Mayhem in the house

I don't know how, but after 5 solid days of packing, the house looks worse.

I have no clear pathway anymore and theres a mass of stuff still to pack...I'm scared. LOL.

Only when I began to pack did I realise how out of control I am. Oh the madness, the sweet, sweet madness....:)

Some of the stuff I'm selling is going too cheap, bidding online is crap sometimes. Or maybe the market just says, your stuff is crap...lol, probably, I have strange affinities that only I will understand and treasure (emotional attachment again...)

The truck arrives in two days and I have a tonne of stuff to get through. I arranged the disconnection of my phone yesterday and they told me if I wanted to connect at the new place it would cost me $60. I disagreed and said that I had been with their company for over 10 yrs, paid my bill on time and thought they should waiver the fee (this is quite acceptable practise, they did it for me when I moved here). Needless to say the team leader disagreed and wouldnt waive the fee. I said I would consider going to another company like Telecom, he/she said fine, they will charge a connection fee too......like a red rag to a bull....I sent a letter

NOTE TO BUSINESSES: never treat your customers like they are dispensable.
The only difference between companies is CUSTOMER SERVICE and PRICE. If you are not outcompeting your competition in terms of service and product price, then you are offering NOTHING.

A bad storm is supposed to roll in today. Given that I will be buried under newspaper and boxes its not such a bad way to spend the day.

My car broke down yesterday morning, I think the gods are making sure I get it looked at before I drive north. The AA (roadside assistance) said my fans are munted. Scuse me?
Apparently the cooling fans are not working.....ok, will get it looked at today. Like I said, best to happen now and not in some remote area on my travels.

I'm going to miss my daughter, I worry about her sometimes. Being an adult is even difficult for those of us that have had years and years of practise. She is pigheaded like her mother, so she will learn and grow.....sometimes at a slow pace. Its hard to know that we have choices, even if they are crap choices, but ALWAYS there are choices and don't even start on the personal responsibility :)

I think I would like to lie down in a field of long grass and not think too much for a while. In New Zealand you can lie down in the grass and not worry. We have no snakes, scorpions or poisonous spiders. Nothing poisonous except the Katipo spider which is about as common as Michael Jackson at your corner store on Monday night.

h2

Nutshells

I'm surrounded by boxes and tissue, I'm suffocating. I'm packing up my life and moving away to the beach, to a little bach by the sea that is about half the size of my house....

I'm trying to be ruthless, but I'm kidding myself. On my terms I AM being ruthless. To the average person that doesn't have a collecting addiction I am a clutterholic.
But I have made some bold moves that even I am proud of. I sold my 6 seater dining room table and chairs yesterday, 10 yrs of dinners and gathering around that table....not that it had six people around it permanently, but the thought was there :)

Moving to a bach means I will probably pick up a small table with a couple of chairs, somewhere along the way.
I sold my rolled arm, olive green lounge suite yesterday too......its a fantastic old suite, but in reality its just not comfortable....so goodbye dear furniture.

I have around 30 listings on our version of Ebay and I'm obsessively watching them to see if they hatch. I was going to see at the local market today, but its bucketing down, which means that all those people like me will not be scouting around in the rain. Plan B, sell at the Thursday morning market instead. I'm cutting it close though, I leave in one week...eek.

After I sold the dining room table and chairs I felt liberated. I burned all my old paperwork in a brazier outside, some of it I have had for over 15 yrs....I don't know why I kept it for so long, probably along the lines of 'that might come in handy some day' or 'thats a very interesting recipe/article or information'...etc, so forth, I can't remember, but obviously I had an emotional attachment to it. I suppose that's me in a nutshell. I have too many emotional attachments and not enough verbalisations or actions. If I want to go to Morocco then save and do it, but I dont need to keep a brochure about Morocco for 5yrs because the imagery mesmirises me:)

I'm looking at my fridge/freezer now. I have had a family sized fridge for many years, even though my daughter left home a long time ago. I am a single woman with a 6ft fridge/freezer that could hold the contents for a family of 5.

I will let you in on a secret.

