...and all that jazz!

I've been thinking about this word lately, community! Do I live in a community? I'd say of course, but on second thought I don't really think so, I think we live in some strange reality where posting embarrassing personal crap for the whole world to see is accepted behavior, but smiling and saying good morning to a stranger is downright weird!

Not that I really mind the internets, I actually kinda love it, but I guess it's a love/hate relationship.
On the one hand I have made some fantastic friends, friends that I don't really know, people who's blogs I've been reading for more years then I care to count. These people are kindred spirits, a reassuring reminder that I'm not alone with my crazy thoughts and absurd ideas. I am better for 'knowing' these people, they make me laugh and they help me cry and this clears the air in my private breathing space somehow!
And yet, I can't help but feel anxious about the lack of actual physical interaction, something which, for me, does not come naturally at the best of times, let alone when I live solely through the computer, especially because I tend to be more of a reader then a writer.
I did start this extended sentence with 'on the one hand' so here's the other hand, why does every communication panel, like facebook and twitter and stuff ultimately change into a shitfest of some sort. Something that starts as an excellent venue for staying in touch somehow morfs into this slandering, gossiping, product-plugging labyrinth of funny cat videos, which also somehow becomes the only way to communicate with friends and family, if your not there you're stuck in the square and can't get out!

I know this post has quickly turned into some sort of anti internet thing, but actually this is my attempt at communicating my frustration with the lack of community in my immediate surroundings.
For some reason, we interpret everything as a competition, nobody helps his fellow man anymore. I don't understand this, doesn't my survival depend on yours, isn't it in my interest to help you survive, I help you, so that you help me, because I helped you to help me, so that I'd help you.......

This is especially true in my little country, and apparently extraordinarily so in my chosen career. For some reason everybody is copying everybody else and nobody dares tell anyone about their ideas. Makes sense, naturally I went to art school so that I could copy others, it has nothing to do with MY creativity or a need to express what's in MY head.
Seriously, wouldn't it be much better to share our great ideas and help each other, I could help you realize your dream and then I could count on you to help me get some of my dreams out there! We could totally benefit from this, There is such an opportunity for growth and development, but noooo, don't you dare ask what I am making, don't show interest, don't even fucking smile, you weirdo!

Bleh, I totally suck at expressing myself, there are all these thoughts rattling around in my brain, so much I want to do, live responsively, be mindful, recycle, help my neighbour, SAVETHEWORLD, frack, small steps, right, right?

overhaulage!

Sometimes it's just so strange, and basically fucked up to be a human being. Not to mention actually taking proper care of yourself. I know that trying to find yourself is the most outdated lame thing ever, but that seems to be what I am continuously trying to do! I feel like I am still the 19 year old I was over a decade ago, a decade is a long bloody time to mostly lose, you know what I mean, I was there and then all of a sudden I was here and now!

Lately I've been sinking uncomfortably far into my old depression hole, and I really don't have time for that shit! After sinking far too deep I managed to haul myself out, apparently despite my enormous self-destructive shoulder devil, I actually have survival instincts. For the first bloody time I realized and I mean realized, not just knew or read about or was told, that I am my own master, I am in charge and it happens to be pretty much up to me what happens in my life! (oh wow, how many self-help book seekers are accidentally going to find this shit). Absolute ages ago I found out that yoga does for me what xanax does, and then some. However, because I am a total eejit, I think about the yoga, then I don't do it, then I feel guilty, then I start beating myself up about it and leather, rinse repeat until I drown in self loathing and pity.
So, this is what I'm doing, yoga every day, sometimes little sometimes a lot but always some, this is the first priority and it means that I am putting myself first, before boy, before Z, before work, this works in the manner of putting the gas mask on your own mug before attending to your child!

