Just Call Me Frank: Our Endeavour at Being Frank: The Mother

Showing posts with label The Mother. Show all posts

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Goodbye 2015. On to 2016: Better, Smarter, and Full of Potential and Possibilities

There was supposed to be more time in this day to write this post, but as with most days this year something came up, or there just wasn't enough time in the day, or, as was more likely, blog posts were running through the brain as the body lay all warm and comfortable in bed. Thoughts, feeling, emotions, words, unable to escape into the internet and land here where they wanted to be because life gets in the way (or a comfortable bed).

2015 was an amazing year - amazing good and amazing bad - full of achievements...like graduating from University with academic honors (magna cum laude), having the opportunity to spend several weeks traveling to a few locations in Canada, starting a new career as a self-employed contract worker, growing a great garden and learning more about the ins-and-outs of that hobby, and while we only completed one painting this year, there is confidence that will pick up when our new studio space (dubbed on Instagram [Yes, this year we "finally" got an Instagram account] and Facebook as 'Frankie's Lady Cave).

It was also a year full of seeing friends, like Club Nette (Skittles, aka, Annette Ford) and Synthesised (Cliff) in Toronto at the 2015 Toronto Tweetup (as well as a slew of others who just won't appear here - but shout out to Blonde Calamity!...sorry everyone else).
And then there was the summer house guests like Cool _Jesse (Jesse) and Synthesised (Cliff). And a road trip to Minneapolis to the Minnesota State Fair where we hooked up with Pudding Boobs (Kim) and had a great night of drinking and catching up.
And then in October, Father, and Baby Brother and his wife came to help put up a large portion of the new garage we're building (well, at this point James has been doing most of the building while we feel useless ...at least until the electrical, insulation and drywall is ready to go up, those we can mostly do solo), and Mother and Angry Brother came too. It was the first time the entire immediate family had been together in such a way in over ten years, since the car accident. (current memory cannot recall if every member was accounted for on Baby Brother's wedding day, but if they were it was certainly not in such an informal familial way).
Dad came two weekends in a row and it was really nice spending that time with him. It was great fun cooking for everyone and connecting with some members of the family we haven't gotten to see much over the years. Baby Brother has turned out to be an amazing man of strength and intelligence and wit (he's a grade A smart ass, and we love it), and he and his wife are perfect for each other in ways that are undefinable.

But

The year was also not so great, as the death of our dog came quickly around graduation time. We lost massive hours at a job we were working at and got denied a more permanent position (such is the bureaucracy of a University in this day and age)
Then later in the year the most tragic of all, the sudden death of Club Nette (Skittles, aka, Annette Ford). Nothing has felt the same since, like there's a considerable amount of air and light missing from the world, the sun only shines half as bright. Given our peppered past of people who have suddenly (and not so suddenly) died, like the first boy we ever liked, cousins, uncles, grandparents, friends...we thought this would be easier to get passed. It's not. It was a massive hit to the heart and soul.

From a mental health perspective it's been up and down a lot, definitely some bad, but there's never enough time to write when the mood strikes to define the bad, or work through the bad like we used to - luckily a trunk full of culled coping strategies over the past couple of years mitigates the harm, pushes it back for some reprieve.
Physically we've managed to stay in pretty good shape - though after the death of Nettie there was a severe uptick in alcohol consumption and we've been working on getting back to better levels because alcohol will straight up fuck with your metabolism and any weight loss attempts. During a full physical (EKG and all) the doctor guessed that we must run because of the low resting heart rate. Not really sure if that means healthy, or is just a symptom or catalyst to the poor circulation. In any case, despite the extra pounds we're as healthy as they get. And the plan is to continue that into the new year. The greatest physical achievement this year was establishing a top run time (of an average of 7.04 mph for 30 minutes) - a run time we have not been able to near in awhile even after being in the gym 3-4 times a week, even when traveling. But that just gives us a goal. In addition this coming year at least one 5K, and maybe a 10K, is planned, which has been sort of a bucket list item since losing a massive amount of weight about 11 years ago and keeping most of it off over the years. It's not really a new year resolution, because those beg to be broken, rather a desire, a goal, a hope, that if doesn't happen, doesn't happen, and there will always be the next year.

This coming year is pretty scary, as uncertainty being self-employed causes much undo stress, but if it continues on the path it has been on it will be amazing. This new venture affords plenty of free time for painting and reading in the winter, and gardening and painting and travel in the summer, and cooking all year round. Plus it brings in more money than we've made at any point in our life...jutting us into a new tax bracket. (also scary!)

The non scary part of the year will be when the garage is complete. This project has taught patience this year, as the hope was that it would be fully complete by October. Unfortuntaly the concrete didn't even get poured until then, and then before anybody knew it there was cold, and snow, and the challenges of building a huge structure (and James is not familiar with how things are built in the USA, as building in England are put together differently).
Plus the garage is massive a massive project. In-floor heating, multiple access doors,six windows. a 34 x 24 structure with the back 12 x 24 space (Fankie's Lady Cave) serving as a painting/writing studio, and workout/yoga space, a gardening space (until the garden shed is built), a hangout space, and a guest area for the friends we've made on Twitter so they can have a nice space to relax and sleep while visiting. There are new visitors planned for 2016 too, so hopefully this all gets done in time! :-)

Before the garage

After the garage (34' x 24')

Meanwhile, all year there have been so many topic we would have liked to write about. 2015 was CRAZY - especially in politics and social issues, and we're always paying attention (thanks to social media it's hard not to), but then sometimes it seems like it's all really been said by everyone, because, well, it's the internet and it probably has all been said, or said faster than someone with a job, a spouse, and hobbies has time to compete with. Writing just falls to the back-burner (hence the scant few blog entries here this year compared to other years).
The one thing that's disappointing about classes being over, having graduated, is that it's harder to sit down and write with no grade or deadline looming over the head as motivation. If there's anything we can be hopeful about for 2016 it's that we can get back into writing, and not just sloppy shit like this blog post, but quality content like the academic papers we've shared with you here over the last few years, or travel entries.

