The cold is really kicking my arse. My legs get weak and trembly after walking a block. Headachy, sore muscles, general crappyness. It’s a cold, I’ll survive, just sucks at the time.

I have become addicted to rice noodles. I make two meals with them. Both are technically soup, I suppose. One is more soupy than the other. That one is also a cheat, I use a pre-made paste, the Tom Yum Soup. I then add a load of mushrooms and some prawns and then ladle it over the noodles. It’s very spicy which I love. The other one is made from scratch. I made up a stock out of cheap chicken, thighs or drumsticks, whatever is cheapest and has bones in it. I make a really tasty stock and then get a good load of chicken meat. So the stock is the base of the soup, and I throw in some shredded ginger, chillies, the chicken and since I don’t have any bok choy, I add a few handfuls of frozen spinach. It’s a tasty soup/meal.

The other day, in a fit of boredom I wasted some time organising all my social network type sites. In doing that I found out someone I used to know removed me from their journal’s friend list. Now it doesn’t worry me, but I think if I had seen it a few months ago, I might have been upset by it. There was a time when we considered this person a good friend, and many of us had taken the risk of getting to know them on that personal level, as individuals not just as Shire. So I think there would have been hurt that all meant nothing to them. Of course, I am also aware that they probably have a lot of things to bitch about me. I’m not perfect, not even close, I’m not nice or a wonderful friend, so they probably felt I’d ruined everything. Blah. But well now I’ve moved on. I hold a grudge sure, as in there is no way to repair the damage done, there are hard feelings, but I am not going to get bogged down in it.

Another woman has stopped being my friend too lately. The woman in the next office that refused to respect my right to say no. I stayed strong and assertive and kept saying no as she pushed and pushed. In the end she got all tearful and said she was going to cry, well maybe she should have respected me when I said no to her giving me money the first time. Anyway, since then she won’t speak to me, she makes remarks when I’m in hearing, and told my office mate that she only agrees with me because I’d make my office mate’s life too difficult. It was all very dramatic and annoying and I have set a boundary I’m not willing to cross. She doesn’t like that. And I just don’t care.

It does make me wonder sometimes about my ability to attach. Sean talks about it not being a lack of attachment but rather me being avoidant of attachment. Although I do have attachment disorders, he also says I probably have an ambivalent attachment style when looking at the normal spectrum. I do sometimes worry that I can walk away without much pain or regret. I sometimes worry I got over my grief too long. I hold onto my anger and pain but let go of my connections. But at the same time, it seems normal to me. It is how I am.

I want soup but I don’t think my body will let me.

And to share.. here’s Jakes big up crane.

A link to my public ranty journal. It’s basically what it says on the tin, a rant about gender stereotypes in my Doctor Who.

Deb, I’m going to DC to visit with Sassy, and hopefully Lea. The plan is to do a detailed blog about it with lots of writing and photos and shit (ok not literal shit).

Lea. Great thought about the toothbrush and face cloth. I’m travelling for at least 30 hours and 45 minutes (if my base 60 math is good). Regardless I’m so going to feel sticky and stinky by the time I get to LA. I have a habit of packing too much when I travel, so I might have to bug Sassy more when it’s closer to the time. And yeah, Dunedin isn’t known for heat or humidity, I’m going to have to be careful not to whine too much. I’m looking forward to being able to tell people how stinky the reflective pool is, maybe that’s my juvenile humour.

To everyone, thank you for not pointing out I don’t know my days in a month. Now I just think the whole world needs to change so there is actually a 31st of June.

And yeah this shows I don’t know how to reply to comments on this template.

I have another journal (actually we have a lot), but this one is for those politic and social rants. The reason I created a separate page is sometimes I wanted to say stuff, but didn’t want people to read everything else. I have said to people before, oh I ranted about that in my journal and then had to fake and distract when they said they wanted to read it. This way, they can read all my political and social rants without hearing about my sex life or insanity.

The reason I bring this up. Recently on a feminist site I subscribe to there was a post how we should celebrate Thatcher’s achievements because she’s a woman, rather than what we feel her policies were. I disagreed, and therefore ranted here if you want to read

I was going to write here about the colloquium but now I feel it is too complicated and yeah, too significant to just tack on, so the colloquium will get its own post… soon.

