Today was a Good Day. I woke up at 2pm, which is more or less unheard of on weekends unless Mr A drags me out of bed. Weekends are when I catch up on the sleep I miss during the week. Without them I would collapse from exhaustion pretty quickly. I have two days a week to catch up on running myself down the other 5 days, so I usually sleep in what most people would consider a ridiculous amount. On saturday I got up at 4pm. Hey, walk a mile in my shoes, ok?
I literally collapsed into bed sometime between 3 and 5 this morning. I don't remember going to bed, Mr A woke up to A.B awake and 'playing' with my hair at 5am, I was out cold with no blanket on me (UNHEARD OF!) and when Mr A went downstairs all the lights were on, the TV was on, the netbook was open and running. It looks like I went up to feed A.B and then just passed out in exhaustion. Mr A thought I was dead! Ho ho ho.
Anyway, I woke up at 2pm, confused and groggy but feeling rested. I did a bit of laundry and then we decided to go for a drive. This is more or less unheard of for us, we never seem to go out on weekends except when we're running errands. We never go out just to go out. It always seems to be us hurrying out in a rush to rush around some place. It was really nice though. We had a really good long chat, we listened to some good music, we enjoyed ourselves. I'm so glad we did it.
Then when we got home I finished off the laundry and we made a kick-ass dinner and ate it outside on our deck. The deck is coming together really well, I'm really proud of myself. It was really bad befre, covered in junk and unusable. I worked really hard to get it to a state where we can use it. We've bought a string of solar lights and a kick-ass solar lamp. Added to the barbeque and the lettuce that I'm growing, it's looking really homely. Not spectacular, not Home & Garden-worthy, but there's space and we can eat out there and it makes me smile. Working on the deck is slow, four years ago I could have done in a weekend what it's taken me over a month to do now, but it is what it is. I get tired really easily working outside, especially in this weather, so I have to accept that I can do two, maybe three hours over as many days, maybe just that in a whole week, and that's ok. I have limits, that's ok.
Right now it's 3am and I'm taking a little break from tidying up the living room. We have a phone technician coming to the house on Wednesday because our phone hasn't been working for almost three months. The room is a MESS though so I'm a bit stressed out. Tuesday we have a paediatrician appointment so I only have tomorrow to get it sorted out to the point where I'm not embarassed to have someone see it!
I dyed my hair from pink back to blonde and I'm already a lot happier with it. I needed to go through a stage of dying my hair funky colors, I needed to be able to say I'd done it, but I would be lying if I said I felt happy with it the last few weeks. It just didn't look good and it was affecting my self-confidence, because I felt other people looked down on me and as much as I SHOULD just not care what they think, I do. I always do, always have, always will. I feel more confident now that I feel like a look more normal. I wish I had the self-confidence to carry off looking as alternative as I am at heart, but I've discovered that unless you have a community around you of alternative people to reinforce that what you're doing and wearing is ok, it's really hard. It's hard to be one person standing against a wave. I'm content that that doesn't make me a sell-out or a poser, it just means that I don't have enough support, and that's just not my fault, at the end of the day. It wasn't ME that stepped back when I got pregnant, it was my friends. They left me.
Today I am feeling peaceful. Now, back to cleaning!
Monday, 12 July 2010
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Knock knock. Who's there? No one, I fell over halfway to the door.
So I promised I would come back and expand on Round Seventy Gazillion of the 'Ari Is Tired' game.
Last Week I was invited to attend a play on July 1st with a relative of Mr A's. This was exciting, and also anxious-making. It would involve a longer stint away from Baby A than I had ever had. I am also currently not on speaking terms with Mr A's parents and grandparents, so spending a whole evening with his brother and aunt? Ummmm. I had to think long and hard about it, but eventually decided that actually, I really did need an evening out, away from the house, being a grown-up. I was a Theatre and Drama student at school, I used to love nothing more than checking out plays. I haven't been to one since I finished my A-levels in '06. I haven't been out during the evening without Mr A or Baby A for 2 years. I really, really, really needed a few hours in adult company, doing something I enjoyed.
So, with much trepidation, I started to get ready. What to wear was a major issue. On one hand, I wanted/needed to be comfortable. On the other, this is my first adult evening in two years, and I wanted to look NICE. I ended up settling on a long red skirt with white spots, worn as a shorter dress, with a black silk belt, with red high heels and my hair pinned back as best I could (it's very short). Once I'd slapped on a bit of slap, I was looking pretty smoking.
We had an amazing dinner (steeeeeaaaakkkk MMMMMM) and the play (Women Beware Women) was spectacular, as was the conversation. I came home buzzing, elated, refreshed, and best of all, missing Baby A (why is that a good thing? Because 99% of the time I just resent her and want someone else to come and help me with her. To MISS her, to feel excited and elated to see her? Awesome feeling.) It was, on the whole, and amazing success and I'm so pleased Mr A bullied me into going.
However.
The effort required to pull this night together was enormous, and it knocked me flat on my ass. I got home barely able to walk, despite having worn flip-flops all the way into London from Home, only putting on my heels at the last minute. Sitting in the theatre for three hours and the all of maybe 15-20 minutes walking I did in total was too much for me. I burned out in a major way. It's now a week later and I'm still hurting. On Tuesday we went to IKEA for me second birthday, and we hd a great time but by the time we had zipped round to the market hall (maybe 45 minutes, tops, of light strolling) I was really hurting, could barely support myself, leaning heavily on the trolley to keep upright and avoid the embarassment of Making A Scene.
Apart from Tuesday I've been stuck to the sofa every day since Thursday, and sleeping til almost 1pm. I'm exhausted, in a huge amount of pain, and now, tonight, my chest has started hurting as well. It feels like I'm having an asthma attack, but a really low-grade one, for hours and hours now. I could scream. Mr A sent me to bed early (9pm) after a chat about how I'm not doing terribly well, but then we had sex and it woke me up and now it's 1:30am and I CAN'T SLEEP. I was supposed to be seeing a friend and her new baby tomorrow but may have to cancel at this rate. Luckily, she is AWESOME and understands and is willing to be cancelled on at the last minute. I'm frustrated, because I really wanted to get out, but what use is it pushing myself to the point of collapse? Where I'm at right now, I can honestly se myself passing out and leaving this poor woman trying to get help for me while looking after two babies. No, not fair.
As for the conversation with Mr A earlier... I am having a bit o a wibble at the moment, about my health. I'm 22. I should feel this fucking old. I feel geriatric. I'm always tired and always in pain. my life is a never ending list of compromises. Want t go out for a walk? Well you can't. Go sit on the balcony instead. Want to clean the house? Well you can't, settle for putting a single load of laundry on instead. Want to cook up a batch of food to freeze? Well you CAN'T. Settle for buying the ingredients and hoping you having the energy at some point and that this lot won't get thrown out like the last six lots (it did get thrown out, by the way.) I'm tired of all of this never-ending tiredness.
I finally narrowed down the list of GP's and found one nearby that ticks all the right boxes. Close by (although it IS uphill. Compromise.), two female GP's, excellent reviews on NHS Choices of the GP's treatment (although not of the support-staff's behaviour. Compromise). Next stage is phoning to ask if they're registering new patients and then finding a time when we can go and register.
I've had to stop driving lessons/practise because I wasn't safe behind the wheel. That was a massive blow. I love my car, it's a thing of beauty, and I love the wy I feel when I drive. But I was not safe. I kept forgetting about the handbrake, I forgot to check for red lights, I would zone out while driving. At one point I became REALLY sick while driving home and started greying out, trying not to vomit. I couldn't pull over because I couldn't turn my head or use my brain to figure out where would be safe. It was scary, and dangerous. This is bad news, because without a license I am really really limited. I'm getting better at taking public transport, because I HAVE to, but it's still difficult and it's still enough to keep me much more housebound than I would otherwise be.
I'm frustrated. I'm scared I'm never going to get any better, that my life goes downhill from here and never, ever gets better. I don't want to have peaked at 21. 21 is supposed to be the beginning, not the beginning of the end. I get so down about it. I shouldn't be reading all of this stuff about the DLA and benefits reviews, because I'm internalising a lot of the things being said by stupid, ignorant people. I'm internalising the belief that I'm scummy, scrounger, useless, work-shy. I already had a gold-medal in self-criticism, something I've fought hard to put aside in the last couple of years, only to have it all come crashing in on me now. Without any work or possibility or hope of work, without any indication that things will GET BETTER SOON, I feel like I'm collapsing.
(next morning)
I had to run upstairs to feed the baby and subsequently couldn't post this last night. I woke up at 6 this morning with a dodgy tummy and so had to cancel my outing today. Bah. Still having chest pains.
Last Week I was invited to attend a play on July 1st with a relative of Mr A's. This was exciting, and also anxious-making. It would involve a longer stint away from Baby A than I had ever had. I am also currently not on speaking terms with Mr A's parents and grandparents, so spending a whole evening with his brother and aunt? Ummmm. I had to think long and hard about it, but eventually decided that actually, I really did need an evening out, away from the house, being a grown-up. I was a Theatre and Drama student at school, I used to love nothing more than checking out plays. I haven't been to one since I finished my A-levels in '06. I haven't been out during the evening without Mr A or Baby A for 2 years. I really, really, really needed a few hours in adult company, doing something I enjoyed.
So, with much trepidation, I started to get ready. What to wear was a major issue. On one hand, I wanted/needed to be comfortable. On the other, this is my first adult evening in two years, and I wanted to look NICE. I ended up settling on a long red skirt with white spots, worn as a shorter dress, with a black silk belt, with red high heels and my hair pinned back as best I could (it's very short). Once I'd slapped on a bit of slap, I was looking pretty smoking.
We had an amazing dinner (steeeeeaaaakkkk MMMMMM) and the play (Women Beware Women) was spectacular, as was the conversation. I came home buzzing, elated, refreshed, and best of all, missing Baby A (why is that a good thing? Because 99% of the time I just resent her and want someone else to come and help me with her. To MISS her, to feel excited and elated to see her? Awesome feeling.) It was, on the whole, and amazing success and I'm so pleased Mr A bullied me into going.
However.
The effort required to pull this night together was enormous, and it knocked me flat on my ass. I got home barely able to walk, despite having worn flip-flops all the way into London from Home, only putting on my heels at the last minute. Sitting in the theatre for three hours and the all of maybe 15-20 minutes walking I did in total was too much for me. I burned out in a major way. It's now a week later and I'm still hurting. On Tuesday we went to IKEA for me second birthday, and we hd a great time but by the time we had zipped round to the market hall (maybe 45 minutes, tops, of light strolling) I was really hurting, could barely support myself, leaning heavily on the trolley to keep upright and avoid the embarassment of Making A Scene.
Apart from Tuesday I've been stuck to the sofa every day since Thursday, and sleeping til almost 1pm. I'm exhausted, in a huge amount of pain, and now, tonight, my chest has started hurting as well. It feels like I'm having an asthma attack, but a really low-grade one, for hours and hours now. I could scream. Mr A sent me to bed early (9pm) after a chat about how I'm not doing terribly well, but then we had sex and it woke me up and now it's 1:30am and I CAN'T SLEEP. I was supposed to be seeing a friend and her new baby tomorrow but may have to cancel at this rate. Luckily, she is AWESOME and understands and is willing to be cancelled on at the last minute. I'm frustrated, because I really wanted to get out, but what use is it pushing myself to the point of collapse? Where I'm at right now, I can honestly se myself passing out and leaving this poor woman trying to get help for me while looking after two babies. No, not fair.
