When the least they could do to you was everything, then the most they could do to you suddenly held no terror.

Most mornings, rain or shine, I walk Vivian the kilometre to her school, trudging with half shut eyes through ice and slush. Most of this isn’t just walking-it’s tugging, cajoling, threatening and bribing for speed. We walk so slowly that sometimes I swear we’re going backwards in time. You’d never know that she loves school.

Winter in a schoolyard is a magnificent thing. Snowbanks to climb, to slide down, to jump in and off. Snow, simple, intricate snow becomes so many places or things. After the last snowstorm, I smiled, thinking of all the joyous voices I’d hear, running and playing on those hills.

We walk onto the schoolyard, and all the kindergartners are restrained to one, sterile area, trapped even, pacing in many cases, the length of the “play area” they’re allowed. I walk past a group who have started sliding on their bottoms down a tiny, foot high snowbank. Immediately a “teacher” rushes over, and micromanages them to the point that it’s just not fun anymore, and they scatter.

I stand with my mouth open, confused and sad.

******************

While I don’t trust people necessarily, I firmly believe in independent children. I believe in bruises incurred falling down on the driveway, small cuts after wandering around in the woods, skinned knees after tipping over your bike. The possibility of danger, the thirst of fear. I believe children should have these simple things, and I don’t mean it in that old foggie, uphill both ways kinda way.

What do we lose when we take a person’s sense of adventure? When we remove the potential for harm, for consequence? What core part of our being is affected when we minimize the world down to things you can touch, and things you can’t? We’ve evolved chasing fricken mammoths after all.

I think back to the playground “equipment” we had when I was Vivian’s age. This rickety, rusty metal spinning merry go round type thing, some metal bars that ripped the skin from your hands, a yard. In the front of the school was this huge wooden climber, complete with a long, wide metal slide. It was likely 12-15 feet high.  I remember vividly the time a classmate jumped off the top, completely missed the snowbank, and shattered his elbow. No one ever did something that dumb again.

Some kid got his tongue stuck to the fence one cold morning, the little brother of a friend. The blood mark stayed forever it seemed, and in my head, I can see, exactly where this happened. I rode a bike into a moving car once, skidded under a parked one another, tearing up one side of my body impressively.

Sure, these are stupid acts, the acts of children. But they’re more than that.

They are lessons. Mistakes let us determine the right path, on our own, or damn close. Watching Jeremy screaming and crying as hot water and blood poured down his front, we all learned in a much more lasting way, why you never EVER stick your tongue to anything metal, no matter what anyone says. Healing from road rash, I learned to pay attention to whether the bike has pedal brakes or hand brakes BEFORE trying to make the corner that fast. I also learned to better anticipate events, plan a little better (snort. that lasted) PAY ATTENTION!!! as my mother was always yelling.

The point is that I began to come to my own conclusions, learn my own lessons, and actually take them with me. As opposed to every time an adult told me something. I was one of those kids, who just HAD to do whatever she was told was bad.

Yes, I’ve stuck my fingers in a light socket. Literally. It’s not that bad to be honest.

I never wanted to listen, and take some one’s word for it. I needed to prove it. And then learn the lesson that in some things, my father wasn’t lying.

The problem with the cocoon, and managing every single second of a child’s life, telling them how and where to play, what’s safe, what they can eat, what they can wear, is that you might turn around in 15 years and have an adult living in your basement who is COMPLETELY incapable of anything resembling acting like a mature human. Because you’ve done all the acting for them. They might not have the courage to fly the coop because they’ve never truly spread their wings.

We complain that kids are far too wrapped up in themselves and their things-what else do they have if we’ve taken exhilaration from them? They have what, new cell phones and fucking left? If you take the thrill from life, what’s left to it? If you destroy the chance to hurtle down a snowy hill on a rickety piece of wood doing close to 10kms an hour, if you keep your children from feeling the snow in their face, the sun on their neck as they laugh as much from fear as from joy, are they even still human? What are they? Who are we raising then?

We truly have so little to fear now, that we create boogeyman. I know people who see the world outside as riddled with scary men in the bushes, who can’t imagine leaving their children where they might get a bruise or stumble a little. We cover everything with helmets and protective gear, leaving me thinking wistfully of long bike rides on Sunday afternoons, the silky August wind in my hair, bathed in the sun as the world felt so open and fantastic.

What will freedom be for our children?

*************************

I pick Viv up, the sun warming the snow, melt water trickling down the roads. She sprints immediately for the giant snow hills, those which are verboten during the day and taunt her. Her friends join her. I stand with their mother and watch as they slide, with absolutely no regard for their safety, down the hill, bouncing and jolting, avoiding pointy parts the next time.

“They’re still bendy at this age” I laugh with their mother, and she nods, and we just watch, the joyous cries of youth filling the air between us, around us.

That laughter sounds long into the night in my ears.

More than the sum of her womb.

You know what I’m sick of.

I’m sick of this shit.

Bitch, where’s your kids? Here’s Britney Spears hard at work on a plan to get custody of her kids back

. Her plan so far involves some pool lounging and flirting with anonymous dudes.

But we know Britney. We can see the gears sparking and grinding in her head. It smells like beef jerky. That’s how you know Britney’s plotting something.

 

Yes, Britney surrendered custody of her children to their father. Yes, she’s had various problems in the last little while. We know.