2016...it's peeking right around that corner, mere hours away...full of possibilities...full of potential...potential sadness, potential happiness, potential success, potential failure...how you look at those things, how you act on those things is up to you. Make the better decision, the smarter decision, the healthier decision, and just try, day by day, to be a better you, inside and out. No, it's never easy, but what else do you have to do but try?
Don't let the rampant hate that saturated 2015 via social media and mass media and the internet in general leak into 2016 and overtake it. Hope for better, strive for better, be better.

Happy New Year, family, friends, readers, lovers, haters...May 2016 bring you all that you deserve.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

The New Semester

The first week of Spring semester is over, so it can be officially determined that the classes are good. The two lecture classes are old school, however - very little student interaction, which is why they are "good", and not great. Interactive classes, that highly encourage student participation, have been the most interesting classes the last year and a half.

The two lecture classes this semester are on media history, and advertising and society. The "textbooks", that is to say, the required reading, seems really diverse. Luckily we've been able to avoid too many textbook-ie textbooks. You know, the kind that spew a bunch of terms and years at you to memorize instead of teaching you to understand the implications of those terms and the things that happened in those years. Critical thinking is fun. Each will require a final paper (yay!).

The only other classroom class this semester is ballroom dancing, which is great as a stress reliever and as exercise. Having taken it ten years ago (from the same instructor, mind you), it seems easier. Maybe it's the confidence, maybe it's the other dance classes taken [like hip-hop], whatever it is, it's fun. Hopefully there will be real-life opportunities to use the skill.

Of the six classes total this semester, the three remaining are a bit different; two are independent study (one in communications, one in political science) which means they are self-directed reading. The first (the PoliSci) requires a weekly "conference" with the professor (the one from last semester's PoliSci class, and a favourite) to discuss elements in the reading. The first book of three (self-chosen) is Culture War? The Myth of the Polarized America by Morris Fiorina (not to be confused with Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America by James Hunter). It's interesting, but perhaps a bit outdated, which means fresh new polls can be brought to the table for discussion. It's an easy read, and probably the easiest of the three. Jury is still out on whether or not, in 2015, the polarization is a myth. The other two are: Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences by John R. Hibbing, Kevin B. Smith, John R. Alford and Digital Disconnect by Robert W. McChesney. It should be a fun self-directed course with much learning.

The other independent study course requires twice the books, which...is fine. Each book requires a 4-5 page paper (not a "book report" or book review however). More like the critical reflections from the Knowledge, Truth and Reality class last Spring...but with different types of books related to communication topics. At the end a final paper is required that juxtaposes all of the reading...somehow. We've already blown through the first two, which were Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room by David Weinberger and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Both are really good books and recommended reads.
The papers related to them have yet to be written, but there's time, after all.
The four additional titles for this self-directed study course are: Advertising as Culture by Chris Wharton; The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture by Terry O'Reilly, Mike Tennant; Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger and Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman

As a quick recommendation of high caliber, this book: A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, which is a text for media history, is stellar from the get-go. A pure pleasure to read. (hint: go out and buy a used copy! You can get them for less than $10 on Amazon if you're lucky)

Oh, by the way, all of the book links are to Goodreads, not Amazon. So feel free to check out what those titles are about without feeling pressure to purchase them. :-)

The last class for the semester is the internship, which is of digital graphic design nature. So far it seems fun and moderately challenging - and thankfully it pays, which is hard to find in an internship of any sort. It is a mere 12 hours a week, which is spread over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The thing that makes this semester a bit different is that the decision was made to stay in the city Tuesday through Thursday, rather than drive the 80 mile round-trip each day.

One reason for this decision was the Tuesday night class is scheduled to end at 9pm. After a long day {9:30 am - 9 pm} of classes and working (media history, ballroom [15 minutes to eat lunch on the move] internship, fitting in the second job [30 minutes to eat dinner on the move] then going to advertising class) driving in the dark, long distances, exhausted, is a bad choice.

Staying in the city = good choice.

Obviously saving money on gas was a motive too.

Yes, prices are low. But when you make next to nothing, and actually, nothing after the money you DO make goes to household bills...it doesn't matter how low the gas prices are...unless it's free.

And gas isn't free.

So, we're back at The Mother's house midweek until the end of the semester, for a savings of around $300. Score. The long days means there's not a lot of time for socializing. Nobody is complaining. Luckily James is okay with it all, and he stays home to tend to the (2) cats, and of course go to work, which is only about 5 blocks from the house.

It's interesting, and different. So far, so good.

Two nights away from home for four months isn't really that much anyway...

So, that's it.
You can probably expect something interesting soon.

Friday, March 28, 2014

Spring Is Here! A Gardening Geek-Out.

Okay, so it's not....here here...yet. But it's coming soon.

Now, for the geeking out.

The new seeds (dressed in white) and
the leftovers from last season to go in this year

We got our seeds for the garden today! Gardening Season Version 2.0 is upon us. Our second solo attempt at growing food, after the beta version when we lived with mom in summer of 2012 and tended her garden and got bit by the gardening bug.

Truth be told we come from a long line of gardeners, and had dabbled in the dark earthy arts of the dirt over the years, never with any success on our own...until last year. Which was more or less 75% successful, as you can read about at one of our other blogs if you'd like (http://frankiesfarmadventure.blogspot.com/), which is retiring from active duty this year in the interest of streamlining the writing into only one or two places. (it's all about organization, yeah?)

Anywayyyyyy...*continues to geek out*

We bought a lot of seeds. We would have bought more but for the space issue, and also...umm...two human bodies can only eat so much spoils from the garden. For goodness sake we're still eating spaghetti squash and beets from the last garden. So many seeds, it's a little crazy. For instance, the squash plants only need two seeds per hill, and we'll only be planting, at most, two hills per type. At 25 seeds per pack...we have enough seeds for the next...something like six years.