As for the conversation with Mr A earlier... I am having a bit o a wibble at the moment, about my health. I'm 22. I should feel this fucking old. I feel geriatric. I'm always tired and always in pain. my life is a never ending list of compromises. Want t go out for a walk? Well you can't. Go sit on the balcony instead. Want to clean the house? Well you can't, settle for putting a single load of laundry on instead. Want to cook up a batch of food to freeze? Well you CAN'T. Settle for buying the ingredients and hoping you having the energy at some point and that this lot won't get thrown out like the last six lots (it did get thrown out, by the way.) I'm tired of all of this never-ending tiredness.
I finally narrowed down the list of GP's and found one nearby that ticks all the right boxes. Close by (although it IS uphill. Compromise.), two female GP's, excellent reviews on NHS Choices of the GP's treatment (although not of the support-staff's behaviour. Compromise). Next stage is phoning to ask if they're registering new patients and then finding a time when we can go and register.
I've had to stop driving lessons/practise because I wasn't safe behind the wheel. That was a massive blow. I love my car, it's a thing of beauty, and I love the wy I feel when I drive. But I was not safe. I kept forgetting about the handbrake, I forgot to check for red lights, I would zone out while driving. At one point I became REALLY sick while driving home and started greying out, trying not to vomit. I couldn't pull over because I couldn't turn my head or use my brain to figure out where would be safe. It was scary, and dangerous. This is bad news, because without a license I am really really limited. I'm getting better at taking public transport, because I HAVE to, but it's still difficult and it's still enough to keep me much more housebound than I would otherwise be.
I'm frustrated. I'm scared I'm never going to get any better, that my life goes downhill from here and never, ever gets better. I don't want to have peaked at 21. 21 is supposed to be the beginning, not the beginning of the end. I get so down about it. I shouldn't be reading all of this stuff about the DLA and benefits reviews, because I'm internalising a lot of the things being said by stupid, ignorant people. I'm internalising the belief that I'm scummy, scrounger, useless, work-shy. I already had a gold-medal in self-criticism, something I've fought hard to put aside in the last couple of years, only to have it all come crashing in on me now. Without any work or possibility or hope of work, without any indication that things will GET BETTER SOON, I feel like I'm collapsing.
(next morning)
I had to run upstairs to feed the baby and subsequently couldn't post this last night. I woke up at 6 this morning with a dodgy tummy and so had to cancel my outing today. Bah. Still having chest pains.
Monday, 5 July 2010
3am and that-time-at-the-bus-stop
I've spent the last day or so in a lot of pain* and so I've been just chilling out reading this and all the comments below it. And for some reason it dredged up this memory that I systematically repress every time it comes to the surface.
For back-story, I have been subject to sexual, emotional and physical abuse from many people in the course of my life-time. This ranges from childhood sexual abuse, to stranger-rape, to acquaintance rape, to parental violence/emotional abuse to extremely controlling emotional abuse from an ex. Until I met my now-husband, there wasn't a year in my life that went by that I wasn't subjected to some form of abuse. So I did not come to this situation wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and full of the fluff and joys of the world.
I had an office job in London Bridge. It's a densely populated area, with a wide-range of people. There are offices, shops, cafe's, homes...all sorts of people around, all the time, for all sorts of reasons. I left work one day and stood at my usual bus-stop, waiting for my usual bus. There were at least 10 people there, possibly as many as 25. It was on the main road, not tucked out of the way. I've included a picture of the street, the bus-stop is next to the black streetlamp that goes halfway over the road. You can see there is very obviously a lot of people that would have been around or within sight around the time that this particular incident occurred.
I was a young-looking 18, 5'6 and maybe 8 and a half stone, wearing office-clothes. It was April or May so still light out. I was standing with my back against the building, the normal London-Appropriate amount of space between me and the people around me, allowing for crowded-bus-stop-adjustments, of course. As I waited, I barely registered that a man was approaching, walking down the pavement. Without resorting to class-privileged snubs, he was clearly either homeless, or mentally ill or both. He was what most people would term a hobo, dressed in baggy dirty clothes, unwashed, long matted hair, carrying a blue plastic bag I would later realise was the type usually given out at cornershops and off-licences. As he came up to the bus-stop, he very marginally sped-up, and with no warning, swung out his arm and smacked me full in the head with his bag, which had cans in it. He swung it again, without even breaking stride, only missing my face because I somehow, through my shock, put my arm up and caught the blow. He didn't even turn, or slow down, he just carried on going.
And not a single one of those 10-25 people did a thing.
Not one of them tried to stop him.
Not one of them moved to protect me (although the speed at which the attack happened, I don't blame them for this really)
Not one single person asked if I was ok. In fact, they pointedly avoided even making eye-contact with me.
I was a teenage girl, alone, who had just been assaulted by a strange man, and sustained a serious blow to the head, and not one person acted as though anything had even happened.
I was fine, physically apart from a sore head. There was no concussion, no head injury. But there was a much much worse injury, which was mental and emotional. It was the knowledge that I was not safe in public, not because people might attack me, which was something I had learned many years before, but because no one cared. It was deeply and profoundly shocking to me to discover that my previous assumptions, that if any of my attacks or abuses had happened in front of witnesses that someone would have stepped in or helped, were completely off-base. That was worse, in a way, than the attack itself. I felt like by being silent and ignoring the attack, these people were sending me a message. Shut up. Don't make a fuss. Don't embarrass us with your hysterical display. We don't want to know or hear about your problem. Just forget it. I bit my lip and tried to stop my shoulders from visibly shaking as I cried in pain, fear, and humiliation. I got on my bus and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with people who clearly wished the ground would just swallow me the fuck up so I would go away. I ended up getting off the bus two stops later and walking the few miles home, chain-smoking and crying, calling my then-boyfriend (Mr A) and blubbering about how much I wanted to vomit.
Soon after this incident, abnormally soon, in fact, within days, I suppressed it to the point whereupon reading a line about it in my diary a year later, I couldn't remember what on earth it was referencing. In fact, I didn't remember it until I randomly remembered it about 6 months ago. I then immediately forgot about it again, after feeling overwhelmed by the apathy shown by those strangers at that bus-stop.
This isn't really going anywhere. Just a memory that cropped up in response to a lot of reading about rape-culture and it surprised me that I've suppressed it not once, but twice. It surprised me that at a crowded bus-stop a young girl can sustain a vicious and unprovoked attack and even when there is no risk of danger to them, the people around her will decide not to get involved, not even to ask if she's ok. Even as I write this, I'm making excuses in my head. I should have gone back into work and told someone what had happened. I should have screamed, to alert my fellow bus-stoppers that what had happened was Serious Business (because they might otherwise have assumed that getting hit in the head with a few full cans of beer wouldn't have bothered me, obviously). If I didn't scream, it's my fault, right?
NO. NO IT'S FUCKING NOT. This is rape apologist language applied to a much milder assault. And don't get me wrong. I know that this is nowhere near the worst thing that could have happened to me. I would rather take another 100 blows to the head than ever be raped again. But this particular instance and something that happened around the same time, when work-colleagues got me way-way-way fucked up, took me to a strange place and then completely failed to even attempt to throw up the vaguest concern for my well-being, which in turn led to them watching a complete stranger walk me out the door and into a cab despite the fact that I could barely stand, did a lot to wreck my trust of the average person. We live in a culture that allows this sort of shit to happen by not ACTIVELY and LOUDLY stepping in and stopping it happening. Why did not one single person at that bus-stop ask if I was ok, or offer to take me to the tube-station so I could find a police officer? I shouldn't have been getting on a bus. I should have been being checked out for a concussion and making an incident report. Because not one single person there acknowledged that something had even happened, I somehow felt like it was my FAULT. Like I was making a big deal over nothing, like this was something I should just accept, that he was allowed to assault me and why was I getting all fucking uppity over it?
This has been a blog about why I wish I had a son so I could teach him to be a Good Man. This has also been a blog about why I cried some tears of sadness when I found out I was going to be raising a daughter.
*I will talk about this soon. And not in a general 'I'm tired and in pain' way like usual!
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
How much will it cost the government to remove my Disability Living Allowance?
(Following on from immediately earlier entry.......)
Realistically, the govt. would pay me much more in working-benefits and subsidiary costs than it would save if it sent me out to work. I currently receive higher rate care and mobility. Let's call that £450 p/m (although because I have a car on the motability scheme, the cost is more but the cash is less)
Lets say that I get a job working 16hrs a week for minimum wage (I can't expect much more than that, to be honest) our total entitlement to benefits as a couple? £11,400.63. Now, that DOES include some things we already claim, like housing benefit and tax credits and child benefit (all things, I'd hasten to point out, than ANYONE is allowed to claim, working or not, except tax credits which are an in-work benefit). It's still a lot.
Now, add to that that because I'll be working, I'll be pushing myself past what I am capable of while still retaining any degree of comfort. This will mean that most likely, I will have to go on medication. Probably anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, and pain management.
I'm going to break this down as much as I can to make it a bit clearer. Obviously, these numbers are not accurate as, guess what? I don't have a direct line to the NHS offices to find out how much meds cost. But I'm going off searches of the things I would need and an educated estimate at how much they would cost based on the assumption that the NHS bulk-buys. For example, I got a price of 64p per pill for Sertraline if bought in bulk at 270pills, so I assumed the NHS would buy in even larger numbers than that, and just pegged it at 40p. It's probably less, but lets add some more for admin costs, the cost of my GP, the cost of the pharmacist, etc etc. Assume all numbers are accurate for the purpose of this excersize.
Assuming Sertraline at 40p per pill: £12.50 p/m
Diazepam (assuming 1-2 pills a week): £3 p/m
Codeine (assuming 28 a month, which I could easily do now, without a job): £5 p/m
That's £20.50 a month on pills alone, almost £250 a year. And because I will soon be diagnosed with a lifelong illness, I will soon get my prescriptions free, which means the NHS will foot the entire bill. It will also foot the bill for the support I will no doubt need. The 16 weeks of councelling I'm sure I'll be provided with (pffffft), the braces (£40 please) I may or may not need to hold myself together (chortle chortle), the hospital stay I may end up needing if I relapse and require hospitalization, or the hospital stay I may end up needing if my perilously low weight plummets any further (which it would do, if I was stressed and also having to be doing physical activity 16 hours a week more than I do presently. And lets not kid ourselves that a 22 yr old with no skills, qualifications, previous work experience AND a baby could get anything other than something that would require a large degree of standing on my feet all day, serving people).