What drives me nuts each time I open my feed reader are posts that basically stand back and point a “HOLY SHIT DUDES! HORRIBLE MOTHER AHEAD!!!!!” finger at her, which numerous male stars walk out on their children, likely every day. And it’s everywhere-how dare someone with a working womb and vagina give up her kids, maybe to get better, or maybe because, like men all over the world, she can’t handle having them all the time.

This constant assumption of the sainted perfect mother who can’t be separated from her kids-this drives post partum depression, this drives women who work 60 hour work weeks and yet still make the cookies for playschool. It drives women not being able to make the reasonable decisions regarding their children because only bad monster mommies leave their kids. Only evil mommies dare act like men. How on earth could the womb that bore them walk away so easily?

To which I ask, how on each can the ejaculator who created them walk away so easily?

It’s so pervasive, so easy to think “Geez, what a cooze, leaving her kids and going sunbathing.” It’s so easy to judge, so easy to believe she’s a bad mother for leaving instead of a good mother for removing herself in order to get better for them. I could be wrong. She could be a brainless idiot who created a mental illness to rid herself of two children she didn’t want.

Somehow I doubt it.

It’s easy though isn’t it, to point at a woman in a way that we wouldn’t dream of pointing at a man-how many have children in or out of relationships, and all they’ve done is throw money at them? I’m sure you’re all counting right now.

What I expel from my uterus does not make me sacred, or special, or holier. It makes me a mother, as it makes the father a father. He is not blessed with special properties-hell, if he takes custody, he’s some sort of sacrificial cow, gazed at adoringly as a perfect piece of man. The woman-not so lucky, as she is selfish enough to not want her pwecious bebes. 

I don’t want my daughters to grow up in this world-in a world where every tabloid sings the lusty sins, perceived or real, of 15 year old girls, where your gender casts you out in specific ways, where the “good kid” doesn’t always win. I want a world with real freedom for women, not viral campaigns against something written on shitty underwear at K-Mart or pissing matches on the internet.

I want us ALL to have the freedom to walk away if need be. Just like our men do.

4 Pink Pills

 

Pretend for a minute that I’m holding 4 pills in my palm, 4 pale pink capsules containing the salt Li, 4 pale pink solutions to a problem that has plagued me for a long time.

I was scared to death of this drug, this innocuous looking pill, this wonder of our world, it’s inexplicable reason for ending the terror of bipolar in some people, in many people. I ran from it faster than I run from most.

It’s hard to look back at the me before this pretty pink friend. As Mogo and I talked, and he spoke of the relief of not worrying, day after day about me, and the freedom of not trying to hold down a swinging pendulum, I started thinking about my brain without this drug, this salty dog. The difference, I remarked, is like one day sitting in a screaming concert full of a million fans, all yelling at once while you try and do needlework, and the next day, being in a quiet, white room with only the sound of your breathing for company.

It’s that different. It’s that much Calgon take me away relief.

*************************************

When I was 17 or so, I returned to my original high school, a small catholic school in eastern Ontario. I had moved back in with my father as I understood something in a rare moment of clarity during a year of what I can only describe as highly manic behaviour. I knew that I had a choice-I could go down the road to nowhere, or I could try and claw back into a normal life. I chose my father, and normal.

I made friends with a boy, we’ll call him Marc. At first, everything was fine. We had fun, we joked around, he was fun and interesting to be around. He read a lot, and much of it was similar stuff. We had the same friends. We drove around, hung out, did drugs, had your normal teenage experience.

Marc and I developed a weird relationship-as far as I knew, and he told me, he was bisexual, but leaning at the time more towards guys. Typical teenage stuff right? Trying to place you identity. To an outsider, we seemed to have a “couple” vibe-people remarked that to me at the time, and each time I denied it. I had no real desire for the guy. Just a strong, almost loving friendship. We were close.

Marc was also bipolar.

I remember going with him to appointments at the mental hospital (and there was one where I went to school-I remember some guy escaping with an axe once-that wasn’t cool. I think it’s closed now) and him telling me about how useless his doctor was, and how he could get any drug he wanted but none of them helped. He even showed me the lithium, the lithium he hated from that first day he put it into his mouth.

Not understanding the disorder at the time, and likely wanting to distance myself from it since I had a vague understanding of what was and was not happening in my brain, I didn’t understand what was happening with Marc. He went one day from being happy and fun to the next day being sadistic and mean. He’d delight in saying horrible mean things to everyone around him, just to watch what happened. He’d shut you out, then let you back in again if you showed your devotion.

And we just lapped it up. It seems strange now, in hindsight, the pull this guy had. He was nothing to look at, but there was something about him I can’t even explain. Something compelling.

I found it strange, but was so locked in that what was happening didn’t even seem like a form of emotional abuse. It just seemed…normal. Not strange.

He’d rail at me about his pills, how they were making him crazy, how they weren’t happy and how he stopped taking them a few weeks after he started. He was enraged, and I tried to comfort him, tried to hold him, make him feel better.

That’s when he slapped me clear across the face.

I had never been hit like that in my life. I’ve been punched, but within context, or hit accidentally, but never, in a moment when I wasn’t defending myself, have I been hit like that.

I can still remember it. I can still remember just staring at him from the floor, and bracing myself for me. I can still feel the hated passivity that rose in my, the inability to fight against him. I felt helpless before him, and I couldn’t even figure out why.

