Larston.

Happy birthday, tart. I adore you.

What did I do without you?

ps. It's Tuesday the 5th where I am, baybay.

Loathing.
...Just continuing on from my last entry.
How do you make your kids love themselves? Yes, yes, we all know that you are supposed to love yourself or no one else will.
OH, POOP. That doesn’t even make sense.
Think about it, when all you feel is self loathing, how do you gain the perspective to love yourself? You don’t wake up one morning and think "Hmmm. Yesterday I was crap, I was the stink on the bottom of a city pigeon’s feet. But TODAY, I will don my Superman cape and let the trumpets sound because I am truly magnificent."
Horsepuckey.
How do you ‘grow’ human beings who like themselves?
As a parent, as a woman, I am very conscious of trying to instil self confidence and self-like in my kid, without having her grow up into an insufferable brat who pulls her dress over her head in public when no one is paying attention to her.
It’s a fine line, isn’t’ it?
I think my folks, being British, tended to downplay accomplishments and worried that too much praise, or perhaps, over-effusive praise, bred braggarts and pompous assholes. So they were pleased with our accomplishments but hardly the type to frame and matt your first scribble and hang it on the wall.
Kids were part OF the family, not the reason FOR the family, if that makes any sense. You were expected to pull your weight, and not expect people to make exceptions or go out of their way for you. You just did what was expected of you, and the expectations were high.
But that’s not a bad thing, and I am not blaming them in any way. We were always confident of being loved and they thought the world of us. We could do anything we set our minds to. Our job as kids was to fulfil our potential.
And they had every right to want that for us.
But it meant that somewhere along the way, I began worrying that I might fail. That's me. Worrying. And extrapolating from that you get, 'well if you might fail, you might have to deal with failure'. So you either over achieve like mad, or don’t bother at all. Either way, you lose sight of what you are actually naturally capable of. It’s all about what other people tell you that you can and cannot do. Your thoughts on the matter are buried. That's the type of kid I was, from the word 'go' - they didn't make me like that, I was always that way. I panicked easily.
Is that any worse than having no expectations for your kids? No.
It’s a thorny thing; it’s a balancing act.
You want a well-adjusted kid who grows into a well-adjusted adult. They need to have expectations set for them. You want them to use every scrap of talent or wit that they possess. You know, so you don’t end up chasing them all over the country with a shotgun and a bail bondsman. Or having their only contribution in life the dubious art of making farting noises with their armpits. Or renting them the bottom 20 ft of your yard so they can pitch their trailer home and make beercan hats. Or having to kick them out of the house at 40 because it is time they learned to pay a utility bill and open a tin of beans. You get the picture.
So how to do it?
How do you raise a child that has some social graces but who isn’t convinced that being social is all that counts? How do you raise a child that values her intelligence but understands that that just because you are smart, smart doesn’t make you right? How do you raise a child that is confident and aware, but understands that not everyone is? And that not everyone gets the chances that she will inevitably blow? And that it’s NOT ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE’S FAULT.
And what if you are a kid who is born shy and born thinking everyone else has it figured out? Seems to me then a big helping of ‘you go girl’ complete with a marching band and majorettes might be something that is required on a semi regular basis. At least until you can supply the majorettes and marching band yourself. And do you ever? Do you ever supply your own cheerleading section if you are one of those people who start shy and painfully self-conscious? Do you grow out of it?
What about those pompous prats that talk too loudly and dress too flashily and move in for the kill on any member of the opposite sex that’s downwind? Did they start out one way, and then their doting mamas turned them into these moral monstrosities through over compensation?
I want to ‘grow’ a strong feisty funny independent smart ‘take no prisoners’ kind of woman who isn’t a ball breaker, who genuinely likes men and women, and who doesn’t think she is the only reason that the sun shines on the planet. I want her to develop empathy and a social conscience and to remember that her looks are an accident, not a moral judgement. I want her to accept her screw-ups and move on, and not hold anyone else responsible when she falls on her ass. But also to know that sometimes, it’s okay to stay in bed and wail ‘it’s unfair’. Because sometimes it is.
So I swing back and forth between screeching enthusiastic praise when she remembers to pick up her toys or attempts to go through the scary dark tunnel at the playground and mortification as she serenaded the bus passengers at the top of her lungs, nodding and smiling to her audience like a pint size Tony Bennett.
Ai yi yi, this parenthood thing is HARD.