If I was to get pregnant again (not unreasonable for someone my age, in a stable relationship, but also not something I'm planning on doing, but I COULD) the cost to the government would skyrocket almost immediately. I would be extremely high risk, I would most likely have to leave work fairly soon which would mean I would have to go on *drumroll, please* unemployment benefits, or maternity wages (the actual term escapes me at 5am, sorry) all of which come straight from the governments coffers, I would most likely have to have a high-risk birth which would cost some hospital a lot of money, if I have my baby prematurely (stress and weight problems would contribute significantly to this possibility) the costs shoot off astronomically. If I had to stay in hospital for any length of time on bedrest, Beastlet would have to go into full time childcare while I'm in hospital, AND GUESS WHO WOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT, GEORGIE? The government, in the form of childcare vouchers. I haven't even accounted for the fact that I probably wouldn't find a job straight away that could take me, and therefore I'd be on JSA for posibly months before anything came up. That's another £250 a month.
This is all ignoring that the initial assessment, administration, and paperwork required to remove my Disability Living Allowance in the FIRST PLACE will all cost money. George Osbourne is basically saying he wants to pay me more money so that I can be poorer and in lots more pain while someone else brings up my child two days a week. Rightio then. That makes a ton of sense.
Originally I was going to round up this post with a definitive number for you, but I don't have one. The peripheral costs, the ones that just cannot be accounted for, calculated, those are the ones that will really get out of hand if G.O succeeds in his plan of forcing me back to work by removing my DLA and 'encuraging' me to get a job. It seems fairly obvious to me that continuing my DLA payments is actually the most financially sound option for the government, so why isn't it obvious to those who are in charge and should actually know what they're doing?
Realistically, the govt. would pay me much more in working-benefits and subsidiary costs than it would save if it sent me out to work. I currently receive higher rate care and mobility. Let's call that £450 p/m (although because I have a car on the motability scheme, the cost is more but the cash is less)
Lets say that I get a job working 16hrs a week for minimum wage (I can't expect much more than that, to be honest) our total entitlement to benefits as a couple? £11,400.63. Now, that DOES include some things we already claim, like housing benefit and tax credits and child benefit (all things, I'd hasten to point out, than ANYONE is allowed to claim, working or not, except tax credits which are an in-work benefit). It's still a lot.
Now, add to that that because I'll be working, I'll be pushing myself past what I am capable of while still retaining any degree of comfort. This will mean that most likely, I will have to go on medication. Probably anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, and pain management.
I'm going to break this down as much as I can to make it a bit clearer. Obviously, these numbers are not accurate as, guess what? I don't have a direct line to the NHS offices to find out how much meds cost. But I'm going off searches of the things I would need and an educated estimate at how much they would cost based on the assumption that the NHS bulk-buys. For example, I got a price of 64p per pill for Sertraline if bought in bulk at 270pills, so I assumed the NHS would buy in even larger numbers than that, and just pegged it at 40p. It's probably less, but lets add some more for admin costs, the cost of my GP, the cost of the pharmacist, etc etc. Assume all numbers are accurate for the purpose of this excersize.
Assuming Sertraline at 40p per pill: £12.50 p/m
Diazepam (assuming 1-2 pills a week): £3 p/m
Codeine (assuming 28 a month, which I could easily do now, without a job): £5 p/m
That's £20.50 a month on pills alone, almost £250 a year. And because I will soon be diagnosed with a lifelong illness, I will soon get my prescriptions free, which means the NHS will foot the entire bill. It will also foot the bill for the support I will no doubt need. The 16 weeks of councelling I'm sure I'll be provided with (pffffft), the braces (£40 please) I may or may not need to hold myself together (chortle chortle), the hospital stay I may end up needing if I relapse and require hospitalization, or the hospital stay I may end up needing if my perilously low weight plummets any further (which it would do, if I was stressed and also having to be doing physical activity 16 hours a week more than I do presently. And lets not kid ourselves that a 22 yr old with no skills, qualifications, previous work experience AND a baby could get anything other than something that would require a large degree of standing on my feet all day, serving people).
If I was to get pregnant again (not unreasonable for someone my age, in a stable relationship, but also not something I'm planning on doing, but I COULD) the cost to the government would skyrocket almost immediately. I would be extremely high risk, I would most likely have to leave work fairly soon which would mean I would have to go on *drumroll, please* unemployment benefits, or maternity wages (the actual term escapes me at 5am, sorry) all of which come straight from the governments coffers, I would most likely have to have a high-risk birth which would cost some hospital a lot of money, if I have my baby prematurely (stress and weight problems would contribute significantly to this possibility) the costs shoot off astronomically. If I had to stay in hospital for any length of time on bedrest, Beastlet would have to go into full time childcare while I'm in hospital, AND GUESS WHO WOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT, GEORGIE? The government, in the form of childcare vouchers. I haven't even accounted for the fact that I probably wouldn't find a job straight away that could take me, and therefore I'd be on JSA for posibly months before anything came up. That's another £250 a month.
This is all ignoring that the initial assessment, administration, and paperwork required to remove my Disability Living Allowance in the FIRST PLACE will all cost money. George Osbourne is basically saying he wants to pay me more money so that I can be poorer and in lots more pain while someone else brings up my child two days a week. Rightio then. That makes a ton of sense.
Originally I was going to round up this post with a definitive number for you, but I don't have one. The peripheral costs, the ones that just cannot be accounted for, calculated, those are the ones that will really get out of hand if G.O succeeds in his plan of forcing me back to work by removing my DLA and 'encuraging' me to get a job. It seems fairly obvious to me that continuing my DLA payments is actually the most financially sound option for the government, so why isn't it obvious to those who are in charge and should actually know what they're doing?
"...and then my boobs will basically explode and I'll die."
That is why Mr A should just google shit when I tell him I'm sick, instead of asking 'What's that?'
I'm getting over a bout of mastitis. The anti-biotics did a number on me. I'm nauseated, have a dodgy tummy, and keep feeling very... I can't describe it. Wiggly. Like all the molecules in my body are doing the mexican wave. Or something. BUT. That's all ok, because my boob no longer feels like it's going to explode and I no longer feel lie I'm sitting in an ice bucket even though it's 30 degrees outside.
I'm feeling better these days, and worse. I'm a little depressed about this whole shake-up of the DLA. I know I shouldn't get involved. I shouldn't. But I feel I HAVE to. I feel like remaining ignorant to the issues isn't right. But when I open myself up to the truth of the situation, I feel like I'm drowning.
I'm drowning in the futility of the situation: The big bad government against a small rally of educated cripples.
I'm drowning in the bad press; hyperbolic, sensational stories of benefit cheats.
I'm drowning in the ignorance of the average person about what DLA actually IS, and who can claim it.
I'm drowning in the truth of what will happen if I lose my DLA award.
I'm drowning in the feeling of being worthless, scum, a scrounger, no good, a waster.
...
I'm in tears writing this. The worst part? The words of fellow disabled people. People who feel that their disability is more worthy than mine. People who campaign for ramps and toilets and better chairs, but who would happily consign me to being sent back to work or, more realistically, just being much much worse off.
I try so hard not to judge people. In the car park the other day a man driving a car with a blue-badge rushed into a parent-and-child parking space that Mr A and I had been patiently waiting for. When Mr A pointed out it was a P&C space, not a disabled bay, and that the disable bays were further down (closer to the store entrance, in fact) the man became belligerent and rude. We drove past an empty disabled bay just 10 parking spaces down. He hadn't even bothered to check for one before taking the last P&C space. We had to park at the back of the car park so as not to get boxed in, and I had to limp across the car park.
That man judged me and my family. He decided arbitrarily that his desire to not bother to look for a more suitable space and his right to park where he liked, outweighed my need to park in a P&C space (for those without children, P&C spaces are important, because getting a baby into a carseat when you can only open your doors a foot is dangerous and difficult. P&C spaces usually also have safer routes to the stores, so parents don't have to walk children through open roads where there are blind corners made by badly designed carparks. Sometimes they aren't even closer to the store. Just safer and wider than regular spaces) He decided that I didn't need that space as much as he needed to stop driving RIGHT THAT SECOND.
Now, had there NOT been a free disabled space, I would have been the first to tell Mr A to give the space to him. But the act is that he can park in the disabled space, we could not. He had two spaces to choose from. We had only one, and he chose to park in that one space.
This is all getting a bit garbled. There was a point..... in that, people like him would look at me and go 'Well the medical assesment will weed out people like her! Send them back to work!'
I'm going to write a seperate entry about this...I started writing it in one entry but this deserves it's own one.
I'm getting over a bout of mastitis. The anti-biotics did a number on me. I'm nauseated, have a dodgy tummy, and keep feeling very... I can't describe it. Wiggly. Like all the molecules in my body are doing the mexican wave. Or something. BUT. That's all ok, because my boob no longer feels like it's going to explode and I no longer feel lie I'm sitting in an ice bucket even though it's 30 degrees outside.
I'm feeling better these days, and worse. I'm a little depressed about this whole shake-up of the DLA. I know I shouldn't get involved. I shouldn't. But I feel I HAVE to. I feel like remaining ignorant to the issues isn't right. But when I open myself up to the truth of the situation, I feel like I'm drowning.
I'm drowning in the futility of the situation: The big bad government against a small rally of educated cripples.
I'm drowning in the bad press; hyperbolic, sensational stories of benefit cheats.
I'm drowning in the ignorance of the average person about what DLA actually IS, and who can claim it.
I'm drowning in the truth of what will happen if I lose my DLA award.
I'm drowning in the feeling of being worthless, scum, a scrounger, no good, a waster.
...
I'm in tears writing this. The worst part? The words of fellow disabled people. People who feel that their disability is more worthy than mine. People who campaign for ramps and toilets and better chairs, but who would happily consign me to being sent back to work or, more realistically, just being much much worse off.
I try so hard not to judge people. In the car park the other day a man driving a car with a blue-badge rushed into a parent-and-child parking space that Mr A and I had been patiently waiting for. When Mr A pointed out it was a P&C space, not a disabled bay, and that the disable bays were further down (closer to the store entrance, in fact) the man became belligerent and rude. We drove past an empty disabled bay just 10 parking spaces down. He hadn't even bothered to check for one before taking the last P&C space. We had to park at the back of the car park so as not to get boxed in, and I had to limp across the car park.
That man judged me and my family. He decided arbitrarily that his desire to not bother to look for a more suitable space and his right to park where he liked, outweighed my need to park in a P&C space (for those without children, P&C spaces are important, because getting a baby into a carseat when you can only open your doors a foot is dangerous and difficult. P&C spaces usually also have safer routes to the stores, so parents don't have to walk children through open roads where there are blind corners made by badly designed carparks. Sometimes they aren't even closer to the store. Just safer and wider than regular spaces) He decided that I didn't need that space as much as he needed to stop driving RIGHT THAT SECOND.
Now, had there NOT been a free disabled space, I would have been the first to tell Mr A to give the space to him. But the act is that he can park in the disabled space, we could not. He had two spaces to choose from. We had only one, and he chose to park in that one space.
This is all getting a bit garbled. There was a point..... in that, people like him would look at me and go 'Well the medical assesment will weed out people like her! Send them back to work!'
I'm going to write a seperate entry about this...I started writing it in one entry but this deserves it's own one.
Friday, 25 June 2010
Tired.
Again.
