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.