I am continuing my (uninspiring I'm sure) tradition of starting blog posts with song lyrics. Yay for me. Sadly this particular song has been coming into my head at really odd moments and I need to exorcise it somehow. It really is not a turn on when you are about 3 milliseconds from reaching a superb climax and suddenly your brain starts to replay the chorus of a song like this - the resulting effect is a kind of confused 'what the fucking fuck?' mental replay of events and a long hard think at 3am as to why an Electric Light Orchestra song would come blasting into my head at the point of no return during the best sex I have had in about 2 weeks.
Does that come under the 'too much information file'? I suspect it does.
/shrug.
Lately things have been going along swimmingly. I have been almost to scared to say this because secretly I just know that sure as Hillary confuses feminists, tomorrow I will wake up with gastro, a broken website, a baby that never sleeps and a toddler who suddenly can only say the words 'fuck', 'no' and 'broken'. Not necessarily in that order.
No really, things have been pretty good around here. I got some more animals and this always makes me happy. We now have Jinx and Dante - our new pet rats. I also acquired 4 tadpoles which are halfway through the process of turning into frogs with such an impressive name that I was momentarily shocked into silence when I found out - Pobblebonks. I am more excited about these taddies turning into Pobblebonks than any 10 year old would be. Almost scarily obsessed with them. I spend ages boiling up lettuce and freezing it for them to eat, feeding them, watching them and preparing their 'frog' enclosure for when they metamorphose.
I am sure S thinks I have gone mad when he gets out of bed and passes me on the way to the bathroom just kinda hunched over the bench watching tadpoles eat.
The reason though everything has been quiet is that my website is finally up and I have been so busy I stumble into bed at about 1-3am tired and with aching eyes. I am not going to bore you with the intricacies of e-commerce. Suffice to say that there is a little bit more work than I expected in getting things up and running. I also have a thriving eBay business happening, a gorgeously mellow 7 month old and the tantrumiest 2 year old in the entire galaxy. I am also in discussion with the local TAFE about trying to get another Diploma of Multimedia happening as I need some more skillz. Actually to be honest some kind of social interaction with people not encased in pixels would be kinda nice too.
On a funny note, a guy selling stuff door to door tried to halfheartedly pick me up today. He was youngish and not too bad looking. I was fairly impressed that he continued with the attempt even after Zahlia tried to rub banana on his jeans. Not impressed enough to lock her in the pantry and ravish him on the sofa, but impressed none the less.
I realise this is rambling and unfunny and without the touch of dark that most of my blogs seem to serve up. Blame the very strong bourbon I have just had. Or blame the fact I am finally getting my fat ass into gear and doing the starvation diet lightheaded shuffle. (The bourbon was made with Diet Coke.) In fact the eating less and drinking too much probably qualifies for filling bad shit quota. So there.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
War. What is it good for?
I am not someone renowned for their famous social graces.
I wouldn't win an etiquette competition and no one would be so blinded by my classy presence that I would be mistaken for the late Jackie Onassis. But I also usually don't commit huge social blunders (unless it is deliberate ), and manage to walk around without my foot stuck in my mouth too often.
Here is one of the poorer efforts at social interaction that I have managed:
The Party Popper Episode.
Party poppers are fun. Everyone knows that. Pull a string: loud BANG, ribbons stream out and scare everyone. Pure hilarity ensues.
Until you unthinkingly let one off sneakily right behind your SILs Dad who is a (drinking) Vietnam Veteran. The result wasn't pretty. A few people laughed, but I think that was more the shock of a drunken man jumping about 5 feet in the air then ducking half under the table while madly peering around.
Oh and the blog is kinda on hiatus as I build my website if you were wondering.
I wouldn't win an etiquette competition and no one would be so blinded by my classy presence that I would be mistaken for the late Jackie Onassis. But I also usually don't commit huge social blunders (unless it is deliberate ), and manage to walk around without my foot stuck in my mouth too often.
Here is one of the poorer efforts at social interaction that I have managed:
The Party Popper Episode.
Party poppers are fun. Everyone knows that. Pull a string: loud BANG, ribbons stream out and scare everyone. Pure hilarity ensues.
Until you unthinkingly let one off sneakily right behind your SILs Dad who is a (drinking) Vietnam Veteran. The result wasn't pretty. A few people laughed, but I think that was more the shock of a drunken man jumping about 5 feet in the air then ducking half under the table while madly peering around.