If I didn’t move for a moment, if I didn’t speak, I figured it would blow over. I couldn’t stop the tears though.

He snapped out of it, and I watched the hate pour off his face as he bent to help me up, apologizing and apologizing. Never again he repeated Never again.

I told him to take his pills. He said it was the pills that made him like that.

What did I know?

Of course, things weren’t the same after that. I was scared of him, plain and simple. There was a glint in his eye I couldn’t place or understand. I was bigger than him, likely stronger than him, but I feared him. I feared him because I couldn’t anticipate him. I watched his rage burn through him for no reason at all, and lash out at me. I could never let my guard down.

Our phone calls went from being fun gentle calls to ones berating me. If I was having a bad day, zero support. I’d feel worse after speaking with him, yet compelled to call him. I felt suffocated, my chest constricted. I felt trapped, and scared and I couldn’t talk about it to anyone. No one would get it.

Yet finally, someone did. A new friend came into my life, observed what was happening, and told me flat out it was basically abuse, and it didn’t matter what was wrong with him, what pills he was taking for what or how they were affecting him. He was toxic.

With her behind me, I screwed up the courage to rid my life of him. I can still feel the anxiety in my gut when I called him from her house at the expected time and purged him from my life. The circles my stomach was making. The fear and the near relief, all at once.

And with that, he was gone.

*****************************************

I feared Lithium since then. I feared that I would become the monster he was becoming, the terror. I couldn’t separate the bipolar from the drug, I didn’t understand that his imbalance had nothing to do with Lithium itself. It was him, the manic swings, the rage he couldn’t control. I know that rage now, I’ve felt it’s embrace, and it’s coldly attractive. But ultimately destructive. If not for the Lithium, I would be him, the him that was, the creatures we call evil.

I live the aftermath that is unchecked bipolar. I never got to the point where I was a true threat to anyone other than myself. But I felt that capacity in myself, the roaring, empty void, the spastic need to lash. I began to understand Marc. Not forgive-I will never forgive him for the lesson in trust he gave me. But I understand now why I take my little pink pills every day without fail.

I see those reasons in the faces of the people I love, everyday. I struggle for those faces some days, knowing I swallow those drugs as much for them as for me. Maybe Marc never saw those reasons, maybe he didn’t truly have them. Maybe his parents left him alone in the basement far too often.

I’ll never know. My fear and anger still lives for him-I couldn’t bear to accept him on Facebook, and even the friend request sent pangs of pain through my chest. He likely doesn’t even know what he did, or remember.

If only I hadn’t feared so badly.

“do people that are bipolar hang out together?”

Is this a trick question, along the lines of “do black people only hang out with black people”?

I don’t have a manic depressive quota to meet. In fact, in real life, I know one bipolar person. We hung out in high school, and I never knew that she was a nutter. She was fucked up, but I figured being a very out lesbian in a small town living with your ex-stepfather who snorts coke was enough to fuck anyone up. I miss her like a sister, but we never hung out because we recognized something in each other. We hung out because she had great taste in music and she loved my derby blue docs.

Finding out, all these years later, that we’re both manic depressive was kinda cool actually.

In my everyday life, I don’t know anyone. I know people online, but if the people I ran into in the psych ward are any indication, I don’t know if I want to hang out with anyone else that’s nutty for very long. I can’t imagine it’s a healthy way to live. My own bad ideas are toxic enough-having someone else along for the ride-that would end badly.

I like talking to others online who have this disease. It makes me feel less alone, allows me to find the answers I need sometimes. But on those days when we all need to pull away, I’d hate to imagine being stuck together as friends-over sensitive, possibly vengeful friends.

And really. It’s not a club. We don’t hang out together and trade tips on what to do when the lithium shits hit or what could possibly help bring you down from a nice session of hypo-mania. At least for me, this shit doesn’t happen.

And you know how groups of women tend to synchronize their periods? Imagine if that happened with a bunch of depressed bipolars. Man, we’d drop off like flies.

The entire idea just bothers me for some reason. And don’t bring up the goth thing-most goths I’ve known were disgustingly well adjusted, wallowing in “sorrow” like I’d go slumming in Regent Park. Listening to bad music doesn’t make you crazy. Just stupid. We aren’t squirrels or lemmings. We’re people. Just because I have bipolar doesn’t mean I want to hang out with other crazies. Just because I have a vagina doesn’t mean I like women.

We’re just people, just like you.

blank sheet

I am blank today.

Full disclosure-I stopped taking most of my drugs for a few days, and it’s obvious that it wasn’t the best course of action. Why do I keep doing that? Why can’t I find patience? (For that matter, why can’t I ever seem to get full?)

I want a fix now. I want my brain to work dammit. I don’t want to sit quietly zoning out for an hour, blankly staring at nothing, finding no answers. But hey, I also want to live somewhere that didn’t take two months to see you after being admitted to the hospital. 2 months! What am I supposed to do in the meantime if things aren’t working? Go to the hospital again?

Great idea. Cause getting fired would be such a fantastic option.

I’m frustrated and blank again today. I’m betting that the 20% who kill themselves do so because they feel so bloody helpless against this shit. I am privy to my brain, and my brain hates me! Who wants to live with that?! Who wants to live with drugs that ruin your life, destroy who you are, dampen the person you know into a quiet creature who is constantly asked “Are you ok?”

fuck….