This is what I’m meant to be doing on Friday… hence the panicked screaming

From the website

Forthcoming Events

At a Crossroads: Reconsidering Gender and Identities, Research Colloquium, 4-5 April 201

At a Crossroads: Reconsidering Gender and Identities proposes to address the current state of gender, sexuality, and identity studies across a number of academic disciplines. The colloquium seeks to highlight research that considers the core questions and challenges surrounding the concepts of gender and identities today, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches to their study.

We expect to compile and publish a collection of the presentation paper abstracts in advance of the colloquium and to publish a selection of refereed papers following the colloquium.

The submission deadline for presentation of abstracts of 250 words is 20 November 2012
Organizing Committee contact details

The Organizing Committee is: Armando Alfaro, Erin Grant, Hilary Radner

If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us: gender.crossroads@otago.ac.nz
This colloquium is sponsored by the following entities at the University of Otago

Department of History and Art History; Division of Humanities Research Network Cultures, Histories and Identities in Film, Media and Literature; Comparative and Cross-Cultural Studies Research Theme; Department of Sociology, Gender and Social Work.

And as a parting gift, here is what Dunedin always looks like.

I was about 11 when I worked out people actually wrote books. Looking back now I think I was a little slow, I just thought they came to the shop written, not that someone wrote them. From that moment all I wanted was to be a writer. Now I doubt I’ll achieve that. Not as I saw it. It is highly unlikely I’ll ever get to publish the great NZ novel. I still write for fun, I still occasionally post stuff I write online for others to read. But last week something big happened. I submitted an academic journal article for publishing. It will be peer reviewed (probably returned with recommended changes) and then published. It is a co-authored piece, but my name is the first author. I am going to be published. It might not be the same as a work of fiction, but man it’s a big deal for me.

The big news. I am going to America in three months. I get on a plane on the 31st of June, and get back in NZ on the 18th. I have the usual fears. Will they like me? Will her family think I’m an obnoxious rude odd woman? Will her friends like me? Will she think I’m faking or just too annoying? Those things sound like huge fears, but they aren’t really. It is just standard fare with me when I think about other people. So I’m used to it, and it isn’t weighing me down or making me worried. I do also worry about missing a plane connection and ending up in Peru, but I think that’s just a little bit of paranoia.

I have my tickets, my passport and my visa (I didn’t tick yes to being a terrorist or a Nazi war criminal as much as the evil part of me really wanted to lol). I have looked into the airport shuttle, that it’s door to door and have money set aside for that. I have a list of things I need to purchase, ie a toilet bag with dove soap and shampoo, a power adaptor, a nightshirt, pineapple lumps and crunchie bars. I’m going to go to the doctor and get a couple of anti-anxiety meds for the long haul part of the journey (12 and half hours to LA). Things I still have to work out; is my suitcase still viable (been a while), whether to take my laptop, what am I going to do on the plane for so long. All the preplanning probably sounds a little boring, but I tend to think of it all as part of the journey.

What am I hoping to do over there? I do want to walk around the Mall, see the big guy in the chair and the big uppy thing. There are a couple of museums I’d like to go to, and the gardens and zoo sound like they could be a nice walk, since it’s summer and walking is good for you. But mostly I’m just looking forward to spending time with friends, to be able to talk in person, I want to cook for them, and watch nerdy stuff together, get to know them in ways that you really can’t online. (Then they need to find me a job, a home and a visa so I never have to come home *chuckle*)

I’m planning on taking an excessive amount of photos and keeping a travel journal.

Decided to post this now, because I’m feeling really despondent and morose and negative about my life. Part of putting this up is to remind myself that it isn’t all so gloomy and it isn’t always so bad. Another part is I don’t want to see this and in a drama queen moment of everything is really crap, delete it. If there are other things that were suppose to be including on this, hopefully they will still show up.

The above link is about my neighbour. It is so not investigative journalism. In fact it is missing so many salient facts.

One: these flats are one room. Not one bedroom, one room. They are specific for one person. This is made clear when you move in. Yes you could have someone stay the night. I have had someone stay a couple of nights, but no one else is allowed to move in. The woman had her sister live with her for months two years ago. Was found out, and told it was against the rules. She was given a free slide, the landlord said he’d let it go that time. Now she’s done the same thing. The people living here are either the elderly or those with mental health disabilities. We generally need our own space and quiet. She never considered anyone else.

The kids had not boundaries. They are kids they don’t, but they weren’t reinforced. They climbed into other people’s balconies, and would enter other people’s homes without asking. No one asked how other residents felt about having to put up with the noise and disruption.