Oh and the blog is kinda on hiatus as I build my website if you were wondering.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Andy Warhol is dead
But his paintings lived for me yesterday morning at the amazing exhibition of his works and personal effects at the GOMA Brisbane. Live in QLD? Haven't seen it? Go. Valerie Solanas would even agree it is a great exhibition.
I went with Willow. Here we are Warholised in the groovy little photo booth they have:
Today = not so great. The lack of sleep is once more fucking with my head in incredibly damaging ways. Z was an absolute nightmare too. She is stubborn and angry and LOUD and screamy and incredibly intelligent yet with absolutely no self control (am I expecting too much of a not yet two year old?). I guess I expect someone who can count to twenty to be able to show some self discipline or at least eat her weetbix without throwing them at me or sticking her fingers down her throat until they go on the carpet then saying "Oh Dear. Yuck".
Her tantrums can eclipse mine any day. Well maybe that isn't true. The last tantrum I had I got so angry that I smashed my big glass of water down on our coffee table and it broke. When that didn't produce a satisfying enough effect I smashed again until it went right into my hand. This was when I was pregnant with W though. I am a pretty fucked unit when pregnant. But give me a few more days of this kind of shit and I'll smash an entire bottle through my wrist.
Willow has separation issues. Like I-don't-want-to-ever-leave-your-side-not-even-when-I-sleep-omg-no-don't-put-me-down kind of issues.
I am having issues too. I gave away my ticket to the V festival which was my Xmas present this year. I can't do it. W is too young and still fully breastfed and I just can't go to a huge all day and night music festival yet. Fuck.
I went with Willow. Here we are Warholised in the groovy little photo booth they have:
Today = not so great. The lack of sleep is once more fucking with my head in incredibly damaging ways. Z was an absolute nightmare too. She is stubborn and angry and LOUD and screamy and incredibly intelligent yet with absolutely no self control (am I expecting too much of a not yet two year old?). I guess I expect someone who can count to twenty to be able to show some self discipline or at least eat her weetbix without throwing them at me or sticking her fingers down her throat until they go on the carpet then saying "Oh Dear. Yuck".
Her tantrums can eclipse mine any day. Well maybe that isn't true. The last tantrum I had I got so angry that I smashed my big glass of water down on our coffee table and it broke. When that didn't produce a satisfying enough effect I smashed again until it went right into my hand. This was when I was pregnant with W though. I am a pretty fucked unit when pregnant. But give me a few more days of this kind of shit and I'll smash an entire bottle through my wrist.
Willow has separation issues. Like I-don't-want-to-ever-leave-your-side-not-even-when-I-sleep-omg-no-don't-put-me-down kind of issues.
I am having issues too. I gave away my ticket to the V festival which was my Xmas present this year. I can't do it. W is too young and still fully breastfed and I just can't go to a huge all day and night music festival yet. Fuck.
Monday, March 24, 2008
In regards to the television people
While my encounter with the TV cameras was very exciting and all, sadly my 15 minutes is well faded.
My sole brush with fame happened at the post office when my favourite postie asked if she should grab my autograph. I suspect she may have been joking however.
When she later made an error on the system and I helpfully suggested she should calm down, I was just like everyone else and not to let my celebrity fluster her the joke was perhaps wearing a little thin.
My sole brush with fame happened at the post office when my favourite postie asked if she should grab my autograph. I suspect she may have been joking however.
When she later made an error on the system and I helpfully suggested she should calm down, I was just like everyone else and not to let my celebrity fluster her the joke was perhaps wearing a little thin.
All the things you cannot see...
...in this picture taken last weekend at Dads place:
1/ The bloodshot eyes I have from the very small amounts of sleep I have had recently. Zahlia and Willow take turns at waking each other up. Thats if they ever go down to start with.
2/ The leaked breast milk down my front due to forgetting to wear breast pads as usual.
3/ The lingering smell of slightly off breast milk - see above.
4/ The white patch of baby spew on my shoulder.
5/ The full glass of expensive white wine spilt down the front of my new pants. In his extreme tiredness, S managed to not only knock over my wine, but knock it over right in my lap - direct hit. He also somehow managed to get copious amounts of it in my salad, my bread and the plate of chickpea curry which I was just about to eat.
6/ The meltdown Z had approximately 2.4 seconds after this picture was taken.