Awkwardness.

I was rubbing my kid’s beautiful soft back after her bath, and I thought ‘I hope some day, her lover touches her with as much love as my hands are showing her now’.

They are showing ‘Grease’ on TV. John Travolta is ugly. I don’t care, he is. He was ugly then when he had snake hips, and he’s ugly now when he has a double chin. I might still watch ‘Saturday Night Fever’ though – it’s on later. I was 16 when it came out, and had to sneak into the theatre to see it. I think it was because I wanted to see the sex scene in the car.

I was hopelessly naïve about sex. In fact, I didn’t lose my virginity till I was 18. All around me, girls were shagging like monkeys and I wandered through high school, clutching my books to my chest, composing bad poetry in my head and wishing I was Sylvia Plath.

 I was the kid in the back who knew all the answers but doodled on her books instead. Who actually read the reading assignments in English and decided she was in love with Leonard Cohen.

I actually cut classes to read in the library. I was in such a hurry to grow up and be tortured and brooding.

I look at pictures of myself and I was tall and gorgeous. No lie. I have never looked that good since and will never look that good again. 5’11” and 150 pounds with curves and beautiful skin. And all I felt was ugly and out of step with everything.

I was always a beat behind with teenage culture, and terrified anyone would find out. And I bet I wasn’t the only one.

Self absorption is the curse of the adolescent.

Oh god, I wish I could spare my daughter high school. She’ll either be a hopeless ghost in the halls like me, or some popular kid who makes other little ghosts feel hopeless.

Maybe I should just press the fast forward button when she hits her teens. I’d like to spare her all of that, no matter how character building it may be. It’s not rational, I know.

But it just IS.

Right, those of  you who I know and love, ignore this. It's prostitution. So stop reading now, while you still think you love me.

I run a bulletin board for mothers. I have done some designs for merchandise because dammit, I need the cash. IVF, I broke my ankle and the car just carked it to the tune of $4000 bucks. I've done three designs for stuff, this is the first.  Sorta sums up the board, actually.

http://www.cafepress.com/yash

And no, I am NOT asking anyone here to buy a damn thing. nope, I intend to see how the mamas who belong there respond.

I just want your opinions on whether this is totally cheesy and despicable or not. Think of it like market testing.

A Life.

Get one.

Get a life.

For fucks sakes.

Why are online communities so prickly? So quick to perceive offence?

Listen; are you over the age of consent? Have you lived any sort of life at all?

Can you not just read and move on? Must it all be a drama? Must we agonize over every little fucking word in case some person in lower Buttfuck Idaho gets pissed off at the way we used the word ‘pancakes’? Has everyone lost any ability to take a step back? Can we all just take responsibility for what we say and how we in turn, interpret someone else’s words without having to scrutinize every last nuance?

That’s the beauty of an online community.

You don’t like what’s been written – ignore it. Or post a hearty and hale ‘you are full of shit’. Then off you go, bye-bye, back to your real life. You can do that. You can tell someone to fuck right off and there’s nothing anyone can do. Your fellow board denizens are hardly gonna show up on your doorstep slapping a baseball bat in their hand are they? Huh? They are not likely to phone you at 3am and whisper horrid things into your half-asleep brain. They are not likely to order you 18 pizzas at 3am on a Tuesday morning, or silly string your car or take an ad out in the local swingers paper using your phone number.

What’s the worst that can happen? A nasty email to which you promptly reply ‘and fuck you too’. Then block the address. Ooooh, how scary.

A nasty post on a public board. To which you respond, ‘and fuck you too’ and then ignore that person forevermore. Ooooh, how terrifying.

A lifetime subscription to the Osmonds fanclub newsletter. To which you respond um… er… ‘please remove me from your list’ ( I think). Oooh, makes me want to poop my didies.

Listen.

People.

Write what you feel. If it pisses someone off, say ‘oops so sorry’ if you think it’s justified and then leave it at that. You can do that you know – the Web politzei aren’t hanging over your shoulder making sure you are remorseful enough. Or weeping big fat salty tears of contrition at the monitor screen.