Where is my mind?

Hooooo doggie have I been manic the last few days. I’ve been cleaning and purging and rearranging and thinking and thinking and up last and it’s been nice.

And I’m afraid that I’ll jinx it and it will all go away. I like this feeling. This kind of manic isn’t harmful, doesn’t mess with my life in any bad ways. It’s productive, and makes me feel like a can do something, that I can get something accomplished like normal people. I don’t feel like this on a regular basis, and frankly, it sucks. I WANT to be this person. I want to be clean and organized and not buried under the detrius of my own mind.

In a nutshell, it will suck when this feeling leaves. And I just want to be normal. I’m tired of looking around everywhere and seeing people with nothing real to complain about complaining. I want to stop hearing about people who can easily afford an iphone. I want a piece of that blessed life complaining about the little things, I want a life that makes the little things seem big. Being manic makes me want all these things, but also brings out the little girl who wants to tell the other girls who have almost everything to stop their whining.

I want it easy. By this point in my life, I deserve things to be easy, don’t I? Yet suddenly, after a respite of a few years, all the drama and chaos started again, lending even more credence to my atheism and general annoyance with the people around me. I want my children to be my only challenge. Or my weight. Not everything.

I’m a fucking mental cripple. Without the crutches.

I’d like to stop feeling annoyed when other complain about things that seem so insignificant to me-it makes me feel judgy and superior for no good reason. Like I have it worse than they ever would. But pain is relative, and I’m not one to make a determination about who really has it worse. I’m just a mess who stays up until 2am obsessively untangling the knots in yarn.

Quite the metaphor for my life isn’t it.

My cleaning right now is in some small way a need to start over, to tear down the walls of my house and start over. In dreams, my mind was always dark, full of cobwebs and old plaster walls. Mold, rats and despair. They next time I visit, I’d like there to be a little bit of sun.

Pick your poison.

It’s not bad enough that a 19 year old sleep with a child, an 11 year old girl.

It’s not bad enough that their mothers KNEW about it, and did nothing about it.

It’s not even bad enough that the 11 year old became pregnant, kept the baby and is caring for it herself.

What’s fucking horrible about the case of Blake Blyth fucking a child is that NO ONE in their neighbourhood seemed particularly disgusted or shocked about what happened.

What does it take to shock people anymore? Are we all so blase about bad things that happen? Should we just step back and say “that’s there business, not mine” WTF? Should we just close our eyes and shrug?

ELEVEN. She gave birth at ELEVEN. What kind of mother lets this happen? If that was my child, Blake wouldn’t be able to walk. EVER. He’d be missing his kneecaps.

so much for dinner….

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for me

So I was watching So You Think You Can Dance last night…(and OMG-did anyone else start crying at the piece Lacey and whatever his name is did? It was incredible!) and watching the one hip hop piece, the gyrating hips and asses of the couple and wondering, why is it only offensive to people when the girl is doing it?

The girl, Fania? (I’ll call her F since I don’t remember) was obviously VERY uncomfortable with the dance she had been given. She had to gyrate and pulse her way through certain segments of the piece, and one look at her body language could tell you it was like watching a rape. I had to look away after awhile. She was that uncomfortable with it.

I started thinking about the common suggestion that women are degrading themselves with this type of thing, that they’re exploited yadda yadda yadda. I’ve heard it all frankly, and it smacks me of Dworkinism. It’s like the assumption that no woman likes porn, that it’s all BAD BAD BAD and only horrible animal low life men could possibly like it. Women cannot handle it-women are only pieces of people, figments who do what they’re told, and shake their boot at whomever is around. It is the woman’s job to carry the moral bank on her shoulders.

Funny. Men don’t seem to carry this huge load around about dancing or porn, or their sexuality. If the guy is gyrating, shaking his thing, watching dirty movies, it’s ok. He’s with it. He’s adventurous. He’s one of the guys, and no one bats an eye. Put the same kind of in control, my body, my time attitude on a woman though, and it all goes to pot. She doesn’t know she’s being exploited or ruined. She’s not smart enough to get that she’s not supposed to enjoy it. She can’t possibly understand what she’s doing to herself.

Women have been polarized, while men are free to enjoy themselves, their sexuality. Women are told that they aren’t “really” in control of their sexuality, since they are “doing what men want.”

At what point is a woman allowed to take control of herself, for HERself? At what point are we allowed to act like men in terms of being unapologetic for our sexuality, for using our bodies as men sometimes do? When does F get a chance to shake what she’s been given and not be so patently uncomfortable with it? When do we get a chance to be just as free?

I haven’t believed in “feminism” strictly speaking, in a very long time. It segments what I’m allowed to enjoy, what I’m allowed to be, or at the very least, the common thread of feminism does. I rarely identify as feminist because I find it a limiting label. Within it I can’t enjoy “male” porn. (I’m supposed to be offended because it’s too “hardcore”. Give me a fucking break. I’m so sick and tired of hearing that.) I can’t be outwardly flirtatious or sexual since then I’m just “playing into the patriarchal stereotype”.

My belief is that women should be able to be just as sexual as men, even if it’s to the point of degradation. Why? Because unless we understand where everyone stands, we’ll never find a middle ground. If there is always this unspoken assumption that my “purity” as a woman is more important than any of my needs, we will never find that place where women can interact with men on the same level. We will forever be uncomfortable objects, since we’ll never be allowed to be anything more.