It's been a tough few weeks. I've been over-stretching myself while simultaneously not getting anything really achieved.
It sounds stupid but my dental treatment is really stressful. The dental office is up a flight of stairs, which means that nt only do I actually physically have to climb the stairs, but it also presents the baby-problem. Firstly, there's getting to the place. It's a 5-10 minute walk, with no bus that goes there, so I have to walk. What does this have to do with stairs? Well, think about it for a second. I can either take her in the pushchair and then have to lug 12kgs of pushchair AND a baby up and down a flight of stairs, or I can not take the pushchair and carry the 20lb baby there and back. Neither of these options is actually any good. I can't really physically do either of them without doing myself damage. Forgoing the pushchair is the easier option, because I can take her in a sling, but that presents the problem that once she's in the dentists office and I'm in the dentists chair....what the fuck am I supposed to do with her? For my last appointment her godmother came with me, but I cannot and will not ask that of her again (except for when I go into hospital to have my wisdom tooth removed) I hate being in debt to people, I hate asking for favours, it humiliates me. The dental room is too small for her to be in there with me, so assuming I get there in one piece and get up the stairs in one piece, we then have the issue of who looks after the baby.
Are you starting to see why I'm extremely fucking stressed about this?
Yesterday I had a really great day out with a couple of friends, but the need to pretend that everything was great and I was fine and normal and wonderful meant that I massively over-excerted myself. Then we had a huge problem that took a couple of hours to sort of on the phone and that caused a lot of stress. Because we'd had a big day and then a stressful night we didn't end up having dinner, just a small snack. So today I woke up exhausted, in a lot of pain, with stress-whiplash, and the niggling guilt of having things that desperately needed to be done but hadn't been. I was also starving. But because I was out all of yesterday and out of spoons when I got home, there were NO clean dishes. At all. And no clean pots or pans or cooking implements or anything. The fridge was full, but not of grabbable, immediate-to-eat food. It taunted me with ingredients! They were all 'Ooooh, look at me, I'm a lettuce. If you took me out and chopped me up and added those tomatoes over there? You could totally have a really crappy salad. But you can't do that, CAN YOU? HA! YOU LOSE!'
Guys, it's a bad day when you're being taunted by lettuce. Lettuce is pretty much the wimp of the vegetable world. If you suck worse than the suckiest vegetable, then you suck a LOT.
I ended up having a can of coke, just so I would have the energy to grab a few sticks of celery and a jar of peanut butter. I wiped down the cleaniest of the dirty plates and after being up over an hour and a half finally had the oomph to eat something.
I'm in a guilt-spiral right now. A friend is very ill, and I bought her a present and meant to send it off a while ago, but didn't. The more time that goes by between when I MEANT to send it and the present, the worse I feel, and the less I can physically look at it. It is not all my fault, as I said it's been a tiring few weeks and honestly, I'm beyond exhausted. All the time. The 50 minute round trip to the post office (including standing around for 25 minutes in the que while A.B screams at me and my hips freak out) is something that I dread and that I've put off on thebasis that I can't push myself any more than I absolutely positively HAVE TO. And who always loses? My friends. My friends lose. And then I'm so ashamed of myself that I step back from them and then you know who loses? Me. And then I'm miserable and grumpy and guilty and who loses then? A.B and Mr A. So now EVERYONE HAS LOST. Awesome.
I also just got an e-mail from Mr A's aunt, inviting me to the theatre in a week. I could cry. I like this woman a lot, and I haven't been out by myself (as in, without Mr A) to an evening thing for over two years. I would love to go but I can't, because Baby A.B won't take milk from a bottle. And no one understand this. No one seems to understand that I can't 'just' leave her to starve. People don't understand why we don't 'just' get her on bottles. They act like the answers are so easy but they don't know her and don't understand what we've been through trying to get milk into her. They don't understand what it's like listening to your baby scream and cry and knowing that you can fix it. They don't know how hard it is to 'just' ignore that. And I get so tired of trying to explain why I can't 'just' leave her to people who don't understand why I bother to breastfeed in the first place, why I bother to breastfeed for 'so long', and why I care SO MUCH about breastfeeding her. They always feel like they need to offer me advice I don't want or ask for. Really, she won't starve to death? You don't say! Fuck off, even if she doesn't starve doesn't mean she'll be ok. There is a lot of bad stuff between being happy and starving to death. Bad stuff that I don't necessarily feel like inflicting on my baby.
See, I'm getting all defensive and angry and upset and.... I don't know. I'm stressed. I may have mentioned that.
I'm going to go drown my sorrows in some strawberry and mango tea.
It's been a tough few weeks. I've been over-stretching myself while simultaneously not getting anything really achieved.
It sounds stupid but my dental treatment is really stressful. The dental office is up a flight of stairs, which means that nt only do I actually physically have to climb the stairs, but it also presents the baby-problem. Firstly, there's getting to the place. It's a 5-10 minute walk, with no bus that goes there, so I have to walk. What does this have to do with stairs? Well, think about it for a second. I can either take her in the pushchair and then have to lug 12kgs of pushchair AND a baby up and down a flight of stairs, or I can not take the pushchair and carry the 20lb baby there and back. Neither of these options is actually any good. I can't really physically do either of them without doing myself damage. Forgoing the pushchair is the easier option, because I can take her in a sling, but that presents the problem that once she's in the dentists office and I'm in the dentists chair....what the fuck am I supposed to do with her? For my last appointment her godmother came with me, but I cannot and will not ask that of her again (except for when I go into hospital to have my wisdom tooth removed) I hate being in debt to people, I hate asking for favours, it humiliates me. The dental room is too small for her to be in there with me, so assuming I get there in one piece and get up the stairs in one piece, we then have the issue of who looks after the baby.
Are you starting to see why I'm extremely fucking stressed about this?
Yesterday I had a really great day out with a couple of friends, but the need to pretend that everything was great and I was fine and normal and wonderful meant that I massively over-excerted myself. Then we had a huge problem that took a couple of hours to sort of on the phone and that caused a lot of stress. Because we'd had a big day and then a stressful night we didn't end up having dinner, just a small snack. So today I woke up exhausted, in a lot of pain, with stress-whiplash, and the niggling guilt of having things that desperately needed to be done but hadn't been. I was also starving. But because I was out all of yesterday and out of spoons when I got home, there were NO clean dishes. At all. And no clean pots or pans or cooking implements or anything. The fridge was full, but not of grabbable, immediate-to-eat food. It taunted me with ingredients! They were all 'Ooooh, look at me, I'm a lettuce. If you took me out and chopped me up and added those tomatoes over there? You could totally have a really crappy salad. But you can't do that, CAN YOU? HA! YOU LOSE!'
Guys, it's a bad day when you're being taunted by lettuce. Lettuce is pretty much the wimp of the vegetable world. If you suck worse than the suckiest vegetable, then you suck a LOT.
I ended up having a can of coke, just so I would have the energy to grab a few sticks of celery and a jar of peanut butter. I wiped down the cleaniest of the dirty plates and after being up over an hour and a half finally had the oomph to eat something.
I'm in a guilt-spiral right now. A friend is very ill, and I bought her a present and meant to send it off a while ago, but didn't. The more time that goes by between when I MEANT to send it and the present, the worse I feel, and the less I can physically look at it. It is not all my fault, as I said it's been a tiring few weeks and honestly, I'm beyond exhausted. All the time. The 50 minute round trip to the post office (including standing around for 25 minutes in the que while A.B screams at me and my hips freak out) is something that I dread and that I've put off on thebasis that I can't push myself any more than I absolutely positively HAVE TO. And who always loses? My friends. My friends lose. And then I'm so ashamed of myself that I step back from them and then you know who loses? Me. And then I'm miserable and grumpy and guilty and who loses then? A.B and Mr A. So now EVERYONE HAS LOST. Awesome.
I also just got an e-mail from Mr A's aunt, inviting me to the theatre in a week. I could cry. I like this woman a lot, and I haven't been out by myself (as in, without Mr A) to an evening thing for over two years. I would love to go but I can't, because Baby A.B won't take milk from a bottle. And no one understand this. No one seems to understand that I can't 'just' leave her to starve. People don't understand why we don't 'just' get her on bottles. They act like the answers are so easy but they don't know her and don't understand what we've been through trying to get milk into her. They don't understand what it's like listening to your baby scream and cry and knowing that you can fix it. They don't know how hard it is to 'just' ignore that. And I get so tired of trying to explain why I can't 'just' leave her to people who don't understand why I bother to breastfeed in the first place, why I bother to breastfeed for 'so long', and why I care SO MUCH about breastfeeding her. They always feel like they need to offer me advice I don't want or ask for. Really, she won't starve to death? You don't say! Fuck off, even if she doesn't starve doesn't mean she'll be ok. There is a lot of bad stuff between being happy and starving to death. Bad stuff that I don't necessarily feel like inflicting on my baby.
See, I'm getting all defensive and angry and upset and.... I don't know. I'm stressed. I may have mentioned that.
I'm going to go drown my sorrows in some strawberry and mango tea.
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Dentists do the funniest things
I had a dentists appointment today. I was scared. I hadn't been to a dentist in about 3 years, when I had two root canals and had an entire tooth rebuilt from scratch. When I was pregnant, my wisdom teeth started growing in, and caused a HUGE amount of pain, but because I knew they couldn't do anything (because I was pregnant) I didn't bother to have them seen to. The pain went away, I assumed all was well.
It wasn't. From then until now, every few months the pain flared up and I spent a week or so crying and clutching my head.
I also, in the course of my labour, chipped the tooth I'd had rebuilt at a cost of £350. Not. A. Happy. Bunny.
So after 11 months of faffing and procrastinating and avoiding, I went to the dentist. It's worse than I thought. My left wisdom tooth is growing in sideways. Not at a slight angle. Not a bit wonky. Actually almost fully sideways. This image gives you a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about. So I have to go to hospital and have it removed, probably under general anaesthetic. The waiting list is about a month long, so I'm not even sure when it's going to happen. I'm asking A.B's godmother to help me out by babysitting on the day, but I'm pretty nervous. I'm not sure whether the drugs they give me will affect my breastmilk, how long it'll take, how much pain I'll be in...it's all very worrying for someone who likes to know what's happening and doesn't like uncertainty.
I also have to have the chipped tooth capped. They're doing a silver cap, because I get free treatment, which I am SERIOUSLY unhappy about, since I paid fucking £350 3 years ago to have the tooth replaced in WHITE. Now I'm going to have a horrible ugly silver thing in my face. You couldn't even tell it wasn't my real tooth before. But we don't have the money to get it fixed 'properly'. Aaaaaahhh. I am SO glad that I get free tretment, please don't misunderstand. I am more angry that the previous dentist charged me so much money for something that didn't last.
I'm watching random snippets of Stephen Fry on Youtube. He makes me happy in my pants.
It wasn't. From then until now, every few months the pain flared up and I spent a week or so crying and clutching my head.
I also, in the course of my labour, chipped the tooth I'd had rebuilt at a cost of £350. Not. A. Happy. Bunny.