I wanted a large family. I always have. I had hoped that one day I would meet someone so special that we would want to have 5 kids together :) That didnt happen and at age 30 I went through surgery (ovarian tumours) induced menopause. No more kids for me. But then the dream changed and I imagined that I might meet someone that would want to adopt or foster 4 more kids :)

I'm going to let that dream go now. I'm going to live my life right this minute and just enjoy what is - just now, right here. I have been a favoured aunty to many of my 17 neices and nephews and that will do.

So when I finish this post I am taking a photo of that fridge and its going online for sale :)

Carpe diem

h2

FYI

I had another birthday 5 days ago. For the past two years I have not enjoyed my birthday. It has been ambushed by others and turned into some childrens circus that I don't enjoy.
Last year my sister invited me over for dinner and we have cold chicken, coleslaw and buns, wtf?
Its the middle of winter here, I don't want a summer picnic on my birthday, its usually 3 degrees, but the kids loved it.....great, happy birthday kids.
Yes, I am ungrateful. I don't give a fuck. I should have just cooked and not had any expectations. I say this because my sister is usually a great cook.
So this year I had forgotten last year and my sisters and mother invited me over after work.
It was supposed to be nibbles and a cake with the kids, as the adults had planned to go out for dinner later that night.
I arrive and one of my sisters tells me that we're not going out for dinner anymore and that we're having fish and chips......wtf?
I don't get it.

I hearby proclaim, that next year I will do what I please and I will not be held captive by my family. I will only indulge in adult activities and it will be exactly what I wanted.

Thank you

h2

Moving

I got the job yesterday:)
I'm leaving, packing up my house and moving north. They have agreed to pay relocation and I am really happy. I have already chosen a place to rent via internet and my sister and my mother will come along for the ride to help me unpack.
I have two weeks to get there. I have a big three bedroom house to downsize to a beachsize bach. Did I hear you say Garage Sale?
This morning I think I have tonsillitis, my tonsils are swollen, I have a headache. The stress is coming out. The fact that I was able to exhale all the worry and the jitters after the hearing the news meant the body had time to say to itself 'the gates are down, lets express the stress, quick, before she locks us up again'. So thats what I'm doing. My body is taking over my mind.
Balancing of the scales. My cat will stay with my mother and the dog....I don't know.
I inherited the dog from my daughter, so I guess she will be going back to my daughter.
I'm in a little bit of a quandry, but mostly sad, because I know that I will chose my new job and home over the dog.
The new place does not allow animals, actually most rentals don't allow animals. Its just a landlord preference. And when I told the lady at the Real Estate agents that she was a Rottweiler, well.......silence is golden? I could hear the shaking of her head.
But today, I am packing and taking it easy, cos I actually feel like crap.
The sooner I accept the stress the sooner I can get better.
carpe diem

h2

homeless

Its been a busy week. I found out last Friday that I was shortlisted for a job up North and they wanted each interviewee to present a couple of concepts in a powerpoint presentation. One of the concepts was historical and quite politically loaded, I felt my stomach sink when I read the topic.
I spent the next 5 days researching and preparing my powerpoint presentation.
I fly up north on Wednesday and thought I was presenting an interview panel. It turns out I am presenting to 10 staff.....yehaa!

I am nervous but once I start my patter its not so bad. The hardest topic receives very little feedback, not surprising. The second concept creates alot of dialogue and discussion, thats a positive. I met with the Director and two others afterwards and I feel quite nervous.
I feel my throat going dry and in parts of the conversation I feel myself lose the thread of coherency:) Rabbling on. They tell me they need to contact my referees and that it may take some time given that one of my referees is about the leave the country soon.

I flew home in a roundabout way, making a stopover (how you can make a stopover in NZ is beyond me, but there I was.....) taking me 4 hours to get home to the South Island.
I was exhausted. The good news is they wanted to ring my referees. The bad news is, one of my referees was heading overseas for 10 days the following day. I forwarded his cellphone number, but I have yet to hear the outcome of my interview. I know the other referee was rung and I will call her tomorrow to see what they asked.

On Monday I will email and see what the situation is. But as far as I know, checking your references after the interview is pretty telling?

