Shame

I know, I’m late.  What has kept me from you I hear you ask?  Well people, to be perfectly honest it’s good old shame.  Yes I am ashamed to be so weak-minded, so easily influenced, so unable to learn from past mistakes.  I am shamed to the core and feel like covering my face and skulking in the shadows.  And the truth is that I just didn’t want to tell you but I knew once I got here I’d be unable to keep it from you.  I don’t know quite how to break this to you because I’m afraid, no, I know, you’ll think less of me.  OK here it is – I have again succumbed to the Siren call of The Biggest Loser.

There I’ve said it. Oh I know it’s television at its most hideous, people at their most despicable, with more flesh baring than porn.  But I just can’t look away.  It’s like smoking – once you have one you’re done for.*  If I’d just been able to stay away from the first episode I would have been fine.  I could have pretended it wasn’t happening.  But I didn’t.  I almost drooled on the tv at the prospect of being horribly manipulated on a daily basis.  I didn’t even try to stay away.  And to make matters worse they’ve sweetened the deal by making it The Biggest Loser – Singles.  As well as the emotional roller coaster associated with the usual outpourings about battles with weight, now there’s the added frisson of wondering if James and Michelle will get it on once they’ve shed a few pounds.  Whoever’s on the camera sure knows how to capture a longing look ….. or create one out of thin air.  It’s pure art.

It’s only been one week and we’ve already had tears, laughter, shock, awe, and disbelief that  men over 12 can cry on tv so easily.  Who knew a treadmill was something to sob over or that lying down and refusing to get up was the normal behaviour of someone over 3?  It’s fantastic – I wouldn’t change a thing.  And Dr Norman Swan really came into his own the day he unloaded a few tonnes of fat onto the ground in front of the contestants and trainers – more than one of them had trouble keeping their low-fat, low-sugar, low-carb, low-calorie, low-flavour breakfast down.

See?  Now I’ve confessed I just can’t stop talking about it.  I should never have mentioned it. I feel possessed, and not in a good way.  I know that week after week I’ll tune in to see little Tiff screaming like a banshee, to watch Shannon’s eyes get closer together while he gets more and more confused about why his team aren’t doing what he says, to marvel at Michelle’s ability to turn a training session into an emotional breakdown without blinking, and to swoon over Commando’s tatts while they all state the bleeding obvious … and then repeat it  before and after each word from the sponsors.  I am clearly lost.  All I can do is promise to try not to talk about it every week.

My gratitude this week is focussed on the programmers at Channel 10 who’ve given me a small reprieve each week by not airing Loser every single night.  It may save me from complete and total ruin.

B

* Just an aside – I’m a mere few weeks away from two years without a cigarette.  Yay Chop!

The management of The Burnt Chop would like to express their deep concern for their client and assure the readership that they will do all in their power to influence the Chop to go to reality rehab and give up this destructive addiction.  But, as you’ve no doubt noticed before, she doesn’t listen to a word we say.

And here we are again …

Well here we are back in another year (they just keep rolling on don’t they?).  I have a spooky feeling in my waters about 2012 and I am confident enough to predict a good one (either that or I have a urinary tract infection).  It is going to be Year of the Dragon after all and that can only be a good thing.  There’s a reason why the Chinese regard themselves as descendants of the Dragon and have Dragons all over everything – apart from the fact that they are beautiful.  This year is going to be one of happiness and success.  Bring it on.

Now I know I alluded to big changes to my blog site this year but, as you can see, it hasn’t happened.  In fact I can report that absolutely nothing on my to do list got done over the holidays.  I had so much on that list it was starting to feel a lot less like a holiday than I had intended so I basically ignored it and just hung out with Nos1&2.  I am pretty sure I won’t be on my deathbed looking back and wishing I had re-arranged my sock drawer more often.  At least this gives Nos1&2 a few happy memories of their mother not being a whirlwind of stress and activity and can use those memories to get them through the dark days ahead (let’s face it, in the not too distant future I will have two teenage girls in my house – dark days indeed).  We did the whole family beach holiday thang and went to Bryon Bay – along with around 10,000 other holiday makers, including Elle McPherson and Lara (who the bloody hell are you?) Bingle.  Clearly they heard The Chop would be up there.  I firmly believe Byron council should have a quota for visitors and close the gates once it has been reached.  The traffic up there was enough to send me back to Sydney – at least we have alternate routes.