So after 11 months of faffing and procrastinating and avoiding, I went to the dentist. It's worse than I thought. My left wisdom tooth is growing in sideways. Not at a slight angle. Not a bit wonky. Actually almost fully sideways. This image gives you a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about. So I have to go to hospital and have it removed, probably under general anaesthetic. The waiting list is about a month long, so I'm not even sure when it's going to happen. I'm asking A.B's godmother to help me out by babysitting on the day, but I'm pretty nervous. I'm not sure whether the drugs they give me will affect my breastmilk, how long it'll take, how much pain I'll be in...it's all very worrying for someone who likes to know what's happening and doesn't like uncertainty.
I also have to have the chipped tooth capped. They're doing a silver cap, because I get free treatment, which I am SERIOUSLY unhappy about, since I paid fucking £350 3 years ago to have the tooth replaced in WHITE. Now I'm going to have a horrible ugly silver thing in my face. You couldn't even tell it wasn't my real tooth before. But we don't have the money to get it fixed 'properly'. Aaaaaahhh. I am SO glad that I get free tretment, please don't misunderstand. I am more angry that the previous dentist charged me so much money for something that didn't last.
I'm watching random snippets of Stephen Fry on Youtube. He makes me happy in my pants.
Monday, 14 June 2010
94lbs
It's 'funny' how the less I weigh, the less I want to eat. I just don't see the point anymore. I never gain weight, it never gets better, nothing ever helps. My BMI hasn't been above 15 for months. I've been struggling for months and months to get it up and nothing ever works.
I'm just so tired of fighting this and never getting anywhere.
I'm just so tired of fighting this and never getting anywhere.
Friday, 11 June 2010
Birthdays suck
So, I turned 22 on Sunday, and it sucked. I won't go into detail, because a LOT of stuff happened, but it was just a horrible day in general and involved a big falling out with Mr A's family. I spent about an hour solid just sobbing in a way I haven't done for years. Needless to say, it failed in every aspect as a birthday. We're trying again on July 6th, hoping 22 v2 goes better.
Today we also got a letter from the council. The council ALWAYS send their damn letters so they arrive on a FRIDAY so you can't fucking do anything about them. We had applied for housing assistance (yes yes, I'm a horrible benefit-scrounging loser, I know, but please bear in mind that we are roughly £1000 a month below the poverty line [the poverty line here being less than 60% of the median UK income after housing costs have been paid] so I'm sorry, but we do need government assistance. And if you disagree you can come and live in my house with my budget for a year without any. Then we'll talk.) and when Mr A handed in the forms, the woman insisted on putting down that we were applying for Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits at the same time, even though we weren't, she said we HAD to. So today we got a letter through saying that they would not assess our claim until they had seen documentation of what we were awarded in WTC and CTC. Guys, we havent even received those forms yet. They need to be sent to you, apparently, and we havent got them yet. We then have to SHOW the Housing people our filled-out forms AND show them the letter detailing what we've been awarded. We won't have the forms until next week at the earliest and we won't hear back from then for at least two weeks, add another week to sort things out with housing and two weeks for them to make a decision, and we won't be getting our back-payment and our payments for over a month, at the earliest.
On top of this, theres a box on the form asking why you haven't filled it in any sooner, and we put that Mr A is working full-time and when he's not, he's looking after me and helping me look after Baby A.B. When Mr A took the form in the woman was SO snotty about it, saying why hadn't I bothered to come down, and what was so wrong with me that I couldn't get out the house. I should point out that the form clearly states I am in receipt of the FULL amount of Disability Living Allowance. Nothing on this form should have led her to think I sit on my arse all day thinking of essential tasks I can shirk. Along with the letter above, we get a letter saying that we have to provide PROOF that I have been ill in the time-period we're talking about, which means supplying a fucking note from my GP. Er, except, my GP doesn't KNOW about my PND. You know why? BECAUSE I AM NOT OBLIGATED TO REPORT ON MY HEALTH TO MY GP. If I want to keep that shit secret, I'm ALLOWED. I am so ANGRY. It was clearly stated on the form that I have post-natal depression, Mr A works full-time, leaving at 7 and getting back at 6:30, when is he supposed to be able to go there? And I'm angry too that I'm being ordered to produce proof of my depression when that isn't even relevant to our case, only to the time-line of when we handed the form in. I don't go to my GP for every sniffle, I was sick for 6 weeks earlier in the year, immobilised for weeks at a time and I didn't go to him then (mainly out of stubbornness and because their appointment booking system is ridiculous) so why would I go to him with something so personal and difficult?
Yes I know I shouldn't be bitching about all my free money....I'm not really, I'm just upset about all the rudeness we get from them and all the red tape and things that stand in our way just to get help. You have to fill out a 50 page form and then supply 600 bits of paper and then get grilled by a super-rude bitch and then 10 days later get told 'Oh well thats not enough'. They want you to give up before they have to give you anything. Why can't they just be nice? Like asking for help isn't daunting and demoralising enough, they need to beat you around and make you jump through hoops and feel like shit on their shoes. It's so unnecessary.
What else sucks? Well... one of our pet rats died this week. The other won't be around much longer. I have a dentist appointment for Tuesday which is scary and I-want-to-avoid-y. The company delivering my replacement credit card (part of the Birthday Of Suckiness, my e-bay/paypal/email account got hacked into on my birthday so I had to cancel all my cards) has my address SO wrong it's baffling that the letter even arrived to tell us they couldnt find our house.
Right, I'm off to go watch Secret Life of The American Teenager and pretend my life is awesome.
Today we also got a letter from the council. The council ALWAYS send their damn letters so they arrive on a FRIDAY so you can't fucking do anything about them. We had applied for housing assistance (yes yes, I'm a horrible benefit-scrounging loser, I know, but please bear in mind that we are roughly £1000 a month below the poverty line [the poverty line here being less than 60% of the median UK income after housing costs have been paid] so I'm sorry, but we do need government assistance. And if you disagree you can come and live in my house with my budget for a year without any. Then we'll talk.) and when Mr A handed in the forms, the woman insisted on putting down that we were applying for Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits at the same time, even though we weren't, she said we HAD to. So today we got a letter through saying that they would not assess our claim until they had seen documentation of what we were awarded in WTC and CTC. Guys, we havent even received those forms yet. They need to be sent to you, apparently, and we havent got them yet. We then have to SHOW the Housing people our filled-out forms AND show them the letter detailing what we've been awarded. We won't have the forms until next week at the earliest and we won't hear back from then for at least two weeks, add another week to sort things out with housing and two weeks for them to make a decision, and we won't be getting our back-payment and our payments for over a month, at the earliest.
On top of this, theres a box on the form asking why you haven't filled it in any sooner, and we put that Mr A is working full-time and when he's not, he's looking after me and helping me look after Baby A.B. When Mr A took the form in the woman was SO snotty about it, saying why hadn't I bothered to come down, and what was so wrong with me that I couldn't get out the house. I should point out that the form clearly states I am in receipt of the FULL amount of Disability Living Allowance. Nothing on this form should have led her to think I sit on my arse all day thinking of essential tasks I can shirk. Along with the letter above, we get a letter saying that we have to provide PROOF that I have been ill in the time-period we're talking about, which means supplying a fucking note from my GP. Er, except, my GP doesn't KNOW about my PND. You know why? BECAUSE I AM NOT OBLIGATED TO REPORT ON MY HEALTH TO MY GP. If I want to keep that shit secret, I'm ALLOWED. I am so ANGRY. It was clearly stated on the form that I have post-natal depression, Mr A works full-time, leaving at 7 and getting back at 6:30, when is he supposed to be able to go there? And I'm angry too that I'm being ordered to produce proof of my depression when that isn't even relevant to our case, only to the time-line of when we handed the form in. I don't go to my GP for every sniffle, I was sick for 6 weeks earlier in the year, immobilised for weeks at a time and I didn't go to him then (mainly out of stubbornness and because their appointment booking system is ridiculous) so why would I go to him with something so personal and difficult?
Yes I know I shouldn't be bitching about all my free money....I'm not really, I'm just upset about all the rudeness we get from them and all the red tape and things that stand in our way just to get help. You have to fill out a 50 page form and then supply 600 bits of paper and then get grilled by a super-rude bitch and then 10 days later get told 'Oh well thats not enough'. They want you to give up before they have to give you anything. Why can't they just be nice? Like asking for help isn't daunting and demoralising enough, they need to beat you around and make you jump through hoops and feel like shit on their shoes. It's so unnecessary.
What else sucks? Well... one of our pet rats died this week. The other won't be around much longer. I have a dentist appointment for Tuesday which is scary and I-want-to-avoid-y. The company delivering my replacement credit card (part of the Birthday Of Suckiness, my e-bay/paypal/email account got hacked into on my birthday so I had to cancel all my cards) has my address SO wrong it's baffling that the letter even arrived to tell us they couldnt find our house.
Right, I'm off to go watch Secret Life of The American Teenager and pretend my life is awesome.
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
It's a bad sign when..
...you google yourself to see what people you're getting into fights with online who know your full real name will find if THEY google you.
Guys, that should NEVER be a concern.
What do people find when they google me? Oh god. Well mostly, random listings websites that don't really do anything other than list my name. But also, a link to my poetry on a writing website (I tried to erase that link but it didn't work. Damnit! It's *very* incriminating.), pictures of me on my wedding day, my goodreads account (not terribly incriminating, that) and a bunch of dud links to my facebook account (which is so private that even if you click on them and search, knowing my full name, you get nada)
Once again I am kind of floored by the internet and the scary scary things on it. I'm also now stuck in the whole cycle of clicking through the profiles of people I used to know, to be friends with...getting sucked into that vortex of pain is NOT goodtimes.
But hey, at least if the people I'm in a dispute with see my crazy 16-yr-old poetry, they'll back the fuck off and leave me alone because they'll assume I'm certifiably insane.
Guys, that should NEVER be a concern.
What do people find when they google me? Oh god. Well mostly, random listings websites that don't really do anything other than list my name. But also, a link to my poetry on a writing website (I tried to erase that link but it didn't work. Damnit! It's *very* incriminating.), pictures of me on my wedding day, my goodreads account (not terribly incriminating, that) and a bunch of dud links to my facebook account (which is so private that even if you click on them and search, knowing my full name, you get nada)
Once again I am kind of floored by the internet and the scary scary things on it. I'm also now stuck in the whole cycle of clicking through the profiles of people I used to know, to be friends with...getting sucked into that vortex of pain is NOT goodtimes.
But hey, at least if the people I'm in a dispute with see my crazy 16-yr-old poetry, they'll back the fuck off and leave me alone because they'll assume I'm certifiably insane.
Monday, 31 May 2010
CAKE
or, How I Burned My Face Melting Butter.
Today in my little corner of the world, it's a bank holiday. This doesn't actually affect me, since my husband is off work anyway and I don't have a job and we weren't planning on doing anything. BUT I feel the need to use 'it's a bank holiday' as my excuse for trying to make cake for dinner tonight, and the chaos that ensued.
I was making no-bake tiffin cakes, a'la My Daddy Cooks. Because it's easy and because tiffin cakes are yummy and because we had all the ingredients. Which is pretty much my criteria for making anything.
