.

So yes, Tuesday. My ovaries will be checked and my uterus will be….somethinged, and then there'll be more blood letting, this time from the socially acceptable route, my arm. Then collate collate collate, all in time for my appointment with Marc, aka Repro Man, on the 16th of this month. That’s when we…or he…or me…shit. I have no idea what’s next. I’ve got to see the something nurse about something, then I’ve got to get the donor sheets before I eenie meenie minie moe my way into choosing the father of my newest child.

I’m not certain of when all the real deal bizzo is happening, but the last time it all happened pretty quickly after the results came in. Well, quickly when one considers that things go according to your cycle and given that my cycle then was anywhere between twenty one days and NEVER long, so I’m guessing with the virtual Swiss watch I’ve got ticking in my nether regions these days, it could be as early as October.

*links lead to entries about the same shit on days gone by, back when I was introspective, thoughtful and possibly a little bit interesting. Enjoy.