I have to say that after a week of packing 5 children, 3 adults, 75 surfboards and enough water and snacks for a small battalion into two cars every morning, and then unpacking it all at the beach every day, then putting it all back into the cars every afternoon, then taking all of the above plus 25 kilos of sand out of the cars again, and washing out 8 swimming costumes and towels, and organizing 600 showers and a daily feast fit for a pack of sumo wrestlers, I did start to wonder who this was a holiday for exactly.  Because it didn’t feel like one for me.  I am fairly certain that Elle and Lara had a different experience of Byron Bay to mine. But, complete and total exhaustion notwithstanding, I did have a lovely time and got some new ink work on my shoulder courtesy of one very talented Tom Denholm at Creative Tattoo.  I had a competition with a 19-year-old bloke about who would say “ouch” first.  Needless to say I won – I have given birth twice after all.

However, I don’t want you to think that my lack of achievement this holiday season is indicative of a deeper and on-going malaise.  I did find time to make some commitments for this year (I don’t like “resolution”, it sounds too wishy-washy).  These include a training plan for the SMH Half-Marathon in May (I am already in week 2 of the plan and so far so good), bringing more music into my life (all three of us have committed to at least 10 minutes music practice every day and I now have 5 guitar chords under my belt), a draft of my first novel (and no I haven’t started it yet, it is still in my head where it has been for the last 10 years), and, most importantly, I am deeply committed to my ongoing struggle to live in the now.  I want to be right here, in the moment, every day.  No regrets over yesterday, no worrying about tomorrow.

I am also tremendously grateful that all the Christmas and New Year festivities came and went without incident and I sincerely hope it was the same for you.  Welcome back to the Chop and I’ll see you here every week.

B

The Management of the Burnt Chop would like to acknowledge that, under sufferance, we will continue to try to manage the Chop the best way we can in difficult circumstances.  There’s not a lot you can do with an artistic temperament.

Undone

It’s official – I have lost the plot.  Not only the plot, but also the beginning, middle and end.  I no longer know which end is up … or down.  My own name escapes me.  I have no idea what day of the week it is.  I do know we are in December – I would have to be dead not to have noticed the inexorable descent to Christmas.  But as for the year? Not a clue. I completely missed last week’s blog post and didn’t even realise until Monday.  Tonight’s yoga class went so fast I suspect I actually slept the whole way through.  I have no memory of any downward dogs. I am now frightened to stop moving or close my eyes for fear I will never get going again.  My bed seems to be inhabited by a Siren because I find myself just heading there without making a conscious decision to do so.  Sleep may become so addictive I’ll need to go to rehab just to get out of bed.

Why am I in this state?  Let me tell you (try and stop me), the amount of organisation it has taken to make sure two children get to all their rehearsals and end of year events, while doing favours and calling in favours, working, attending Christmas functions, Christmas shopping, working, coordinating relatives and ex-husbands, navigating the type of weather that clearly indicates that the end of the world is nigh (begs the questions -why bother Christmas shopping?) working, and …. and … and just breathing in and out has been so ludicrous that it has done me in.  All I have to do is to get through the last round of dress rehearsals and attend the actual shows – 4 days and I can collapse.  I don’t think I can do it.  Invading Russia would be a piece of cake compared to this.  When are they going to perfect cloning or work out how to survive without sleep? Why does the end of the year have to be so exhausting?  By the time you get to your holiday you’re so wrecked all you can do is sleep.  I’m sure by the time I wake up it will be time to go back to work.  It may also have something to do with the fact that it has been a whole year since I had any sort of decent break.  A few days here and there in the school holidays just don’t cut the mustard.

I have now decided to spend Christmas Eve in a voluntarily catatonic state – lying on the floor staring at the ceiling.  All day.  Whatever hasn’t been done by the day before Christmas Eve (Christmas Eve Eve perhaps?) will just have to stay undone.  There is only so much of this I can take.  Something has got to give.