First I had to crush the biscuits. Nick recommends doing this in a bag, but again, I'm lazy and couldnt be bothered to find a bag, plus I like mine crushed a little finer than the bag allows for. So I just break them by hand and then complain about how long and arduous this process is. Tonight I managed to rub my skin raw breaking biscuits, which is a) ridiculous, and b) kind of deeply deeply gross. I have decided it's ok however, because no one else will be eating them and I'm pretty sure Mr A doesn't mind eating a little bit of my skin. Lets face it, we're a married couple, he's done worse.
So now I have really painful hands, which are silky smooth but that's only nice for anyone I'm touching, not so nice for me, who has been rubbed raw. Next I have to melt some butter. Simple? Oh. Oh no. Not simple at all, apparently, because when I put the butter in the pan, it all goes horribly, inexplicably, wrong. First clouds of smoke, thick, grey, solid-looking smoke, issue out of the pan in quantities I've never seen issue from anything in my life. It is EVERYWHERE. I turn the heat off and move the pan, but it doesn't stop. Mr A comes to the rescue, opening the back door and telling me to calm down. Once the smoke stops, I resume cooking, except it's not over yet. As soon as I put the rest of the butter in the pan, it starts EXPLODING IN MY FACE. Yes, you read that right. EXPLODING all up in my FACE. Then it starts exploding EVERYWHERE. I'm screaming, Mr A has Baby A and so can't come and rescue me, I back off from the pan but now I'm trapped in the corner of the room while the pan is still on the heat, volcanic bursts of boiling butter spewing forth every few seconds, coating everything in a five foot radius, including my face and arms.
Eventually I grabbed a towel, covered myself and moved in on it. This minimized the damage, but didn't stop it all together. I was terrified every time I heard the pop and bang and felt hot fat hit me through the towel.
I've just surveyed the damage, and my entire kitchen, including the clean clothes and nappies hanging up to dry, is covered in big fat droplets of grease. I did a quick wash of the floor but it's going to need heavy duty work tomorrow to get it properly usable again.
Ugh. Bloody bank holiday Monday. Why didn't I just make toast?
Today in my little corner of the world, it's a bank holiday. This doesn't actually affect me, since my husband is off work anyway and I don't have a job and we weren't planning on doing anything. BUT I feel the need to use 'it's a bank holiday' as my excuse for trying to make cake for dinner tonight, and the chaos that ensued.
I was making no-bake tiffin cakes, a'la My Daddy Cooks. Because it's easy and because tiffin cakes are yummy and because we had all the ingredients. Which is pretty much my criteria for making anything.
First I had to crush the biscuits. Nick recommends doing this in a bag, but again, I'm lazy and couldnt be bothered to find a bag, plus I like mine crushed a little finer than the bag allows for. So I just break them by hand and then complain about how long and arduous this process is. Tonight I managed to rub my skin raw breaking biscuits, which is a) ridiculous, and b) kind of deeply deeply gross. I have decided it's ok however, because no one else will be eating them and I'm pretty sure Mr A doesn't mind eating a little bit of my skin. Lets face it, we're a married couple, he's done worse.
So now I have really painful hands, which are silky smooth but that's only nice for anyone I'm touching, not so nice for me, who has been rubbed raw. Next I have to melt some butter. Simple? Oh. Oh no. Not simple at all, apparently, because when I put the butter in the pan, it all goes horribly, inexplicably, wrong. First clouds of smoke, thick, grey, solid-looking smoke, issue out of the pan in quantities I've never seen issue from anything in my life. It is EVERYWHERE. I turn the heat off and move the pan, but it doesn't stop. Mr A comes to the rescue, opening the back door and telling me to calm down. Once the smoke stops, I resume cooking, except it's not over yet. As soon as I put the rest of the butter in the pan, it starts EXPLODING IN MY FACE. Yes, you read that right. EXPLODING all up in my FACE. Then it starts exploding EVERYWHERE. I'm screaming, Mr A has Baby A and so can't come and rescue me, I back off from the pan but now I'm trapped in the corner of the room while the pan is still on the heat, volcanic bursts of boiling butter spewing forth every few seconds, coating everything in a five foot radius, including my face and arms.
Eventually I grabbed a towel, covered myself and moved in on it. This minimized the damage, but didn't stop it all together. I was terrified every time I heard the pop and bang and felt hot fat hit me through the towel.
I've just surveyed the damage, and my entire kitchen, including the clean clothes and nappies hanging up to dry, is covered in big fat droplets of grease. I did a quick wash of the floor but it's going to need heavy duty work tomorrow to get it properly usable again.
Ugh. Bloody bank holiday Monday. Why didn't I just make toast?
Friday, 28 May 2010
Imploding laptops and a fortnight of duelling
So the other day my laptop imploded. We knew it was coming, sort of. The little plastic bits on the back that kept the lid up had snapped off and so the wires leading from the screen to the base were exposed and rubbing. It was really only a matter of time before it died.
Of course, knowing it was coming didn't inspire me to do anything about being able to rescue all my vital information once it DID happen. Oh nooooo. One morning I turned my laptop on and got the grey fuzzy screen of death. So I hauled out the netbook that came free with my blackberry that I tried to sell but that no one wanted to buy. And I quickly learned WHY no one wanted to buy it. I hate it. It has teeny tiny keys on a keyboard clearly designed for pixies, not real human beings, the auto-updates keep messing with my internet settings, the sound quality is worse than awful, and the right click on the mouse stopped working after two days. Awesome. I have provided above some evidence of the tinyness of the netbook, to give you a better idea of my pain. I dont have large hands, you guys. My ring size is H/I (please to admire the sparkly on my ring finger, plz)
BUT. BUT. At least I still have something. The internet is my therapy, my friend, and my link to the outside world on the days when I can't interract with it properly. Without it, I'd pretty much be lost. So fr now I hold a grudging truce with the Netbook of Death and we shake hands, not as friends, but not as foes either.
So, Mr A's company offered him a pretty sweet deal to have some time off, and we'd been having ishoo's within our marriage and with my health and with A.B too, so he jumped at the chance. We're on Friday of the first week and it's been nice. Stressful at times, he plays too much playstation and doesn't take enough initiative with things that need to get done, but still, it's good. We are bickering a lot more but also spending more quality time together and being more loving. Ahhh. Sweet. He's alright really, sometimes. Now if only he'd put the playstation controller down and take the fucking bins out on time, we'd be in business.
Friday, 21 May 2010
Things I will totally do this summer. Probably.
1. Go swimming. This was originally going to be 'Go swimming every week' and then 'Go swimming every month' and then I decided to be vaguely realistic.
2. Get the house spotlessly clean. For at least one day.
3. Sew at least once a week.
4. Do an hour of housework a day each weekday.
-STOP-
That list fucking sucks. Ahhhh. When I first started this entry it was supposed to be an AWESOME list of FUN and AWESOME. Now it's a to-do list of chores. I have a feeling my list should actually be more like 'Learn to ride a motorbike!' 'Take salsa classes!' 'Have coffee with a hobo!' 'Run away to Paris for a week!' but that doesn't seem like a good list to write. I think it would probably just depress me.
Money is set to be bad this month. It's always bad, but this month its going to be especially bad. Mr A has the next 11 days off work and we'll be able to speak to the council about benefits we should be recieving, but that will take at least 3 weeks to come through. In the meantime we'll be living on vapours. Funtimes. Once again I'm disgustingly thankful that we use cloth nappies and I breastfeed. We wouldn't be able to afford nappies or formula this month.
2. Get the house spotlessly clean. For at least one day.
3. Sew at least once a week.
4. Do an hour of housework a day each weekday.
-STOP-
That list fucking sucks. Ahhhh. When I first started this entry it was supposed to be an AWESOME list of FUN and AWESOME. Now it's a to-do list of chores. I have a feeling my list should actually be more like 'Learn to ride a motorbike!' 'Take salsa classes!' 'Have coffee with a hobo!' 'Run away to Paris for a week!' but that doesn't seem like a good list to write. I think it would probably just depress me.
Money is set to be bad this month. It's always bad, but this month its going to be especially bad. Mr A has the next 11 days off work and we'll be able to speak to the council about benefits we should be recieving, but that will take at least 3 weeks to come through. In the meantime we'll be living on vapours. Funtimes. Once again I'm disgustingly thankful that we use cloth nappies and I breastfeed. We wouldn't be able to afford nappies or formula this month.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Sobriety, illness, PND, and pork
Today has been bad. Like, really bad. Like, raging-PND-that-you're-not-supposed-to-admit-to, mentally-counting-all-the-pills-in-the-house, shaking-in-a-corner bad.
First of all, Mini-A is being a shit. It's not really her fault, she's teething and has a cold and that sucks for her, but she is also being a shit. I have bruises and welts and scabs and broken blood vessels from where she has been....what word fits? It's not assault or abuse because there's no intention. It's not playing, because that makes it sound much less malevolent than it is. She hurts me because she's angry, because she doesn't know her own strength, because she's frustrated. At under 10 months old, I really can't expect much from her in the way of self restraint. But days like today when I've been pummeled near non-stop and when she isn't hitting she's shouting, are tiring days. It doesn't matter that it's not her fault. It' not mine either and I just have to live with it.
We've talked about the PND before. It's there. It doesn't go away. But it's more managable some days. However today I got to the end of the day and I just wanted to not exist. I have been Sober With A Capital S for most of the last couple of years, falling off the wagon once or twice. The 2nd anniversary of the first major wagon fall is pressing down on us right now. Two years ago this month a dear friend took her own life and mine fell apart. I didn't do anything for 6 months. I lay in bed, I didn't talk to my husband. I drank. I smoked. I was a terrible person to be around. I have no memories of it. They just aren't there. So with this looming over me and Mr A's job getting more stressful every week and with A.B being 'difficult' and with my physical health ebbing, you may go some way towards understanding why I have a drink balanced on my knee right now. This drink and writing this entry is the only thing stopping me getting dressed and walking out the house. Ostensibly,to buy a packet of cigarettes, but in reality, I know I would find an excuse not to come back. Right now, it's That Bad.
Ask most mom's why they do what they do for their children, why they want the best for them, why they work so hard for them, and they'll be able to sum it up in one word: Love. Because they love them.
My huge shame and my greatest regret is that do my best, work my hardest, and try to do everything 'right' to make up for the fact that I don't love my daughter. It's the one thing she needs most and it's the only thing I can't give her. Instead I give her breastmilk and carefully chosen clothes and child-rearing methods that I've painstakingly researched to try to fill the gap that post-natal-depression has left between us. Maybe if I do a good enough job with everything else, it won't be too bad. Her father loves her, and I raise her kindly and carefully. Maybe that will be enough. Maybe it won't matter that I'm incapable of loving her. Maybe it will mean that when mental illness inevitably shuffles me off into the ante-room of existance it won't be too bad for her. It may even be a relief to finally be free of her un-mothering mother.
Meanwhile, I will lactate and make her pork chops (her favourite) and play the airplane game and pick out pretty clothes so that when she looks back on the pictures of herself as a baby, the pictures I'm never in, she'll feel the fact that even though I didn't love, I did care.
