On lying and taking responsibility.

So, I seem to go through these phases of writing ferociously, and then losing the ‘plot’ a bit before writing ferociously again. Initially, I was like ‘shit, that’s not cool’, but for now I am just going to roll with it.

When I was younger (from about 14 until just before I turned 20), I was full of shit. I know right; has there ever been a teenager in the history of the world who hasn’t been full of shit, even if it’s a short period? Anyway…

I took drugs, I drank like a fiend, partied ’til ridiculous hours of the morning, lied to my family…all that stuff. After coming home from a club, eyes still shining brightly from all the ecstacy I had taken, my grandmother would say ‘You look so happy! Did you meet someone special?’ and I would lie through my teeth.

In my bedroom, there was a custom built bed with a cupboard and walking area underneath it (so basically like a really high bunk bed with no bottom bed – I had to use stairs and a platform to get to the bed), and this became the dumping ground for the dozens of bottles of booze after having friends over for the weekend. When my grandparents weren’t around, I would fill black bags with these bottles and dump them a block or so down the road, in someone else’s garbage.

So I became used to lying. I didn’t like lying, but the thought of telling my grandparents what I was up to was too terrifying a thought to entertain for longer than a few minutes.

These things have a way of coming out of course – and they did, after I drank a bottle of vodka and swallowed some rat poison. Despite feeling physically ill, the relief I felt after telling my grandmother what a shit I was, was overwhelming. It probably helped that I told her after an attempted suicide (what’s a bit of drinking/drugging compared to a suicide attempt?) but at the time I wasn’t thinking of it like that. I was desperate, and I needed help.

Unfortunately, while I learnt a big lesson after that day, it was not enough to keep me honest. While living with my son’s father I reached an all-time low in the lie department, and although I have ‘made amends’, I don’t know if I will ever truly forgive myself for what I put my family through. But fuck, that’s a story for another day.

It feels like it’s taking forever to get to my point, sorry. My point is: take responsibility for your fuck-ups.

I spent so many years blaming other people for the things I was caught out on.  And it was fucking exhausting, man. My son saved me though; the minute I found out I was pregnant at the age of 19, it was like a switch in my brain had suddenly flipped. I was so tired of my life and the decisions I had made, and so full of self-hatred for what I had put my loved ones through, and I decided that enough was enough.

Everybody fucks up. In fact, I would go so far as to say everybody is supposed to fuck up. It’s a necessary life lesson. Nobody is perfect, and perfection isn’t something I believe we should strive for.

When asked about my past and the circumstances which have led me to where I am today, I am brutally honest. Yes, I lied and cheated. Yes, I took a lot of drugs and did stupid things. I’ve been in a psychiatric institution, various hospitals, and dozens of psychologist rooms. I have scared the shit out of people with my obsessive tendencies, I have manipulated and said many hurtful things to people I love. Today, I take responsibility for my actions and admit when I have made a mistake. I still fuck up, I still say hurtful things, I still bend the truth a little at times…but when the temper cools and the demonic glaze has left my eyes, I apologise and take responsibility.

This spills over to work too. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing irritates me more than not taking responsibility for something you did wrong. If you want to make me furious, just try to pin your wrongdoings on someone else. Grow some balls! Admit that you’ve fucked up, say you’re sorry and try not to do it again! Surely this isn’t so hard? I have made a royal mess of things sometimes, which is of course not great, but most of the time I work my ass off and I produce great work. We’re all in the same crazy,thrilling, fucked up boat with a dodgy captain and a few holes in the floor…let’s make it as easy as we can for each other, yes?

Life is rough enough as it is.

Toilets lead to unknown places

Me: Honey, just remember to wash your hands after you’ve finished in the toilet.’
Kayden: I’m not in the toilet, mommy. I’m in another dimension.’

Just one (of many) reasons to marry an artist.

Kayden’s school requested that we create a Spring hat for the first ‘official’ day of Spring (1st of September). The owner of the most creative hat would be given a prize.

There’s nothing like a bit of competition between parents. Seriously. Some people go nuts.