This is where you come in.  I am going to take a short break from the Burnt Chop Syndrome and, very soon, all other forms of responsibility as well.  Do not fear though, I will be back around mid January next year.  And I plan to be back bigger and better than ever and hopefully with a site re-vamp.  My theme for 2012 (I always like to have a theme) is to make the Burnt Chop a Blog To Be Reckoned With.  We are going to get out there and make a noise that will be heard outside Chopworld.  At some point I will ask for your assistance with this but I’ll leave that for next year.

Before I go, I would like to say that I have enjoyed every bit of writing this blog and am so grateful to everyone who reads it.  Those who’ve posted comments or just told me what they think of it have filled me with inspiration and kept me writing even when I thought I had absolutely nothing to say. It is truly amazing how nothing can turn into something right before your eyes. If you haven’t yet left a comment, I would love it if you did so I know you’re out there.  And to make sure you don’t miss anything please subscribe and you’ll automatically be sent an email each time there’s a new post.

Here’s to the end of 2011, it has truly been a great year.  May 2012 be even better.

Bxxxxx

P.S.  Nos1&2 prefer me in this state as I seem to agree to anything.  I’m just glad I haven’t ended up with another pet ….

The management of the Burnt Chop would also like to extend their thanks for reading despite the disgusting overuse of exclamation marks, the irritating digressions, and the wholly self-indulgent nature of the entire blog.  We will be charging a lot more next year if the Chop wishes to retain our services.  Merry Christmas.

 

Shorts (or A Series of Unconnected Bits I Will Attempt to Glue Together)

Today I went to a meditation seminar for the whole day.  I must say it was a lovely change from the old work routine but I’m not sure I was au fait with all the talk about reincarnation.   At morning tea one of the other participants told us all how she had chucked in a perfectly good job in order to do a two-year course in Art Therapy.  She has just finished and is now qualified to put up a shingle as an Art Therapist.  She cheerfully told us she was even qualified to help atheists.  As a card-carrying atheist myself I almost told her that no self-respecting atheist would want the help of someone who talked about them as a separate species.  I later had cause to reveal my atheism when I was asked by the facilitator if I had ever had the feeling I had “been here before”.  Well, no I haven’t.  I’m sure if I had been here before I’d be much better at it than I appear to be.  The talk went on this way for quite sometime and I have to say I do have difficulty with the idea that the rampant flesh-eating disease you contract today could be related to bad karma from a previous earthly experience.  We no longer have to look for a cure for cancer – it comes from crimes we don’t remember we committed or grievous wrongs we did people we have no idea we ever met. I’m now wondering what I did before my current incarnation to deserve the ugly mole under my arm or the curiously misshapen nails on my little toes.  Perhaps I coveted my neighbour’s ass.

If this is all true then Julia Gillard should be afraid, very afraid.  Don’t worry I’m not going to bang on about the policies of either side (they’re so frighteningly similar what would be the point) but I am deeply disappointed in her.  I heard on the radio that politicians are getting a pay rise.  And Julia’s $90,000 raise is far more than I earn in a year.  This apparently takes her salary to a measly $470,000 p.a.  While public servants had their pay rises capped at 3% they now have to wear their boss getting a pay hike of just under 20%.  As far as I’m concerned, accepting this raise is a big up yours to all her staff and would put her in huge karmic debt.  The only problem with this scenario is that it is her next body that will spontaneously combust, not this one. Shame Julia, shame.

Clearly we are all in some kind of trouble that may or may not have been caused by the misbehaving of our past selves.  You only need to notice the strange and ominous weather patterns we are having lately.  I have to say in my travels between home and the seminar today I experienced at least three distinct seasons.  In the past week alone I reckon we’ve had all four.  What is going on?  My favourite theory is that the weather gods are heartily sick of Christmas cheer already.  This is what happens when you peak too early.  I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, September is too soon to deck the halls.  I really think there should be some kind of embargo until December.  I informed No.s 1&2 some time ago that our “tree”* would go up in December and not a minute before.  Any second now they’ll notice the date – I’d better go and dust it off.

