[Miscellany]
Saturday, April 14, 2012
hopeless hope
I have a lottery ticket in my purse which was drawn last week but which I haven't yet checked. I could be sitting on a million for all I know and then again I might not be. The chances of it not being a winner are almost 100% but it's the .0009% that I'm most interested in. It's like a flash of excitement. A clock ticking. bell chiming. That .0009% is a morsel of hope, something which exists, even at my lowest point.
Perhaps hope is instinctual - like breathing or coughing. I imagine if someone decides to drown themselves, their mind is made up but the body has other ideas. At some point the human instinct kicks in and the body tries with all its might to get to the surface and breathe in some oxygen. The body tries to live, even if the mind wants to die.
Perhaps that's what happens when hope kicks in too. One may be at the end, the edge, so to speak - with no loveliness and no kindness and no joy but then there it is - like a kiss on the cheek; hope. Hope stops you from jumping. It stops you from dying. You grab onto it and clutch at it and somehow pull yourself up and out of the doldrums. While it is yours, hope is your best friend and your only chance of survival. Hope is a smile in a sea of frowns and a laugh in a serious boardroom meeting. She is impossible not to love.
I like having hope but I don't like living with it. She is beguiling and yet deceitful. She draws you in, makes you feel comfortable and then, if you are me - is then crushed, dashed, falsified. Crushed hopes are worse than no hope at all it seems. And yet, instinctively I find some more hope, even where you would think that hope would be lost. It's infuriating. I am constantly fielding the battle between having hope and picking myself up after losing it.
Somehow this ticket in my purse has grown to symbolise every morsel of hope I have left in the world and yet I am destined to never check it for fear of losing it, once again.
Perhaps hope is instinctual - like breathing or coughing. I imagine if someone decides to drown themselves, their mind is made up but the body has other ideas. At some point the human instinct kicks in and the body tries with all its might to get to the surface and breathe in some oxygen. The body tries to live, even if the mind wants to die.
Perhaps that's what happens when hope kicks in too. One may be at the end, the edge, so to speak - with no loveliness and no kindness and no joy but then there it is - like a kiss on the cheek; hope. Hope stops you from jumping. It stops you from dying. You grab onto it and clutch at it and somehow pull yourself up and out of the doldrums. While it is yours, hope is your best friend and your only chance of survival. Hope is a smile in a sea of frowns and a laugh in a serious boardroom meeting. She is impossible not to love.
I like having hope but I don't like living with it. She is beguiling and yet deceitful. She draws you in, makes you feel comfortable and then, if you are me - is then crushed, dashed, falsified. Crushed hopes are worse than no hope at all it seems. And yet, instinctively I find some more hope, even where you would think that hope would be lost. It's infuriating. I am constantly fielding the battle between having hope and picking myself up after losing it.
Somehow this ticket in my purse has grown to symbolise every morsel of hope I have left in the world and yet I am destined to never check it for fear of losing it, once again.
Labels: crazy people, hope, MVOR, random, rant, wonderings
Friday, January 06, 2012
truth
I've gotten to that stage where the one stable and fulfilling thing in my life is work. Mind you, that's not to say that work is good but it's just better than what else is on offer in my life, which isn't a lot. There, I'm still facing working way too hard for no recognition and dealing with, what has been described as a 'hornet's nest' by more than one outsider. I won't tell you what the insiders say. I need to leave, but I can't because it's the best thing that I've got going. Them's the breaks.
My family, that old chestnut, is fraying and unravelling like an old knitted sweater with a loose thread. Bro is absent and has been for a couple of years leaving me to deal with a mum who is stressed and heartbroken with a situation that is beyond my means of coping with. I put in more than a full day of work at my job and then make up the rest of the week helping to run a business for my mother and trying so very hard to be both daughter and son to a Mother who has lost a husband and who is by nature very high maintenance. I am an only child, in so many ways.
Somehow money has become an issue, with bills creeping up in such a way that have crippled me financially. I can't quite put my finger on how it disappears but it does. I don't spend excessively and I haven't been on a holiday in years, not even a weekender. I'm currently deciding whether to fuck it all and put a holiday on the credit card and deal with it later...but who knows if that's the right decision either?
Even MVOR isn't able to really help. With the money situation being typical for a teacher (bad) and the medicare situation not being good at subsidizing what they see as an option extra, like head shrinkers. I've had to drop back to once a month, which is really just enough to reiterate what I already know: Things are quite shit thanks.