le confusede artiste

So, I've been trying to decide what to do when I grow up. I'm 33, with a husband, a kid and a hefty mortgage, but I still haven't really decided what I want to do with my life!
When I finished high school there was no doubt in my mind, I was going to be an artist (or, ahem, artiste!)it was pretty much my life, drawing and sculpting, I'd forget to sleep sometimes, too busy drawing! Then, life interfered, in a big way, and here I am, an arsenal of odd jobs in my bag, a fair few languages rolling around in my head and a desperate need for some roots.
I think I've pretty much got the roots down, home is where the heart is and all that, as for the rest, I feel completely lost!
The reason for bringing all this up, well, I'm seriously thinking about going to school, and not just a couple of fiddly courses either, we're talking full blown, (also, full time, GAH) art school, student loan and all.
I feel pretty apprehensive about this decision, not only because i haven't exactly been very prolific with the drawing (or anything, really) lately, but also because I don't know if I can do this. I mean, It's been years since I could immerse myself in something like that, and for a long time now I haven't manage to finish anything I've started, sure, I have many different excuses, and some of them perfectly valid, you know, slipped disc, hernia, CHILDBIRTH, but, to be perfectly honest, I'm also just pretty damn lazy and also very easily distracted! Side note; what the frack is it with me and the exclamation marks, they are like an evil addiction! See, did it again! Oh, crap..........
Aaanyway, this art school is pretty expensive and a student loan is a big commitment, but I want this, at least I think I do, oh man. I still have to get in, to the school I mean, I have to turn in a portfolio of sorts, and I think that's a big part of what I find so damn scary, what if I don't get in, will that mean that it's just not for me? And that's the thing you see, if I don't get in I probably wont try again and I don't really believe I'll get in and so why even try, right!
I'm running around in circles, being a total worry wort and I'm going to stop now, it's good to blab about it though, specially since the computer can't roll it's eyes back at you!

taking a stand

It's been almost five months since my last entry and the reason for the time lapse is basically the fact that all I have is leather-rinse-repeat, no change at all! Could've written that last entry yesterday, and frankly that just sucks, in fact, it sucks fat diarrhetic camels ass!

So from now on I've decided that yes, I will mention it if I'm sick, but I'm going to try and ignore it a bit, at least in writing. I want my blog to be about my life and I don't want my life to be all about the snot, cause it's not. So there, take that evil infected head!

The unbearable weight of my head

I am sick, I have a weird head cold which makes my head feel like it's made up of a bag of dumbbells. I am so grateful for play-school at the moment, as much as I am sick of hanging out at home, feeling miserable, I am very happy I don't have to deal with an active toddler as well.

I've been going through a strange phase lately, exaggerated ups and downs, specifically the downs. I seem to be stuck in the same paranoid rut and I don't know how to get out. The whole thing with my back and the hernia and all that is "finished" and I should be trying to get myself back to normal. In fact, I want to get myself passed normal and into fighting fit, I never ever want to be this weak and hopeless again.
The thing is, I don't really know how to start and every time I think I'm getting somewhere, something happens to knock me down. First the boy caught a string of play school ailments, bad enough to make him fuse onto my hip, mutant style. He was feverish, snotty and impossibly whiny, also, sleep was for pussies. Basically the perfect recipe to send mama straight to the couch with a tub of ice cream at every available opportunity.
All of this ended with me getting a bout of pneumonia, which, if I wasn't weak before... hahaha, frack!
It took me two weeks to get out of that one, then I had two weeks where I thought, hey, this is gonna work, I'm gonna get all fit and stuff, and then two weeks in bed again. All this bed rest and sick toddler bouncing, not to mention weight gain, is really bad for my back as well as being excellent food for my insane paranoia about this wretched body part. You see, every time I feel a slight pain or twinge that could possibly be connected with my stupid spine, I feel like I must lie down, ramrod straight, and never move again, you know, just in case! I guess what I'm saying is that I'm scared to live, and that right there really scares me, does that make any sense?

What's also getting to me is that I don't really know how to do things slowly and carefully. If I wanna get fit I just hit the gym and work real hard, and dance like a mad person (I like dancing, a lot), but that just doesn't work anymore. I get sweaty from a 20 minute walk, and the most basic of yoga routines is painful, not just during the actual routine, but throughout the rest of my day! This is very frustrating and for some reason makes me utterly depressed and hungry for unhealthy fattening crap, which of course makes me even more depressed and paranoid and, well well well, what have we here, could it be me, stuck in that rut again!