To most people it probably seems ridiculous that we're so excited about gardening, but there is nothing like something fresh from the garden, pulled from soil you know, from soil you've toiled over (and trust us, with our back problems, the toil can be days of pain - but it's totally worth it), that only your hands have touched. It's just...so much better than some crap from the grocery store that's traveled over 1000 miles in a truck or rail car, or worse, ship or an airplane from another country several thousand miles away. Not to mention some of the seeds are organic/heirloom, which means no GMO. (As some regular readers know, we have a variety of issues with the upsurge in GMO everything, and it's not just from a poisoning perspective - http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2012/09/from-lab-to-field-and-on-your-knees.html)

Gardening probably couldn't be easier for the average person either...there are apps for it. Seriously. APPS. And websites with videos and information. And software. And if you're into machines and gadgets...so. many. machines. and. gadgets.

We're not into that stuff, the machines and gadgets (except for the gardening knife, obviously...), you can barely talk us into wearing a pair of gloves to weed most days. However, we did try out a The Old Farmer's Almanac Garden Planner (http://gardenplanner.almanac.com) just to make sure we could fit all the things we wanted into our two garden plots.

To start off, this is not a paid advertisement of any sort, we are not representing them, they are not paying us. This is just a cool feature of their website because
a) it's not software so it doesn't require any crazy downloads [you only need a recent version of Adobe Flash, which, if you don't already have...you might as well leave the internet right now]
b) it's fun to play with because it automatically shows how much space you need around each thing you plant (as you'll see below)

They allow you to use it for free for 30 days, but you can only save one garden design. After the 30 days is up you then have the option of paying $25 a year (no credit card info required) or $40 for two years, for the features and benefits like being able to create up to five plans per year, continuous access to the garden plans, emailed reminders so you know when to sow and plant. Saving of plans to carry over for the next year's garden to remind what grew where the year(s) before, which enables you to quickly make the next year's plan, including removing things that didn't work out, or changing the location of things that might grow better in another spot. There are some other general features that come with it, and the trial version, you should just play with it and find out.

We played around with it before ordering seeds, because the order add$ up - we still have to wait for the potato (two varieties) and sweet potato "bulbs" which get shipped closer to the end of the frost season, and some things have to be purchased as plants and transplanted because the growing season is too short for some things (peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, broccoli and cauliflower.

This is the West Plot, which is 30 x 12, designed using the The Old Farmer's Almanac Garden Planner (http://gardenplanner.almanac.com), which is getting made larger when the guy we hire to plow the spots with his little tractor comes by after the frost season passes. It was just decided today, so we might be able to grow more tomatoes or peppers...and maybe some other things that can be dehydrated or canned for winter.

This is the South Plot, which is for more "late season" items, like winter squash, beets, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and onions...you know, things that take longer to mature or ripen.

*sighs*

Okay, we're done geeking out.

Spring is close! It's time to get excited.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Out of Orbit

Our personal universe is out of orbit. It's been for over a month. Mind and body out of sync.

Last semester we nailed it out, ended with great grades, felt on-task most of the semester, the small struggles had little impact. Now. Now there's no focus. A lot of the time it feels like there's no control. Waking up has gotten harder, but for the physical pain we'd stay in bed all day, most days. It feels like something is pressing down, smothering our will.

The many experiences with adult education (college/university) have always been our more stable years, mentally. This semester...feels full of ambiguity, and like being slowly swallowed whole. It does not feel stable.

For instance, having a six year old try to take over your body so she can play with 3D jungle gummies peeking from the backpack, and prance the elephants across the table...takes exhaustive mental control and we resorted to laying our head on the table and twirling our hair to talk her down from all the pleading...and that's not really something fun to do, nor does the body language that it portrays speak of much stability in a classroom full of young adults.

Next time we leave the gummies hidden.

It's not often she's around these days...we've missed her. I've missed her. She hasn't been around since before we had to move back to the states and live with Mother...it was obvious why she hid, but she cannot be here...not now, there's too much to do.

There was a brief time where it felt like we'd been contained by a magnet, but now...it feels like a scrambled magnetic field again.

We need to remember to breath.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Meaning and Words, and A What The Fuck Moment

That awkward moment when you have friends and family fill out a Johari Window model for a class...and your Dad describes you as 'loving'...and your husband does not.

This blog entry is going to be many things. First, a brief explanation of what a Johari Window is. Second, a quick discussion on the meaning of words. Third, a bit of a rant.

First things first, a Johari Window (found here: http://kevan.org/johari) is a model exercise on mapping personality awareness used in fields of Interpersonal Communication. A "disclosure/feedback model of self awareness" (for a more in-depth description and history go here: http://www.businessballs.com/johariwindowmodel.htm)
This assignment was for our Interpersonal Communication course.

Who doesn't want to know what the people closest to them thinks about them in five to six concise descriptive words of less...
You're right, nobody.

So, this weekend we sent off the link to Mother, and Father, and James.
Then today, in class, sitting at the back of the room playing on the internet when we should have been, oh, paying attention to the Interpersonal Communication lecture, we decided to see that the results were.

Then came the What The Fuck Moment. Which we'll get to in a bit. (It's not what you think.)
We decided we needed a few more people in on this, flesh it out a bit, so we sent the link to friends who, while all but one we met online, we have also spent anywhere from a couple of meals, to several days, with (thank you Kerry, Alison, Lush, Jesse and Jodi. xx) in Real Life.

