Out Of My Tree

I had big plans for being asleep about 2 and a half hours ago.  But it’s too hot.  I know.  I’m talking about temperatures that would make a Californian or Floridian (is that right?) put a sweater on but I am English and the Summer came all of a sudden… surprising everyone… and now we are all feeling… er… sticky.

I would like to thank everyone for their help yesterday.  I have decided to take another look at the song next week when the evil hormone has left my system…

I have been looking at ways to entertain myself (which I think is part of the grumpiness issue - boredom).  I think if I get a hobby or something I will feel more stimulated and therefore more… alive.

More alive would mean more energy and then… hopefully… a real opportunity to exercise properly and look less like the Michelin Man.

I am considering buying  a bike.  It feels like a good idea except for the looking like an idiot and drowning in sweat everytime I go down the road… but I have to do something as the bus is becoming irksome.

Today it was less ‘bloody kids’ and more totally gross.

Some guy got on with a weird looking carrier bag full of something and sat down at the front.  And then the bag split just a little but enough…

To let a couple hundred live maggots out onto the floor.

The guy got off the bus and everyone moved to the back.  The driver didn’t know what we knew so couldn’t figure out why we were all making odd comments and got a bit ’snotty’.

The maggots started crawling up the bus towards us.  I have NEVER been so glad to get to my stop.

But… having to walk through them was so horrible it’s… yep… making me throw up a little.

Dammit.  Now I’ve got to shower again.

Ugh.

written by bec \\ tags: gross bus, heatwave, sticky

Okay. I need some help - I think we all know that to be true. The way my mind and mood and all that palaver is at the moment I need to check one thing to be true, because I nearly very much lost my cool today…

Over a campfire song.

This is the offending item:

The Indians they are
High minded
Bless my soul
They’re double jointed
They climb hills and
Don’t mind it
All day long

As soon as I saw this my Political Correctness alarm went off. Especially considering that this is to be sung by children. Am I being too sensitive or is this one of those songs that should be deleted from any list that it appears on? To me it just feels offensive… Am I losing my mind?

The second thing I need hep about is from someone who has/ had ties with a Boy Scout of America Troop. To explain. My brother has nearly finished all his work for his Scout Leader Warrant. He needs to do one more section - International. He is doing the good ol’ US and is going to host a meeting filled with all things American on… wait for it… July 4th! He needs help with any traditions, games, activities, food or anything else that the Boy Scouts of America may do/ have at their meetings… any help would be greatly appreciated!

Also it was decided today at work that I should get into politics and become Prime Minister… There are a lot of things that need sorting out - like a careful rota for people with buggies to go out when other people don’t need to use the streets… and making it a crime to use Marks and Spencers at lunch time to do your weekly shop… or not buy lunch.,,

Obviously an overhaul of the NHS and schools - how would I pay for this?

Every single time someone complains about a mobile phone being used to play music without the use of headphones the manufacturer of the phone gets fined a billion pounds? A little excessive? No… no… no… And the person holding the phone at the time gets headphones surgically implanted in their ears.

Another thing that I’m sure will be a vote winner is my new improved punishment for litter droppers (this will include dropping ash from a cigarette on the ground). They get the choice of an on the spot fine of £1000 (for anything smaller than a Mars Bar wrapper (anything larger and it’s £5000 an item) or 120 hours picking up litter dressed as an animal of the local Judge’s choice.

There was a suggestion for Chav parks, like Dog Parks - sectioned off parts of public parks where the idiot children of Britain can hang out safely away from the good people. These would be surrounded by the lovely mosquito teenage alarms just in case they tried to escape… and they would have to be dropped off and picked up by their parents.

Oh and for the little sods that did manage to annoy anyone? A 2 year stint in either the Army or a tough boarding school… if their grades slipped to the Army they go…

It’s a start. Who wants to be my campaign manager?

written by bec \\ tags: Boy Scouts of America, campfire song, policies, Politically correct, prime minister

Well today two things happened. One, I drank a huge amount of coffee starting with an early morning bucket and ending up with a just smaller than a bucket. This achieved nothing but made the shaking in my hands slightly more rhythmic. The other thing that I did was ring the hospital to see about my PCOS treatment plan appointment. I was informed I was given that in April. I said, incredulously ‘the only appointment I was given in April was for August and you can’t mean…’

Oh yes they can.

So. I know I have it but there is nothing to be done about it for another three months. How does this make me feel?

