I don’t know exactly where I want to start because my mind is racing. It’s been racing around on the same topic(s) for months. Different scenarios have presented themselves that I’ve been involved in on both ends of the spectrum, disturbances I’ve caused and not caused, respect that I’ve lost and gained. And now everyone and their mother are posting on it in some way or another; Cyber bullying.

If you’d have asked me three years ago if I thought that blogs would posses a form of power outside of cyber space, or a real substantial message, I’d have said no.

In 2004 I started reading Raymi and Dooce, no other blogs. Although Dooce had lost her job and coined the term to be or get Dooced - this did resonate with me because I was fired over an email, I ultimately left the Travel industry shortly after in 2000 - but still, learning what I had from that, it being the only time I have ever been fired [even with my MANY mental disorders] I had little sympathy for her. I know it wasn’t widely known by employees back when she was fired just how much information companies had on you and what you spent your days really doing but I was also one of the early causalities of a firing due to in or out of office use of the internet and what you were doing with it on company time or even off it in her case.

Just under a year later when I had decided that I had to have a blog and I had to own it, that it had to be all mine and all about me I realized just how wrong I was about the rapidly forming culture I was entering.

Blogging gave me a voice I never had before, it gave me a place where I could be me. Where I could hash out all my shit and be a funny fucker in people’s comments. That’s how it all started for me.

I never thought about it, never gave a shit about where I did or didn’t fit into the blogging circles, the blogging world. I’ve always been a link whore but it doesn’t matter in the end, my links have never reflected my readership. There are Vancouver bloggers linked here that refuse to return my link yet have almost every other known blogger in the city linked and still comment and read here. Nothing if you really give it some thought makes a lot of sense in the blogging community whether in or out of Vancouver. The technology that allows for so many advancements within the Social Media Circles is happening so fast that some personal, old school bloggers like me are being left in the dust. Like anything in life, change never ceases to affect it.

The use of my voice through my depression and rage turned out to spread into the States and over a couple of continents and I did feel that I fit in those circles and still do and those are the readers that have essentially kept this site here. But that leaves the question am I really blogging for myself? I know that I started to; I know that I do again today. I know that when I tried to find a place to fit in here in Vancouver that I learned that all I had feared was true and then some, and yet I still got lost in it along the way. And about that…

You’d think that I would have learned my lesson the first time. You know, when I dragged my immediate family over the coals and my Mom had a breakdown and the people who were to become my in-laws probably wanted to hit the streets in protest of our marriage yet kept it to begging Adam not to marry me over lunch.

The only thing I look back on there and really wonder about is that some of the people who still wanted to get to know me off the blog were well aware of all of those rage filled posts, knew I was unstable, volatile, not happy, yet all chose to get to know me anyway this was long before my archive categories randomized and now you gotta search for the really nasty stuff, cept’ all the stuff about my in-laws is gone ‘cause I want a relationship with my SILS and am slowly working on building them. We may never paint each others toe nails but I love and respect them a lot.

When certain people think back I wonder what they think their real motives where, if any, for meeting me.

I look back over the last few months, from about a week maybe two before I was hospitalized and back to when the things I posted may have worked, but were not the right way to deal with my families’ issues and I do cringe. I cringe more over the stuff written during my breakdown because although I wasn’t in my right mind I still had to take responsibility for every word that came across the screens whether I meant it or not. And I haven’t read that shit back over, I can’t.

It saddens me deeply that I’ve been bullied to the point that I’ve tried to take my life more than once and that I’ve bullied to the point that energy projected out at me recently on two separate but very close occasions pierced my heart in a way so painful that I had to re-evaluate almost everything all over again. But in that re-evaluation I also can’t help but remember that I have never slandered anyone in the blogesphere by name, unlike someone who slandered myself and my husband on her blog by name numerous times spewing extremely personal lies and attacking truths about myself and my family that were too personal at the time to blog about, to the point that if this person didn’t already have enough to worry about we’d have charged her ass. And not ONE of the people who I called out in my post who where supposed to be our friends [at the time] stood up for us. In fact some shocked me in saying they had ‘saved her emails in case I needed them’ well AFTER the fact. Maybe I wouldn’t have flipped quite as bad if I’d have known certain things WAY earlier like that for one would have counted as SUPPORT. No one I hung with through blogging at that time let me talk about what we’d been through, no one asked. Behind my back on the other hand…. oh I won’t even get into it. I was SO blind.