I am grateful that I have no memory of any past lives.  If any of my former selves did anything wrong then at least I don’t have to carry the guilt with me now.  There is simply no room for any more – Motherhood has entirely over-flowed my guilt reservoir.

B

* If I can ever work out how to put a picture on here I will share my “tree” with you.  It is a natty construction of garden frame, wire, tinsel and decorations.  All I need to do is get it out of the garbage bags and place it somewhere the dog can’t reach.  Voila – instant, fuss free tree!

The End is Nigh

What is it about this time of year that makes everyone think the world is ending on Boxing Day?  Why is it suddenly imperative to get together with people before Christmas?  I even caught myself saying it recently – oh we must catch up before Christmas. Why, why, why?  I will still be here after Christmas, they will still be here after Christmas, there is nothing in particular that makes seeing them before Christmas so important.  Every year people behave as though Armageddon is on the cards on Christmas Day despite yearly evidence that Boxing Day dawns every time – like clockwork.  Shopping for food in the days leading up to Christmas is a damn nightmare.  Women with huge trolleys ram each other to get the last box of mince pies (which no-one in their right mind would eat at any other time), everything is supersized or bought in bulk (presumably to stock the bomb shelter), the only shop busier than the supermarket is the bottle shop.  No one can stand Aunt Vera (or the end of the world) without being half tanked.  If only I wasn’t so picky about fresh fruit, vegetables and meat or I’d be able to avoid the mad panic and just buy everything in advance – that’s why tins were invented. You’d swear the shops were going to close forever on the 25th of December, and that we would be reduced to scrounging on the streets for food scraps leftover from grossly over-catered Christmas lunches.  Let’s face it, most people eat enough at Chrissie lunch to last the whole year anyway.  I guess stuffing your face makes it easier to avoid conversation and thus the Traditional Christmas Family Meltdown.

Goodness me, I seem to have my cranky pants so firmly on I think I may even have given myself a wedgie.  I blame the weather.  I mean I am caffeine bloody free, meditating like a crazy person, trying very hard not to eat junk food (if you ignore the 6 snakes I just inhaled) but all I want to do is rip someone’s head off.  No one in particular – just the next person who crosses me, or even considers crossing me, or accidentally walks in front of me.  Because I am pretty fit these days I think I am now experiencing the kind of implosion a body can initiate when it doesn’t get its customary amount of exercise.  I normally get far in excess of the recommended minimum of 30 mins a day but thanks to this damn, damn, damn rain I have not been able to cycle to work this week and I haven’t had a run since last Friday.  I can’t believe how crappy I feel.  And not just physically – my brain is starting to get in on the act as well.  Yesterday came and went without my registering that it was blog day and I have made several double bookings for the next few weeks, which I now have to untangle.  While my organisational skills are usually of a very high standard (in normal circumstances I could invade a small country in my sleep), I now find myself unable to plan more than 5 minutes ahead.  And I couldn’t make a decision to save my life.  It would be suicide to even enter a DVD store – I’d still be wandering around on Boxing Day unable to work out what I’m in the mood for.  Oh for the psyche cleansing effects of a good run.  If this weather won’t leave me be I will be left with no choice but to part with a ridiculous amount of money for a casual gym visit so I can pound their treadmill until the endorphins reach a level high enough to restore my equilibrium and return me to my usual chipper self.  I guess it would be much cheaper than the court case necessary after I’ve gone mad with a machete in the local square.
 The irony is not lost on me – all this work on eliminating dependency on cigarettes and now caffeine, only to discover I’m addicted to exercise.  Oh well, it could be sooo much worse – crack anyone?

B

P.S.  I’ll have to get back to you on the gratitude – I’m just not feeling it right now.