Needless to say my health has felt the effects of this. I am tired all the time. I could sleep standing up if time allowed and have even, at times fallen asleep in the middle of a meal with my head resting on the plate. But sleep is a beautiful respite and I welcome it, whenever and however it chooses to find me. My humour, doesn't quite reach deep down far enough to cleanse what it used to so I trigger it with endless re-runs of funny, sweet happenings on my ipod, computer or television - trying to medicate the hole that was once filled with true emotion and real laughter with scripted stories that help me lose myself for a moment. It is the next best thing and thankfully they are readily available to me. I do lose myself frequently and it's glorious when I do.
What's left of my mind is really just hanging on by a thread. Every day I make it out of bed is an achievement that deserves a gold star right now and I've been good at hiding that fact from others who think that things are difficult but not yet desperate. I passed the sign post to desperate miles ago and I'm heading straight for ... well, who knows what comes next?
A festering knot of pulsating stress gnawing away at my insides doesn't even come close to describing what is going on inside me right now.
Soo... how are you?
My family, that old chestnut, is fraying and unravelling like an old knitted sweater with a loose thread. Bro is absent and has been for a couple of years leaving me to deal with a mum who is stressed and heartbroken with a situation that is beyond my means of coping with. I put in more than a full day of work at my job and then make up the rest of the week helping to run a business for my mother and trying so very hard to be both daughter and son to a Mother who has lost a husband and who is by nature very high maintenance. I am an only child, in so many ways.
Somehow money has become an issue, with bills creeping up in such a way that have crippled me financially. I can't quite put my finger on how it disappears but it does. I don't spend excessively and I haven't been on a holiday in years, not even a weekender. I'm currently deciding whether to fuck it all and put a holiday on the credit card and deal with it later...but who knows if that's the right decision either?
Even MVOR isn't able to really help. With the money situation being typical for a teacher (bad) and the medicare situation not being good at subsidizing what they see as an option extra, like head shrinkers. I've had to drop back to once a month, which is really just enough to reiterate what I already know: Things are quite shit thanks.
Needless to say my health has felt the effects of this. I am tired all the time. I could sleep standing up if time allowed and have even, at times fallen asleep in the middle of a meal with my head resting on the plate. But sleep is a beautiful respite and I welcome it, whenever and however it chooses to find me. My humour, doesn't quite reach deep down far enough to cleanse what it used to so I trigger it with endless re-runs of funny, sweet happenings on my ipod, computer or television - trying to medicate the hole that was once filled with true emotion and real laughter with scripted stories that help me lose myself for a moment. It is the next best thing and thankfully they are readily available to me. I do lose myself frequently and it's glorious when I do.
What's left of my mind is really just hanging on by a thread. Every day I make it out of bed is an achievement that deserves a gold star right now and I've been good at hiding that fact from others who think that things are difficult but not yet desperate. I passed the sign post to desperate miles ago and I'm heading straight for ... well, who knows what comes next?
A festering knot of pulsating stress gnawing away at my insides doesn't even come close to describing what is going on inside me right now.
Soo... how are you?
Labels: melancholy, sad sack, truth time
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
lightbulb moment
I have come to realise that these (now) monthly visits with MVOR, the genteel lady with whom I share my innermost thoughts, are not going to fix me. There is no fixing this state of mind I carry around with me.
There's no cancer to isolate.
There's no lump to remove.
There's no ...waiting it out with bed rest until it goes away.
This half nutty, soul destroying melancholic anti-heroine didn't just happen when I awoke one morning. She was created from conception to survive the Big Bang of my life. She was created, like some kind of terminator to keep living and keep doing its job at all costs, eventually acting on its own accord at its own pace.
I've done a thorough job on her, yes I have and she, in turn has repaid the favor and done a thorough job on me.
She is in the bone and the mind and the blood - coursing like traffic on the Eastern Fwy in peak hour. There is very little that keeps me from surrendering completely to her and that is the tiny glittering hope, like a mirage in the driest desert that things will turn around.
I hate that hope. It's a tormenter and a tease and yet
...it's there. Blinking away in my peripheral vision.
I guess I left a light on somewhere.
I guess.
There's no cancer to isolate.
There's no lump to remove.
There's no ...waiting it out with bed rest until it goes away.
This half nutty, soul destroying melancholic anti-heroine didn't just happen when I awoke one morning. She was created from conception to survive the Big Bang of my life. She was created, like some kind of terminator to keep living and keep doing its job at all costs, eventually acting on its own accord at its own pace.