No matter what I wrote, these aren’t bad people; they just disappointed me greatly, just as ultimately I’m pretty sure I more than disappointed them. But I think here is also the perfect place to mention that unless you live in Vancouver or are associated with a particular group outside of the city and participate in a very small and fastidious part of the blogging scene, no one even knew who I was talking about, yes it was still cruel and hurtful but in the end I’ve had more people ask me who it was about than anything.

Sure, word got around and that has been interesting to watch, people playing both sides, some people not talking to me anymore, some people starting to talk to me because of it, some people pretending they aren’t talking to me when they really are and thinking I don’t know they are pretending. And unless you are in a pretty close circle of mine I haven’t answered the question of who it was about with a particularly straight answer.

Depression is not an excuse, it is a fact. During the calling out of what I saw as a lot of fake bullshit going on in parts of the local the blogosphere - that I became a part of and ultimately wanted know part of - coinciding with lots of other shit and as bad luck would have it I had a breakdown and made a grand bullying exit from the immediate scene. Of course I have taken heat and I’ve been granted minimal forgiveness aside from my links not being removed from blogs that I thought would instantly remove me. Yes, I greatly appreciate that and it has NOT gone unnoticed.

But the fact remains; I targeted my rage at some of the wrong people and my inability to see straight, think straight, do anything straight has cost me greatly and anyone who thinks it hasn’t needs their head checked, I get mine checked once a week. Each time I have a full break I learn about myself. Someone wrote to me while I was still pretty much in the middle of the madness that they’d had an ex-girlfriend who suffered from depression and SHE’D had control over her actions and emotions. WELL GOOD FOR FUCKING HER! Everyone is different and she obviously didn’t suffer to the extent I do. The close mindedness of even those who have experience with depressed people still floors me. How you can offer up forgiveness to someone who does really stupid and idiotic things related to their depression and not another is beyond me. OH right the person I’m referring to here at this very minute is famous, oops. I have never been good with double standards just contradictions.

I think there is a fine line between telling the truth on your blog and cyber bullying, I’ve definitely crossed that line a time or two and hurt people, I have said I’m sorry and all I can really do is not do it again and the next time I have a breakdown I am seriously going to unplug the computer completely if I’m in attack mode. It has been talked about in session and with Adam, there are new plans in place to help aid in destruction control when my mind is fucking with me and telling me to kill myself because everyone hates me anyway …. You live like that day in and day out for any number of days and let’s see if you fuck up here and there.

I am greatly ashamed of all the bullying I have ever taken part in, on and offline. To me there plainly is no excuse for someone who suffered like I did from as young as I can remember in the hands of relentless bullies to project it back out onto other people but I am long done beating myself up over it, I have enough scars and will never stop learning from them.

So I will go BULLETS on you.

• Every single time one of us sits at the computer Gus jumps straight onto a lap she has her head buried in my arm right now. She is the most adorably cute annoying cat in the world.

• Adam hurt himself at work and has been off here and there and so I’ve had to carry some heavy shit and;

1. it made me wonder how the hell I was ever as independent as I was
2. someone held the back door to the apartment building open for me, I made it all the way up the stairs to my floor and swung the door open so I could let it hit me in the back to go through but I didn’t move far enough over and the door knob NAILED me so hard that it happened on Monday and I still have pain shooting in a couple of directions and a massive LUMP.

• COMING SOON!!! HUGE and I mean HUGE MOOOOO-VIE post. While we make monkeys we watch movies, mostly movies we’ve seen or I watch them twice or vise versa, some will be old and some will be new movies. I feel that my one liner-ish reviews are generally better than if I go all out anyway.