Shopping Daze

I have once again had cause to remember why shopping centres are really not for me.  The other day I had to go to David Jones so I took No2 and gamely ventured into the nearest Westfield.  It was a Saturday.  It was very scary.  The noise level was brain scrambling to say the least and the light was so so bright I thought I’d be strapped to a chair and interrogated any second.  I tried to stay very focussed on the task at hand – David Jones, Cosmetics, Clinique, Mascara.  I chanted it like a mantra to keep me safe: DavidJonesCosmeticsCliniqueMascaraDavidJonesCosmeticsCliniqueMascara

Unfortunately it wasn’t enough.  I walked past some kind of kitchenware stall, you know those floating shops stuck out in the middle of the walkways.  They sneak up on you because they don’t really look like shops and get you when your guard’s down.  One minute I glanced at a stand with very interesting looking knives and the next minute I was about 20 metres away with a bag of new knives swinging from my arm.  I was flabbergasted (one of my all time favourite words) and couldn’t remember for the life of me how that had happened.

I stopped and turned to No2 – why did I buy these? I asked her in bewilderment.  She just shrugged her little shoulders and said – I don’t know (and looked at me like I’d lost my mind and she could already see what my old age might be like for her).  Not only did I not need new knives but I couldn’t afford them either.  I mean the blasted fat man in the red suit is just around the corner and I can barely afford a visit from him let alone funky, unnecessary knives.  No.2 threw me a life-line and sensibly suggested I take them back.  Fantastic idea but I just knew I’d die of embarrassment if I returned something 5 minutes after buying it.  Do you know how moronic you feel when you explain to an 8 year old why you’re too chicken to return something you don’t need ?  I promised her faithfully I would do it the next day.  Those Westfields are damn dangerous places so after that I navigated my way to and from DJs with my eyes on the floor – leaving quite a few people concerned for my mental health as I passed by.  At least I stuck to my guns (eventually) and left only with the mascara I’d gone there to buy.

Unlike the weekend before, however, when I went to the Mind Body Spirit Festival and went a bit crazy.  Those festivals are already a little on the loopy side – half the stalls are attended by very well intentioned folk who just want everyone to be happy and healthy (particularly in the colonic area), but the other half just want your credit card.  And in order to get your credit card they want to make sure you think you need “healing”.  I have never seen so many “cures” in the one spot.  Luckily I had enough of my wits still with me to avoid being cured and instead bought the most expensive yoga mat I have ever seen, several fairy dolls, a set of shape-shifter cards (who knows when you might need them), various Peruvian bracelets and had a very lovely discussion with one of the delightful women at the Brahma Kumaris stand about the type of oil she uses on her face.  I swear she had the skin of a 20 yr old despite being over 60.  I won’t say I told you so but I have extolled the virtues of coconut oil before – say no more.  I may have been lucky to get out of there without partaking of any type of healing but my bank account could have done with some.  Really it’s just a Westfield in disguise – chuck a few floaty Indian curtains and some sequinned, purple throw cushions about and Bob’s your uncle.

But I mustn’t be too cynical – there were many people there who just wanted to promote health and well-being and that has to be a good thing.  Given my recent foray into meditation and life sans caffeine I have to say I’m all for it.  It is an amazing thing in this frantic busy world to step out for even just a few minutes each day and focus on just being.  Not on being a mother, or a sister, or a lover, or a daughter, or a worker, or a friend – just being.  I have been doing it now for 16 days in a row and I’m not saying it’s easy, I still have great trouble turning all the chatter off, but I am starting to feel as though it’s making a difference.  That difference may not yet be discernible to the naked eye but I know it’s there.  Either that or I’m becoming a shape-shifter.  Let me consult the cards and get back to you on that.

B

P.S.  Can I just add that I’m very grateful to the kitchenware stall for taking the knives back no questions asked. Merci.

We are not amused

 

No, we are not amused today, or amusing I’m afraid.  What we are though, is philosophical.  While the Chop has plenty of space for a good laugh (and we do love a good laugh) it can always allow a bit of room for philosophising.  I have realised that recently I came very close to forgetting what I’m here for – I almost accepted a burnt chop.  I forgot that a burnt chop has nothing left to give you, its juices are all gone and its insides are dried up.  A chop cooked well (not perfectly but well enough) still has juices that run down your chin when you bite into it.  It gets you messy and makes you lick your fingers so you don’t miss any of the flavour.  These are the chops I want and these are the chops I will get.