7/ The meltdown W had approximately 4 minutes after this picture was taken.
8/ The seemingly numerous other tries at one nice photo of the girls and I we had tried.
meh.
Here's one taken of Willow and I a little later:
And just to be completely random, here's one from last week of the first time we put the girls together in the bath. Cute but tiring - Willow cannot sit up herself yet and Zahlia is a little 'enthusiastic' about W being in there with her.
1/ The bloodshot eyes I have from the very small amounts of sleep I have had recently. Zahlia and Willow take turns at waking each other up. Thats if they ever go down to start with.
2/ The leaked breast milk down my front due to forgetting to wear breast pads as usual.
3/ The lingering smell of slightly off breast milk - see above.
4/ The white patch of baby spew on my shoulder.
5/ The full glass of expensive white wine spilt down the front of my new pants. In his extreme tiredness, S managed to not only knock over my wine, but knock it over right in my lap - direct hit. He also somehow managed to get copious amounts of it in my salad, my bread and the plate of chickpea curry which I was just about to eat.
6/ The meltdown Z had approximately 2.4 seconds after this picture was taken.
7/ The meltdown W had approximately 4 minutes after this picture was taken.
8/ The seemingly numerous other tries at one nice photo of the girls and I we had tried.
meh.
Here's one taken of Willow and I a little later:
And just to be completely random, here's one from last week of the first time we put the girls together in the bath. Cute but tiring - Willow cannot sit up herself yet and Zahlia is a little 'enthusiastic' about W being in there with her.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Why the TV people wil never come back to my house.
This morning I went to playgroup, and being that we are a fairly diverse, large group we occasionally (apparently) get calls from TV news crews who want reaction or opinion shots from 'every day middle class (LOL) people'. Obviously today was interest rate rise day so we got a call that a reporter might come to talk to us.
Fine I thought. When our coordinator asked me if I would be happy to talk with them I said 'sure if I haven't already left'. I was envisioning one lone 'human interest' type reporter with an old fashioned spirax notebook or something, maybe a motherly type who migrated from her hard hitting crime reporting into the wishy washy type news that takes you to a Tuesday morning playgroup in South Brisbane. I planned to make my escape about 15 minutes before she was due and claim 'babyness' (my mental term for using Willow as an excuse to get out of anything from doing the shopping to catching up with relatives).
Anyway, the time came for them to arrive and I made my goodbyes and scooted towards the door - sadly Z suddenly noticed a small child carrying a doll she hadn't already managed to commandeer so made a break for it. In the subsequent screechery I missed the entrance of the crew. Yes crew. Obviously the middle class backlash to the interest rate rise is a lot more important than I imagined. There was a research woman, a reporter - middle aged man in a nice suit and lolboots (those semi cowboy boots that men of a certain age wear and presumably feel pretty spiffy in), a young and quite attractive camera guy and a very attractive young woman dressed to the absolute nines in a strangely shaped designer mini skirt and heels who I assumed was the reporter but I think was some kind of assistant or apprentice to Lolboots.
Straight away they made a beeline for me. I am not quite sure why. I was frazzled, obviously on my way out the door, fighting a toddler, wheeling a screaming baby and wearing a T-shirt with a fluorescent pink gun firing a bunch of skulls out of it. I am not quite sure what demographic they thought I represented. I am pretty sure that their brief was not 'find badly dressed, grungy, post punk mother with angry children' but for some reason they were not letting me leave without asking me a couple of questions.
Before I could blurt out some clever rebuff like 'We rent', 'We live in a Datsun 180B', 'We don't care, we LIKE being poor' etc. Research Woman comes back and brightly tells Lolboots that I have purchased a home in the last year. While I have been trying to make my way to the door with my entourage of assorted news people and children, Research Woman has managed to gain this little nugget of information from one of the other mothers who was probably secretly grinning about how they had cleverly sicced them onto me.
So I sigh, pull up a seat and fairly cheerfully make some comments about how the interest rates would affect me. I was pretty sure they would cut out "Well we're not eating dogfood yet but..." said with a smile and tapering off with what I felt was just the right touch of seriousness to give the joke some weight but probably made it look like the missing words were 'we are eating catfood though'.
We then spend quite a few minutes filming little shots of me holding Willow, me watching Z, Z hitting a small child and making them cry, me telling Z off, Z screaming, Willow crying etc.