Second. One topic from last week's Interpersonal Communication class was about words and their meanings and how meaning is not in words, rather meaning is applied to words. Seems pretty obvious if you think about it. The word 'sick', for example, has more than one meaning depending on how it's used. i.e. "I feel sick", "You're so sick", "That's so sick". Your parent telling you "You're so sick" will probably have a different connotation that your best buddy saying the same thing. Also, you might have traveled back in time to the 90's, because do kids still even use that slang today? Then there's the classic evolution of "gay" - gay was happy, then it was homosexual, and now it's lame (but it's still homosexual, and people who use it to mean lame should learn some new words).
You get the point.

So, on this Johari Window there's 55 adjectives to choose from:
able, accepting, adaptable, bold, brave, calm, caring, cheerful, clever, complex, confident, dependable, dignified, energetic, extroverted, friendly, giving, happy, helpful, idealistic, independent ingenious, intelligent, introverted, kind, knowledgeable, logical, loving, mature, modest, nervous, observant, organised, patient, powerful, proud, quiet, reflective, relaxed, religious, responsive, searching, self-assertive, self-conscious, sensible, sentimental, shy, silly, spontaneous, sympathetic, tense, trustworthy, warm, wise, witty.

Phew.

The common theme of the 55 adjectives is that there is usually an opposite of which you really can't be both. For instance, introvert vs extrovert, self-conscious vs confident, dignified vs silly.

You get it.

You're thinking...wait...where are all the overtly negative adjectives?!

That's over at the Nohari Window (http://kevan.org/nohari), an optional assignment, and far less appealing in nature. Needless to say, we opted out of it.

Okay, so we got a total of 5 participants to "describe Frankie in five to six adjectives", and it was...more complete, but it still didn't erase the nagging agitated feeling from the What The Fuck Moment earlier in the day.

The What The Fuck Moment is when one person's descriptors were clearly based on...well, there's no real prudent way to put it, either fallacy or confusion...or an inability, a case of being absolutely hindered from separating one's own religious ideals, one's own self, when analyzing or considering others. Realistically, Self and Other should be separated, to do a person justice you should not compare them to you, but analyze, judge them, if you will, on their independent merits, or lack of.

We're into the ranting now, if you hadn't guessed.

No, this idea on how people do/should/shouldn't scrutinize each other has not been covered or discussed in class, nor in the textbook so far.

This realization came from hours of thinking about the different possible reasons why the word "seeking" was used, out of fifty-five possible adjectives, to describe us, any one of us. Trying to rationalize it. Thinking of the many meanings that can be attached to that word, and a few of the others. This realization, then, was birthed from a What The Fuck Moment.

So, was he meaning we're "seeking" because he thinks somehow we're actively looking for, say, oh, God, because we're lost in his opinion? "Seeking", to us, being the opposite of "religious" on the Johari model.

It really stuck in our craw.

All day.

How dare that be an adjective he chose because he has some idealized idea of who "I" should be in reflection of himself and his desires. Also, sorry, but we're not "seeking" anything, except more knowledge. We are not "lost", we chose the path away from religion based on an extensive amount of consideration, logical thinking, belief and reflection. That's almost the opposite to "lost" in this case.

If you haven't figured it out yet, the "he" in questions is The Father.

It became more confusing when he also used the words "loving" and "self-conscious".

Not one single person close to us in the last, oh, more than ten years would be likely to use those adjectives coupled with our name.

Which led us to wonder, which one of us has he been spending the little amount of time we've spent with him over the last few years, with?

It took some contemplation, thinking not simply about how one sees their self, but how people see each other, attach adjectives to describe people, sometimes based on comparing that person with who they are, or what they want to see. How, perhaps, a lot of people who are unable to be objective see or assess each other based on their personal motives and desires surrounding the person they are assessing. They are trying to find a reflection in the other person. A sort of reverse-reflected appraisal, or reverse-social comparison*, if you will.

Correct or incorrect, it was an eye-opening hypothesis.

We were in a tail-spin throughout the day about words and what the meanings were being applied to them and what that means when people think about each other. To pick at the same Daddy scab**, the use of the word "self-conscious", holds different weight and meaning depending on how it's applied. One is an awareness of self and the acts one performs (more of a philosophical approach to the word), the other is insecurity or a fear of embarrassment (more of a negative connotation). Two very different meanings, if not more, can be attached.

Bottom line is, we clearly have some sort of concern about what Father thinks of us and this situation manifested it into a What The Fuck Moment. It's certainly not stemmed from a desire to appease him in any way. Maybe it's a sense that despite all the candor over the past few years he still doesn't really know us or have a sense of who we are.

Footnotes:
*reflected appraisal is the theory that a person's self-concept mirrors the way the person believes others regard him or her, and social comparison is evaluating the self in terms of how we compare with others.
**for the record, we do not have "daddy issues", we moved past that stage in life

---------------------------

Now for something not so completely different.

How ridiculous is it that we're trying to map personality awareness. Think about it. [Marisa/IamtheCrew (and other DID/MPDers), you know what we're getting at.]

We can't possibly do an adequate job of it for a class. But we have attempted it out of necessity. The link to it is up there somewhere at the top, and it was integral in getting our life back in some sort of order, relatively speaking.

If you want a know how the people who know us best see us, and what a "working" Johari window looks like, this is the most recent screen-shot from the model assignment:

Yay! 100% think we're intelligent! The ruse is working! Bwahahaha!!!

Meanwhile...sensible? dependable? WITTY?

Also, apparently "introverted" has a range of meanings, including "marked by interest in or preoccupation with oneself or one's own thoughts as opposed to others or the environment." which sounds...terrible. We're totally interested in other people. That's not to say we like many of them, but people are fascinating to observe and analyze. Personally, we used the word to describe ourselves because we attached a meaning to it that was based on, overall, preferring solitude.

If some of the words had included clear definitions, we would not have chose that one, and possible "idealistic"...or maybe we would.

Words words words, words have meanings and meanings have words and words have power and good communication is complicated, because people are complicated and full of meaning and words.

Words!