When I read the request in his message book, I quickly did a mental check of things we could use in the house and came up with a grand total of zero. When chatting to Kayden about it in the car after picking him up from school, my ideas included sewing leaves together in a hat-like shape (Kayden was the voice of reason in this case and kept on asking ‘But how?’) and….nope, that’s about it actually.

However, my genius boyfriend (uuurgh, there’s that shitty word again) saved us. I don’t think I have mentioned this before but he is a brilliant artist. He works wonders with just a black pen and a piece of paper.

It was late – Sunday evening was approaching and I still hadn’t done a single thing about the Spring hat. I eventually asked Nathan whether he had a spare peak cap that I could stick the word ‘Spring’ on and have Kayden colour it in, along with drawing a few flowers. Not exactly a ‘most creative hat’ contender. My version of a flower is a small circle and long, uneven oval shaped lines around it. I usually get about five ‘petals’ round there. Impressive, right? Nathan’s version could come out of one of those books titled ‘How to Draw Flowers So You Actually Seem Like You Cared About Your Son’s School Project’ (it’s still being edited, I imagine).

Nathan drew three pages of beautiful different flowers and we sat on the bed with a page each to colour in. He then cut them out and wound them round the peak cap to make a pretty awesome looking Spring hat. Kayden was thrilled, and I was super impressed. Yet another reason why I love this man. It was also a pretty cool ‘family moment’ as well.

We’re not married yet (I’m just imagining our respective family members calling us in a panic, wondering why they weren’t invited to the ceremony), but with Nathan around, future school projects (of which there will be many!) will be a breeze. Yay!

If you freak out at the thought of doing school projects, and you don’t have a creative bone in your body, just pick up an artist and you’re sorted! Various pick-up lines come to mind:

Will you paint me like one of your french girls?
Ideally they should have at least painted one french girl before.
I’ll be the canvas, you be the brush.
Accompanied by seductive gaze – let me know if you get that right though as I think I look a bit ‘special’ when trying to be seductive.
Let me be your muse.
This would probably work better if you had a twinkle in your eye and long, flowing hair that moves in the air even if there isn’t a breath of wind.
I just bought the most amazing set of pencils. Come and see them. At my house. With no clothes on.
A sure winner right there.
Hey stranger, you can sharpen your pencil in me anytime.
Bonus points if you’re holding a pencil and a sharpener.

Shockingly enough, I didn’t ‘pick up’ my boyfriend with any of the above. In fact, we met in High School and I went to his Matric dance. It’s a cute story actually. Perhaps I will write about it one day.

 

Surprisingly, my son doesn’t always do as he is told.

The title of this post is sarcastic, by the way. If I expected my 6 year old son to do as he was told all the time, I would hope the people who know me would give me a swift kick up the ass.

So, what actually eventually convinced me to start a blog was the idea that Kayden would be a big part of it insofar as he would provide all the artwork/images. I thought it was a great idea, and I had dreams of us growing up together – me a famous writer and Kayden a famous artist – working side by side and occasionally saying things like ‘Honey, could you draw me something nice that could go with (shoves laptop in face to show latest blog post or bestselling novel) this?’

I wasn’t expecting Kayden to want to draw all the time, and I certainly didn’t want to force it so that it became a chore as opposed to something he enjoyed doing…but lately his subject matter is limited to dinosaurs, superheroes and ninjas. I am so sick of dinosaurs right now. I no longer have the slightest capability to even feign interest in them. Fuck you, dinosaurs.

I therefore need to change tack a bit. Instead of asking him to draw something specific for a post, I am going to let him draw whatever he likes, and try to somehow fit it into what I am writing. You see, he really loves the idea of having his pics on ‘the internet’ and I just can’t say no. So that’s the idea.

It could be weird. In fact, it will be weird. I could be writing about going to the beach or something…and then a GIANT velociraptor fell from the sky and proceeded to EAT that poor man with the leopard-print speedo before joining his friends from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles around a bonfire so they could sing Coldplay’s ‘Paradise’ together.

That would never happen of course; men don’t wear speedos anymore, right?