Finally I make to escape because Z really needs to go to bed now and as Research Woman takes my details Lolboots tells me to my surprise that they will be around in about half an hour for the shots of the house and the interview. He then takes down my phone number (in a spirax notebook no less - I was right about one thing!) and says they will call if they are going to be later.
Well it could be my issues about saying no, it could be that I was blinded by Miniskirt's almost supernaturally attractive smile or Hot Cam Guy's endearing puppy dog smile. Or maybe I just thought it would be fun. Who knows? But I left and they were coming too.
After arriving home I immediately did what any one of us would do - I dumped about five loads of unfolded washing from the lounge into my bedroom and closed the door - along with some toys and shoes. I then managed to chuck Z into bed and do a quick search of the house - I don't know what for, maybe I thought there was some evidence of a crime or something that I desperately needed to cover up.
Unfortunately I didn't think to get changed out of my really hot black buckle pants and black top - it had been cold this morning when I left - by now it was HOT and I was dressed for winter. A gothic winter. A gothic winter featuring hot pink guns no less.
Once they arrived we had to get Z up (she was awake anyway still - don't string me up, I didn't get my sleeping toddler up to parade her for the greedy eyes of commercial television) and take some shots of me pushing her on the swing.
Now you know those shots on the news when you see a couple just 'playing' with their kids in the backyard and it looks so fake and contrived? I am pretty sure you sit there and think how stupid they look. I am also willing to take bets you have thought something like 'if that was me I would just act natural and not look like I have a camera shoved up my butt'. Well matey - try it sometime. There is nothing less natural than standing in your backyard, pushing your half awake, half zombified toddler on a plastic swing while a camera crew is videoing you, a woman in a really fucking strange miniskirt is watching you, a man wearing Lolboots is staring at you and you are dressed completely inappropriately and sweating.
Cut to a little later and we are in my (hastily tidied) lounge room. As we sit and I get a mike clipped to me and try to settle Willow I have a disturbing thought. Can they smell cat piss?
All of a sudden this seemed like a very important issue. See while our cats are usually well behaved and mild mannered, there is a stray cat that occasionally comes in and torments them. We lock them in at night but sometimes forget. Last night we forgot and the bastard thing came in and pissed in the lounge room. Feral I know. But S had spent a really fun half hour that morning at 5am cleaning the carpet (and presumably swearing). Hopefully he did the trick. I was casting little glances around the room and checking for telltale signs of disgust but being trained TV people I guess you wouldn't know anyway. My Mum was around later in the afternoon and she assured me she didn't smell anything.
This is getting really long and probably pretty boring so I will now try to succinctly wrap it up.
The remainder of the visit included: me trying to settle a screaming baby while being stared at by several strangers in my lounge room. Me breastfeeding my baby while being stared at (a little impatiently) by several strangers in my lounge room. Me trying to control Z whilst being interviewed. Me being distracted by Hot Cam Guy by him making weird gestures to me around his face while I am talking.
All logical, sensible, interesting and funny carefully constructed sentences fly out of my head the moment the reporter talks to me on camera and I blurt out the usual boring inanities everyone else does when talking about interest rates (which is probably what they wanted anyway). Then I realise the camera guy is trying to tell me to get my hair out of my face. Just as I actually say something half clever Zahlia stumbles into the shot carrying a lawn chair and yelling "Hard! Heavy!" and grunting.
On this they finished the interview and waved their fond farewells.
I refused to tell anyone except S and my Mum and was pleasantly surprised that I didn't look too moronic on the news. Thankfully the other woman at playgroup who they chose to speak managed even a few more inanities than I and was featured talking longer. But Z and I on the swing, Willow and I and my big fat head talking all got shown.
Next time I will practise being assertive.
Fine I thought. When our coordinator asked me if I would be happy to talk with them I said 'sure if I haven't already left'. I was envisioning one lone 'human interest' type reporter with an old fashioned spirax notebook or something, maybe a motherly type who migrated from her hard hitting crime reporting into the wishy washy type news that takes you to a Tuesday morning playgroup in South Brisbane. I planned to make my escape about 15 minutes before she was due and claim 'babyness' (my mental term for using Willow as an excuse to get out of anything from doing the shopping to catching up with relatives).