What is she on about? I hear you ask.  Well, this week I have been very disappointed by someone.  The whys and wherefores are not important but it is sufficient to tell you I have felt pain this week that I never expected to feel.  I cried more tears than I knew I had in my body.  And I felt buried under a sadness so heavy I didn’t think I could breathe properly.  I also felt humiliated by my own feelings.  But the reason I am telling you this is because I refuse to feel ashamed of my pain.  I am going to feel it and allow it to be present and work itself out.  What I realise now is that I am so very grateful for this pain.  It proves I’m alive.  It proves I can feel.  It proves I can love. It proves I know how to throw myself into life and get my feet soaking wet.  I can splash around in it, go under, and come back up again.  And if I can do it once, I can do it again, and again, and again.  We only have one life and I intend to really live it.  All its messiness, pain, laughter, confusion, joy, madness – I want it all.  And the best bit is that I know I can have it.  I am not afraid of it and I’m not going to hold myself back.

Ok so right now I hurt, and I don’t care who knows it.  Pretend I have gone to the window, thrown it open, and shouted at the top of my voice – I hurt, I am hurting, I feel hurt.  I accept this hurt with thanks because what it has also given me is the knowledge that I am surrounded by love.  You don’t get love from only one source but sometimes it takes a tragedy to reveal all the other love around you.  I have been surprised, touched, warmed and, dare I say it, blessed to make this discovery.  While the pain took my breath away, this love has given it back.  I can breathe again and I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.  I’m not sure how far away it is, but it’s enough to know it’s there.

Thank You.

B

 

Fresh Hell

I have lost my mind.  It is the only explanation for why I have suddenly decided to forgo the addictive pleasure of caffeine and why I am now in the throes of caffeine withdrawal.  Oh. My. God.  What fresh hell is this?  I cannot believe how godawful I feel.  I really didn’t think I drank enough coffee and tea to warrant a total body and mind collapse like this.  I really thought I’d have a bit of a headache for an afternoon and then I’d be right as rain (digression – why is rain so right?).  Apparently not.  No, apparently I’m to have a headache for quite some time (we’re up to about 48 hours so far), my brain is no longer going to be able put words together to form sentences, I am to have difficulty remembering tasks from one moment to the next (and am likely to forget the one I’m doing while I am doing it),  I am going to have great difficulty with patience and sympathy, I’m going to want to cry suddenly and often, and clearly I am going to feel unloved and unappreciated for an unspecified amount of time.  Oh yay.

This is making my meditation challenge much harder already and I have only been doing it for two days.  What’s the meditation challenge I hear you ask?  Well,  I recently decided (in another dizzying display of lost mindedness) that I would like to give myself a proper chance to find out if all the oft espoused benefits of meditation are actually true.  So I challenged myself to two months of meditating every single day.  It started on Nov 1 and will end (unless I’m so zen and right on that I just keep on going) on Dec 31.  And now that I’ve “challenged” myself I have to bloody do it because if I quit I’ll feel like a total loser with no will power and I’m so damn stubborn I don’t want to feel like a failure.  The way I can hold myself hostage to my own brain and its whims is staggering.  Anyway, the point here (if I can ever get near one) is that when I did my second session of meditation yesterday (because I decided the first one was too short), I found that the caffeine withdrawal made focussing very tricky indeed and also made it really quite hard to stay awake.  It was only 6.15pm when I started and by the time I was visualising my belly button, my head almost broke off my neck when I jerked awake for the third time.  Today I didn’t fall asleep but I did have an enormous problem staying on track and remembering what my name was and what I was here for.

Thank Whoever for yoga.  By the time I got to my class this evening I was in full melt down and had a lot of pent-up awfulness churning around my body.  The teacher (in her strange and spooky wisdom) decided this was the perfect night to do partner work.  Now, normally I don’t like touching strangers (and don’t much like them touching me either) but tonight I got to bash two total strangers round the back and shoulders and then be beaten up by them in return.  It was fantastic.  Although I am starting to worry about my newfound penchant for hitting things (I recently picked up a baseball bat after about 25 or so years and loved whacking the ball so much I scared myself).  But hey, whatever works right now.  I choose not to look to closely into the whys and wherefores just at the minute, at least until I am at peace with my caffeine free self.  Oh please let that be soon.  I’m not sure I can take much more of this free fall into psychic wasteland.  And I’m fairly sure that those around me won’t be able to stomach much more of it either.