This one time, at the periodontist.

I hate going to the dentist.

When I was 12, I had a pretty nasty car accident. One of the less serious injuries was some damage to a few of my front teeth. After that accident, no matter what any dentist did, I would have reoccurring infections. But like, nasty ones, guys. It was gross. Anyway, eventually a root canal was decided upon for the tooth that was giving the most trouble, and only after drugging me up verrrrry nicely (think drooling and giggling at the ceiling), were they able to perform the procedure.

The tooth was fine after that – no pain anymore of course, and it remained white for a good while, but then it started to turn yellow. Not bright sunshiney yellow, but a browny/yellowy colour that made it look as if that tooth was secretly smoking 40 cigarettes while I was sleeping.

I know this is kind of a gross story but bear with me.

Eventually I stopped smiling. And when I couldn’t help it, or if I laughed (I laugh a lot), I would cover my mouth in the hopes that no one would notice. When I hit my twenties, I stopped caring as much, but I was still very self-conscious about it and it was one of the main reasons I hated most photos of myself. If there were any photos I did like, I would literally Photoshop that tooth to be whiter. Silly, hey?

But then I met Doctor Howard Gluckman through a very good friend of mine. Howard is a periodontist in Cape Town and he is just incredible. When I first went to his rooms, I was super nervous and had visions of a crazy man in a mask with needles in each hand and a high-pitched voice that would make my teeth tremble. However, Howard has a special talent for making his patients feel at ease and he certainly doesn’t have a high-pitched voice. The only thing ‘wrong’ with him is if you look into his eyes for too long, it’s basically guaranteed you’re going to cry and want to spill out all your life’s problems and insecurities.

After a few consultations, Howard told me that I needed an implant. Now, when I think of the word ‘implant’, I think of breasts (don’t you?). I’m quite ample in that department though, so after imagining myself with DD boobs (scary, scary picture), I realised he was talking about my tooth. He advised that twice a year, at The Implant Clinic, he chooses someone who needs an implant and performs the surgery while other doctors watch the whole thing in another room. I don’t understand it fully, but I think ‘new’ (safe) techniques are used so the other doctors can learn about them and ask any questions they like.

This was an amazing opportunity for me, especially as a surgery like this can cost a small fortune, and so after getting over the idea that strangers would see areas of my mouth that even I haven’t seen (and don’t want to see), I was very excited and couldn’t wait to see the results.

But that was months away. And in the meantime, the tooth had deteriorated so much that some of it had come off. I blame a plum. I literally just bit into a bloody plum and next thing I knew, half my tooth was missing. When I saw Howard, he immediately said ‘we’ll fix that right up for you, sweetheart’, and in less than 20 minutes, he had filled in the tooth. When I looked in the mirror, I cried (something Howard must have been used to by then).

That was a temporary solution – we were still waiting for the implant surgery, but I am eternally grateful to him that I didn’t have to walk around with a dodgy tooth for 6 months. I know I may sound vain, but it was a real issue for me.

When the day of the surgery finally came, I was no longer nervous…until I arrived at the rooms and saw what initially looked like hundreds of people who would be watching the procedure. But again, Howard put me at ease and introduced me to a fabulous little drug called Ketamine. After that, everything was groovy, yo. I didn’t feel a thing, and the whole experience was actually rather pleasant. Every now and then, when I heard words like ‘ground bone’ and ‘soft tissue transplant’, I wondered what the hell I was doing there…and when I saw the metal screw thingy that would be going into my mouth I quickly calculated about 27 different escape plans, but it took less than an hour and the drugs I was given insured that my body remained still and serene.

When I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t bloody believe it. I was still too high to have any normal kind of emotional reaction, but if I could, I probably would have bawled my eyes out. The difference was incredible.

The recovery was a bit tough as there was quite a bit of pain and the stitches in my mouth made everything feel tight, but after 10 days they were taken out and I felt much, much better. It’s not over yet – I am seeing Howard again in a few weeks, but quite simply, he has changed my life.