Anyway, the time came for them to arrive and I made my goodbyes and scooted towards the door - sadly Z suddenly noticed a small child carrying a doll she hadn't already managed to commandeer so made a break for it. In the subsequent screechery I missed the entrance of the crew. Yes crew. Obviously the middle class backlash to the interest rate rise is a lot more important than I imagined. There was a research woman, a reporter - middle aged man in a nice suit and lolboots (those semi cowboy boots that men of a certain age wear and presumably feel pretty spiffy in), a young and quite attractive camera guy and a very attractive young woman dressed to the absolute nines in a strangely shaped designer mini skirt and heels who I assumed was the reporter but I think was some kind of assistant or apprentice to Lolboots.
Straight away they made a beeline for me. I am not quite sure why. I was frazzled, obviously on my way out the door, fighting a toddler, wheeling a screaming baby and wearing a T-shirt with a fluorescent pink gun firing a bunch of skulls out of it. I am not quite sure what demographic they thought I represented. I am pretty sure that their brief was not 'find badly dressed, grungy, post punk mother with angry children' but for some reason they were not letting me leave without asking me a couple of questions.
Before I could blurt out some clever rebuff like 'We rent', 'We live in a Datsun 180B', 'We don't care, we LIKE being poor' etc. Research Woman comes back and brightly tells Lolboots that I have purchased a home in the last year. While I have been trying to make my way to the door with my entourage of assorted news people and children, Research Woman has managed to gain this little nugget of information from one of the other mothers who was probably secretly grinning about how they had cleverly sicced them onto me.
So I sigh, pull up a seat and fairly cheerfully make some comments about how the interest rates would affect me. I was pretty sure they would cut out "Well we're not eating dogfood yet but..." said with a smile and tapering off with what I felt was just the right touch of seriousness to give the joke some weight but probably made it look like the missing words were 'we are eating catfood though'.
We then spend quite a few minutes filming little shots of me holding Willow, me watching Z, Z hitting a small child and making them cry, me telling Z off, Z screaming, Willow crying etc.
Finally I make to escape because Z really needs to go to bed now and as Research Woman takes my details Lolboots tells me to my surprise that they will be around in about half an hour for the shots of the house and the interview. He then takes down my phone number (in a spirax notebook no less - I was right about one thing!) and says they will call if they are going to be later.
Well it could be my issues about saying no, it could be that I was blinded by Miniskirt's almost supernaturally attractive smile or Hot Cam Guy's endearing puppy dog smile. Or maybe I just thought it would be fun. Who knows? But I left and they were coming too.
After arriving home I immediately did what any one of us would do - I dumped about five loads of unfolded washing from the lounge into my bedroom and closed the door - along with some toys and shoes. I then managed to chuck Z into bed and do a quick search of the house - I don't know what for, maybe I thought there was some evidence of a crime or something that I desperately needed to cover up.
Unfortunately I didn't think to get changed out of my really hot black buckle pants and black top - it had been cold this morning when I left - by now it was HOT and I was dressed for winter. A gothic winter. A gothic winter featuring hot pink guns no less.
Once they arrived we had to get Z up (she was awake anyway still - don't string me up, I didn't get my sleeping toddler up to parade her for the greedy eyes of commercial television) and take some shots of me pushing her on the swing.
Now you know those shots on the news when you see a couple just 'playing' with their kids in the backyard and it looks so fake and contrived? I am pretty sure you sit there and think how stupid they look. I am also willing to take bets you have thought something like 'if that was me I would just act natural and not look like I have a camera shoved up my butt'. Well matey - try it sometime. There is nothing less natural than standing in your backyard, pushing your half awake, half zombified toddler on a plastic swing while a camera crew is videoing you, a woman in a really fucking strange miniskirt is watching you, a man wearing Lolboots is staring at you and you are dressed completely inappropriately and sweating.
Cut to a little later and we are in my (hastily tidied) lounge room. As we sit and I get a mike clipped to me and try to settle Willow I have a disturbing thought. Can they smell cat piss?
All of a sudden this seemed like a very important issue. See while our cats are usually well behaved and mild mannered, there is a stray cat that occasionally comes in and torments them. We lock them in at night but sometimes forget. Last night we forgot and the bastard thing came in and pissed in the lounge room. Feral I know. But S had spent a really fun half hour that morning at 5am cleaning the carpet (and presumably swearing). Hopefully he did the trick. I was casting little glances around the room and checking for telltale signs of disgust but being trained TV people I guess you wouldn't know anyway. My Mum was around later in the afternoon and she assured me she didn't smell anything.