• Speaking of movies, and forgive me as I’ll probably repeat some of this somewhere down the road but I FINALLY got my hands on a copy of Into the Wild BUT now I’m afraid to watch it, WHY? Because see, I read the book in April 2005 [NERD ALERT/reminder: I date all of my books when I finish them] I have also read most of Jon Krakauer’s other books. The book Into the Wild is a 199 pages, with epilogue 203. I had this funny feeling having just watched two movies of perfect length so I looked at Into the Wild and saw that it is 143 minutes. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I’m now convinced that Krakauer and Penn are conspiring against all of man kind, how the HECK does a 199 page book become a 143 minute movie? Krakauer wrote Into the Wild before he became known for being an arrogant thinks he knows it all, extremely repetitive journalist [NOT SAYING HE HASN’T BEEN THROUGH A LOT re: Everest] but seriously is half this fucking movie going to be Penn and Krakauer masturbating their egos and Krakauer getting us back for writing such a short book in comparison? I guess I’ll see once I watch it.

• Also coming soon a very personal review of Dry, Augusten Burroughs, [who has a new book out on April 29 YAY!] and I wasn’t planning on reviewing it at all but I have a few things to say about The Last Days of Socrates, Plato. Once I start talking about the damn Socrates I can’t shut up now, I feel similar to how I felt after I read 1984.

• OUR CAMERA IS BROKEN!!!!!! On one hand I feel really lame getting so upset over a materialistic possession but our camera is not just a play toy for us anymore we NEED it for our business so we are pretty stressed about it or rather I am, Adam doesn’t really stress much about anything in life. I have a couple tricks up my sleeve to hopefully get some photos of two monkeys that will be done this weekend and HOPEFULLY by the time the Jedi one is done THAT IS RIGHT A JEDI ONE, the camera will be fixed. I don’t pray but if you do please say a prayer for our new business. All start ups have glitches. We’ve officially hit a glitch.

• I finally had the pleasure of meeting Raul over the last weekend at Tanya’s housewarming party. I am like the last blogger in Vancouver to meet him I think. He was everything he has been talked up to be and more! I was the one at the party with the sippy cup. I had every intention of joining y’all at Every Third Tuesday this month because the Hamburgler [Monica Hamburg] was the speaker, I call her a friend, she doesn’t read my blog, that is cool man, but she is rad, I heard she did a great job, sorry I missed it, been taking care of my dear husband yo.

• We now have our FOURTH coffee pot in less than two years. The first one I broke in a tantrum of mass destruction, although I was not TRYING to break the coffee pot I just forcefully put it under the tap and knocked it into something. THEN Sarah and Jack bought us a rad coffee pot for a wedding gift [can’t find the post re: FUCKED archives] but even though we know at least four other couples/people who have that coffee pot and they ALL still have it ours broke!! WOOOOOOOOOOO! RIGHT after the warranty was done, probably the day after. I then bought a $24.99 twelve cup coffee pot, cheapest one I could find. Last week the heating plate went on it. Adam likes burnt coffee I blame him. SO I bought YET another coffee pot, and this one makes loud noises and I want to throw it out the window and I don’t have the box to take it back because I am a recycling freak and actually get excited about the amount of things I have to recycle and FUCK now I have to wait out this shit coffee pot, watch it last ten years, seriously.

Ps. Dr. Vegas is always a mentor to the Sock Monkeys, he always gives em’ some advice before they leave our infantry but this particular monkey the Dr. really took to. They had a pretty awesome jam session before he departed, Vegas has already shown off his guitar though so he took it off for the photo.

This is a meme that I read over at Tiana’s blog, I decided to do it because these are obviously all of the most quintessential details of our lives. For serious.