I no longer cover my mouth when I smile. I don’t keep my lips closed – I let my smile explode for all to see. When I laugh, I laugh genuinely and wholeheartedly, with no fear of being looked at. When someone wants to take a photo, after the momentary I AM GOING TO KILL YOU BECAUSE I HATE PHOTOS OF MYSELF YOU FOOL, I smile widely without a care in the world. Except for my double chin of course.

This is all thanks to Howard and his team. He is professional, friendly, caring, and one of the best in his field.

If I can get copies of the before and after photos they took (the ones where there’s plastic wedge-type things in my mouth and I look like a horse), I will post them here so that you can actually see what I am talking about.

Moral of the story: Look after your teeth, kids. And try your hardest not to get into any car accidents.

I complained about my weight, and then I made fudge.

Don’t you just hate body issues?

Not a day goes by where I don’t look in the mirror after I get dressed and think to myself  ‘Oh shit Laura, look at your thighs/arms/stomach/insert body part here’. I then give myself a meek little smile and say ‘Fuck it. I look absolutely fine’ before giving myself another cursory glance and closing the cupboard.

When talking to someone I wonder if the way my face is positioned is causing a prominent double chin. If I feel it is, I try to move my head subtly so that whoever I am interacting with doesn’t suddenly think I have developed a nervous head tick. I’d love to know what tricks other women try, as I know I am certainly not the only one to feel this way.

So why can’t I stop eating crap and baking cupcakes and making fudge and.. ooh look there’s a piece of cheese cake!

I am not huge. Whatever that means. I definitely need to lose weight though, and one would think that if something is bothering me so much, I would do something meaningful about it.

I love the idea of having an eating plan that doesn’t stop me from eating pasta or potatoes or cheese or oh my god will you pass me some bloody chocolate RIGHT NOW. There are plans like this out there. It isn’t all You Can Only Eat Cabbage or Everything But Meat Is Evil. I have found some really good options which, if I stuck to them, would almost certainly produce the results I am looking for. But why can’t I stick to it for longer than a few days?

I could throw out words like ‘willpower’, ‘dedication’ and ‘motivation’, and having a lack of these things is a big problem of course. ‘Everything in moderation’ is also something people say a lot. It’s all totally true. But I still can’t do it.

At the moment I am probably using my battle with depression as an excuse to not eat as healthily as I should. I go between eating absolutely nothing and then EATING EVERYTHING I SEE. But hold on, maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. I am struggling emotionally at the moment, it’s true. There are a lot of things to worry about. But once I get over this depression (and I will, dammit!) will I find another excuse?

Losing weight and eating crap and finding motivation are all things many people struggle with and write about. There are millions of articles out there that give advice. I could try and be really inspirational right now but it just wouldn’t be genuine. Even if I was slim (which I have been in the past), I would find something wrong with my body. And that’s the real issue, isn’t it? That’s something that millions of women can identify with. And again, there are millions of articles about this, so to be quite frank I am not going to add to the deluge of articles/blog posts out there and discuss the various reasons why many women feel so inadequate and how wrong it all is. I think by now we all know why; there are ‘universal’ reasons that can be applied to the masses, and there are more ‘unique’ reasons which apply to the few.

So, for the moment I am going to try and believe my boyfriend when he tells me I am beautiful. I am going to try and stop myself from eating an entire bar of chocolate. I am going to try and find the things I like about my body when I look in the mirror.  Baby steps, yo.

Wine and mummies

“Do you know how to make a mummy? You have to wash the dead body with wine. Wine that you drink. Eeeeew. Not a mummy like you’re a mummy, but a MUMMY.” ~ Kayden (6)

Link: 21 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Depressed

Came across this today, and after getting over the shock of it coming from BuzzFeed, it’s actually really good:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/alexisnedd/things-nobody-tells-you-about-being-depressed?bffb

Things That Shouldn’t Happen. Ever.

I was sitting at my desk, feeling all annoyed and angsty after a stressful day, and then I thought: ‘Ha! Surely it’s been about a week since I bitched on my blog – I can ease my IWantToKillAllTheThings attitude by writing down words that form sentences which may or may not make sense! Yay!’