Clearly I am not going to feel any benefits of mediation while I am in this state of withdrawal so that’s a bit of a shame.  But I have been assured that when I come out the other side I will feel amazing.  If I don’t, I’m going to hit someone.

B

Brain spasms

I am cool, calm and collected.  I am on top of all the latest developments in my field.  I am a strategic genius.  I am an asset to any organisation.  You would be fools if you didn’t hire me.  Fools, I tell you, fools!!!  This is what I tried to convey twice this week in the way I dressed, the way I entered the interview room, in my answers to simple, 17-part questions, and in the way I took my leave.  Note the word “tried”.  Did I succeed?  Oh probably not but it was excellent practice in the art of ensuring not one bit of how you might be feeling on the inside shows in any way on the outside (a very useful skill in a multitude of situations).  It has been a while between interviews, this week I had two and I must confess it was a bit of a shock to the system.  I’d forgotten that feeling of dread and impending doom you get after the initial excitement at being chosen for interview wears off.  Every since I was notified about the two of them time has sped up ridiculously.  I have never had a week move so fast.  One minute I’m telling my friends I got through to the interview (much further than my last attempt let me tell you) and the next minute I’m in the waiting room for the first interview frantically looking for the nearest exit.  And then, before I can blink, the usher comes for me and takes me to the panel.  After that everything went black.  I have this montage of memories that appear to be related to the interview.  Lots of laughing and smiling, much forgetting of everyday words and phrases, incredible amounts of sweat, then more laughing and shaking hands – then I’m out the door with no memory of any of the names of the interview panel and only the haziest of ideas about where I left the car.  Time actually lost all meaning.  When I looked at my watch I realised I’d been up there for over an hour, apparently.

I did find my way to the car but I’m not sure that was such a good thing.  The adrenaline now coursing through my body caused me to drive straight into the path of an oncoming car.  And, what was worse, I watched myself do it as if in slow motion but was powerless to stop it.  It gave me the biggest fright and probably an even bigger one to the poor bastard in the car coming towards me.  I imagine he was cursing me with all kinds of obscenities as we narrowly missed each other – and rightly so.  I was on such an adrenaline high by this stage I was able to put it aside pretty quickly while I thought about how well I’d performed in the interview and how much the panel must have liked me.  It was lovely feeling so powerful and competent.

Cut to next scene – 3.30am in the morning.  Peaceful sleeping body in the bed.  Suddenly it bolts upright, gasps and takes an enormous gulp of air as though coming up from a long time underwater.

My mind then flooded itself with all the things I should have said, all the things I said badly, all the words I forgot, all the twitching, all the sweating, all the inarticulate utterings.  And just as I had been consumed a mere 12 hours earlier with thoughts of how much they liked me I was now just as convinced they thought I was a complete idiot.  They’d clearly laughed at my jokes out of sympathy (poor, floundering thing they were thinking).  It would have been kinder to take me out the back and shoot me instead of letting me ramble on, and on …. and on.  Why, why, why had I even gone to the interview?  Who in their right mind would hire me – someone who forgets their own name on a regular basis.  And what was worse, I had another one the next morning.  I spent the rest of the night looking at the clock every five minutes and frantically telling myself I needed to sleep.  I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried that as a method of getting to sleep, but I’m fairly certain you won’t be shocked to discover it’s not very effective.  Bleary eyed and a bit battered and bruised, I presented myself to yet another panel.   What was worse about this one was that I knew two thirds of the panel very well.  How can you put on your best interview persona when two of the three people interviewing you know what you’re really like.? I have no real memory of that one either.  I think it’s a kindness on the part of your brain to block particularly uncomfortable or humiliating memories so you can continue to function.  I am very grateful to my brain for protecting me in this manner.

I am also grateful for a pre-booked and paid for yoga class that got me out of watching a hundred 8 year olds sing “Somewhere over the Rainbow”.  Again, I have failed at motherhood but my sanity and hearing are intact – hey, you win some, you lose some.