I've done a thorough job on her, yes I have and she, in turn has repaid the favor and done a thorough job on me.
She is in the bone and the mind and the blood - coursing like traffic on the Eastern Fwy in peak hour. There is very little that keeps me from surrendering completely to her and that is the tiny glittering hope, like a mirage in the driest desert that things will turn around.
I hate that hope. It's a tormenter and a tease and yet
...it's there. Blinking away in my peripheral vision.
I guess I left a light on somewhere.
I guess.
Labels: melancholy, MVOR, wonderings
Monday, November 21, 2011
sheesh
When I was a little kid and morning television was filled with re-runs of old shows from the 50s an everyday run of the mill family looked like this:
There you have the quintessential respectable family. No messing around with mum and and dad here. No siree. These folks would ground you faster than you could say 'awww shucks', just for sassing your mother! Watch out.
Then by the time I was in Primary School in the mid to late 80s the modern family looked a little like this:
Again, perfectly normal looking family (even if there are a few tragic fashion mistakes). Can't mistake dad here! There he is in the middle growing enough facial hair to make a coat. Where's mum? Oh there she is, looking mum-ish. These are the folks you want to go see when your boyfriend breaks up with you and you don't know what to do or when you need help with your calculus final.
By the time I was a teen "mom and pops" looked more like this:
or this:
or this:
Yep, no mistaking in any way shape or form who mum and dad are in any of these families. Kinda weary. Kinda tired with a bit of grey creeping in. Looking like they've been around the block a time or two... as it should be. I mean, their kids are TEENAGERS! How fresh faced can you be?
Lately I've noticed that either I'm getting really fucking old or TV mums and dads are pretty much the same age as their kids!
We've got this from The Secret Circle:
and this:
They are apparently parents of 17 year old kids. What's that you say? How can these man-children have produced enough sperm to father anyone above the age of 7? I'm wondering the same thing folks. It's clearly a Christmas miracle...like Jesus!
Then we have the parent group from Life Unexpected:
this:
and THIS:
LIFE Unexpected? Parents unexpected more like it. But... but isn't that the guy from Dawson's Creek? The same Dawson's Creek that had Katie Holmes in it... the same Katie Holmes who now has a 3 year old daughter with a crazy man? Yes, 3 years old, not 17 years old! The mind boggles.
And what about these two knuckleheads from Awkward?:
They have a 16 year old daughter you say? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?
And when I saw this recently I literally spit my coffee out at the screen;
Yes, that's right. That's the guy from Clueless - the one who left his Cranberries CD in the quad and wanted to go get it before somebody 'snagged' it.
...Yeah, I remember the Cranberries. They were around when I was in high school. I also remember watching Clueless when I was a teen. Funnily enough, in Clueless the dad looked like this:
...which looks NOTHING like
and yet they are both supposed to father 16 year old girls. I'm sure it could biologically happen but that doesn't mean that it's NORMAL.
What is going on in TV land? Am I crazy or do modern day TV parents look completely unfit to be doing anything except navigating a hard day of doing beer bongs in the backyard while sitting on their outdoor sofa couch donated from grandma who also happens to slip them a $50 every now and again to 'tide them over'?
I really can't wait until Dakota Fanning's younger sister turns up as the mother of a 34 year old in next season's premiere of "Just a Normal Family".
I may have to stick to re-runs of The Beave..
There you have the quintessential respectable family. No messing around with mum and and dad here. No siree. These folks would ground you faster than you could say 'awww shucks', just for sassing your mother! Watch out.
Then by the time I was in Primary School in the mid to late 80s the modern family looked a little like this:
Again, perfectly normal looking family (even if there are a few tragic fashion mistakes). Can't mistake dad here! There he is in the middle growing enough facial hair to make a coat. Where's mum? Oh there she is, looking mum-ish. These are the folks you want to go see when your boyfriend breaks up with you and you don't know what to do or when you need help with your calculus final.
By the time I was a teen "mom and pops" looked more like this:
or this:
or this:
Yep, no mistaking in any way shape or form who mum and dad are in any of these families. Kinda weary. Kinda tired with a bit of grey creeping in. Looking like they've been around the block a time or two... as it should be. I mean, their kids are TEENAGERS! How fresh faced can you be?
Lately I've noticed that either I'm getting really fucking old or TV mums and dads are pretty much the same age as their kids!
We've got this from The Secret Circle:
and this:
They are apparently parents of 17 year old kids. What's that you say? How can these man-children have produced enough sperm to father anyone above the age of 7? I'm wondering the same thing folks. It's clearly a Christmas miracle...like Jesus!