And then I saw that it has only been four days since I came up with ‘The weekly bitch sessions’ (which I am having second thoughts about to be honest).

But essentially, fuck it all, I am going to bitch write anyway.

Things That Shouldn’t Happen. Ever. (It felt like all those words needed to start with capitals. They scream I AM IMPORTANT AND YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO ME OR LOSE YOUR LIFE. Or something)

1. Hard-boiled egg shells that don’t come off easily.
Want to feel like a butter-fingered idiot? Just get stuck with a shitty hard-boiled egg. I don’t know whether it’s the water or the time I leave them to boil or the egg-laying chicken but I want to blame SOMETHING.

2. Facebook acting like it isn’t a multi-billion dollar company with thousands of super clever programmer people.
I had to do something important on Facebook today. No, seriously. For work (seriously). And fucking Facebook wouldn’t let me tag any of the people I needed to tag. This shouldn’t happen. And now as I am reading this I realise how ridiculous I am being, but still. Grrrrr.

3. Cling-wrap sticking together.
You know when you’re wrapping up a sandwich, or putting some leftovers in the fridge and you reach for some cling-wrap? You tear off a bit and carefully tip-toe to where you need to go, praying to god there won’t suddenly be a gust of wind that makes your cling-wrap stick together. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be a gust of wind; it could be the air from a snail’s fart and the cling wrap sticks together as if you’ve just applied magnetic glue to it. Surely with all the technological advances we have made we should be able to make something better?

4. Pickled onions in jars that aren’t big enough.
This could be extended to gherkins too. You know when there’s only a few left and you reach into the jar with your fingers but you can’t get to them so you end up trying to put your whole bloody hand in the jar but it’s not wide enough and you simultaneously feel disgusted and intrigued by the sensation of pickled water (I know that’s not what it’s called) all over your hand but all you want is the fucking pickled onion? Yeah, you could get a fork and fish it out, but who does that?

5. Children asking ‘why?’ more than three times in a row.
I think I’m quite good at answering my son’s questions. When I run out of facts I start making things up which can be rather fun (it’s harmless I promise), but for the love of all that is good and beautiful, three times in a row is enough. I know asking questions is how we learn *insert-article-from-well-meaning-parent-and-or-sciencey-website-here* but after four years of WHY? Why? Why?! But why? Whhhhyyyyy? I’ve had quite enough, thank you.

6. R19.99. Or R27.99. Or RWhatever.99.
They’re just going to round the bloody amount down when you get to the till anyway, so why bother? So that it sounds cheaper? Nay. We’re long past thinking something-something.99 is cheaper than the 1c more version. Consumers can be quite clever sometimes. When was the last time you said to yourself ‘Hey! That’s a good deal – it’s R999.99!’? No. You say ‘That’s a thousand bucks’ (or something similar).

7. Inserting a USB stick the wrong way round.
The amount of times I have checked the USB to make sure I am putting it in the right way, only for it not to be the right way. And on those extra special days where you check it again but STILL put it in the wrong way. Eventually you’re at the point of breaking your USB stick/computer/someone’s face before you manage to get it right. That stupid little USB port is just mocking me.

On a different note, I am going to add ‘I swear like a trooper’ to my About page. Feels like it would be good to warn people.

The list to rule all lists

One of the reasons for wanting to write a blog is to try and force myself to feel more accountable with regards to some of the things I include here. So, if there’s something I really want to achieve, the idea is to write about it in the hopes of making it more ‘real’.

So there’s a list. A list of things my little three-person family have mentioned we would like to do. There’s no absolute deadline for any of the things included here, and they range from the ‘simple’ to the ‘what the fuck are you thinking’ but if we manage to achieve any of them, I will update the list while doing a little happy dance. And of course if any other ideas/dreams come up they will be added here as well.

This has been sitting as a draft for bloody days actually, but then I figured if I only published it once it included all the things we had thought of , it would forever remain a draft. I don’t want my life to be a draft. Ha. But you know how it is – you discuss something with someone which makes you think of something you’d like to do in future. You’re all like ‘I mustn’t forget this! It will go on the list!’ and then you promptly forget about it. Because life, I guess.