Look at someone like Peaches. She drives me nuts, but I respect that woman immensely. Because she is breaking that wall between gender, between the expectations of sex and girlhood. Because she is unafraid to “fuck like a man” and put it all out there. We can pretend all we want that what’s between our legs doesn’t make a difference, but it does until we acknowledge it, and explore what it means when a man and a woman do the same dance, and the woman is a whore, and the man is just another guy dancing in a club.

Smoke and a pancake?

I dreamed the other night I was smoking. Clandestine smoking though-I remember it clearly. I had 3 smokes left in a pack of JPS (John Player Special-aka Black Death) and was smoking a forth, reminding the person next to me that yes, I had quit, and this was just a momentary lapse in reason.

I woke up thinking I hadjust been smoking the most delicious cigarette in the world, and wanted to run to the corner store and smoke my face off.

I stopped smoking Thankgiving 2004 (Canadian Thanksgiving, so think October) and I swear not a day goes by when I don’t think about it. I stopped cold turkey, staring at the one last cigarette in my back of Benson & Hedges Special Light’s, and holding on to it for a few months, just in case. I survived sitting in a half bus shelter, holding a crying Vivian in the cold rain because some asshat driver wouldn’t let us transfer to our bus at the mall so I could get out of the rain. But I was pregnant, and I didn’t want to smoke through yet another pregnancy.

Quitting was surprisingly easy for me, and I credit the fact that people SMELL and I could really smell people with that pregnancy. Everything stunk. I came home one night to my father cooking steak, and almost puked across the floor from the blood smell that saturated the kitchen. But I gained a lot of weight, since all I wanted was greasy food.

Since I essentially went nuts that pregnancy, I’m sure a lot of the weight gain was from the bipolar rearing it’s head, but some was, and still is due to the fact that I have no real release. I used to take a short break at work, and go outside and smoke. Try doing that if you aren’t a smoker. Doesn’t work quite so well.

So somedays I miss smoking, as my dream obviously noticed. I miss holding it, I miss taking a drag, I miss the feeling of the smoke whirling around my lungs. Disgusting isn’t it? I don’t miss spending 10.00 on a pack, essentially paying someone to kill me, but I miss the ritual, I miss the pleasure of a smoke after a great meal. Because you can’t kid yourself-smoking can be pleasurable. I can vividly remember a few perfect smokes, the ones that kept you from smoking.

Somedays I toy with the idea of having just one, as a friend of mine can do. But I know I couldn’t possibly only have just one, anymore than I can ever have just one samosa or just one chip. 12+ years of smoking reminds me that the addication would be easy to fall back into, seductive even. Despite all the smells and nasty tastes, there still remains something alluring about smoking.

But for now, I’ll leave it for my dreams to enjoy.

Britney Spears-Bald and Crazy?

Look at her eyes and tell me she isn’t manic. Tell me.

Is it attention, or is she as sick as she looks?

I don’t normally comment on celebrity crap since I don’t really care, but you can’t escape this “GASP! Shaved her head and OMFG! got a tattoo!” stuff that’s everywhere.

I can’t help but wonder though. Most bipolars go through manic periods where they are hypersexual, taking stupid risks, doing things that are relatively out of character.

I don’t care who you are. Marrying a walking vienna sausage like K-Fed is out of character. He’s a bloody troll.

She’s virtually ruined her career for a small time creep. She’s popped two kids out and divorced him. She’s been flashing her cooch at cameras, and now shaves her head, in public.

Could be a publicity stunt, but I keep staring at her and wondering what’s going on in her head. Is she spiralling and can’t control it? I know that feeling-it’s scary and exhilarating at the same time. She’s a mother, and yet, does she parent? Is she able to?

I normally can’t stand this woman, but something about her right now makes me incredibly sad. In many cultures, cutting all hair is a sign of mourning.

But hey, it could just be a brilliant PR stunt. But I can’t help but feel it’s something more.

Never Again

The farmer’s market is a fun place, right? Yummy food, cool homemade stuff, paintings, juices, all those things that people want in life.

However, farmers markets are zero fun when you have a preschooler and a toddler in tow, both who only got around 8 hours sleep instead of 12 last night. The day degenerated into two screaming kids waiting for a bus in the wind, and their mother joining in until it sounded something like

“WAH!”

“wahsnufflfewah!”

“BLARGH!”

It didn’t stop either one of them from crying, but it made me feel better.

What kind of city scheduales all the buses to arrive at the same time? I mean really-what good is there in having no bus for 30 mins, and then three at once? I just don’t really get that, especially while holding 30 points of snivelling snotty Rosalyn.

On a good note, someone at the market is finally selling yummy spicy samosas AND pakorahs, so my belly is happy, and I got both Vivian and Rosalyn a nice necklace each. We stopped at McDicks for a treat, since they both needed food. Then got suckered into yet another Nemo toy and book, while Poppi got Vivian “Land Before Time”

Incidentally I had forgotten all about how Little Foot’s mother dies, and so now I sit watching Vivian, hoping she won’t start crying like she sometimes does at sad parts. She’s too tired to care though it seems. I haven’t started crying yet either, not even at the part where the older dinosaur talks about the chain of life, and how Little Foot’s mother will never leave him so long as he remembers what she taught him.