I have also checked on another job I applied for, its bloody frustrating when I have to chase up jobs, very slack people in some of the HR sectors.....

So I am jobless after this week, because I have handed in my notice. I am not panicking but being in limbo does my head in. I need action and activity. I am selling off large segments of my retro furniture, because regardless of the outcome I am ready to move on in some parts of my life. I'm ready to sell my house. I'm ready to leave the South Island. I am ready to be homeless. I'm just ready.

I connected two lots of people to each other this week and it was fantastic. It is magic to watch people connect and so rewarding to be part of the connection. Both sets of people were artists and have a fine line of crossover, together the results should be sublime :)

Signing off and signing out.

H2
I

Ideal Men

I'm gonna lighten up on this post (am I kidding myself?????). I was speaking to my younger sister last night (yes, I usually grade my sisters by age, believe me, its all relative when there are 6 of you...), she was talking about her latest boyfriend. They have been seeing each other for nearly a year. She is divorced, 39, stunning, intelligent, with two children (ginger is 4, blondie is 7) and a hefty mortgage. She works full time and is usually very tired from multi-tasking the hell out of every hour of the day.

Anyway, last week when he was down for the weekend they had had a row (thats an argument in kiwispeak, not row as in boat, rau as in argue). She had arrived home tired and grumpy because Ginger had had a tantrum all the way from daycare to home and was still going when they walked in the door. After 15 minutes of trying to reason with him (and with the boyfriend sitting on the couch watching) she put him in time out, and put him in time out and put him in time out.....

She starts to cook dinner and when he asked 'what are doing' and then 'was that the best way to do it', well, that wisdom just broke the camels back. I'd love to hear from a couple of guys about this. Because when she tells me about this little exchange I say...oh no, Danger Will Robinson....that type of question to a woman is gonna get you a rise, not a pay rise, a rise in the stoopidometer. What would make a man walk into an inferno? Do they not see the sirens, flashing lights, smoke, bubbling lava and shooting flames?

They end up having a huge argument about her parenting, her attitude and her 'mood swings'...I laughed. He is divorced with two kids as well, but rarely sees his kids cos they live in another country (yes, this came up in the argument as a counter argument). I asked her, did he think to cook dinner since he'd been at home all day, did he try and distract Ginger, anything, anywhere? No.

She tells me she's not sure if they will last because they are quite different (thank god, I say, I would hate to be with myself every day, I have enough of that now) and he is very introverted when they go out. He doesn't make easy conversation socially and my sister is very outgoing.
And just when I think - oh no, its doomed she says 'but its so nice to come home to small things when he's down for the weekend. Like last weekend he put up my curtain rail that has been sitting there for a year, hung the curtains, fixed the leaking tap, fixed the hoses on my washing machine, scrubbed the toilet floor by hand, cleaned my oven, even wiped the kettle down, put my dvd into the cabinet and put all my dvds away....' I told her to fuck off and asked if she was kidding. She wasn't. I told her to stop whingeing about the non-communicado in social settings and be happy. He also happens to be great in a number of other places too......he just needs to learn how to participate within the family setting. All of the things he does are when no one is home, he does not interact with the kids and he does not participate in their routine. So just nip that BS in the bud, tell him to get his hands dirty and involved in the family stuff and move on....if he can't do that, well, thats another story.....

So when I get a full picture of what is going on, well, its not bad. We say dumb stuff all the time and get into all sorts of situations. Just a bad day at home. The trouble for men and women is that women have learned to be capable too, as well as emotional, as well as communicators. We have taken over that corner of the field. Our skill base is getting bigger and bigger and our beloved men sometimes haven't learned to multi task and build their baskets of knowledge so well. I know if I walk into a friends house and she's frazzled, kids are screaming and there's stuff to do, I just do it. My friends are the same - distract the kids, feed them, take them out to play, take them to their room to play, just seperate the energies so that everyone has 15 minutes space and the world becomes a nice place again. We know instinctively what to do.

If I came home to a man that did those sort of things around the house, that would difinitely put a tint in my rose glasses for the first year. I value capable men and I'd commit to teaching him the communication development programme (I just made that up, but it sounds good eh? my personal programme of saying what you feel and asking for what you need, effectively).