This is getting really long and probably pretty boring so I will now try to succinctly wrap it up.
The remainder of the visit included: me trying to settle a screaming baby while being stared at by several strangers in my lounge room. Me breastfeeding my baby while being stared at (a little impatiently) by several strangers in my lounge room. Me trying to control Z whilst being interviewed. Me being distracted by Hot Cam Guy by him making weird gestures to me around his face while I am talking.
All logical, sensible, interesting and funny carefully constructed sentences fly out of my head the moment the reporter talks to me on camera and I blurt out the usual boring inanities everyone else does when talking about interest rates (which is probably what they wanted anyway). Then I realise the camera guy is trying to tell me to get my hair out of my face. Just as I actually say something half clever Zahlia stumbles into the shot carrying a lawn chair and yelling "Hard! Heavy!" and grunting.
On this they finished the interview and waved their fond farewells.
I refused to tell anyone except S and my Mum and was pleasantly surprised that I didn't look too moronic on the news. Thankfully the other woman at playgroup who they chose to speak managed even a few more inanities than I and was featured talking longer. But Z and I on the swing, Willow and I and my big fat head talking all got shown.
Next time I will practise being assertive.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Disintegration
I am the fucking queen of the facade. Ask me how I am. Go on. I dare you. I can pretty much guarantee the answer will be varied but once you pare it down and remove the extraneous words the answer will be 'I am fine'. Regardless.
Please be warned the following post is full of much EMO angst and some nasty stuff. For those who think I go on about my past or my issues too much then you may wish to fuck off. Because this post is all about the past. And it is not going to be well written, witty or funny. This post is coming from a place underneath the place the other posts usually come from.
For the past few days I have felt more and more like a caged animal and less and less like I should feel (whatever the fuck that is). I am sleeping less every night. Last night if I had an hour and a half I would be surprised. I have been thinking about writing a post on here about a certain night. And it has been haunting me. Nights have been just painful. My 3ams are full of those parts of me I wish I could discard - rotting hunks of broken memory that inspire nothing but self disgust and a sense of shame that I am struggling to shove back in a box. Any damn box.
If I believed in souls (which I don't but it makes a good analogy) then mine would look something like a shiny bright gold light encased in a grotty, opaque glass like substance. I imagine it is encrusted with the detritus of my past. The opaque tint to the glass is stuff that has seeped in under the skin and remains trapped forever in my being. I cannot escape some of what I have done. I try but it comes back to remind me in subtle ways. Driving past a certain train station, drinking coffee at a certain coffee shop, seeing the way a stranger walks across a street, glimpsing a phone box in a bad part of town - all these things trigger something dark inside me. Sometimes the darkness is easily headed off at the post - sometimes it is not.
Oh God. This post is coming off less like what I need to say and more like some angsty 14 year old having an EMO cutting moment.
This morning as I tossed and turned in frustration after having random horrible flashbacks I realised that I am so trapped. I have done things in the past that now live inside me forever. One memory that will forever be apart of me is the time I seriously tried to commit suicide. R and I were sure. Dead sure (heh - get it?) that we wanted to die. This is a pretty damn hard thing to think about. I have been thinking about how to write this post for three days and I just can't yet. I only just realised this second that I am not ready to put words to this particular brand of pain. But at the moment it is keeping me up nights and bringing other crap to the surface so I am going to try to exorcise it by mentioning the whole thing briefly.
There came a time in my life (a few months after we were woken up with cops and guns in our bedroom who were so wound up they nearly shot my kitten when he appeared unexpectedly from under the bed) when I realised that heroin and I had to part ways. For good. The cold hard facts were that as much as I love the fucking drug, it is too expensive to be able to maintain any kind of habit without hurting yourself or others in some way. As I have never been into hurting others I hurt myself. But sadly, the knock on effect meant that this hurt those that loved me.
Unlike a lot of addicts I have a very close loving family. My parents were pretty much destroyed for a time by my drug addiction. This is something I can never ever take back. You can never make amends for that kind of pain. One of the things bestowed upon me when I had Zahlia was the horrific understanding of just how much I have hurt them. How deeply I have scarred them. I remember once when I was at R's and the Olympic games were on. We were up late stoned on smack watching it. A 14 year old gymnast went through a routine and they flashed to her parents in the crowd. The announcers started talking about how proud they must be. This was an epiphany for me. The shameful and sad realisation that since I was 13 my parents had never had an occasion to be proud of me. Ever. All I had done was wound. This realisation triggered my unsuccessful previously described naltrexone withdrawl.