I got a little moist at that. But as a tribute to my drugs, I don’t cry at this stuff. Gives me an opening to try and explain death to Vivian, who, as usual, didn’t really care.

My father grabbed a giant bag of smelts. Barf. Vivian kept playing with them, and trying to move their little mouths. BARF.

So now I’m sitting here, watching a dinosaur movie I haven’t seen since I was 16 and my friend’s baby sister who is now 19! was obsessed with it.

Little foot is so sad.

Shoot em up.

So Texas mandates the HPV shot for all girls.

Most of me thinks “Holy shit, dude has his shit together!”

The other half mutters about being in Merck’s bed, and how little research has been done on this vaccine.

Mostly though, I can’t help but think, if I had the chance to help protect my daughters from at least one form of cancer, I’d do it in a heart beat.

I see people yelling about how we don’t know anything about this vaccine, and it might hurt them.

It might not.

I see people screaming that it’s better to teach them to abstain.

I say it would be better to teach your sons that lesson, have a chat with your daughters, and take them to karate class after getting the shot.  Women get raped every day.

People are yelling that it should be the parents right to dictate what protection their kids get.

Should it be? I don’t believe in parental notification laws because I don’t ever believe that parents are the best judge of anything regarding their kids and sex. I don’t believe that parents necessarily know what’s best. Yet I also don’t fully trust that we’re given all the information to make the correct decisions. So where do we draw a line between all of this?

If we have a vaccine that, at first glance, can prevent cancer, shouldn’t we be jumping up and down for joy? If it prevented lung cancer, or prostate cancer, if it had NOTHING to do with a penis entering a vagina, wouldn’t everyone be estatic that we, that mankind had finally started to find a way to prevent suffering?

But sadly, HPV is something contracted by the evilest of evils, SEX. And of course, the blame is, as usual, being focused on chicks. Girls should abstain. They should wait until marriage.

No one mentions male culpability in all of this. That the woman could be as chaste as driven snow until her wedding night, and her bastard husband could still pass this on to her, and eventually kill her. It’s her husband after all-why should she need a condom?

Cause the bastard spent some time sowing his oats as a teenager, wasn’t careful, and all he got was a “way to go son” from his Pops.

But hey, she doesn’t need the shot. She’s not a whore or anything.

Tired, tired tired of this. Of all of this. Of the constant virgin/whore thing y’all got going on. Of expecting women, girls even, to be something they will never be. The entire purpose of sex is reproduction. Which means mammals will do it. It’s programmed. It’s in our blood. And best of all, it feels good.

Your daughters will fuck. My daughters will fuck, someday, and hopefully with rational help from me, they will pick their partners well, and be safe. But they will be getting this shot, because as a mother, as the daughter of a cancer victim, I know what the real risk is. I’ve watched someone rot from the inside, eaten away. I’ve watched someone die.

I refuse to let someone else’s misguided sense of morality kill my babies. I refuse to consider my daughters thinking people with options and desires. I refuse to ultimately, blame them for what they may bring on themselves. I refuse to let sex cloud the judgement of an otherwise near miraculous vaccine.

I refuse to crawl back into the trees and let the monsters claim my children. We can prevent disease and death. Why wouldn’t we?

* While I’m a fan of the vaccine, I would also do my research. I agree with many of the points on this list at Evil Slutopia, and find all of them good food for thought. I most definitely agree with “DO YOUR RESEARCH”. Go read.*

I am an idiot.

Our basement has 9 steps. They are carpeted, and have nothing to hang onto. We know it’s a problem, but since we’ll eventually spend a few thousand gutting the entire basement, we don’t do much about it. Slightly unsafe, but we handle it.

Today, somehow, I slipped and fell down the entire flight, slamming into a plastic bin at the bottom of the stairs. I thought my father was going to shit himself.

I’m lucky-nothing broken, aside from a fingernail torn from the nail bed a bit, and my back, which is aching from being thrown out. I have a giant bruise on my boob, which took the majority of the impact, and some scrapes on other pointy bits. How I avoided breaking anything is rather amazing to me.

What’s funny is that I don’t really recall what I slipped on, or falling. I vaguely remember realizing I was falling through the air, and heading for the bin. I’m sure I was saved by the fact that I don’t flail when I fall, I go limp. I didn’t reach out for anything. I just fell.

I’m fine. Just sore, and amazed that I’m ok. But it’s a little scary that I don’t recall what caused the fall.

Anyway, just wanted to point out that I’m a moron. My kids come by their klutz factor honestly.

Tea

Sitting over a cup of Earl Grey, in a dingy coffeehouse on Queen West, my friend and I talked and laugh, wondering about a magazine devoted solely to Airports, questioning our pasts, our futures, and the amount of ice cream in her soy milkshake. She tried to convince me that a Master Cleanse was a good thing. I tried to explain I was good with moderation. We agreed to disagree at many things, much as we always have, a roll of the eyes, a toss of hair, a glance and a sigh.

We started talking about my favorite pet subject, childbirth, and I went on my usual rant about how transformative and incredible it was, and yet how our culture demeans it so, treats women as imbeciles who don’t dare question a doctor or know their own bodies. I talked about the intensity of birth, of your body straining to expel your child, about the smell about 3 days after, dead blood and sour milk, and the overwhelming icky feeling to your skin. I spoke of choice, of options, of deciding for yourself what is best, of being sure and confident.