I know so many women that are single, beautiful, intelligent, capable and got it together. The brotherhood needs to have a revolution for themselves, I'd support them! Shit, I might even sponsor one :)

Be good to ourselves and each other.

h2

Media beating

I've just had bacon and pea soup for dinner. I imagined that I would feel cherished as I ate it, as I have had it cooking for the last 24 hours, with large chunky vegetables, a bacon hock and a very long time on low heat.

I didn't feel cherished. I felt lacking. But I think thats more emotional than anything else. I rely on feedback from others to make me feel great. If someone had said this soup is fantastic, I might have felt gleeful. I found very little joy in my cooking tonight. But its not always like that, so I figure I'm over tired.

I woke in the night, at around 2.30am and felt as if I had slept all night. I was very disappointed to see the real time. I stayed awake until around 4.45am. I had a cup of tea, booked a flight for later in the month and read some emails before sneaking back to my warm bed. I slept through the rubbish collector, I missed putting my bags at the kerb. I awoke to a text from my daughter asking if I was picking her up.....its a rude way to wake up. Staggering, grabbing and tripping over myself to get dressed and do the basics before I head out the door.

Yesterday our national news featured an article on a high profile TV and Radio sports presenter, who has been accused of beating his partner (now ex) to the point she needed a wheelchair for a little while. They brokered a deal that saw him pay her in excess of $100,000 to compensate her loss of wages, emotional trauma and confidentiality about the incident. Within a year he is marrying someone else and so is she. She had a nervous breakdown, left her well paid managerial position at Vodafone and went AWOL for a couple of months while she recuperated. It reminded me of a time in my life when my daughters father spent a night giving me a beating and making me crawl on the floor like a dog, threatening to kick my head in if I dared look at him. Charming. Needless to say, I did survive that prick and I'm 100 per cent certain that there will never be a repeat performance of that bullshit, ever.

I feel a bit of anger about this report. It reminds me of a time and a place in my own life. My daughters father came to her 21st, I look at him and I feel less than nothing. I could care less if he was there or not, when he dies I will think more of my daughter without a father than I will about him. He is a negative space to me, always will be.

I have just watched the sports presenter give a press release. He's trying to hold it all together. His statement was well said, but I imagine that a media person wrote it because he's been out of the limelight for three days preparing this polished performance.

I am cynical. I know he's hugely embarassed and remorseful, but is that because of the front page media attention? I imagine that he would continue being the cheeky, chipper, little, 'boys club' larrakin he portrays on TV every night. I think public shame is a good thing for men that beat women (actually anyone that beats anyone). I could think of a lot worse punishments.....

H2

7.04

Its 7.04am, pitch black , no sunrise and cold, vicious witch fingers will pick at me if I step outside.
I told my sister I would pick her up at 7.30....I doubt it.
Winter gets harder as I get older. I am meant to be splashing around in the waves somewhere, in unbearable heat and there is no sign of rain, damp, howling winds and chilly blasts from Antarctica. I have missed my fate, somehow I took a wrong turn and ended up here, in the South Island in the middle of Winter. I know that was a contradiction......fate and wrong turns, but if you read earlier posts you will know that I have a contradictory nature, so there.
I have barely slept. Not because I'm cold, just because my mind is working overtime.
I have a full day ahead but none of it makes my blood pump. I feel quite alone. I miss my best friend. When she passed away last year she left a cavern - huge and monstrous in proportion. A never to be repeated act of energy, much like Haleys comet, you might see it once in your lifetime. I must admit, I have on a couple of occasions wondered why I stay here.

I miss her. I miss her because there is no one else in my life anywhere near what her friendship offered me. This might seem callous, but the remaining friends are like cardboard cutouts in comparison. A typical outing would go something like this - breakfast at Lemon Squeeze, buying fruit and vege for the week at the local markets, making earrings at Bead World and then a visit to the local hardware giant to look at bathrooms and learning about the latest in DIY.
Our interests were expansive - good food, good books, art, travel, a session of reiki, a reading, fashion, sewing, foreign films, DIY, cooking and glamour. And all the while talking and talking. Philosophy, analysis, conclusion and vision.

