clearly i am more fckd up than i thought

it's like a fairy tale right. boy meets girl, sweeps girl off feet and off they go to live happily ever after... right?

erm. clearly not to my mind.

on paper i have everything any normal girl should want (there's the big glaring clue... me and normal don't usually get put in a sentence!)... a great supportive guy that's seen me at my best and worst, and is still here. Pretty fucking amazing that. He adores my child, loves motorsport and music (real music mind you, except for slipknot. he and i'll never agree on slipknot) and gets on great with my friends, who all think he's fantastic. As I do. Don't get me wrong here. I'm totally (to borrow cath's phrase) smit. And so proud of him for working so hard to turn his life around this year.

but... (dum dum duuuuuuuuum)

I'm just not used to this level of devotion. i'm not used to someone being there for EVERYTHING. whether it's complete manic excitement, panic attacks, drunken spewing, bad dancing, silliness, sadness, whatever. he's there, being strong and supportive and just accepting and carrying on with it. it's awesome. and frightening. it scares me that i may start to depend on him and lose some of my strength because i won't need it when he's around to prop me up and get me through my "episodes". and i don't know how to deal with being told i'mbeautiful and amazing and blah blah blah, except to burst out laughing and tell him to get his eyes checked. and i'm scared that one day, after he's invested so much time and love and energy in me, and shae, that he'll realise i AM actually just a fucking nutjob, just like i've been trying to tell him for the last 6 months and then he won't be there anymore.

and most of all, i'm terrified that if i don't learn how to be more open and vulnerable and just go with this amazing thing that has happened to me, i'll drive him away.

something to think on

Got this from a friend of mine. thought i'd share it with you crazies. xx

Hi everyone, Early December my mom was diagnosed with a malignant lump under her left breast and a week later had the op - luckily only a lumpectomy and not a mastectomy. The good news is that it was a low grade tumour ie it was caught early so she doesn't have to go through that horrible chemo or radium therapy, but instead has to take anti-hormone tablets for the next 5 years. There is no prior history of ANY cancer in our family, but I rushed off to my doctor to have everything checked and my doctor says women should have their breasts checked regularly for lumps and if your family has a history of cancer or if are over 40 you should have a mamogram annually. On top of that, we should make changes to how we live an eat - buy a water filter, organic veggies (not genetically modified food), free range chicken and eggs, limit red meat, stop eating seafood (yes our oceans are being poisoned by us - watch the Blue Planet), throw out your microwave or use it much less (it has been proven that microwaves alter the state of food), throw out alluminium cookware and recycle so that we can minimise how much we are poisoning our own home - the Earth. Sorry if I'm lecturing, but we all need to be more aware and look after ourselves more.

Hope you all well and 2009 sees some dreams come true.

Love Calli

Begone!

Right. it's diet time. has been since new year and i'm pretty sure that if i don't eat chocolate soon i may become homicidal! but anyway. 2kg's down so far and i've been living on pesto, salad and seeds forever! ok. two weeks, but it may as well be forever. all i'm saying is that any snarkiness is in inverse proportion to the amount of junkfood i consume. and as of this week, no more cheat days. no "well, if i skip supper, i can eat a HUGE bowl of ice cream". i'm going to take my vitamins and i'm going to *vomit* exercise. even if it kills me. which it probably will. but i HAVE to get back into my pre-preg jeans.

wish me luck and hand me the celery. with *gulp* low fat mayo.

2008

yeah. so i probably should have done the round up thing earlier, but sucks to that, i'm doing it now!

Cool:

• new friends... tarryn, if anyone said a year ago that we'd be mates, i'd have laughed my ass off at them. steph and cirst, brilliant workmates, awesome friends. jordan, a virtual mate. when we talk i feel like we may just have the same brain.
  
• old aquaintences making reappearances... vera, i'm so fucking happy that we're FINALLY mates. gerry, you got me through some rough stuff, just with good times and good wine, without even knowing it.
• friends that have stuck around... cath, buzz, justin, garett, dale, terri, dean, tina and a million others. i am so blessed.
  
• zane. i don't even know what to say here. am smit.
• work. i love my job. i know i've mentioned that once or twice before, but fck, i love it. i love it even more after a promotion!
• shae. save the best for last. the change in this little person has been beyond amazing. she is a joy and a treasure and adored by everyone that meets her.