She waited for me to pause and said, “You’re making me not want to have children.”

I’ve never wanted to jump up and scream NO NO NO! so much in my life. I didn’t intend this, I only want to warn her, to provide a pause for her, so confidence, a warning that expectation is, at heart, an evil we bring upon ourselves. I only wanted to let her know that it is this altering experience, good or bad, and that she should go with it, educate herself and just see where it led her.

Yet I scared her. The one thing I never want her to feel, the one reason for talking so much, was to keep her from feeling fear when she finds herself pregnant. And I failed.

My only friend is the voice in my head.

I’m a terrible friend.

Really, I am. I have exactly one person in my life who has lasted, who has put up with my shit for years and years, and she’s a saint for it. She’s insane, but she’s still a saint. Right Stace? 😛

I don’t generally make or keep friends because I’m lazy. Having chick friends is tons of work. You have to talk to them about crap you don’t care about. You need to do stuff. You need to make comments about large asses looking small, or about how he totally digs you, it’s just the wrong time, or some such crap. You need to invest time and energy.

Those are two things I don’t have, and don’t like to share. And people get upset. I don’t like crowds, I don’t like being out in public often. As Stace can attest, my social phobia has been so bad in the past that I would make her meet me outside of bars so I wouldn’t have to walk in alone. I’ve pissed Stace off by blowing off her parties because the idea of meeting new people terrified me, paralyzed me into staying home.

She sorta got it, but sorta didn’t. We didn’t talk for a few months once because of this. Thankfully, I finally sucked up my pride and apologized.

I have enough trouble keeping this one friend, less alone many. But there’s another reason I make a bad friend.

When I cycle, I go through phases where I really like someone, and want to be super duper nice to them. Then I swing, and I can’t fucking stand them. Everything they do annoys me to no end, and despite my knowing that I do, on some level like them, all I can think is bad thoughts, regardless of who they really are. The worst was the time I backhanded a friend. (Sorry about that Isabelle) I couldn’t explain it, she just irritated me so fucking much.

Everyone, at some point in my life, has done something to bother me. And it’s noted. In the back of my mind, i will always remember that one thing that so and so did that annoyed me so. And I will see it everytime I talk to them, or even think of them. The entire conversation will consist of me trying to not blurt out mean things about the person. (They’re usually true, but that doesn’t make it any nicer)

I’m mean, and nasty, and icky. I have mean nasty thoughts all the time. But at least with the bipolar, it’s beginning to make sense why I’ve always, on a basic level, hated people.

That’s the other reason why I cannot imagine why The Dorf thinks I’m screwing around on him. I could never find anyone I liked more than they irritated me.

Fucking Freecycle

I’ve just about had it.

I’ve been doing this freecycle thing for awhile now, and I’m usually giving more than I ask for. Hell, I rarely ask for anything. But after awhile, you just cannot believe how, frankly, greedy people are.

In the past 6 months at least, I’ve seen people asking for the following:

• MP3 Players
• Xbox’s
• Large pieces of furniture, like china cabinets, dinner suites
• insanely specified car rims
• laptops

You get the idea. There’s always a ton of “requests” I cannot believe for the sheer audacity. And when these people actually offer anything (which is rare-I’ve noticed people are very good at taking, but not giving) it’s stuff like “used Christmas tinsel” or some such nonsense.

The idea of the website is to reuse stuff you may not have a need for any longer, offering it to others. Reasonable requests are to be made. But I hardly see reasonable anymore. And sure, it never hurt to ask for something someone might have kicking around-but there’s a HUGE difference between asking for a popcorn popper and a laptop.

Is this why people get so burned out on charity? Because other people so often take it for granted, and take advantage of it? It’s almost insulting to have someone come on who has never offered something, and have them ask for something insane like a “like new couch”. It bothers me. It bothers my sense of fairness. It bothers me because the “exchange” is meant to be fair-keeping stuff out of landfill, and helping other people. Not saving some money on your Christmas list because your kid is to lazy to get a job for something that is, at best, not necessary. It bothers me that some people seem to have no shame in asking for outlandish things, and that when called on it, get offended. It bothers me that these same people never bother to offer anything up. It’s like helping someone eat the fruits of their garden, and yet never helping to plant anything.

I’ve noticed lately that people not playing by certain “rules” really get on my nerves. It’s like I’m a 10 year old again, yelling “It’s not FAIR!”. And I’m certainly yelling. But how much nicer would it be if people were as generous in giving, as they are in getting? How much nicer would it be if people read the “rules” and offered before taking? How much better would it be if people weren’t such greedy fuckwits?

 sigh….being sick does nothing for my goodwill towards men now does it….but hey, dreaming about being raped all night can do that to a girl…

What, they actually want to PLAY?

Remember play grounds when we were kids?

I specifically remember the play structure (climbers) at St Mark’s. VERY tall, VERY wooden, VERY  large potential for harm. I’d say it was 20-30 feet high at the top, where we’d climb up on the ledge and stand to look around town. There was a very wide flat metal slide we used to ‘cannonball” down (run and land on your ass before sliding down It hurt, but it was fun!) The ground underneath was sand, not pebbles. The custodians would sometimes push snow against the side in winter so we could jump into the snowbanks.

That playground is LONG gone, replaced with something safe, colored, and, well, kinda boring as I recall.

