2012 ain’t over yet!

So here’s the final 2012 post on this here blag. The last proper “what I’ve been up to” post is exactly a month old! So it’s about time.

I probably won’t remember everything I’ve done in that month, but here’s a general idea:

• The lovely Cindy came to visit as announced in the previous post. We went to the Postsecret event which was fun. We also went shopping, and we sat about and watched various DVDs. What we didn’t do was go iceskating. :))
• After Cindy left I had a neverending I-want-to-die headache again. It lasted five days I think and it finally ended on Sunday after a) I’d had another massage and b) I started taking 5-HTP. The magic pill. More about that later.
• Shortly after that I went to Paris, but you can read all about that in the Paris report. I love Paris. 😡 I also didn’t have a headache in Paris, which I swear is the first time in almost three years.
• Then I was back and slowly sliding into Christmas mode. Well, first Rita decided we had to spend every minute of every day together and called me aaaall the time and suggested doing stuff. Ok, it only lasted a day and a half but it seemed like forever. :))

 
So Christmas mode has been great. As you know, I don’t “do” Christmas and altho I did celebrate on Portland with the Livelys last year, I decided to stay home and be productive this year. And so far (the Xmas holiday officially lasts until after New Year, like school holidays) I have done extremely well. You can find almost everything I’ve made on my Tumblr (some things are secret tho), plus I wrote three letters and a number of postcards. I also spent a lot of time on OKcupid. I might even meet up with some people! 😮 They all know I don’t date tho. I still have some creative stuff left on my To Do list, including my Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbook which is due on the 15th, and altho I had already pretty much given up on it I might just give it a go. After all I won’t have a job, and hence a lot of time, in January.

Yeah. Jobwise all I’ve done since we last spoke was one day at the SEO temp place, which ended in drama as the second day the guy I was supposed to work for didn’t turn up and no one bothered to tell me, so I was massively pissed off (this was during headache-times, plus it had been pissing it down) and kicked up a huge fuss and got an apology. 😀 Tho they might still decide not to employ me again for being so difficult. :)) And I did a bit of copywriting for old-job, and agreed to do some more after Christmas if they need me. I was pretty convinced that new-job would be postponed again, but actually got an email and it sounds like they will at least have a different project for me to work on in February, and I’ll likely do 30 hours instead of 20 cuz dude, I really need some income. :))

Oh yeah, and my magic pills turned out to have an appetite suppressant effect as well and actually work, so then of course I had to go into full on diet-and-exercise-mode again (actually I try to eat more or less normally, and even treats, just not huge amounts). So in addition to the occasional swimming I have now started Couch to 5K again. Completed Week 3, Day 2 today. I got very wet. 😀 Yeah. 5-HTP supposedly stimulates serotonin production and is used/marketed as a treatment against depression. It is hard for me to gauge the full effect on me in that respect as I am not depressed, in fact have been feeling pretty good lately anyway. But I definitely continue to feel good, despite the dreadful weather. :)) And have had no headache since I started taking them. It may also have helped with the productivity? Not sure. Nor do I know how long I should continue to take it… it is natural, but there also don’t seem to have been any serious studies on its long term effects or side effects. We shall see. Definitely finishing the ones I have. It’s too great. 😀

The only other thing that occurred (that I can remember) is that during/after Paris my mum mentioned that we should go together again some time, so I finally sent that long overdue “I am not going on holiday with you anymore because I am tired of being judged” email (it had been sitting in my Gmail drafts for almost a year). Her reaction was first “I’ve heard enough about this” and second, she sent me a card (snail mail) which said “blabla [unrelated trivial stuff] but I love you all the same”. Which… is cute cuz we don’t express our feelings ever so it’s a huge thing, but it’s also a roundabout way of placing the “blame” on me again (tho not sure what she’s referring to – she loves me despite the fact that I’m fat and ugly, or the fact that I sent what she would call “a nasty email”?) and basically saying “I am not going to acknowledge a word of what you said and just pretend this didn’t happen.”

She also strikingly started her email (first reply) by saying “I had forgotten about your hair (or repressed it).” At first this made me angry (I have pink hair FFS, I’m not an axe wielding child murderer!), but thinking about it more I’ve come to the realisation that that right there is the crux of the matter: she conveniently shelves away the things she doesn’t want to deal with. They simply don’t exist. It’s also the way she managed to live with an alcoholic for twenty years and steadfastly denied he’d been one, all the while admitting that she used to hide bottles of spirits from him. I mean, it takes quite some mental acrobatics to get that to work.

So currently I am not entirely sure what my next step is… do I react to the statement on her card (which, very cleverly, she has coated in something positive, making it harder to push back and say “yeah sorry that’s not good enough” cuz she can act all offended. I wonder if this is calculated or subconscious), orrr do I just decide that I’ve said my piece, made my choice (basically I’m not going to see her, ever, unless I have to, e.g. for funerals and the like), and I’ll let it rest. After all it is unlikely I will ever get the desired reaction out of her (I’m not even sure what that is – agreeing to go into therapy?), and she’s 64 so can I really expect her to change now? At the end of the day, she’s the one who has to live with the consequences of her actions (cuz I know she would like to go on holiday with me, whereas I am entirely happy with the way things are).

Well, this turned out to be a rather long entry in the end. But I think it’s important to write these things down somewhere. I don’t wanna have to rely on Mark Zuckerberg to keep my Facebook archives accessible or something. :))