And all the spectators and hangers on and cheerleaders – just butt the fuck out. No one asked or cared what you think. If you had an opinion, you’d have posted your own thread. Instead you are fanning the flames because you are obviously bored stupid with wherever you normally hang out on the ‘net. Go and bang off to wallpapering or clown college sites.

PUHLEESE. Nothing to see here, people. Move along quick smart now.

Is there not enough drama in your real lives?

Explain please, just what is the point?

I for one, have enough drama in my life without being caught up in yours.

 

And those of you who know what I am talking about - nothing in this post is even remotely directed at you. Honest.

Adoration.

And this is the reason I get up in the morning. Even if it is 3am lately.

Ass.

Just so you know, that's where my head is lately. IVF, turning 40 in a month or less, marriage and men and how much I still love them, motherhood and why I scream at my kid when she poops on the rug (guess I am not really a 'positive parent') , moving back to Canada.... I have read comments and will be doing the xanga tour. You know who you are. I'll be there, reading.

Busy.

I got so bored doing nothing but writing boring old technical manuals and cracking the whip at work (I am a systems project manager if you care) that I started my own little marketing and design company. Once upon a time, before I got sidetracked into the world of C+++, Java, SmallTalk and SQL - I had a Graphics Design degree from a rather good art college in Canada. Oh and I also have an MA in English Lit, which seems to allow me to write scathing performance reviews and nice 'piss off' letters to clients when the project has gone (as all systems projects do) over time and over budget.

And now this little company I started is actually making some money by just word of mouth. Holy shit. How odd to end up here.

How on earth did I go from writing my thesis on Jane Austen and designing shaver ads to working in computers - as a project manager no less?

Will it help if I tell you I also have my Canadian Stock Brokers license and have passed my bartenders course as well as have my Outward Bound Instructors course? And have a double BA in Philosophy as well as English? And got a shitload of badges in Brownies?

Does anyone care?

Here's my career timeline:

Go to one university. Major in Politics. Hate it. Decide to be an artist. Get scholarship to Art College. Get 3/4 way through before my brain appears to rot from the inside out. Go back to university. Work my way through school as a bartender in a bar frequented by stockbrokers. Date a couple (nasty,nasty - I am not proud of this). Get offered a job. Decide I will always be poor unless I am not a stockbroker. Pass exam. Finish Art degree part time. Marry a computer nerd who works for a stockbrokerage (but he was cute on the outside anyway). Play Frogger. Decide I can do this. Decide chimpanzees can do this. Get Adult Teaching certificate so I can volunteer at a literacy program to salve my conscience.  Bluff my way into training and development department at stockbrokerage. Lie on visa to Australia. Get residency. Divorce first hub. Get job writing training manuals for small Aussie software company. Meet second hub. Realise that I am reprehensibly materialistic and need the finer things in life after being noble and walking away from first marriage without a penny. See management is where the money is. Bluff my way into first project management job. Suck up to clients who like me. Lots of clients like me.Get pregnant. Go to prestigious management consultancy who dump me when I tell them my kid comes first. So they lost $2300 a day billing - their loss. Get bored at home. Go back to small software company part time directing marketing and managing smallish (<$4million dollar projects). Feel my soul shrinking. Bluff my way into a design job. Work for clients who liked me when the projects I managed went hideously pear shaped cos I never lied to them. Do consultancy in my spare time when I am not working on boring ads for software company, designing web sites for insurance software and running a couple of web boards for over achieving and under achieiving mothers. Do marketing because I like manipulating thoughts and ideas into something visual and tangible.

And here I am. A little bit of everything.

So, anyone wanna talk Jane Austen and Walt Whitman??? I can feel my soul shrinking all over again.

Flaws.

It has been brought to my attention that I am coming across as if I considered myself to be completely without blame in the slow rotting of my marriage.

*Light bulb thought and feet of clay moment*

Well of course I am hardly going to make myself look bad, am I?

 Oops, so much for honesty, I say sheepishly.

So let’s be brutal shall we? Because I am very aware of my participation and contribution to the decline of the union, so to speak. It isn’t pretty.