Monday, January 6, 2014

Transcribing Crazy

We had been searching for a short story we wrote in 1995 for several years. We mentioned some of its content once in a blog post in February of 2011 (Franks First Love).
A couple of months ago Mother returned two plastic totes of stuff she'd had in storage for lord knows how many years. Stuff we hadn't even remembered we had, reeking of musty moldy old paper.
They turned out to be veritable time capsules, which included a 1999 screenplay adaption of a 1984 book called Virgins by Caryl Rivers that we did for fun - it had been a favorite book at the time. (We had even contacted her back then, she wouldn't give us "rights" to do anything with it, claiming she was writing an adaption herself. Still remains to be seen).

Anyway, in all these musty belongings was the story. Fifty cursive written pages of the first, and only complete, short story we ever recall writing.

Surprisingly we weren't as eager to page through it as anticipated, instead flipping to the back pages where we remembered that people who had read it in those days had written short "reviews". Raves of "excellent", "couldn't stop reading!" "very impressed" "gave me shivers".
Eleven people had read it and liked it.
Apparently it was easy to impress tenth grade high school students.

The story was so transparent in nature that a few of the readers knew exactly who the male character in the story was based on. Perhaps that's what made it more titillating to them.

Anyway, four months ago after being reunited with the document, we left it on the coffee table...and then put it in a drawer...or so we thought.
Somehow it had gotten misplaced the last few months while we were engrossing ourselves in University classes. It took quite the search today, which resulted in accidentally cleaning parts of the house, (Oh, the horror of accidentally cleaning!) but we finally located it.
Sitting down with a mug of coffee we started typing, cleaning up the horrifying grammar, the atrocious use of language, the repetitive sentences...and that was only into the fourth page...where we had to stop.

It seems that a page at a time, with breaks in between, will have to do for now.
Turns out we were fucking crazy, like, darkly fucked in the head. It's supremely disturbing that at the age of sixteen we wrote this story. By the fourth handwritten page the female protagonist had two vivid "hallucinations" about wanting to kill the boy that she had loved. The fuck. She totally makes us look sane.

Honestly though, it's also not written very well. Okay, it is written well for the first story of a sixteen year old. Reworking it a bit will help. WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY! (haha!)
Perhaps even expanding on it would be a fun task. One of the common themes in the reviews was that many who had read it would have liked a different ending.

Of course, since the man who the main character was based on hasn't been a complete stranger over the last few years, it could easily turn into a short novel at this point.

It still doesn't change how disturbing it feels to be transcribing the manuscript. Maybe it'll be a good drinking activity.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Immigration Stand Still

We haven't written about it yet, mostly because we've been trying to ignore it, push it away, so we're not anxious about it...but it's just hanging there, waiting.

Saturday we went and picked up the mail from The Mother's house, we haven't changed the address on everything yet, it being merely a month since we moved out, and we actually don't have a mailbox - and the USPS, in some cases, doesn't actually recognize our house address as existing... something about town street name changes not being properly recorded with city hall or something. We'll get it fixed.

Anyway, we picked up them mail and low-and-behold James FINALLY had gotten a letter from immigration about his interview. Or so we thought...

The letter was in our name so we opened it excitedly, and before our eyes could reach the second sentence we saw the word...

"Denied"...hands shaking, we read it over and over. Turned the page over, read the second page. WHAT?! His petition was DENIED?! Tears welled up in our eyes. This means he has to go back to the UK. We just bought a house together, we share bank accounts, we own vehicles together, we have a life together, he's working (we are still applying for every reasonable paying job we can find) and they denied him?!

He was surprisingly calm as he took the papers from our hand. He scanned the letters flipping them back and forth in his hands, confused. We snatched one back from him and took a closer look, really paying attention to ALL the words this time...focusing.

He had allegedly missed his interview date in November. They said they had sent the letter out in October, and they were just now, the last days of March, telling him he had missed it.

He had just had a meeting with his lawyer the day before, who had figured they lost his paperwork, because she said his interview should have happened by now, and he had been checking the online status every other week since October, and it never indicated an upcoming meeting, or anything pending. So right away we knew something had went wrong.

He e-mailed his lawyer immediately, and we waited.

Yesterday she replied that she contacted them immediately because she was supposed to have gotten the letter about the interview too, and she hadn't. She had gotten the Petition Denial letter on Saturday and copies of all the other correspondences since the applications had been submitted. She also said she had heard about this happening before, and that the case should be re-opened with no problem. There is a 30 day appeal deadline. So, there is still hope.

The biggest concern is if they try to charge us more money for their mistake. We've already spent nearly $6000.00 dollars in application fees and lawyer fees...and we really don't deserve to have to pay for something that is not our fault in the very least.

Anyway, immigration. It's not easy, it's full of loop-holes, and traps, and costs a lot of money. It's not really surprising that people try to get around it; but if you ever do it, the cost of the immigration lawyer is ABSOLUTELY worth it.

In the meantime, we wait...some more. July will be one year since he filed the paperwork. The biggest deal was that his dad was sick in December, and he would have loved to fly home to see him, and his brother got married this past weekend, and he would have loved to be there; but until his petition is approved he is not allowed to leave the country. After he gets approved he gets to stay for two years before another interview and is free to leave the country, but until then...he's at a standstill.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

The Last Saturday Gin Test

It's the last Saturday in The Mother's house. James works until close, and so, to celebrate we will be enjoying some cocktails for the first time in many weeks, on a Saturday.

Okay, by cocktails we mean Gin.

Instead of a movie or music review, or a food entry, we thought a sort of alcohol review was in order for the blog. Something fun.

We're testing out a new less-expensive Gin called New Amsterdam tonight. It's an American Gin, as opposed to the British Tanqueray that we usually drink. It boasts itself as a refreshing modern balance with hints of Juniper and notes of Angelica. They use the word "sophisticated". We'll see about that.