1. Who is your man? Adam Bradley Carlson aka abcIV aka abc4

2. How long have you been together? September 30, 2003

3. How did you meet? The Greatest Story Ever Told

4. How long did you date? 3 years less a month or some shit.

5. How old is your man? 28

6. Who eats more? Adam doesn’t stop eating.

7. Who said “I love you” first? I do not remember probably Adam.

8. Who is taller? Adam.

9. Who sings better? Adam he sings for realz I hear him in the shower sometimes too.

10. Who is smarter? Adam but I am super super smrt in my own rite.

11. Who is more athletic? Right now Adam, but if I got in shape, it would be a tough call.

12. Whose temper is worse? I think we’ll go with mine on this one.

13. Who does the laundry? I do, cept’ Adam washes his work clothes because my gag reflex can’t handle the smell of them.

14. Who takes out the garbage? Adam cept’ when I do it.

15. Who pays the bills? I do

16. Who is better with the computer? Adam

17. Who mows the lawn? I shave my own or get a wax. We have clippers for any emergency maintenance.

18. Who cooks dinner? Adam

19. Who drives when you are together? Me if it is a standard, Adam if it is an automatic.

20. Who pays when you go out? We share all money.

21. Who is most stubborn? TIE

22. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Adam

23. Whose parents do you see the most? Mine

24. Who kissed who first? It was an at the door leaving awkward took half an hour to happen moment.

25. Who asked who out? He asked me.

26. Who proposed? Adam but we had ‘discussed’ it prior. Adam was actually completely against marriage and I talked him into this entire ‘shenanigan’.

27. Who has more friends? Adam but we see more of mine.

28. Who has more siblings? Adam

29. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Adam

30. Who is the most romantic? I despise romance the word alone makes me want to throw up.

I have a list of ideas for blog posts that I think will be good blog posts if I write them and I was even starting to write posts and store them but that never lasts long, I get all concentrated on lots and lots of different things and unless I write every single little thing down like POST EVER DAY on every day of my day book I won’t do it, and even if it makes it in the day book something that doesn’t HAVE to be done, something that is a want to do, may or may not get done that day.

I’m trying to avoid starting any paragraphs with ‘SO’ right now it is fun.

We have been very busy. I almost wish they did, but businesses do not start themselves. What business? THE MONKEY BUSINESS!! Even without the site up [you are still more than welcome to keep doing as you have, contacting us over facebook or through our contact page here] they are selling nicely through word of mouth.

They do take longer than they used to having added in the ‘accessories’ [headphones, guitars, basses, swords, hockey sticks, hockey helmets etc] and the option of having your sock monkey personalized with other wonderful things such as tattoos or iron on patches, the only patches we are offering are Canadian flags at present unless we happen to see a patch that matches a request. Basically we can’t guarantee patches but if Adam can draw it, he can tattoo it on your monkey. Having recently ordered three pre-made t-shirts online at the beginning of March and the fact that they JUST arrived today has me pretty confident that our monkeys will still all be made and leave in an extremely reasonable amount of time being that they are 100% hand made and our production speed with only increase as we get better.

Although I have registered the company and many of you being part of our open Facebook group and some of you having been invited to the new Flickr group, [to obtain or request an invite you must have a monkey made by us] we aren’t going to announce the official name until we are ready to launch the site and at least have buttons and stickers. There will be a mass mailing to people out of the region who can’t make our launch party so they still receive that which will eventually come standard with the monkeys The stickers are mainly for the reusable bags that the local monkeys will depart us in but ones that are mailed just get a box but will be sent the sticker, a button and our business cards we also haven’t made yet. Our logo is seriously awesome and has been seen by a select few people but has received a great response and we are really excited about unveiling it all.

I always thought I’d own my own used book store but we own a business none the less and it feels seriously awesome. Business Woman I am and Housewife Extraordinaire. Life is good. Even if it is, “painful and real” at times.

We are about to throw ourselves into a whole new batch of sold monkeys one with a Hello Kitty guitar. OH YAY!

Here are some of the Sock Monkeys who have moved into new infantries.