This is not who I want to be, I've made it through a lot of crap in my life and I know I am really quite strong, I'm at a point where I'm really happy and life is good, I love my boys, we have a fantastic home and a stable income. I want so badly to be able to enjoy this time fully, to be a fun, active mom to my fantastic kid, but my body keeps getting in the way and somehow all I can do is cry about it and make myself more miserable. This whole situation is so self destructive, it's like I'm my own damn nemesis, thwarting my every good move, mwahahaing at my failure to counter attack!

Just stuff

When you're at home with a sick baby/toddler, life gets kinda stuck in limbo, don't you agree. Of course, I'm not talking about the kind of sick where you have to walk around all night long bouncing a screaming baby, thats when you've missed limbo and gone straight to hell!
I am at home with the the boy 'cause he's got an icky cold, nothing serious, just buckets of snot, and it makes life feel suspended somehow, as if the world outside is standing still and, no actually more like the world outside is moving to fast for us and we are confined to our house because we're in slow motion.
Obviously snot makes me all philosophical, and that's not good, too damn boring for one thing!

Because he's such great kid, who basically just wants to colour and read and watch a bit of tv, with the occasional nose blowing request, I've been trying to use my time constructively (haha hahaaahaaahaha, man, that sounds so ridiculous when I say it).
No, serously, I've actually been trying to organize my Christmas baking and experiments with chocolate. Most of the time what happens is that I see something I wanna make, and then something else I like, nomnom, that looks good, and then I start making too many things at once, realize half way through that I'm missing about four ingredients, run to the store (covered in chocolate from head to foot, of course) , without my wallet etc. etc. The result is almost always; too much sweet stuff for two people(too much even for 8 people), sugar overload, great big mess and moi completely exhausted, although very lickable ,what with the chocolate covering.
There is also the fact that I want to give out fancy homemade sweets for Christmas this year, something I've done once before, at 8 months pregnant in fact, when making a great big mess was just a good excuse for eating more chocolate, ahem. This time I want to pick and choose through the millions of varieties and decide beforehand what goes in each box, go to the supermarket with an enormous shopping list and be completely prepared for what will probably turn into an entire week of truffle making.

On a completely different note, I'm parenting pretty much solo this weekend with Mr. McSneezie as Z is in to Akureyri for work until tomorrow night, plus it's his geekweek so he's of early on Sunday for some serious role-playing (haha, the fact that I can say serious and role-playing in the same sentence simply astonishes me). This wouldn't really get to me that much if it wasn't for the snot, cause being stuck at home sucks donkeys ass. Oh well, I guess it just means my boxed chocolates will be so very organized they'll come with order of eating instructions!

Ahem!

Am giving it another go, trying this again or some such crap, that's what I was going to say, but really, everyone knows I'll write this and maybe a couple more entry's and then I'll forget all about it again!

Life is good, hectic, painful and troublesome but mostly good. Kid is growing by leaps and bounds, learning a new word every minute and just basically going from baby to big boy at an alarming rate.

Since my last entry everything has been pretty much turned upside down, we moved out of our much renovated and not even quite finished apartment, which was kinda sad but also really really good. Suffice it to say we had the neighbours from hell and getting rid of them was worth all the hassle.

We now live almost downtown again, in the same area where we rented our first apartment together, and I can tell you it feels like coming home again after being lost in the desert/wilderness/frozen tundra or some other barren nowhere you can think of. Our new place is great, we're still getting settled of course, but this one is definitely for keeps, I think we might grow old here, and it's a good feeling, very calming.

I have been doing ok, I guess, slipped disk, hernia, operation, physical therapy, pneumonia and various other "my boy just started playschool " ailments aside, things are looking up, finally. I just have to figure out how somebody like me does normal exercise, in order to build up a little bit of strength and muscle. Normally I would just go to the gym, workout and maybe think, "man I sure am in bad shape, I should do this more often." At the moment it's more like, "I've just carried my kid up these few steps, hang on for five minutes while I catch my breath, oh and could you just hand me my lungs, they fell out on the fifth step, I think!" So I'm sort off stuck between overdoing it and not doing it at all (the latter bit involves a lot of cake).

I'm going to stop now, keeping it short and sweet in the hopes of more to come.