See? Now that’s why I don’t draw.

written by bec \\ tags: drawing, i am a bad drawer, waiting

I have been staring at you al day and still you don’t notice the tears in my eyes, still you don’t notice the pleading in face.

I have been staring at you all day with your rejection of every new thought and expectation I have.

You have no comprehension of anything going on inside me and still I feel closer to you than anything else.  Still I feel you will understand eventually and everything will be okay - or at least manageable.

You get it, right?  How I know without a doubt that everyone on the planet must be bored of me by now?

You get the fact that everything inside me has turned to lava and I am breathing fire?

You get the way my skin is crawling right off my body leaving me raw with nerves tingling and oh so sensitive?

You get it but won’t let me know for some reason which only you know and which I, stiffening into a statue face screaming silently.

I am sorry for not being who you expect me to be. I disappoint myself daily.

written by bec \\ tags: disappointment, Sorry

Well the mood swing really hit today. I went from ‘calmer than a calm thing in zen’ town through ’snappy bitch type toy dog creature biting people’s ankles’ land and ‘floods of hot angry tears’ ville arriving at ‘too tired to care than I’m weeping and looking like an idiot’ city.

The hormone thing I am taking is supposed to kick start my menstrual cycle again. They warned me that it would affect my moods (and it even offers caution against taking it with a history of depression) so I knew to expect everything to fall a little blue but this is ridiculous. It is even falling over into my blog world. In the past week I have…

• …made less sense than usual;
• …put out a half finished thought;
• …been even lazier than usual;
• …been preachy;
• and been self pitying

and have been hiding the shooting pains that have been emanating from my ovaries; the sick feeling, the dizziness, the cough (which has torn my throat lining so now I have a bad sore throat) and the horrible disappointment that nothing has appeared yet. I haven’t felt like a ‘real’ woman for years because of the no-period thing, having a reason for it is great but the little white pills were supposed to bring back the monthly reminder of my feminine status. Now I am one day off finishing the dose of pills and nothing has appeared I feel even less like a woman and more like a blob who can’t even get responding to medication right. And I know different people react in different ways but I am marinading in my irrationality at the moment.

I have also not received a new appointment from the Gynae clinic to discuss my PCOS so no treatment plan has been set for that, and when I rang them on Friday they didn’t even know that I was supposed to have one. Doesn’t bode well.

And things in general are disappointing me. I am amazed at how behind the times some people are proving to be and how naive they are. And how offensive some people are whether or not they mean to be.

I find myself biting my tongue so much I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen off. My whole body is shaking with anger and resentment and I just wan to lash out. It’s worse than it was six weeks ago and I know it isn’t doing my blood pressure any good. My heart was beating so hard earlier I felt like I was physically jumping with the pulse.

I have been trying to manage my depression without medication for about five and a half years now and it hasn’t worked. I have drifted between feeling too good for words and hopeless. Part of me knows that this is ‘just a phase’ but I am finding it increasingly difficult to function through this phase. If I look back at my diaries I can see it is usually around this time of year that the phases spiral out of control.

And I can’t see a way out of this.

Damn. There’s the self pity again.

written by bec

All day I have been sat outside with my Mac, a jacket, the cat, and a continuous flow of plum and pomegranate tea. Yes, it has been a little chilly, but the sun was out for most of it.

Why, you may ask, why was I doing this stupid thing? The answer is short and quite dumb.

I have a lot of work to do and I thought I would get distracted less if I sat outside. Yes. Dumbass.

The birds were singing loud enough to be heard over my headphones and there were buzzing and flappy things all over the plants that surrounded me. About 9 million neighbourhood cats came to point out my mistakes and I was almost hit in the head by a football from the ‘delightful’ children. I think everyone in the local vicinity decided that today was the day they were doing to cut, strim, hoover or blow their grass away, and the idiots on the road decided that revving their cars was the thing to do today.

Yeah, outside was the place to be today,

And I got nothing done, so now I feel guilty about the hour and a half I took off to watch Doctor Who and Confidential. But, boy, was that good!

written by bec \\ tags: distractions, inside good, outside bad

When the party in power loses 331 seats and comes the third place in local elections, a person who has hated being under that parties rule for 11 years, watching the education system in this country be destroyed and everybody’s life getting harder… that person might open a bottle of wine and have a little drink.

But when that person also discovers that the Conservative candidate for the London Mayoral election, Boris Johnson , is also on his way to winning (they haven’t announced at the time of writing but, fingers crossed) one begins to dance a little.

Yes, he says things he shouldn’t but sometimes he talks a lot of sense.