In keeping with the fad for lists around this place lately:

1. 
   
   I have such high expectations of myself, that I accept nothing less from people I love. This must be terrible to live with. Imagine knowing when you wake up, that you are doomed to failure. That even the simple act of taking out the trash will not be done properly. Ack!(sez Bill The Cat). I am trying my best to accept flaws and warts and farts and all other sorts of mortal stuff about the people who matter to me but let’s face it when you strive for nothing less than perfection, who knows what my twisted mind considers to be ‘settling for less than’. Prolly mixing up the glass and the plastic recyclables. Personally, I’d go back to bed with the covers over my head and pretend daily deafness.


2. 
   
   I wrestle self-loathing on a daily basis. How can this coincide with No. 1, you ask? I have no idea. Perhaps it’s the Groucho Marx in me – I cannot trust anyone who actually thinks I am terrific because I know what a horrendous, weaselly, castrating bitch I can be. So if you love me, you are majorly fucked up, okay? You are obviously substandard cos well, I am, and everyone knows you seek your own level.


3. 
   
   I have little impulse control. That, coupled with a smart mouth – means I am lethal when you piss me off. Unfortunately, the icing on the cake is a widely read mind, which can twist you up in knots as I yank your chain tighter. And yeah. I get a fleeting thrill of victory when I rip out a perfect ‘no comeback’ line. For about 10 seconds. Unless you said something really hurtful to begin with, and then I hug that line to myself all day as you would a cherished toy. And take it out and stroke it when I get an attack of conscience.


4. 
   
   I have an black Irish temper and I have lines that.You. Dare. Not. Cross. I am unforgiving of transgressors, and while I play out the line for a long while on those I love, once that line snaps, fuck you. I have written people off and never lost a moments sleep about it. It is irrevocable once it has gotten to that point.  Bye bye and don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out of my life. Smell ya baybee, here’s a hankie to dry your tears!


5. 
   
   I am a control junkie the likes the world has never seen before. I am better now that I am a mother, cos you try controlling a two year old with an attitude but my god – do I want to make sure that everything is done perfectly and that means. MY. WAY. Or I will rip whatever you are doing out of your hands and do it myself. (Of course, it will be done better and more efficiently, but even I know that isn’t the point. Don’t throw rocks at me, okay? But it will be done better. Oh yes, it will….)


6. 
   
   I am a judgemental cow. Oh not so much about my friends, but with myself. I judge myself constantly and find myself morally suspect or less charitable than I feel I ought to be. I guess I want to be a saint but I am too carnal. I would be a Buddhist if I thought I could drink, smoke and rip off nasty one liners (see No. 3)


7. 
   
   I am responsible for the whole world’s happiness and everyone needs to understand that I take it personally when you are upset. Okay? Are we clear? If you hate my web board, it’s my fault. If you have a fight with a mutual friend – hey, blame it on me, I caused it. Hate your life? Well, dammit – I should have worked harder at making it better for you. Is there world hunger, no rainforests, crap living conditions for the aged/poor and borderline mentally ill? All. My. Fault. I voted wrong, or didn’t volunteer enough. You think I am kidding, I am not. Why on earth else  do I battle depression???

So there you have it – there are more, like I always squeeze the toothpaste from the middle and my hub had to go out and BUY the kind with the attached cap cos I never replace it. I am untidy like a frat boy and prone to secret junk food binges. And I hate sharing. Mine mine mine – look at this as the result of being the oldest in a family of four girls who always wanted to use/borrow/wear my stuff and it sorta makes sense. But really, who can’t share their shampoo for fucksakes? What kind of person HIDES their facial cleanser?

But back to the important shit.

So yeah, while I gaily and vigorously catalogue the hub’s failings, let’s not forget here that I am no Mary Tyler Moore. I am no Tippi Hedren. I am sure some times he comes home and thinks ‘holy shit, she’s on the warpath again’. And searches around for something to hide behind. And in all honesty, who could blame him?

But at least I take responsibility for how I am. When you get to my age, you realise that no one caused you, but you. I made me, no one else did. I can’t blame my parents, my upbringing, or my exes.