First of all, Mini-A is being a shit. It's not really her fault, she's teething and has a cold and that sucks for her, but she is also being a shit. I have bruises and welts and scabs and broken blood vessels from where she has been....what word fits? It's not assault or abuse because there's no intention. It's not playing, because that makes it sound much less malevolent than it is. She hurts me because she's angry, because she doesn't know her own strength, because she's frustrated. At under 10 months old, I really can't expect much from her in the way of self restraint. But days like today when I've been pummeled near non-stop and when she isn't hitting she's shouting, are tiring days. It doesn't matter that it's not her fault. It' not mine either and I just have to live with it.
We've talked about the PND before. It's there. It doesn't go away. But it's more managable some days. However today I got to the end of the day and I just wanted to not exist. I have been Sober With A Capital S for most of the last couple of years, falling off the wagon once or twice. The 2nd anniversary of the first major wagon fall is pressing down on us right now. Two years ago this month a dear friend took her own life and mine fell apart. I didn't do anything for 6 months. I lay in bed, I didn't talk to my husband. I drank. I smoked. I was a terrible person to be around. I have no memories of it. They just aren't there. So with this looming over me and Mr A's job getting more stressful every week and with A.B being 'difficult' and with my physical health ebbing, you may go some way towards understanding why I have a drink balanced on my knee right now. This drink and writing this entry is the only thing stopping me getting dressed and walking out the house. Ostensibly,to buy a packet of cigarettes, but in reality, I know I would find an excuse not to come back. Right now, it's That Bad.
Ask most mom's why they do what they do for their children, why they want the best for them, why they work so hard for them, and they'll be able to sum it up in one word: Love. Because they love them.
My huge shame and my greatest regret is that do my best, work my hardest, and try to do everything 'right' to make up for the fact that I don't love my daughter. It's the one thing she needs most and it's the only thing I can't give her. Instead I give her breastmilk and carefully chosen clothes and child-rearing methods that I've painstakingly researched to try to fill the gap that post-natal-depression has left between us. Maybe if I do a good enough job with everything else, it won't be too bad. Her father loves her, and I raise her kindly and carefully. Maybe that will be enough. Maybe it won't matter that I'm incapable of loving her. Maybe it will mean that when mental illness inevitably shuffles me off into the ante-room of existance it won't be too bad for her. It may even be a relief to finally be free of her un-mothering mother.
Meanwhile, I will lactate and make her pork chops (her favourite) and play the airplane game and pick out pretty clothes so that when she looks back on the pictures of herself as a baby, the pictures I'm never in, she'll feel the fact that even though I didn't love, I did care.
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Moms, Jewish Convents, Zombies, and Foxes
I feel the need to show you the e-mail I just sent my mom, to prove to people that the way I write my blog is not a million miles from who I really am. I sometimes worry people think Blog-Me is an act I put on. Because I put on a lot of acts. I'm that sort of person.
Also, it's fucking amusing. To me, at least. And hopefully to my mom too. And even if she has no sense of humour, fuck it. It's mothers day, she has to pretend to love everything I do.
It's now 5:52am. So I'm out. Like a light. Except they don't go out, do they? They go off. So I never understood that phrase. You don't turn a light 'in', a light doesn't go 'in', it goes 'on', so why does it go 'out'?
Important fuckin' questions, y'all.
Also, it's fucking amusing. To me, at least. And hopefully to my mom too. And even if she has no sense of humour, fuck it. It's mothers day, she has to pretend to love everything I do.
I was going to phone but some arsehole (Mr A) has helpfully removed the batteries from the phone without telling me, rendering it useless. Good thing I didn't need to phone the fire brigade or anything, RIGHT? ARSE.
Anyway, I hope the boys gave you (let you buy yourself) nice presents, and that you have a good day of chilling in the pool and reading. Bliss!!
Love you
x
PS: Have included a picture of A.B at her boyfriends 1st Birthday party. They have a love/hate relationship. There is LOVE! for a minute, and then there was hate for about 6 hours. Have also included a picture of said boyfriend, because he's fricking gorgeous and she's a lucky chick, snagging herself a handsome older guy. We've already told her though, this age difference? Alright when you're 9 months old. Not so alright when she'll be 15 and the equivalent age ratio would make a boyfriend 20. Mr A is still trying to figure out the Jewish equivalent of Convent school. I keep telling him they don't have one, it's just Schul and a lot of guilt and Yiddish and eye-rolling, but he refuses to believe there isn't somewhere paranoid Jew-y fathers can send their daughters. He says the Jews invented paranoia and it's basically why Christianity exists because you have to be pretty paranoid to think a guy that says he walks on water and turns it into wine but doesn't turn massive bodies of water into wine is a serious threat. I have to admit he has a point, but I don't think that changes the fact that the Jews seem to know better than to lock a bunch of teenage girls up in a school with only religion and hormones for company. Jews may be paranoid but they're not delusional. Except Jesus. He was a little delusional. But that's alright, he had cool party tricks. Plus he was pretty much the original zombie and everyone loves zombies.
PPS: Also, a fox. Because it was sweet and you have wallabee's and stuff, but can you look out your kitchen window and see a fox? NO, Madam. You CAN'T. So I must bring the fox. And bring the fox I shall. Consider yourself outfoxed.
PPPS: It's 5:40am. Does it show?
It's now 5:52am. So I'm out. Like a light. Except they don't go out, do they? They go off. So I never understood that phrase. You don't turn a light 'in', a light doesn't go 'in', it goes 'on', so why does it go 'out'?
Important fuckin' questions, y'all.
Friday, 7 May 2010
I pack it in real good
That title is pleasingly suggestive. It is making me giggle.
So it's 8:30am and so far today I have:
-Showered
-Dyed myself pink
-Scrubbed myself raw
-Tried out two hairstyles
-Fallen out of bed twice
-Had breakfast AND coffee
-Looked up all my directions for travelling later
-Had a stare-down with a rabbit
-Made scathing and witty political commentary via Facebook
-Made unscathing and unwitty skin-dying commentary via Twitter
-Waved off Mr A with a parting shot about not loving me because I'm pink now, just to keep him on his toes
-Given extremely serious thought to being productive in the kitchen
-Decided not to give into insanity (re: kitchen)
Now, given that by 8:30 on most mornings I am still dragging myself out of my comatose state while begging A.B to go-back-to-fucking-goddamn-sleep-please-baby-breath-mummy-loves-you-please-sleep-PLEASE, I think that this is actually pretty awesome going.
However, there are a few problems in this sudden burst of productivity. Most pressingly, I am pink. Bright pink. This would be fine if all I had to do all day was mooch around the house, scrubbing myself with Q-tips soaked in bleach. However, I actually have to leave the house in an hour and I'll be doing TWO seperate social functions today. A picnic with a friend and my very first kid's birthday party as a mother. It is pretty damn exciting. I feel like this is a rite of passage. Which I am going to complete while PINK. Secondly, I am also now pretty tired. Awesome. I'm going to fall asleep in that poor kids cake and ruin the whole damn party. All because I have a need for hair the color of raspberries.
So it's 8:30am and so far today I have:
-Showered
-Dyed myself pink
-Scrubbed myself raw
-Tried out two hairstyles
-Fallen out of bed twice
-Had breakfast AND coffee
-Looked up all my directions for travelling later
-Had a stare-down with a rabbit
-Made scathing and witty political commentary via Facebook
-Made unscathing and unwitty skin-dying commentary via Twitter
-Waved off Mr A with a parting shot about not loving me because I'm pink now, just to keep him on his toes
-Given extremely serious thought to being productive in the kitchen
-Decided not to give into insanity (re: kitchen)
Now, given that by 8:30 on most mornings I am still dragging myself out of my comatose state while begging A.B to go-back-to-fucking-goddamn-sleep-please-baby-breath-mummy-loves-you-please-sleep-PLEASE, I think that this is actually pretty awesome going.
However, there are a few problems in this sudden burst of productivity. Most pressingly, I am pink. Bright pink. This would be fine if all I had to do all day was mooch around the house, scrubbing myself with Q-tips soaked in bleach. However, I actually have to leave the house in an hour and I'll be doing TWO seperate social functions today. A picnic with a friend and my very first kid's birthday party as a mother. It is pretty damn exciting. I feel like this is a rite of passage. Which I am going to complete while PINK. Secondly, I am also now pretty tired. Awesome. I'm going to fall asleep in that poor kids cake and ruin the whole damn party. All because I have a need for hair the color of raspberries.
Monday, 3 May 2010
10 Things You Should Hate About Me
1. I over-use the words Really, Seriously, Actually, Ridiculously and Also. I don't think I can get through a paragraph without using one of them. It's a disease.
2. I have bad taste. In everything. I like tasteless things on both ends of the spectrum, too. I'm talking 'Mommy drinks because I cry' t-shirts for babies AND floral ruffled romper suits. My bad taste does not discriminate.
3. I swear like a sailor. I also swear in front of the baby. Fuck it. The day she accidentally swears in front of her grandparents will be the proudest day of my life.
4. I'm needy. Ridiculously so. Like right now? I'm considering waking my husband up so he can tell me I'm pretty.
5. I'm a snob. Pretty much about everything, but only if I don't like you. I WILL argue with you for years about the pronunciation of 'scone' and I will totally sneer at you if you have Twilight as your 'favourite book' even though I've read the entire series cover to cover four times. It's just how I roll.
6. I'm not a nice person. I'm just not. I'm not one of those people who is just *nice*. I'm pretty much only nice if I love you. Luckily, I love easily.
7. I'm unflinchingly self-obsessed. ME ME ME ME ME. Everything is about me.
8. I have no self-esteem, which makes me paranoid, obsessive, mean, spiteful, pathetic, whingey, two-faced, and introverted. You will almost never see the 'real me' unless you know me for years, or unless I am SO DRUNK, but now that I'm sober, that's unlikely to happen. (sobriety is fucking boring as hell.)
9. I'm so vain I can't even think of ten things you should hate. So you tell ME what the tenth thing is. What do you hate about me?
2. I have bad taste. In everything. I like tasteless things on both ends of the spectrum, too. I'm talking 'Mommy drinks because I cry' t-shirts for babies AND floral ruffled romper suits. My bad taste does not discriminate.
3. I swear like a sailor. I also swear in front of the baby. Fuck it. The day she accidentally swears in front of her grandparents will be the proudest day of my life.
4. I'm needy. Ridiculously so. Like right now? I'm considering waking my husband up so he can tell me I'm pretty.
5. I'm a snob. Pretty much about everything, but only if I don't like you. I WILL argue with you for years about the pronunciation of 'scone' and I will totally sneer at you if you have Twilight as your 'favourite book' even though I've read the entire series cover to cover four times. It's just how I roll.
6. I'm not a nice person. I'm just not. I'm not one of those people who is just *nice*. I'm pretty much only nice if I love you. Luckily, I love easily.
7. I'm unflinchingly self-obsessed. ME ME ME ME ME. Everything is about me.
8. I have no self-esteem, which makes me paranoid, obsessive, mean, spiteful, pathetic, whingey, two-faced, and introverted. You will almost never see the 'real me' unless you know me for years, or unless I am SO DRUNK, but now that I'm sober, that's unlikely to happen. (sobriety is fucking boring as hell.)