On trains - 2002:

"I forgot that to rely on a train, in Blair’s Britain, is to engage in a crapshoot with the devil.";

On obesity - 2004

"There is absolutely no one, apart from yourself, who can prevent you, in the middle of the night, from sneaking down to tidy up the edges of that hunk of cheese at the back of the fridge."

and anyone who says they feel

"Tremendous, little short of superb. On cracking form."

and

"My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters."

after being sacked gets my vote.

Update: They just announced - he bloody won !

Come on Gordon - announce the General Election! End our suffering and yours! Don’t make me make the chicken noises again!

written by bec \\ tags: Boris Johnson, Gordon Brown - loser, Mayor of London, UK local elections

Yes, the site’s gone a lurid shade of green. It’s Spring don’t you know?! There’s sunshine and blossom on the trees and birds tweeting all bloody day. People are taking their jackets ff, the trendies are wearing large sun glasses that make them look like flies and there is a smell of fake tan lotion about.

On a day like today how could I not add in this video? (NSFW)

Yeah, that’s all I got. See, my minds still in last month’s zone.

Oh, BTW, I am really very very very very sorry about not visiting your blog. The hormone pills are wiping me out… just as my life gets busy. But it’s a Bank Holiday weekend so I’ll be there to love and comfort you… or something.

written by bec \\ tags: First of May, Jonathan Coulton, spring

So, back when I started this month I had big intentions of revealing all. I wanted to be open and honest about everything. Lay it all on the line. Put my cards on the table etc.

Then life, as it invariably does, got in the way. So, it all went a little by the way side. So I wanted to talk today about the reason for the last month.

Yes, the reason for it all kicking off was to support Carly ’s excellent book (available right here ) and there was the small matter of raising some money for RAINN ; but as well as a good excuse for turning the heat up on some of our blogs and having a good laugh (and future Christmas present ideas ) it has also been to bring the quite serious, and sometimes overlooked subject of Sexual Assault and Rape to the forefront.

1 in 4 women suffer rape or attempted rape.

The most common rapists are current and ex-husbands or partners

1 in 7 married women said they had been forced to have sex compared to 1 in 3 divorced or separated women

91% of women told no one

97% of callers knew their assailant

Less than 7% had reported the assault to the police

Source: www.rapecrisis.org.uk

Less than 7%. Now look at this chart - the official figures and projections made by the Home Office in 1999.

Scary, isn’t it?

So dig deep and help where you can.

Kevin , you done good.

Donate to RAINN (Put GBBMC08 in the info box!)

GBBMC08 Homepage

written by bec \\ tags: GBBMC08, rape statistics, Sexography, sexual assault

Why do they call them side effects?  This makes them sound like they just stay out of the way, slightly to the left of you, ignorable.

What brain dead moron though that ’side effects’ was a good name for the unholy crap the pills I am taking are putting me through?

So, as I get over the dizzy, tiredness thing from the Ramipril (High Blood Pressure meds) I have to start taking the Provera (magic pill that is supposed to kick start my menstrual cycle again (after 10 years)).  Well, today I have had more dizziness and a weird feeling in my fingers (like they didn’t belong to me), hellish cramps, headache, extreme irritability, low worthless feeling, tiredness all day but am now (NOW!) wide awake, feeling sick and starving at the same time and total inability to concentrate on anything.

It’s been so long since I’ve done ‘the cycle’ that I can’t remember if any or all of this is normal.  maybe I’m freaking out over nothing?  Oh I hope so.

I was talking about the diagnosis with someone at work and I joked about having a hysterectomy - ‘just whip it all out and have done with it’ and she looked at me like I had just suggested chopping my head off.

Work Woman: ‘But you can’t do that
Me: Why?
WW: You wouldn’t be able to have a child!
Me:  That’s fine, I don’t want one.
WW: That’s silly, every woman wants a child.
Me: (after long pause thinking about the possibility) Nope, couldn’t have one - too selfish and far too scared.
WW: Of what?
Me: Failure - bringing a child up in this world takes more responsibility and guts than I will ever have.  I’m just not that brave.

That seemed to stop her in her tracks, probably as she couldn’t disagree.  The thing is over the last few years I have accepted that I may never have a child and have realised that I am fine with it.  She asked if I get broody? Of course I do.  I have moments of wanting nothing more than to feel that unconditional surrender but then it goes back into the never-never jar, along with my lingerie modelling career.

I’d make one hell of an aunt though

written by bec \\ tags: broody, not wanting a child, Provera, side effects