It’s not just that they destroyed a fine childhood memory. It’s that they removed one of the best parts of childhood. The likelihood of harm. And thankfully, that  trend seems to be coming to an end.

We used to hurt ourselves in order to discover what NOT to do. Mike G jumping off the climbers in spring, landing with a resounding WHOOMP and breaking his arm in two places taught us NOT to follow his example. Numerous splinters taught me to wear my gloves when playing on wood. Jeremy’s tongue on the fence taught us all about why we do not stick tongues to cold fences in winter.

You learn through difficulty-you learn to problem solve, you learn lessons about not putting your self in harms way.

You have FUN.

“Concerns were mitigated as parents realised that opportunities for their children to learn about risk are becoming rare in society today.”

Finally, people are getting it. We have to accept that learning comes through making mistakes, from hurting yourself sometimes. Do I want my kid to break her arm? No. But I want her to be fearless and yet have a reasonable idea of what life is about. If I wanted my kids “protected”, I’d never let them leave the house.

Where has this trend for overprotecting come from anyway? Why do we suddenly not allow children to run around as we once did? What are we so scared of?

Personally, I’m always petrified that CAS is going to see some idiot scrape or bruise and take my kid away. I worry sometimes that since I let my kids learn from their mistakes, and deal with the multitude of bruises and bumps that results, that I’m going to have people suspect me of something. Hell, they always assume they must be Little boys with all those bruises, not little girls who had the misfortune of inheriting clumsy from Mom.

Life is risk. Why is teaching that such a bad thing?

laughing so hard I might pee!!!

One of the commenter’s on this thread just stated that Bill O’Reilly:

 “often has intelligent points of view and is interesting to listen to.”

 I’ll be sitting here pissing myself while you check out the thread.. WOO BOY!  That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard today…

Brain…..pfffffffffftttttttttt

So I switch to WordPress, only to have it EAT MY POSTS NOW?!?!?!

 happy place, serenity now.

I cannot spell today. For some reason, my extensive vocabulary has ran out the window, screaming carrying it’s pants, and I’m left trying to remember how to spell conduit. And then the fucking thing has the NERVE TO EAT MY POST!

AND someone, who cannot seem to understand or grasp progress, wants me to continue to produce something in the most time comsuming and annoying way, instead of the new, quick and easy way. Which means attempting to burn out hard drive number 2 while fondling data.

My head feels stuffed with a brillo pad, as the cold I’ve been defeating slowly wins in totality.

Hear me o’people of the mall!

What is it about my local mall that makes me want to pull my hair out, grab a broadsword and run through it’s aisles, giggling like an evil dictator? For that matter, what is it about the local mall that caused my water to break with my firstborn, or makes me grit my teeth and be “extra special nice” so I don’t lose it?

A few simple hints for the obviously lobotomized walking public:

1. Yes, that’s a corner. Girls, the WORST possible time for you to discuss where BlueNotes is located is when you are standing in from of me and the buggy with the kids in it at a blind corner. Next time, I’m going to smash into you and pretend we’re bowling.
2. An aisle is only an aisle when it’s shared-OTHER PARENTS-having multiple children with you does NOT make it ok to walk akimbo, causing me to drive into a rack of half price jeans. Show some respect for others, and move over. Bonus Points: Not staring at ME like I’m the spawn of Satan for glaring at you as I attempt to move said buggy out of said rack will help me not think of karmic retribution involving vomiting and strange rashes.
3. Coffee? Why yes,I’d love one. Just because I have my kids with me does not mean I don’t want a coffee. Stop taking up the entire waiting space with your 200.00 jeans and hair with far too much “product” (what the hell IS product anyway? Bunny eyes?)
4. Got another buggy? Guess what honey, after I have moved over as far as I possibly can, it’s YOUR TURN. When I have to ram the side of yours, and then laugh sheepishly while thinking “you’re a nipple”, it means that it’s your turn to share. I know it’s hard, but come on.
5. WATCH YOUR FREAKING SPAWN. It’s a damn good thing I actually pay attention when I have a stroller or buggy with me, because if I didn’t, your idiot children would be nothing more than a bloody mangled mess of kid. Where are the parents half the time? The kid can walk for 200 feet with a toy, and still not seem to have a keeper! And these kids always seem to walk directly in front of me as I’m in a hurry, or even just trying to go around a display. If they cannot be counted on to be careful, then tether them. Outside if possible.
6. Don’t give me that look because I have a buggy and you don’t. Your kid is at least 8. He can walk.
7. Hurry the fuck up. If you’re in a main aisle, and the slightly harried tired mother is annoyed at your lack of speed, it’s not a good thing. Believe me, you don’t want the sunglasses anyway.
8. Which reminds me-if you are looking at one of those idiotic aisle displays, have the courtesy to pay attention when others want to get past you. Your wife isn’t that skinny. TRUST ME
9. Someday little teeny bopper, you will also have a frum and two kids. And I will be sure to remind you of that little eye roll you didn’t think I saw. Repeatedly.
10. MANNERS people MANNERS. Your kids don’t have them because you don’t. Standing behind me with your buggy up my ass doesn’t make me move. Asking politely just might. And don’t get pissy when this is pointed out to you. I don’t read minds, and I don’t appreciate the assumption that I should let you jump in line for no reason.

Why do I even bother? Oh yeah, cause I find shoes like these that MIGHT actually fit me.

Ah malls. Home of the instant lobotomy.