I had great parents who loved me and a wonderful home life. I have great sisters who are smart and funny and supportive and live lives that don’t make me gag with moral superiority.

Every ex-man I had was eventually okay. They met and married fine women who I sorta like. And the issues we had were as much mine as theirs.  It takes two to destroy each other. Especially the way we managed to.

Every step of the way, I chose to react the way I did. I chose to hang on to those flaws instead of working on them. Me, just ME.

So where does that leave me? I don’t know. But sure as hell not blameless. Maybe just trying to work things out, one day and one blog at a time.

Tough Talk.

Everyone keeps saying that I need to have my marital issues worked out before I try for another child. Or maybe that I should be getting my hub and myself in order before I start wallowing and hand wringing over my options.

I don’t see it like that at all.

Why the fuck do I need to work things out with him? At worst, he’s the sperm donor, at best; he’ll stick around and be a father and we’ll have survived this, or compromised or something…

I want another child.

I want another child.

I am a terrific mother. I know I am, so what if I am a lousy wife or disinterested lover? When I have all of this to give another kid, and still barrels left over for the wondrous little girl I already have?

When it practically spills out over me every minute of the day, whenever I look at her?

What has my inability to pick adult men as life partners got to do with the capacity I have for mothering and nurturing and educating and laughing and swinging kids up in the air before thumping them down into bed with the mummy-monster? Does it affect my infinite patience when reading ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ in all the funny voices and growls? When I’ve had 3 hours sleep for the second week a row?

I think not.

And before I get the comments about ‘a child needs her father’ – let’s be clear on this. Should my hub and I not make it – I am not advocating hiding my children in a cave somewhere and living on bark and berries so he never finds us. I am not talking about speaking to him through the screen door with a carving knife because I can’t stand to breathe the same air as him.

I repeat, just because he may be a lousy husband and a crappy mate, doesn’t make him a bad father – so why wouldn’t he still be around in a parental capacity? I am still friends with my first husband, who on an asshole scale – is somewhere around the boiling point of steel. I worked on that – I am proud of that, and he worked on that too – we got rid of all the stuff that made us lousy lovers and kept what made us friends. I did it once; I can do it again – especially when there’s more at stake than my own sorry ass.

I don’t have the fucking luxury to sit around on a counselling couch for the next year and ‘work on my relationship’. The clock is ticking. I have already wasted enough time working on this relationship. We have been through this already, we had innumerable talks and countless emotional sessions where everything will change and be better. It just repeats and repeats and repeats.

Enough already. I have tried and accepted and shut up and yelled and all I can say is "Enough!"

This time is different. It will either work, or it won’t. I am trying, he is trying. Let’s assume that. I give us that much. I give us that we want to stay together for our child and because we do still love each other. BUT (and this is a big BUT):

I want another child now. I am old and while women do have children who are older than I - it's rare enough I don't want to pin my hopes on a miracle at 45.

That’s it, that is all – I don’t care if the donor is a turkey baster, though I’d prefer it to be the man that at leat 60% of the time I reasonably like, and who has shown himself to be a loving if somewhat lazy dad. And it saves a lot of time.

But as much as I love men, I don’t need a man to make me complete. I don’t need THIS man to make me complete. No woman needs a man to be complete. It’s not what women ARE. It’s not what I am, and if anything, the sorry sad state of my current union has made that all too clear to me.

And I definitely don’t need him around all the time if things don’t change. He puts precious little real time into the hard yakka of parenthood anyway – so he can spend his 2 or 3 hours on the weekend with his children having fun and then fuck off. If that is what it takes. Wouldn’t change much that’s going on already. It's not like he has any actual IMPACT on her right now - she comes to me when she needs comfort, help, a cuddle, a story, her shoes tied - even if he is sitting right there, TV remote in hand. Except I’d have my children and wouldn’t be torn between them and him. He either gets with the program, we either get with the program, or we don’t.

I am committed. But not to the point of insanity.

I would still be the mother I am.

Sorry if this sounds harsh and cold, but that’s what it is.

No prettier, no nicer than this.

Feeling old, barren and hollow, isn’t the only thing that keeps me awake and wandering the house at 3am lately.