B

I never signed up for this

I have spent the best part of today de-lousing my beloved offspring.  I have also spent a good proportion of that time cursing the parents who send their kids to school with nits – knowingly.  Yes, I know you’re out there.  And you know what, I’m sure you think your job is important and you think you really can’t miss that meeting so you just pretend you haven’t seen things crawling on little Bartholomew’s head and pop him off to school.  But spare a thought for those of us who suffer because of your selfishness!!!! My damn time is pretty important too and I don’t really relish spending 4 hours on lice treatments and fine tooth combing after seeing the population of a small to medium-sized country crawling around the scalp of my youngest child.  I hope this turns your stomach the way it turned mine.  There’s nothing quite like calling your boss to tell them you can’t come in today because your children need pest controlling.  It certainly doesn’t get me any closer to Mother-of-the-year.  No-one ever tells you this bit do they?  They also don’t tell you that when they’re sick and chucking their guts up you don’t turn into Florence Nightingale automatically – I actually have to battle my demon self who simply wants to run, run like the wind.  There’s a reason I didn’t become a nurse – that would be because I can’t stand sick people or the sight of blood or vomit.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all sick people should be rounded up and forced into fenced off compounds but I just can’t look after them myself and am exceedingly grateful for people who actively want to look after them and go to university to become doctors and nurses.  Huzzah for them!

Anyway, the upshot of today’s activity was a certain level of built up rage by the time I was scheduled to go to my yoga class.  Not the best way to approach yoga, but I have to say it did diffuse me.  I have recently started a new yoga class after an absence of about 10 years.  It is super fabulous and the first time I did it I thought I was going to float off the ground I felt so damn good.  I am a total beginner and have accidentally joined a class full of experienced practitioners so half the effort for me is to not look like a complete loser who has no idea what a baby fish pose is.  I am also nowhere near bending myself into a pretzel but so far there hasn’t been too much call for that.  Of course I am finding a few similarities between this and my attempts at meditation.  The focus on the inner thingy is still a bit hard to come by and my mind is never empty (although I can sound like it is without too much effort).

The other difficulty is that the teacher is a friend of mine and I am so distracted by how good she is that I sometimes forget to focus on what I’m supposed to be doing with my leg up somewhere behind my head.  Often you only know people in certain contexts so when you see them in another mode it can come as a bit of a shock.  Like when I see my GP at the dog park – it’s all wrong and I can’t even talk to her.  Seeing my friend in yoga teacher mode is incredible.  It is all I can do to stop myself dropping out of downward dog and just gaping at her.  I have been fascinated by how much she knows about the yoga she is teaching and the way she winds information in with the instruction in such a seamless way.  I feel very lucky to be seeing this other side of her.  We are all so many selves but often you only see one at a time.  It can be a bit tricky to actually be more than one at a time as well.  This comes up for me when I’m being both a mother and a partner – I can do each of them separately (with varying degrees of success) but combining the two is something I’m still carefully navigating (Gosh – a digression.  How did that happen?)

On the topic of all my selves I must confess to have been masquerading as someone else just lately – or maybe it’s more that I’m adding yet another persona (The United States of The Chop perhaps).  I have been going into as many bike shops as I can and pretending to speak Bike.  I’m doing a bit of research into how much it will cost to replace my current steed since cycling has become my main form of transport and my poor old bike has seen better days.  This is not as easy as it sounds.  When I first started I couldn’t even tell they were speaking English.  Then a few words and phrases started to become clearer – Shimano, carbon forks, flat bar, Sram.  Then I started being able to throw Tiagra and Deore around like I knew what I was talking about.  I got a bit over-excited after this and hopped onto a few bike forums on the net thinking I would be able to understand the natives.  Ummm ….. are they even talking about bikes?  You have permission to shoot me if I ever refer to my bike as a “sweet ride”.  I may be no closer to figuring out how much a replacement bike is going to be (I’m fairly sure the answer is similar to “How long is a piece of string”) but one day very soon I’m pretty confident that I will be able to actually pronounce derailleur.

I am very grateful that I am more than one self – keeps life entertaining (well …. at least for me).

B