Owner Phaedra Monkey on left

Owner Tiana Baby Sock Monkey, w/traditional ‘MA’ tattoo

Photo © Traisas Rock N’ Roll Sock Monkey, has anarchy tattoo on back

Owner Jennie Hockey Sock Monkey, with Canadian flag iron on patch on back

The Amazing Adventures of Corinna and Adam Part One

And on an added note, at this time last year a visit had just ended with someone who I’d have to say we both now consider one of our very best friends, C.J Hixon. The one year of our ‘meeting anniversary’ was none other than March 26, 2007 extremely easy to remember, Adam and I married on the 26^th of a month. You need only look at the picture that he used to link my blog to know that he has been here since the beginning and the three of us getting to know each other across the pond and hanging out over here on this here ocean front city of Vancouver last year holds a few of my dearest memories to date. The last year continuing our friendship and watching it grow has been beyond fun. Much love to you C.J!

Last week things started to have a feeling of normalcy around here. FEELS like I’m back to my regular old depressed self. She’s cool, majority of the people I know can handle me in this state. It is no wonder that Tori Amos and her music always bring me so much solace during shit times, after I finish reading The Last Days of Socrates, Plato I am going to read Tori Amos Piece by Piece, Tori Amos and Ann Powers. I picked up a hard cover on blow out for five dollars. I can’t even tell you how happy finding hard cover books I want for five dollars in perfect shape makes me. And it is still an early enough printing that the book itself is still grooved like honeycomb.

I went out on Thursday for a friend’s birthday and I bowled! No photos though, Adam’s pictures thankfully did not turn out. Thank you very much to my Bowl for Big Brothers sponsors: readers and friends of Gus Greeper put me in second place behind Tod Maffin for most amount raised, you all helped me raise $296.00 respectfully and I greatly appreciate it!

We had to leave said birthday celebrations early because my energy level was beyond low and although dinner was awesome it wasn’t enough to keep me energized very long and also with all the great people to talk with I faded out pretty fast. At dinner it was OFFICIALLY decided that I am no longer allowed at any parties without a sippy cup because I am a Hand Talker Extraordinaire aka spilly drinker. This came about only after Kimli had already spilled a full glass of water onto Adam’s crotch [hehe that was so funny] and my cat like reflexes had caught at least four or five ‘almost spills’ from my flailing talker hands, hence past parties came up where really I haven’t necessarily spilt anything, but I did almost break or did break my toe, so we came to a general consensus. I want an extremely childish one with a neck strap on it etc. It will debut at Netchick’s House Warming. Hopefully I will have gained some weight back by then and not hate cameras.

My therapist mentioned on Friday that he didn’t think I was any smaller than I had been back in 2003 when I started to see him, I was a serious wreck back then, so I had to explain to him that yes he was right it was simply the lack of muscle mass that was making it so obvious because in 2003 I was still in stellar shape.

I have taken my nerd-dum to new heights and am now sporting FLARE on my purse. This is a very out of the box thing for me to do so we will see how long it lasts. I do enjoy the extra feelings of nerdiness it gives me though.

Last week was also a killer week for mail and I’m going to show it off!

Jennie Roth sent me these seriously kick ass slippers. I’m going to hang them above my makeshift monkey making area, these mailed before I had my not so fun break down and therefore arrived just in time to help cheer me up! Thanks again Jennie me lovez them.

I normally do not post any of my correspondence because there are many many people I have met online not to mention my ‘in person’ friends - I LOVE TO SEND AND RECEIVE MAIL - I send mail to and they send me mail. This card was too cute not to post to my flickr because it made my day and made me laugh laugh laugh and then laugh some more.

And I was also in complete shock when the post woman left a package at my door which I opened to find this fantastic painting of myself to myself from the seriously awesome Tiana aka Sassy Red Head, the original photo is here.

My friends and their thoughtfulness never ever cease to amaze me. Thanks again so much!

HOLY we are sooooo busy but some things need to be said so I must get on saying some of them!!

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First off to my Bowl for Big Brothers sponsors I will be bowling on Thursday. There will be photographic evidence although I do not want any because I am so thin right now I don’t even like going outside it feels like everyone is staring at me and not in a good way.

Truth is some of my ridiculous actions got me rightfully tossed off the team. But I will still bowl oh yes I will bowl!