The New Amsterdam is over $10 cheaper for the same volume of bottle we usually buy of Tanqueray (1.75L); so due both to an tightening of the purse strings, and an experimental streak we're feeling today, we decided tonight we'll give it a whirl, see if our palate can handle it, and if we wake up with a headache from a "lesser quality" spirits. (Gin of high quality comes from Europe, in our opinion; they even have four different legal classification for Gin, whereas in America there are far less classifications, and we imagine lesser general standards.)

In any case, Gin on the rocks, stirred with a knife, as usual. (we've grown to dropping out the lime wedge these days)

Come back after tonight and we'll post our opinion here.

Have a fun and happy Saturday. Cheers!

-----------------------------------------

The New Amsterdam Gin turned out to be a good purchase. It did have a little heavier taste than we're accustomed, but nothing we can't get used to. The finish was reminiscent of a good quality cough syrup, or perhaps even a bit of a Galliano (a very specific sweet Italian herbal liqueur), which might sound unappealing, but unable to detect the specific flavour that was so familiar it was the best we could come up with.

It's no Tanqueray or Bombay, but for under $20 (on sale) for a 1.75L bottle, it makes our wallet smile.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Under Pressure

The upcoming move is causing...stress. Or maybe it's just the expectation.

During almost the entirety of our relationship with James if feels like we've been living in this house, with The Mother, and The Stepdad. Except for the first month we spent with James (July-August '11), and the second month when he returned from England before we had to leave Canada (September-October '11), and the months in England (January - May '12), we've been here, in this house.
He feels we're not the same as we used to be; we're not the same as when he first met us, according to him.

The feeling is mutual, of course.

He's less happy, he's moody, he's angrier than we remember him being, he's unhappy.

With his job he has become a little more himself again, of course - those bits of the "old him" we see, warm our heart. But still, he is not the same easy-going type of guy we had believed him to be. The only thing that hasn't changed is his love for us.

Isn't that how relationships are though? People change.
With our particular mental health issues, we tend to shift heavily from "time-to-time" (sometimes hourly), but not really change; we really don't feel like we're any different than we have ever been since we "came out of the closet" with our DID. Honestly. Most of the time we feel pretty content, normal. Actually, more normal than two years ago, most of the time.
Sure our living situation is not ideal, and the stress and issues have made some of us...less...here. But we really don't feel different. We don't feel we've changed.

We've been heavy drinkers since he met us.
We've been up front, "mouthy", confrontational, when need be since he met us.
We've been sweet, kind, loving, funny, innocent, caring, when we are those of us who are those of us, since he met us.
And everything in between that makes us us.

He has expressed his hopes that once we move things will go back to "normal". We're terrified We don't even know what that is. We don't think things are that abnormal, all things considered.

We have a variety of opinions about it, obviously. Everything ranging from "He's a sodding moody bastard, and he's the one who has changed." to "How can we change back not knowing how we've changed in the first place.", to "Let's just integrate and let the chips fall where they may" (That's the most difficult one to swallow).

Under pressure. No big thing. Right?

Monday, February 18, 2013

A Brief Personal History of Drinking

[*Dear Dad - while this entry is not at all as...shocking...as others here, you still may not want to read it and find out what we were up to in your care...and after]

This is brief, and has a point...for us.

Our first experience with alcohol was in the 8th grade, when we were about 12.

Two female friends, and us, spent the weekend together, both nights at a different girls house (but not ours).

The first night, on a sleeper sofa in her parents living room, with the house to ourselves, "J" said there were wine coolers in the fridge and said we should drink some of them.

At that age, with a strict Christian up-bring, and the seeds of a desire to rebel, parents just having split, Dad raising two sons and a daughter all on his own, and a few of us having the responsibility of taking care of two young brothers part-time...we jumped at the chance. Growing up there was never alcohol, that we knew about, in the house.

Sneaking to the fridge "J" took a few bottles out and we shared each wine cooler together; and then panicked about where we would hide the empty bottles, and how we explain their disappearances from the fridge. Whipping them out into the wooded area near her house we decided she would blame her older sister (who ended up getting in trouble).

The next night we went to "M's" house, her parents were out, and so we made drinks of Kool-aid mixed with whatever hard liquor was in the house (it was probably rum or vodka). A few drinks later and we were sliding down the stairs of her bi-level house, on our bellies, over and over, giggling.

After that it was a few years before we ever drank again, the only exception being a couple of times when The Mother gave us alcohol when we would go spend time with her and her girlfriend (Unpleasant Woman) in the "big city"; and a few [significant] times scattered throughout high school. We were never popular, or "normal party girls", so never went to high school parties. We had limited access to alcohol. We never got out much, and anyway, pot was much easier to acquire and smoke during school hours with cigarettes near the school.

It wouldn't be until we met our ex-husband (age 20) that we started drinking, heavily, and it got out of control fast, it only took about 8 months and our mental illness coupled with general hopelessness over our relationship, booze and pills landed us in "a ward" of sorts. We didn't stop drinking right away. The Husband moved us across country, he went into AA, and we stopped drinking with him; it all changed in a big way after that. We left him and moved away to live with The Mother, now single, briefly, before moving on to a new life in The Mountain State. And there we lived a relatively sober life (from alcohol) once again.

Always having a taste for pot, or nothing at all. It was probably six years before we really drank again. Through years of University we were "liquid sober". The man we met (Talented Boyfriend) and moved to Canada to be with in '04 wasn't a drinker. We never saw him have more than a single beer, if that, during the entire relationship, despite his musician lifestyle. We would go to a few parties with him, hardly ever drank and had even stopped smoked pot at that point.

Then shorty before the relationship ended we fell in with a "drinking crowd" and drinking heavily on weekends, and vacations with them. Then they were no longer part of our life, and in 2010, and aside from a few dry spells...we've been a 'steady drinker". We've only been "real drinkers" for a few years.