Not Cool:

• Garyth. how do you get over losing someone who has been a part of your life forever. my baby big brother. i still can't bring myself to delete your number. i miss you more than i can possibly explain. it's not fair that you're gone. but you'll never be forgotten. love you gemini.
• death. 2008 was the year of goodbyes. garyth, paul, danny, mary, grandpa. so many, so sad.
• crime. i think i've said enough about this. i want my fucking car back.
  
• friends exiting. two people i though would be around when i was a 60-year old gardening book club member have exited stage right. with no re-entrance for the big finale. fuck.
  

Learn From Me

Hey Girls

After my Friday night excitement, there's some things I want to share with you...

• Be aware of what's happening around you when you're getting close to home or to intersections. if it means turning off the radio and concentrating a little harder, do it.
• if there's someone driving close behind you when you get home, phone someone and drive around the block. keep driving until the car disappears. don't assume ANYONE is innoccent. i know it's a sh1tty way to live, but it's our reality.
• if the what happens to me happens to you, LISTEN to and OBEY what the hijackers say. these are not the types to think twice about killing. DON'T try any heroics and DON'T lie to them. if they ask for your bank card and pin, just give it to them. if they drive you to an ATM and find out you've lied, you're dead. reality. it bites.
• make yourself human. let them know that if they harm you, they're not hurting a random lump of meat, you are a person.
• if they tell you to run, RUN. and don't head back to the road they left you on straight away. you are sport and an easy target for these guys. you have no value. get out of their way as soon as they let you.

keep safe.

love you all

On Parenting

I used to be one of those people that looked at people with children with scorn and made loud, rude remarks when kids misbehaved in shopping centres. I was the one that asked waiters to throw the monkeys out when parents couldn't keep their kids under control in restaurants. Most of all, i swore i would never breed. EVER.

Then i did. While Shae was still baking, I had all the intentions of raising the perfect child. Organic, home cooked baby food, breast feeding til Shae was 2, no dummies, no tv, no computer, educational motzart cd's and toys to increase her IQ in exact proportion to the decreasing of my bank balance.

Fast Forward to almost 2 years post spawning...

Well. All that went out the window. i HATED breast feeding. Hated every second of it. It pissed me off and depressed me that some woman just got it right and loved it, cooing and bonding with their lil bundles of joy, while Shae and i found every fckn feed a struggle. It lasted 5 months and i do not regret putting her on formula for one second. all of a sudden we're both more relaxed and the bonding can begin.

Home cooked baby food? Haha. Shae tried my lovingly prepared butternut mash once and refused to eat it ever again. to this day she won't eat butternut. So purity it was. and to my shock and horror and against everything i'd been told, the evil, evil pre-prepared food had NO ill effects at all! To be quite honest, seeing food not made by you spat out onto the floor is also a lot less painless than seeing food you spent ages preparing regected.

As for the dummy, hells bells, i look after her all day and then work nights, sometimes hectic long hours. if giving her a dummy when she goes to sleep means that we both sleep better and can get through a day with the minimum tears and sleep deprived tantrums, so be it. screw anyone who wants to take this small piece of comfort away from Shae. it's a rough world out there, give her (and me) a break!!

As for no TV, listen buddy, i know that it's not healthy for any child to spend hours in front of the tv, but if sitting her down to watch the Tigger Movie means i can get the dishes washed and have a shower, then that's how it's gonna work around here!

And the one thing i've heard my fair share of in the last 2 or so years is bullshit. complete and utter bullshit. From being asked if i'd had (OMG GROSS!) breastmilk running down my legs, to being told that pink food colouring has given my child a "touch of ADD", i think i've heard it all. well, at least it's kept me amused.

So next up is toilet training. looking forward to the next round of bullshit and old wives tales that go with that!!

for the mums to be

Right now i seem to have a lot of friends with babies on the way. now i know when i was pregnant EVERYONE was full of (often completely useless) advice, so i'm going to hop on the band wagon with you guys. only difference is that you can choose to read this or not ;-)

• Just accept that your body is going to be distorted beyond recognition. Some days you'll love it, some days you'll hate it, but remember, whenever you can to milk the fact that you are 2 000 000 times bigger than you were a few months ago. It got me out of a particularly nasty insurance claim.
• Your boobs, ass and stomach are never going to be the same again. Think of it as a badge of honour. And buy padded bra's. They do wonders at upping a little sag.
  