9. I'm so vain I can't even think of ten things you should hate. So you tell ME what the tenth thing is. What do you hate about me?
Saturday, 1 May 2010
One of those days
When I really really really wish I had woken up with an infectious disease that would force me to stay home.
Firstly, my wake-up. A package came in the morning, which required me leaping out of bed when the doorbell went and flying down three flights of stairs, detouring halfway to grab a dressing gown, standing on A.B's little plastic octopus of EVIL, screaming 'FUCK FUCK FUCK OWWWING FUCK!' while trying to wrestle the dressing gown on (one of the sleeves was pulled inside out. Of course.) AND grab my keys (my house is a fricking fire hazard, you have to lock yourself in at night, with KEYS. One day we WILL all die at the bottom of the stairs) AND hope that A.B didn't decide to crawl out of bed and wasn't at this very moment in time lying bleeding on the floor. I got there in the end though, dropped the keys, picked them up, found the right one, opened the door to my postman's right arm, the rest of him already being halfway to the next house. But it was ok, because in this package was clothes I had ordered. My first Maxi dress, a HOODSCARF with EARS and button-eyes (pretty sure Jae will divorce me, but that's ok. I'll have my hoodscarf for comfort), a very cute tea dress, a nautical headband (thick horizontal navy and white stripes with a matt gold helm! So cute!) and a pair of those shoes that are supposed to be small enough to fold up and put in your bag.
I get upstairs and A.B had NOT crawled off the bed. This was the high point of my day.
First of all, the shoes. I bought them in a 6. This was taking into account that I was a 5 and that my feet grew a little while I was pregnant. I figured a 6 was generous enough. I figured wrong. They weren't even big enough for me to get on properly. I screeched 'I AM NOT A FUCKING SEVEN!' at them. They looked back at me silently, as if to say 'Hey lady, if the shoe fits...oh no, wait! BURN!' It is a bad day when you get zinged by your shoes.
Then, my outfit. When we got up and I got dressed, it was SUNNY and WARM, so I basically built my entire idea of what I would wear around that. Then, 20 minutes before we had to leave, the sun is all 'Nah, I'm going back to bed, Laterz.' and I am Fucked. I managed to just about figure out another outfit, but I'm one of those people who cannot tolerate last minute, unexpected change. I don't mind EXPECTED spontaneity. I don't mind if I KNOW I'm not going to know what's happening. But if I plan something and then something comes along and messes it up completely, I get twitchy like a crack addict without a fix.
Then I leave the house and we're running late so despite knowing I should really really really really take the bus, I don't. I get in my car and I decide to drive to the coffee date with the aforementioned mom-friend who isn't actually a friend, just a mom I know. We have literally nothing in common besides the fact that we were both pregnant at about the same time. Almost immediately, I find myself either directly behind or directly in front of a police van. Awesome. Because I'm not a nervous enough wreck, what with the plan-switching and the shoe-mocking and all. No. I need to have a Police Presence. I am, in fact, so busy trying to drive carefully around the police that I fucking crash my car. Ok, I didn't. I dinged it on a width restricter and you can't even tell. But my heart stopped beating and I was roughly 300% positive I'd written my car off. Because I'm an optimist like that.
Next, I didn't have enough change for the meter for very long, so I put in everything I have with the intention of asking for change once I get inside, but they won't give me any and then my 'friend' turns up and I forget about the fucking parking meter in favour of making chit-chat (are you seeing where this is going?). An hour later I realise, and jump up and rush to my lovely beautiful wonderful brand new car to find a bright yellow envelope stuck to it.
Fucking. Awesome.
Oh. Oh, oh, OH, BUT IT GETS BETTER. Because not only was the ding and the outfit and the parking fine and all that enough, no. But as I'm sitting in my care trying to pay the fine I get a tweet through on twitter (no, really? A tweet on twitter? Say it ain't so) telling me that I'd been caught doing something that I technically should not have been doing, and I was in Big Fucking Trouble.
So basically, I had the day from hell and I wish I had woken up on Thursday covered in spots and chosen to spend my day quietly erasing all evidence of my wrongdoing and NOT driving, or parking, or getting dressed. Because that really would have been preferable to the rain of shitness that I was privy to instead.
And I am sending those asshole shoes back and asking for a pair in 6+1. Because I'm not a fucking seven.
Firstly, my wake-up. A package came in the morning, which required me leaping out of bed when the doorbell went and flying down three flights of stairs, detouring halfway to grab a dressing gown, standing on A.B's little plastic octopus of EVIL, screaming 'FUCK FUCK FUCK OWWWING FUCK!' while trying to wrestle the dressing gown on (one of the sleeves was pulled inside out. Of course.) AND grab my keys (my house is a fricking fire hazard, you have to lock yourself in at night, with KEYS. One day we WILL all die at the bottom of the stairs) AND hope that A.B didn't decide to crawl out of bed and wasn't at this very moment in time lying bleeding on the floor. I got there in the end though, dropped the keys, picked them up, found the right one, opened the door to my postman's right arm, the rest of him already being halfway to the next house. But it was ok, because in this package was clothes I had ordered. My first Maxi dress, a HOODSCARF with EARS and button-eyes (pretty sure Jae will divorce me, but that's ok. I'll have my hoodscarf for comfort), a very cute tea dress, a nautical headband (thick horizontal navy and white stripes with a matt gold helm! So cute!) and a pair of those shoes that are supposed to be small enough to fold up and put in your bag.
I get upstairs and A.B had NOT crawled off the bed. This was the high point of my day.
First of all, the shoes. I bought them in a 6. This was taking into account that I was a 5 and that my feet grew a little while I was pregnant. I figured a 6 was generous enough. I figured wrong. They weren't even big enough for me to get on properly. I screeched 'I AM NOT A FUCKING SEVEN!' at them. They looked back at me silently, as if to say 'Hey lady, if the shoe fits...oh no, wait! BURN!' It is a bad day when you get zinged by your shoes.
Then, my outfit. When we got up and I got dressed, it was SUNNY and WARM, so I basically built my entire idea of what I would wear around that. Then, 20 minutes before we had to leave, the sun is all 'Nah, I'm going back to bed, Laterz.' and I am Fucked. I managed to just about figure out another outfit, but I'm one of those people who cannot tolerate last minute, unexpected change. I don't mind EXPECTED spontaneity. I don't mind if I KNOW I'm not going to know what's happening. But if I plan something and then something comes along and messes it up completely, I get twitchy like a crack addict without a fix.
Then I leave the house and we're running late so despite knowing I should really really really really take the bus, I don't. I get in my car and I decide to drive to the coffee date with the aforementioned mom-friend who isn't actually a friend, just a mom I know. We have literally nothing in common besides the fact that we were both pregnant at about the same time. Almost immediately, I find myself either directly behind or directly in front of a police van. Awesome. Because I'm not a nervous enough wreck, what with the plan-switching and the shoe-mocking and all. No. I need to have a Police Presence. I am, in fact, so busy trying to drive carefully around the police that I fucking crash my car. Ok, I didn't. I dinged it on a width restricter and you can't even tell. But my heart stopped beating and I was roughly 300% positive I'd written my car off. Because I'm an optimist like that.
Next, I didn't have enough change for the meter for very long, so I put in everything I have with the intention of asking for change once I get inside, but they won't give me any and then my 'friend' turns up and I forget about the fucking parking meter in favour of making chit-chat (are you seeing where this is going?). An hour later I realise, and jump up and rush to my lovely beautiful wonderful brand new car to find a bright yellow envelope stuck to it.
Fucking. Awesome.
Oh. Oh, oh, OH, BUT IT GETS BETTER. Because not only was the ding and the outfit and the parking fine and all that enough, no. But as I'm sitting in my care trying to pay the fine I get a tweet through on twitter (no, really? A tweet on twitter? Say it ain't so) telling me that I'd been caught doing something that I technically should not have been doing, and I was in Big Fucking Trouble.
So basically, I had the day from hell and I wish I had woken up on Thursday covered in spots and chosen to spend my day quietly erasing all evidence of my wrongdoing and NOT driving, or parking, or getting dressed. Because that really would have been preferable to the rain of shitness that I was privy to instead.
And I am sending those asshole shoes back and asking for a pair in 6+1. Because I'm not a fucking seven.
Thursday, 29 April 2010
Idiot. And Zombies.
It's 3:40am, I have a mild fever (what's up with that? I'm not even sick.) and I have a coffee date with my mom-friend who I get on least well with and have least in common with and am most judged by in 8 hours and I need to sleep at some point, so naturally I decided this was the best time to change my blog layout.
Equally naturally, I did a fucking shitty job, and now it looks shitty. My blog looks like it has a terminal illness. Fucking awesome.
___
So the other day a friend(/psychopath) challenged me to tell her about something that I had invented that someone else had taken credit for, or she was going to kick me out of our secret society and shame me in front of all our friends, and I was all HELL NO BITCH and so I submitted this. For your viewing pleasure:
Equally naturally, I did a fucking shitty job, and now it looks shitty. My blog looks like it has a terminal illness. Fucking awesome.
___
So the other day a friend(/psychopath) challenged me to tell her about something that I had invented that someone else had taken credit for, or she was going to kick me out of our secret society and shame me in front of all our friends, and I was all HELL NO BITCH and so I submitted this. For your viewing pleasure:
It was a dark night. I was sweating profusely, my skin taking on a green sheen. The leprosy was taking hold, and worst of all, it was joining forces with the tapeworm. I'd already lost a couple of toes down the back of the sofa and as I slid the needle into my arm, I felt the muscles start to disintegrate and the flesh come apart. The situation was getting seriously fucking dire.
I withdrew a vial of my blood, just enough to complete my experiment. Exhausted, I handed it to my assistants, Raul and Georgie R. I gave them detailed instructions on what to do and shuffled off to rest in the drawing room of my mansion.
Suddenly, I heard a commotion. Something crashed to the floor, there was a roar of anger and outrage. George came streaking out of the labratory, grabbed a broom and ran back. I lifted myself up on my elbow and fell back down when the flesh on my forearm ripped and slid off.
The sound of wood hitting flesh over and over rained down upon my ears for ten minutes, and then silence. There was nothing for 3 hours, and then a low groan that got louder and louder arose. Metal rattled against metal and every now and again I could hear George muttering to himself. 2 days later, he brought in an elixir that cured the strange leprotic illness and 3 days after that, he sent me to a spa for recovery. When I arrived home a week later the labratory had been cleaned out, the corpse was gone, as were George and Raul. There was no evidence of our experiments. This struck fear into my heart, but I decided it was better to let it lie, lest the authorities ask what exactly we were doing in the sewer under the graveyard that night.
I well regretted that though, when my humble assistant turned his hand to film making and a few years later George Romero was some kind of sodding cult hero and rolling in it! I INVENTED ZOMBIES, GOD DAMNIT. WHERE ARE MY FUCKING ROYALTY CHEQUES, HUH? THREE MONTHS OF MY SKIN FALLING OFF FOR FUCKING NOTHING. TWAT.
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