Then we have the parent group from Life Unexpected:
this:
and THIS:
LIFE Unexpected? Parents unexpected more like it. But... but isn't that the guy from Dawson's Creek? The same Dawson's Creek that had Katie Holmes in it... the same Katie Holmes who now has a 3 year old daughter with a crazy man? Yes, 3 years old, not 17 years old! The mind boggles.
And what about these two knuckleheads from Awkward?:
They have a 16 year old daughter you say? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?
And when I saw this recently I literally spit my coffee out at the screen;
Yes, that's right. That's the guy from Clueless - the one who left his Cranberries CD in the quad and wanted to go get it before somebody 'snagged' it.
...Yeah, I remember the Cranberries. They were around when I was in high school. I also remember watching Clueless when I was a teen. Funnily enough, in Clueless the dad looked like this:
...which looks NOTHING like
and yet they are both supposed to father 16 year old girls. I'm sure it could biologically happen but that doesn't mean that it's NORMAL.
What is going on in TV land? Am I crazy or do modern day TV parents look completely unfit to be doing anything except navigating a hard day of doing beer bongs in the backyard while sitting on their outdoor sofa couch donated from grandma who also happens to slip them a $50 every now and again to 'tide them over'?
I really can't wait until Dakota Fanning's younger sister turns up as the mother of a 34 year old in next season's premiere of "Just a Normal Family".
I may have to stick to re-runs of The Beave..
Labels: family, old, rant, TV, wonderings
Monday, June 06, 2011
How not to deal
I will always associate Crunchie chocolate bars with my Uncle R. He would bring them with him every single time he came to visit. When you are 8 years old and you are given Crunchie every time a particular person comes to visit - you very quickly develop a Pavlovian response to that person. Beat up old Holden in the driveway = saliva. Never fails.
If everyone has a crazy Uncle, then mine is R. He would refer to Christmas at Easter time, make stupid jokes at the wrong moment and do the Mexican party cry YOW YOWYOWYOW in the middle of an otherwise sedate family dinner. Definitely not for the fainthearted - or for the sensitive of hearing either.
He died today.
I don't know what else to say about that - except that it wasn't really a party at the end, nor was there a Crunchie in sight. Eventually he went peacefully, but it was a struggle for years and years.
I wish I knew how to deal with this in a normal way. I've not cried or blubbered once. I'm just dazed and feeling kind of worried, with a bit of dread settling deep somewhere in my belly - though I can't tell you why or what for. I want for nothing else than to be a blubbering, snotty mess and unable to cope. At least I know that reaction isn't forever - it's a truck stop on the way to a better place. Instead, I don't know what to do with with what I've got but I have a feeling I'm going to be stuck with it for a while.
Labels: change the colour of your day, family, feel like crap, nostalgia
Sunday, June 05, 2011
old... officially
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
global village
The great thing about the internet is that you can ask it any perverted question in the world without the consequence of having to look someone in the eye when you ask it. Many moons ago people had village communities or extended families that would answer these kinds of embarrassing questions for you - Any ailment, any worry would have been presented to the clan matriarch or patriarch ...or just village idiot and a suitable answer would be got, and if not entirely got, then I'm sure at least contemplated.
These days the village community doesn't really exist anymore. Despite owning every conceivable technological device aimed at bringing us closer together, we as a race are strangely more isolated than ever before in terms of touch.
Luckily for me the internet is our new village community and I can ask all my weirdo questions without feeling like a complete perve.
Now, for an important question - please indulge me: Is this song sexy or not?
Love Hangover
These days the village community doesn't really exist anymore. Despite owning every conceivable technological device aimed at bringing us closer together, we as a race are strangely more isolated than ever before in terms of touch.
Luckily for me the internet is our new village community and I can ask all my weirdo questions without feeling like a complete perve.
Now, for an important question - please indulge me: Is this song sexy or not?
Love Hangover
Labels: computer stuff, internet as village community, musical monday
Monday, April 04, 2011
All aboard!
MVOR, (being so much more reasonable than I) made an interesting remark the other day.
We were talking about personal relationships and I was relating a story about somebody that I was (am) on the verge of cutting out of my life. She interrupted my petty diatribe to tell me about the train theory - or rather, the train carriage theory of personal relationships.
Basically the people with normal personal relationships keep them organised in a kind of train carriage system. Some people are very close to us and we hold them dear - our immediate family or spouse, children etc and they go in the first carriage. The next carriage has our next closest people - our best friends, perhaps extended family etc. Then so on and so on as the carriages get further and further away from the funnel and down the track until you get right to the end where it's people you see every few years at a reunion.