Most people start drinking at a young age, and then continue until adulthood. They come from "that type of family", they had "that kind of life when they were teenagers" and then by the time they are our age, they're "alcoholics". That's the stereotype. Our life hasn't been as full of drugs and alcohol as most people would guess. We've had more days on prescription drugs, than on "illicit" ones.

What's the point of this anyway?

We're drinking too much.

We never had this problem before.

Way too much.

An amount that makes some people we know who are heavy drinkers... surprised.

James doesn't like when we drink, but it's more of a case of "too much". Just to be clearm we don't drink during the day. We're Happy Hour and Beyond drinkers.

This is not a plea for an intervention.

This is just a plea to us, that we come back to this entry before long, and make a plan. We've stopped before, we'd like to think if it came down to it we'd be able to stop again, if we wanted to.

Gin just tastes so good...

Friday, February 8, 2013

Untitled...Again.

After a year and 4 months (minus the roughly 4 months last winter when we lived in the UK with James)...we can safety say, that no matter how thankful we are for The Mother and The Stepdad for letting us live in their house until we could get jobs and buy a house (and we are)...(we're moving out in 19 days) it's most definitely damaged many of us.

There's no way to explain...age doesn't change some people, things from the past, behaviours that trigger...for those who are familiar with any of this, you know what we mean. Cupboard doors have been replaced, but the same irrational overreaction to everything not being exactly how she wants it remains. Selfish and borderline, lies between her teeth.

Will we ever not crumble inside, fearful, by the sound of her raised voice...and her bizarre behaviour?

Some of us have traits...that we recognize as hers. We wither in the face of it.

Dying inside. Fragmented.

(if you're back to reading our blog again, Mother, sorry...but...aw, fuck it, just, we have to write...we know you don't like it here in these words, exposing you)

----------

Stories from the past: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/stories-of-us.html...and how to hate your mother, hate people, hate life, and move on to doing things other people think are fucked up...(really, though, it's scattered like poison breadcrumbs through this entire blog).

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Offer Accepted

The final offer we submitted on the house was accepted last night, we have e-mail confirmation of the acceptance from the seller's agent, with a minor contingency (we may have to move the close date, which was originally for the 11th of February, back because there are currently tenants in the house), but most of us are waiting to get really excited until the ink is dry, or there is ink.

We lost our dream property, Weeping Willow, this past fall after the ink was dry, and after we dumped cash into inspections, so we have grounds for being skeptical. James is hardly acknowledging it as good news. He tend to be very skeptical, and conservative with his happiness and excitement.

In the meantime, we're just ready to move out of The Mother's house. It's long past due. James has a good job now, and even though we're still looking for (another) part-time job we are confident we'll find something soon. We had an interview yesterday with an agency that will no doubt produce a position for us at some point.

Yay for moving ahead with life again!

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Late Night...

If anything, the best thing about moving out will be not feeling like we're an imposition.
We can't sit in the basement all night. When we do it on the weekends it makes our back hurt, which makes us not able to sleep, which makes the weekend even worse. Tomorrow marks the two days of the week where we are relinquished to the cold basement, to sit in bed, for two days.

It's not perfect. We don't expect it to be. It will never be. We're lucky we have a place to live.

Maybe it's our own problem, that we feel like we shouldn't be sitting on this sofa, knowing they will never ask us to go to our room. The Mother will sleep. The Stepdad to his man-cave. (it's warmer out there anyway)...

It doesn't change the fact that we feel like we shouldn't be here, not wanting to be here. Just needing to be...somewhere else.

They walk in the door after a sport event they attended. It's Friday night. They ask if we' e talked to our Realtor. They left well after 7pm. Even if we did, what would have happened by now? It's just passive-aggressive behaviour, meant to make us feel...lord knows what they are trying to make us feel. We're feeling everything.

Like they think if we had a choice we'd still be here.

We're dying inside with no options.

Just more fun...

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Think We're Alone Now...

James started his new job today.
So, now we have time to ourselves for the first time in about a year.
Daytime alone time is good, it will be better when we get the house though, and move out of here (The Mother's house). We've written about our desire to be alone recently, this is, like, the extended version, the LP, if you will.

We're a little nervous about the format of our day, or rather, what it will be, now.

Sounds strange to you, probably; but we like a bit of a format, a framework, for our week. So we know what's expected of us; and since James would prefer we spend all of (or most of) our time with him during the day, and now when he gets home from work...this (potentially) means a loss of time with our online friends at night.

Yes, we are one of those anti-social social freaks who has "friends" online. You conform to the narrow paradigm of what you think is normal, we'll just do what makes us happy.

Not sure how other people are, but we don't like using the computer (or reading) much, or attempting tasks (like painting, and sometimes cooking), with someone hovering around. Doesn't matter what we may be doing on the computer, working on designs in Photoshop, writing Tweets, blog posts, letters, doing research, reading. The feeling that we may be "being watched", and therefore make ourselves open to quick criticism; for example, if we were writing this now, and someone was sitting next to us, we'd feel a level of uncertainty - what if we wrote this, and between the time we wrote it and published it, there was something we decided to omit, and then erase it, but someone glanced over and read it already, and felt hurt by what we wrote.

It's hard to take words back. (so very hard, sometimes - we'll probably want to erase this blog entry later. Don't let us.)

Also, people being near us, or "in our space", tends to suck our focus out. Unless they are dead silent. On many occasions even a small interruption can derail what we are attempting to do; and if we can manage to tune them out, we run the risk of "not paying enough attention" or "ignoring". Which is "rude".

Anyway, it's all a lot of whining. It's hard to explain, especially to James, how much his relationship expectations are so much different than what we are used to. We've dated plenty of different types of men, and we've lived with many different types of men, and there was never an issue of any of them feeling neglected.

In one relationship a boyfriend even had his own room, with a bed. There were no doors on it, and it was across the hall from the bedroom we shared, but it was still his space to meditate, create art, read, take naps.