• Don't freak out about what you read. If i had done that I would have starved to death, not touched anyone, gotten rid of my pets and not left the house for 9 months. Trust your body and just use a little common sense.
• You don't have to buy every accessory in the baby magazines. Our moms didn't have them and we turned out just fine. Shae slept without a remote-control-sleep-on-humidifying-breathing-monitor-security-blanket-sleep-positioning-lullaby-singing-angel-bear and she's still alive. And she doesn't look particularly deprived to me.
• Get used to mess. Accept the fact that within a year there will be butternut smeared into your couch and bits of biscuit between the seats.
• Wet wipes. You will love them.
• Birth is a scary thing. I can't lie, it hurts like nothing I can even begin to describe but don't listen to other people's horror stories about suctions, forceps and emergency ceasars. I don't know why it is that every woman who has had a child feels the need to tell pregnant women all their horror stories. Don't worry about offending them, just walk away or tell them to shut the fuck up.
• Don't be a hero. Take the fucking drugs.
• If your doctor makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable, don't feel bad, find a new one.
• You will yell and throw things at your partner. Just remember to apologise. And don't leave him out of anything.

Love you all!

Screw Them

Years ago, in the old top 40 magazine, there was an advert which said something which really struck home for me. I know it was advertising jeans, but i can't remember which ones. I think it may have been levi's. anyway. i found the advert, which i'd ripped out and kept, this afternoon in one of the random boxes of stuff i keep promising myself i'll sort out one day. Here's what it said:

Screw Them
Screw everyone who told you it couldn't be done
Just because they never managed to.
Screw everyone who tried to make you feel weak
Because it was the only way they could feel strong.
Screw everyone who tried to make you act different, talk different,
BE different
Because they didn't understand
That if you weren't who you had to be
You were screwed.

Speaking of Chocolate

A very wise woman said today that really good chocolate is better than sex.

right now i'm inclined to agree... hell, chocolate is better than men. fullstop.

think about it:

chocolate is constant. if you buy a bar of chocolate today and it's really good, when you eat the same type of chocolate tomorrow... it'll be just as good as the first one. sadly, not so with sex.

chocolate doesn't forget to phone, doesn't forget your birthday, doesn't come home at 4am stinking of rum and try to stick it in, even though it can't see straight.

if your friend eats your chocolate, that's ok, you can just buy another one!!

so here's three cheers for the makers of good chocolate!

Hey Asshole...

thought i saw you today and i wanted to walk up to you and let you know that despite your best efforts, i'm alive and functioning.

and tell you a few things...

that i hate you for making me hate myself.

that even though you tried your level best to isolate me from everyone else, the friends that i still have from that time are here with me... you aren't.

that i am now one of those... how did you put it... "satanic, druggie, wanna-be, heavy metal scumbags" and fucking glad i am. those people you were so terrified i'd identify with are real. you weren't

that despite your lies, manipulation and abuse, i am happy now

that i took the greatest pleasure in purging my life of every trace of you. cutting up, burning and smashing every possession of yours that was left here was amazingly cathartic.

and i wanted to say thank you for testing my spirit to the limits. i know now that very few things will ever break me. you couldn't. thank you for making me stronger than i've ever been before.

but it wasn't you and i'm glad because i really, truly hope that you are dead. if not dead, then miserable and alone. you deserve no better. karma is a bitch and yours is coming.

What I've Learnt

This week has been one where i've learnt a lot about life. I don't know why but it's all become very clear in the last couple of days...

Fuckwits will always be fuckwits. There is nothing that can be done for them... I now begin pruning my list of fuckwits.

Real friends are forever. I'd rather have the 5 or 6 brilliant beautiful people around me that i can trust absolutely rather than a large network of kinda sorta mates that bail at the first sign of shit.

People die. there's nothing i can do about it. Accepting it is not the same as forgetting them.

I have a child. Nothing will ever change that. So I've made my peace with the fact things didn't turn out as they were supposed to. Oh well. Deal with it, move on and revel in the squishy, drooly love my daughter lavishes on me.

When all else fails. Weed and Beer.