1. Buy a new curtain for the bedroom which matches the other two.
We have two gorgeous red curtains, and then another excuse-for-a-red curtain on the other window thingy. It’s taffeta (I think?) and it doesn’t even deserve to be called a bloody curtain.

2. Keep a supply of puff pastry in the freezer.
It’s a genius idea actually. When I make supper with things like mince or chicken, I want to bulk it up with extra veg/lentils/whatever else, so that there’s leftovers, and then the next night I can quickly make a chicken/mince pie. I’ll be a kitchen goddess.

3. Have a wall of herbs in little buckets.
It’s much sexier than it sounds. Something like this. (Oh. My. God. I just got lost for 30 minutes, looking at the cool things people are doing around this idea on Pinterest).

4. Create more counter space in the kitchen.
Now this is tougher than it sounds, as I am sure anyone who has wanted to achieve the same goal without spending your entire salary or moving house will agree. I would post a picture, but it’s just too terrible.

5. Get bitten by a radioactive spider in the hopes of gaining superpowers.
My son’s request. Not quite sure how to make this happen, but if you’ve any ideas I would be eternally grateful. Unless he turns into a rock monster or something. Then I’ll sue you.

6. I make the best cheese sauce in the world.
At least one person has verified this so of course it’s true. It would be great to keep a fresh supply of white sauce in the fridge, which can then be quickly turned into cheese sauce, mushroom sauce…whatever we want.

7. Repaint the kitchen cupboard and the hall cupboard.
Both of these cupboards are painted with blackboard paint. If you have a child, or even if you don’t, it’s a great thing to have. They’re both looking a little worse for wear though. The hall cupboard is for Kayden to draw to his heart’s content, and the kitchen cupboard is for ‘adult doodles’ and any groceries we need to buy, or any reminders. Admittedly Kayden muscles his way onto this one as well.

8. A desk and a decent office chair.
I work from home at the moment and I am currently using our dining table as a desk. As a chair, I alternate between a bar stool and an ottoman thingy.

9. Purchase something to practice irish dancing on.
As I mentioned on my ‘About’ page, I do irish dancing. I have been dancing on and off since I was 6. Anyway, there are these shoes we use, which will kill any floor if given half the chance, and so I need something that I can easily place on the floor to practice on. I am not sure what this something is yet, but it needs to be thin and flexible and strong at the same time. Something I can roll up and put away when it’s not in use, you know?

10. Watch all the movies of recently dead movie stars.
First we want to start with Heath Ledger. Although technically not recently dead, his passing still troubles me. That man was gorgeous. We have googled a list of all his movies, and we want to watch them in chronological order. We’d like to do the same with Philip Seymour Hoffman. Popcorn will be involved.

11. Go to Cornwall and gorge ourselves on castles and scones with clotted cream.
Right?! Is this not the most epic thing ever? I have been to Cornwall before, but that was when I was a teenager and didn’t appreciate the finer things in life. Like the perfect scone.

12. Take up archery.
Of course this was not partly inspired by watching Brave. Of cooourse not.
There’s a place that offers archery lessons/practice around the corner from where we live, and so when I have more money I really want to try it out. And when I do, I’ll leave my hair down and put on a Scottish-Irish accent and feel all cool and stuff.

13. Offer to manage small-medium companies’ social media accounts.
A big part of my current job is to manage the company’s social media profiles. Although on a personal level I have a few issues with Facebook, I thoroughly enjoy this aspect of my work; building relationships, encouraging interactions, growing brand presence etc. I also enjoy the research involved and keeping on top of new changes, although admittedly lately I haven’t been able to stay as on top of things as I would like. Anyway, I would initially like to do this as an after-hours project, and then see where it takes me. I need to plan it properly though, and at the moment this just can’t be a top priority. And just to note, I certainly wouldn’t swear as much on people’s social media accounts. I wouldn’t swear at all even, I promise.