Many boyfriends had friends, and a social life, outside of our relationship. One played board games with his buddies in the basement of the house we lived in, we were encouraged to join whenever we wanted, and was part of a Frisbee-golf team. (He was older, like 37, so it's not like he was a teenager, which is probably how that sounds). Another went to jam sessions, and had gigs out of town on occasion (the drummer).

We could go on and on, obviously; this is merely to illustrate how our expectations of time spent together was moulded.

The point is...how will we agree on a compromise when many of our relationships expectations are so vastly different form his. How will our day be structured. Why are we freaking out.

Actually, we know why we're freaking out.

The sad truth? Some of us are desperately afraid of losing ourselves, and by that we mean our sense of independence, our individuality (as much of that as we can have when we can have it), our creativity, our sense of knowing what makes many of us happy. We've made it THIS far...and we've finally been able to be us comfortably, love ourselves (not always, but still, enough).

That was a mini breakthrough, we suppose. Congratulations if you slogged your way to this sentence.

On another note, the offer on the house was rejected, so we'll be going back in with another offer, because we're getting that fucking house.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Late Night Edition

Yeah, we already wrote tonight. So this is the "Late Night" edition.

We haven't slept well since Friday night; which is the last time, before tonight, that we imbibed (in alcohol).

For months now we have ceased drinking on the weekend, at James' request - he doesn't like when we drink, which usually coincides with us watching the news channels, and playing around on Twitter (he hates American news, and he hates Twitter) - and so other than the 6-7 hours we spend during the day with him during the week (from waking until 5pm), on weekends, we spend all of our extra time with him.

We can't sleep on the weekends.
We want to, but we toss and turn all night, waking at least every hour with nightmares, anxiety, sweats, worries. Some of it might have to do with the time we spend sitting in bed on the weekend, because The Mother and Stepdad are home, and so we relinquish the main floor to them when we can. We should relinquish it more, but sitting in bed just makes our back hurt; which is probably one of the reasons we toss and turn. It just makes our back hurt.

So, we don't sleep on weekends very much. It's a long time in bed, tossing and turning. Sure, we could turn to Twitter with our insomnia - but that's what we did in the "old days"...and this is the "new days"...

Tonight, we've been drinking. And we'll sleep. And I'm crying, because...we might have a problem.

Monday, December 31, 2012

Oh, The Places We'll Go

Well, here is it...New Years Eve.

2013. Remember as a kid the year 2013 felt like forever away, and surely there would be flying cars, and robot servants (followed by a robot uprising), and all sorts of other bizarre futuristic things? Of course, those things do exist, just not how you thought they would. Give it a few more years. Shit just keeps getting stranger.

Time for reflection, or something, right? Fun.

This year has taken us so many places...and nowhere at all.

Living in England for several months. (glorious)
A road trip around North-Eastern United States with James (and meeting a whole bunch of people from Twitter!).
Two offers down on houses, both lost. (one pretty much stolen from us).
A seasonal job, our first job in the United States since 2004, since we last lived here. (the last day was December 24th)
Personal growth? Probably not. It's been a struggle of a year, mentally and physically (can't win them all...)

Here we are, still living in The Mother's basement (one of those things we didn't win); we expected to be not by now.

James got a job though, he should start promptly in the New Year (as soon as they get his urine test back). Good pay, with a good company. So that's awesome.

We (James, and us) have been seriously considering moving out of the city we currently reside in, to a town 40 miles away. It's small, with a population of less than 1000. The housing, both prices and taxes, are more affordable; the market where we are currently living being a seller's one. The idea of being so far removed from what we all consider civilization, is making us nervous. The cities nearby being what they are anyway (not very populated, and simply full of "box stores"), and not at all like the ones near the property we looked at this past summer, several hours away. It's making everyone involved nervous. It equals a long drive to work everyday, in the winter it can be dangerous. It equals a lack of culture, amenities, convinces; however, it also equals silence, few distractions, plenty of time for us to paint, to garden, to develop more recipes for a cookbook, and work on other writing. And generally get all the alone time we're likely to need, for a bit.

The primary residence of interest is a large white two-story, 3 bedroom turn-of-the-century house on a giant lot, with the potential to buy an empty lot next to it. The price is unbeatable, despite it needing massive amounts of work. It hasn't had a thing changed, interior wise, since at least the late 50's (some of us are excited about the interior design work that needs to be done). It also needs a new roof, and the siding could use a fresh coat of paint...at least. Probably the electrical needs to be updated. And it only has baseboard heating from what we can tell. It's marginally better than the previous house we put an offer on, and far better than our beloved Weeping Willow property (except for the lack of the 40 acres)

Probably the biggest thing? The day after Christmas we applied to go back to University, to finish a bachelors degree. The job market is limited with simply our culinary arts degree, and with the kind of physical problems we have; so after months of looking for work here at a wage we find fair, and coming up empty, we decided perhaps it'll be better to finish our degree. We have to do something, after all.

So, we're going to be a University student again...(if they re-admit us). There are a wise range of feelings about this.

It's part of a long-term goal anyway. Long-term, ha! Those never work out...but they are sometimes fun to make, as long as you don't get too "married" to them and can be flexible when things get uprooted.

So, this year has been one long "adventure", punctuated by sitting around, with promises of more to come in the New Year. Oh, the places we'll go (just a little homage to the late great Dr. Seuss).

In the meantime, why don't you sit around a little...and read some of our archives (or don't, what the fuck difference does it make).

While we've written loads over the last couple of years, the entries below are representative of some of the "better" (coherent, topical, apropos, etc.) things we've written, ranging from topics such as sex, life, mental illness/health, relationships, current events, art, philosophy, food, and more.

(Also: The Stories of Us - A grouping of all the entries we've written about our past. Contains some material not suitable for sensitive people and those under the age of 18.)