Anyway, having realised I just couldn't continue this way any longer I figured I had two options - get clean. Or die.
Easy choice you might think? Nope. Not at all. While I will save the bulk of this for another time as my relationship with heroin deserves at least one other post, heroin was more to me than an addiction. By this point it defined me. It was who I was and almost all that I was. I woke up for it and went to sleep because of it. Every transaction, meeting, friendship or lover was influenced or determined by the drug and its hold on me. I had accepted this for a long time and made peace with that. I actually felt anger and resentment at my family for feeling their pain - because it stopped me being completely free to let go and fall into the spiral completely. Instead I felt a continual undertow of guilt.
By this stage I had been to numerous detoxes and actually had been banned from all the Brisbane and Gold Coast ones. Had traveled to Sydney and been in and out of many detoxes and three rehabs. I usually lasted a day before hightailing it out of there with at least one other person - usually a guy and usually one with money. Once myself and some guy got our dole and took off from rehab then sat in Kings Cross and spent both our cheques on cocaine and heroin - again and again buying some drugs, shooting up in the park and getting as high as it is possible to be but then coming down and feeling scared and horrible about blowing rehab and having nowhere to go. Eight hours later we had been through both cheques and had no money either. I had tried naltrexone and I had tried other wonder cures. Tried cold turkey and tried weaning myself off. Tried methadone and tried pills. Heroin came out in front again and again.
Basically this left one option. Suicide.
I really don't want to fall any deeper into my old scars tonight. I just want to get enough on this page and out of my head so that I can hopefully sleep. I don't know why I am feeling this all so strongly at the moment. I have felt like just buying a tin of formula, kissing the girls goodbye for awhile and just taking off to either drink, snort or shoot myself up full of numb. Numb would just be fine. Really really fucking fine.
But I won't. I might be full of teenage angst and EMO crap (don't blame me - they say you stop your emotional development at the age you start taking drugs - 13 it is!) but I am strong. And I love my children. As I felt bound by a duty to my family to get clean or die, I am bound to my children whom I love more than I imagined was possible. I now know I won't be able to use heroin again while I am a Mother and they need me. I have witnessed sickening scenes in my time as a user and always swore I would never use and have kids. Ain't a possibility. But I tell you what. Tonight? It is taking every fucking ounce of my painstakingly developed strength to not do something so self destructive that the fallout would probably consume me.
And I guarantee if you ask me how I am I will tell you I am fine. Or some variation thereof. Because I will be again. I always am.
Please be warned the following post is full of much EMO angst and some nasty stuff. For those who think I go on about my past or my issues too much then you may wish to fuck off. Because this post is all about the past. And it is not going to be well written, witty or funny. This post is coming from a place underneath the place the other posts usually come from.
For the past few days I have felt more and more like a caged animal and less and less like I should feel (whatever the fuck that is). I am sleeping less every night. Last night if I had an hour and a half I would be surprised. I have been thinking about writing a post on here about a certain night. And it has been haunting me. Nights have been just painful. My 3ams are full of those parts of me I wish I could discard - rotting hunks of broken memory that inspire nothing but self disgust and a sense of shame that I am struggling to shove back in a box. Any damn box.
If I believed in souls (which I don't but it makes a good analogy) then mine would look something like a shiny bright gold light encased in a grotty, opaque glass like substance. I imagine it is encrusted with the detritus of my past. The opaque tint to the glass is stuff that has seeped in under the skin and remains trapped forever in my being. I cannot escape some of what I have done. I try but it comes back to remind me in subtle ways. Driving past a certain train station, drinking coffee at a certain coffee shop, seeing the way a stranger walks across a street, glimpsing a phone box in a bad part of town - all these things trigger something dark inside me. Sometimes the darkness is easily headed off at the post - sometimes it is not.
Oh God. This post is coming off less like what I need to say and more like some angsty 14 year old having an EMO cutting moment.