You have fallen and I can not pick you up. I can not offer you a hand or a shoulder to lean on. I can not follow. I can not find you here on earth.
Much Love

h2

phones

I have a phone interview today. I'm not a fan of phones, because I can't see their faces and they can't see mine. All the finer communications are in body language and facial expression.
This vital clue is missing over the phone. BUT I have to make do with the situation because an alternative wasn't offered. The position is with a provincial museum, so I don't imagine there was a huge budget to work with. In saying that its a provincial musuem, its one of the more modern ones, good exhibition spaces, solid staff and and a couple of hours drive from the big city.
I was born in this region so it has the footprint on my memory. I'm going to try and convey my personality, knowledge and capabilities over the phone. My goal is to intrigue them enough to fly me up to meet face to face. If I can achieve that, I might seal the deal.
Anyway, from past experience, its not good to be put all of my hopes in to one basket. I am realistic about my chances, but damn, I'll give them something to think about. And I think that's my attitude for interviews, give it my all for the hour and then let it go. I have a meeting with a couple of artists after that. I know by the time I pull out of the driveway in my car I will be mentally moving on to the next meeting.
tally ho chaps

h2

Into the light

I read some blogs and I envy the lightheartedness of them. My blog is for the dark, it is all about my darkness. It is anonymous and non-revealing in a name, place and location sort of way.
It reveals the inner workings of my mind. My blog illuminates my strengths and weaknesses, my vulnerability and my contradictory nature, my stubborness and my fears. It is for that reason that I can barely write anything else. This blog is not for gaiety and giggles, its a place to dump and leave behind. I chose to do it publicly and anonymously, contradicting myself constantly because of the internal struggle to share and be private all at the same time.
My mind works in overdrive constantly. It whirs and spins, redirecting thoughts, patching bad memories, plastering over old ways, gluing together patchwork thoughts and random feelings that seep from cracks in the past. I function and carry on, working furiously but never as furiously as my mind, because my mind is always a step ahead. It takes sharp left turns when it feels discomfort approaching. When I try and think back to the blank pages in my memory, my mind will not allow passage. Some gates are locked forever. I'm sure this happens to many people, in fact, I know it does. Every now and then I will don my battle gear, put on my sheild, leggings, grab a spear and head into the darkness with a fiery torch. I go to find the demons that have haunted the darkest corners of my mind all my life. Sometimes I actually manage to kill one, most times I come back with nothing but the scent of something still buried deeper, further than I can find. I want to drag them into the light. Have them scorched alive and killed like vampires in the morning sun. But typically, I even have the answers to that scenario. So what if I kill them? it is the memory of them that keeps me bound. The memories that hold me captive. I am my own Captor, I am my own Jailer, I am my own Dictator.
The mind is a saviour and an oppressor, a fine balance of freedom and slavery.
Its tiring to be so bound to my thoughts, I go to work to find some respite in purpose and action.
Today I end my post by stepping in to the light of day, I'll try not to look back too often.

h2

Jetsam

I'm pissed off. I got a GST notice today that I owe $1000 to the tax dept. Not so bad you might think. I don't have $1000, I can barely make my mortgage payments....
I rang my accountant, I may as well be talking to an orange. I'm pretty sure hes filling in the numbers but not actually working for me. Just taking the money, punching in numbers but not looking out for my business. Slacker.
I have applied for jobs all over and I feel like jetsam, no control, just going with the flow, bumping up against stuff, bumping off and floating away.
This bullshit gets to me. I don't like things so lose. I am adrift in the stream of life and sometimes it aint so pretty. The other day I created summer in my day. Today I am in bill land. I am doing all I can to get another job, but I'm scared its not coming. I stepped off a year ago, but now that I am trying to step back on....it aint so easy.
I have three weeks, I'm counting and I'm working on it.
I'm looking at that panic button really carefully, I'm not ready to scream but I'm doing the warm up exercises. Fuck this, I'm not going down without a fight.
Maybe being cornered is a good thing, because I'll definitely come out fighting.
Rowing.

H2