Not everyone can be in first class you see - and you can't treat everyone like they are in first class either. It would tire you out and indeed they would take you for granted in the end - especially if you're right down the end of their carriage system. The people with successful personal relationships with others have different expectations and rules for the people who live in first, second, third or last class. If we are going to treat first class differently (by offering our most important asset - our hearts) then we should expect that they also behave differently toward us than those in 3rd or 4th class.
There are times though, in everyone's life where people can move between carriages depending on our personal needs at the time. For instance - perhaps you get married. Your spouse, being so close to your heart is in first class exactly where they should be. However, if you were going through a tough period and considered separating then they would move out of the carriage and into another one further down. Perhaps a few years later you get divorced or perhaps you decided you would never see them again. Well then they would move right back down and perhaps off the train altogether. That's life.
That's how things work for those of you lucky enough not to need an external voice of reason.
Apparently, I don't have a carriage system.
I have one carriage: First class.
Once people fuck with me - they exit first class and have nowhere else to go. I watch them tumble onto the tracks below as I speed on away. Sayonara!
MVOR says that I need a carriage system in order to organise people better. Apparently I don't need to execute everyone to hurts me. Instead I can move them down the carriage system so that my expectations of them change as well as my feelings about them - without having to feel angry or hurt for a long time etc.
Easier said than done.
What's your first carriage like?
Meanwhile Musical Monday comes in the form of a mash up. Usually I loathe Mash ups with a passion but this one is highly ace. It's Blondie's Heart of Glass and Arcade Fire's Sprawl 2. It's an excellent, excellent, excellent song made up of two stellar tunes.
Enjoy!
Labels: friends, mash up, musical monday, MVOR, train carriage theory
Thursday, March 24, 2011
ode to blond man
I see him every day. He stands so confidently in his own space, looking so strong, so capable, so handsome. My drive in to work wouldn't be the same without his winning grin and twinkle in his eye to see me off.
In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you
...cartoon guy on the sign at the local Autocare shop.
In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you
...cartoon guy on the sign at the local Autocare shop.
Labels: boys, inappropriate thoughts, love, love or lust
Monday, March 07, 2011
Random
1) Last week I became a Godmother and yet still no closer to being an ACTUAL mother (except do feel like Mother Mary sometimes with all my saint like qualities, ahem)... I mean didn't a man give birth a couple of years ago? I'm just sayin'...
2) Had breakfast with bro, which is actually more of a momentous occasion than I've cared to explain here... and not in a good way either.
3) New Team Leader and Old Team Leader (err.. the one before me) have joined forces to create a new axis of evil. I am the target. It's great, really. I spend half my life wondering how I get into predicaments like these and the other half wondering how to get out of them. All I ever wanted to do was (and I quote from Buffy, from the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie here "graduate from high school, go to Europe, marry Christian Slater, and die". How far off the beaten track have I gone? Pretty fucking far.
4) MVOR decided she would like to know why my inner voice is so mean to me. THAT'S going to be a fun session!
5) I've been looking for some printing press letters so that I can do this to my wall:
Why isn't there a store that sells this stuff?
6) Spending a lot of time listening to The Clash, which reminds me of walking around London town - as it was pretty much the only thing I listened to when I was there last. Bloody hell they are good. Seriously, how can you not agree?
Police on My Back - The Clash
Musical Monday
2) Had breakfast with bro, which is actually more of a momentous occasion than I've cared to explain here... and not in a good way either.
3) New Team Leader and Old Team Leader (err.. the one before me) have joined forces to create a new axis of evil. I am the target. It's great, really. I spend half my life wondering how I get into predicaments like these and the other half wondering how to get out of them. All I ever wanted to do was (and I quote from Buffy, from the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie here "graduate from high school, go to Europe, marry Christian Slater, and die". How far off the beaten track have I gone? Pretty fucking far.
4) MVOR decided she would like to know why my inner voice is so mean to me. THAT'S going to be a fun session!
5) I've been looking for some printing press letters so that I can do this to my wall:
Why isn't there a store that sells this stuff?
6) Spending a lot of time listening to The Clash, which reminds me of walking around London town - as it was pretty much the only thing I listened to when I was there last. Bloody hell they are good. Seriously, how can you not agree?
Police on My Back - The Clash
Musical Monday
Labels: blah, musical monday, random
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