This morning as I tossed and turned in frustration after having random horrible flashbacks I realised that I am so trapped. I have done things in the past that now live inside me forever. One memory that will forever be apart of me is the time I seriously tried to commit suicide. R and I were sure. Dead sure (heh - get it?) that we wanted to die. This is a pretty damn hard thing to think about. I have been thinking about how to write this post for three days and I just can't yet. I only just realised this second that I am not ready to put words to this particular brand of pain. But at the moment it is keeping me up nights and bringing other crap to the surface so I am going to try to exorcise it by mentioning the whole thing briefly.
There came a time in my life (a few months after we were woken up with cops and guns in our bedroom who were so wound up they nearly shot my kitten when he appeared unexpectedly from under the bed) when I realised that heroin and I had to part ways. For good. The cold hard facts were that as much as I love the fucking drug, it is too expensive to be able to maintain any kind of habit without hurting yourself or others in some way. As I have never been into hurting others I hurt myself. But sadly, the knock on effect meant that this hurt those that loved me.
Unlike a lot of addicts I have a very close loving family. My parents were pretty much destroyed for a time by my drug addiction. This is something I can never ever take back. You can never make amends for that kind of pain. One of the things bestowed upon me when I had Zahlia was the horrific understanding of just how much I have hurt them. How deeply I have scarred them. I remember once when I was at R's and the Olympic games were on. We were up late stoned on smack watching it. A 14 year old gymnast went through a routine and they flashed to her parents in the crowd. The announcers started talking about how proud they must be. This was an epiphany for me. The shameful and sad realisation that since I was 13 my parents had never had an occasion to be proud of me. Ever. All I had done was wound. This realisation triggered my unsuccessful previously described naltrexone withdrawl.
Anyway, having realised I just couldn't continue this way any longer I figured I had two options - get clean. Or die.
Easy choice you might think? Nope. Not at all. While I will save the bulk of this for another time as my relationship with heroin deserves at least one other post, heroin was more to me than an addiction. By this point it defined me. It was who I was and almost all that I was. I woke up for it and went to sleep because of it. Every transaction, meeting, friendship or lover was influenced or determined by the drug and its hold on me. I had accepted this for a long time and made peace with that. I actually felt anger and resentment at my family for feeling their pain - because it stopped me being completely free to let go and fall into the spiral completely. Instead I felt a continual undertow of guilt.
By this stage I had been to numerous detoxes and actually had been banned from all the Brisbane and Gold Coast ones. Had traveled to Sydney and been in and out of many detoxes and three rehabs. I usually lasted a day before hightailing it out of there with at least one other person - usually a guy and usually one with money. Once myself and some guy got our dole and took off from rehab then sat in Kings Cross and spent both our cheques on cocaine and heroin - again and again buying some drugs, shooting up in the park and getting as high as it is possible to be but then coming down and feeling scared and horrible about blowing rehab and having nowhere to go. Eight hours later we had been through both cheques and had no money either. I had tried naltrexone and I had tried other wonder cures. Tried cold turkey and tried weaning myself off. Tried methadone and tried pills. Heroin came out in front again and again.
Basically this left one option. Suicide.
I really don't want to fall any deeper into my old scars tonight. I just want to get enough on this page and out of my head so that I can hopefully sleep. I don't know why I am feeling this all so strongly at the moment. I have felt like just buying a tin of formula, kissing the girls goodbye for awhile and just taking off to either drink, snort or shoot myself up full of numb. Numb would just be fine. Really really fucking fine.
But I won't. I might be full of teenage angst and EMO crap (don't blame me - they say you stop your emotional development at the age you start taking drugs - 13 it is!) but I am strong. And I love my children. As I felt bound by a duty to my family to get clean or die, I am bound to my children whom I love more than I imagined was possible. I now know I won't be able to use heroin again while I am a Mother and they need me. I have witnessed sickening scenes in my time as a user and always swore I would never use and have kids. Ain't a possibility. But I tell you what. Tonight? It is taking every fucking ounce of my painstakingly developed strength to not do something so self destructive that the fallout would probably consume me.
And I guarantee if you ask me how I am I will tell you I am fine. Or some variation thereof. Because I will be again. I always am.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Triplesix
Nothing to do with anything most blog readers would be interested in but I am just RAPT - I got some promotional pictures back today featuring the absolutely fucking ravishingly beautiful Mandee (Triplesix) wearing our gear and they are amazing!
Have had fun editing them this afternoon.
Gah! They look awful resized on here - click on them to see better quality images.
Have had fun editing them this afternoon.
Gah! They look awful resized on here - click on them to see better quality images.
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