A landlord is a landlord. He isn’t there to fix your life, to be a compassionate ear. He is there to ensure that all the city council flats are run to the tenancy agreements and everything is done properly. The fact that her family is struggling is sad, although my sympathy is limited by her bragging about her son’s criminal activities. But it is also not the landlord’s responsibility to fix that.

Going to the newspaper to get sympathy just doesn’t impress me.

So years ago we recognised the pattern, and we now work to protect and soothe, to make it through with minimal damage. It is a time we used batten down, hide to protect ourselves, and other’s image of us. The people I work with, share a floor, an academic relationship with, they do not have to see me go crazy, they do not have to deal with someone out of touch with reality. And yeah, more importantly I don’t want them to connect that crazy with me, I don’t want them reassessing how they think of me with the new knowledge.

So for every year my way of dealing is to remove myself from the world. It may not be winning any awards for healthy recovery but it worked. This year the same as all the rest? What do you think? Of course not, no, instead, we find ourselves committed to giving a seminar presentation a week after Good Friday. We have to stand in front of a group of people and hope enough time has passed that we no longer start hallucinating.

How did this happen? Lazy contentment. No one bothered to check when the presentation would be, no one thought, hey remember Easter. I am use to the routine now. The craziness is there, but it is expected, there is a routine about it. Cause and effect crazy is much easier to negotiate, it’s definable, understandable, and there is established containments.

Sabotage comes in many forms. Not doing the work, destroying the work is usually the most effective, but I also think pushing too hard, forcing myself into a situation I’m not prepared for is another. Doing the presentation isn’t sabotage. It will be hard, and a challenge and yes, damn scary, but that is all part of the journey, of recovery and of academia. Pushing myself to do a presentation at a time of extreme distress, with forehand knowledge of how dysfunctional I will be, that to me connects to sabotage.

And it is an almost perfect Catch-22 situation. If I pull out, then I will end up punishing myself as a failure, as giving into the crazy. It will be a sign of my incompetence, and as much as I would like to believe I have moved beyond it, it will be a weapon to bludgeon myself with. If I do it and fail, the same thing will apply. And here’s an extra degree of crunchy crazy. If I do it, and it goes ok, I will feel lost. I will feel that suffering is what is expected of me, it will reinforce all those messages in my head, and will taint the pleasure I get.

This was not a well thought through plan.

Good sign of the encroaching crazy. Decided to have some chips. Put them on, went to check I thought a few minutes later, chips black in smoking oil. Yay house fires. If I’m going to be all positive spinny on this, at least it shows the improvements in our life. There was a time that was the norm, those gaps and disconnects were how we saw life. Now it is unusual that it happens without any awareness.

There were positives I was going to talk about in this entry, things that are good, I know they are good, under the crumbling weight. And I will return to sharing them when I get my mind turned the right way around. For now even though I know they are good and exciting and I want to share, when I do I am just overrun with negativity and pessimism, more than my standard amounts. I don’t want to write here stuff that even as I write it I know it isn’t true, even when I’m believing it I know it not to be correct.

So I just got a review form for my benefit, but they are not asking for a medical certificate like usual and I’m having a dreadful panic attack, I feel sick, because I’ve convinced myself they will cut off my benefit. I worked 7 hours recently, ended up having major mental health issues because of it and didn’t work the next day like I said I would, but still I worked. So maybe they are going to be pissed, I don’t know. I’ve never not had to give a medical certificate before. I’m almost in tears about this and they haven’t actually cut my benefit. Not sure how to handle it.

My office mate seeing the McDonald’s bag decides to go there with her sister for lunch. On their way out I call out to ‘bring me back an ice cream’. I wasn’t expecting them to get me an ice cream. I had forgotten these people don’t know me, don’t know comments like that are meant to be laughed off. I was standing in the hallway when they return, with an ice cream. Two things happen in conflict. Panic and joy. The panic is the more complicated, the more confusing. But the joy is persistent, demanding. While the panic sets up conflicting arguments, joy makes compromises. The ice cream gets eaten.

About halfway through the ice cream I realise giving in to joy was a bad idea. Panic became fear that quickly became trauma and remembrances. The day spent with flashbacks and nightmares and retaliation and resistance. This morning I thought I had come out the other side, I had my muesli bar for breakfast and was able to bite and chew and swallow without distress. But then a minute later, the taste of apricots and nuts was replaced by bugs and dirt and death.

But hey, I ate an ice cream like a normal person, so that’s all that matters right (and for those that don’t recognise it, that was sarcasm).