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You may be asking yourself why I didn’t just take the post down, but I think now after having had a lot of time to think about it I’m leaving it up as an example of what not to do during a very bad break down brought on by the harbouring and keeping of secrets I should never have been told and allowing fear and jealously compounded by other things in my life I’m super happy about - both are those types of things in life that have seriously good pros with just as equally bad cons - to take over my life.

If there is one thing I HAVE TO STOP doing it is harbouring I have to learn how to tell people how I feel for real. Even if it sucks, because even though I won’t say anything behind your back that I won’t say to your face the fact is if I am saying it behind your back when I should be saying it to your face, saying it behind your back is also passive aggressive and not too bright because the blogging world is small so I know it is going to get back to whoever anyway and it is probably by then not going to be what I said but a changed let’s play telephone and whisper in each others ears grade seven drama version.

I caused a great disturbance within the force and I am sorry for that. It was wrong to air it out in a post on my blog. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I am not going to dissect which parts I meant and which parts I didn’t mean because I didn’t mean most of it; most of it came from sheer rage. In case you were wondering I have a bad temper. I had stopped saying bad temper and had down graded it to ‘temper’ I honestly did not know that I was still capable of rage like that, rage that was so strong that Adam tried to stop me from doing certain things and was unable to, he could have always restrained me but he didn’t for whatever reason. Rage so strong, scary rage, that doesn’t allow me as much control over my actions as I know that some, if not many, would like to believe I have. All this really means is that taking responsibility for certain things comes with a lot more guilt and embarrassment than it normally would.

Being that I am not ready to forgive myself for all that has happened, I am not ready to ask anyone for forgiveness and regardless the scars run deep on all sides and forgiveness may not even be an option for some actions for some words used.

I do know that one of the most important things I have learned thus far in my almost 31 years is how to laugh at myself and holy crap it rules, and I’ve been working on how to forgive people and forgive myself for things which is something I never ever saw as possible within myself because although I am a very some would say almost too forgiving person I am a person who forgives with BUTS and that is not fair and I’m committed to working on that.

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Being honest with myself although I have made a lot of positive progress over the last year with my shrink, we’ve recently discussed it, obviously - you can’t end up in the hospital and not have it come up in session - I’ve had a relapse. I’m not better yet, I haven’t fully lifted my x-wing fighter out of the pond yet but I’m working on it and feeling better and better every day. I am not freaking out any more. I am stable. I’m still having a bit of anxiety which has caused a ridiculous amount of weight loss that I know I am going to be way over sensitive about for a while because normally when I lose this much weight I’m in shape so I at least have muscles, I don’t have muscles right now it is just a disgusting caved in stomach with hip bones pointing straight out and from behind I look like a dinosaur. I don’t think that I have ever actually been this thin in my adult life. I do not like it at all. My arms look disgusting, my breath is terrible and my size four wedding band that I have already had resized smaller once is too big. But the good news is that the war against my anxiety is back on, and it is back on in a big way.

HOLY CRAP thank you all SO MUCH!

When I really was trying to commit suicide when I was sixteen, I went back to school the day after I was released from the hospital only to be delivered right back into the bullies’ hands. I still don’t know how I dealt with people saying to my face I should have died. Had it not been for Rhonda and Cindy I don’t know if I would have made it.

The almost overwhelming support [only because let’s be honest I’m not super used to it] has me feeling more loved and supported than I think I have ever felt in my life. I am of course feeling insane amounts of guilt, shame and embarrassment as well but it comes with the territory.

I’m going to put up a fluff piece on my hair probably today; you know to lighten it up a tad for a day or two around here before I dive into some stories that won’t be easy to write but I think need to be told. I’ve been planning to write them since I started this blog they’ve always been on the back burner because some are pretty heavy.

I just can’t thank you all enough. I think it is going to take me a full day if not more to respond to all the correspondence sitting in my in box, not to mention I didn’t sign into my igoogle page containing my feed until early last evening and the fact that a lot of you wrote posts for me or mentioning me, shit I don’t even know what to say, but trust me, I’m not complaining, I am so so so very thankful.

I’m only turning the comments off on this post because it is a THANK YOU to YOU.