I have never hidden my love for John Denver.  Even as a kid when my friends would come over for lunch and we’d have Kraft Dinner feasts, I had this habit of putting on the John Denver and performing full solo air band performances with perfect lip synching and ‘dance moves’ to good ol’ Johnny D.

Over the years many people have given me a lot of John Denver CDs as ‘gag gifts’ which to me are the best because I can’t own enough John Denver. When my parents moved to Bali I came into the possession of all the piano books my mom and I used to use. I would play Today constantly.  His music is pretty easy to play and being that I already liked him I used to play a lot of John Denver on the piano.

He also sings my favourite Christmas carol Please, Daddy (don’t get drunk this Christmas) and he isn’t making light of alcoholism. John would’ve never done that. He did NOT want to see his momma cry.

I also have John Denver and the Muppets Christmas on CD and let us not forget I don’t even like Christmas AT ALL.  ‘Cept for some Christmas songs that is it the rest can kiss my ass.  I also own a doctored copy of John Denver and the Muppets Rocky Mountain High.  I guess they didn’t want parents to have to explain plane crashes and death to kids or something because the plane crash scene in which John Denver doesn’t even die in and some silly muppet crashes the plane into the lake has been taken out.

Even though I think I only remember it because I’ve been told about it so many times I did get to see him live at Canada’s Wonderland with Gordon Lightfoot when I was seriously little. I do know that some of my memories from that day are legit but I was pretty little.  Seriously sucks he died before I got to see him as an adult.  Speaking of Three Chord Gord, as a kid I LOVED Kenny Rogers and HATED Gordon Lightfoot I would whine and complain whenever my parents would put him on but I could not get enough of Lucille and Ruby Don’t Take Your Love to Town.  Now those are about the only two Kenny Rogers songs I can stand and I fucking love Gordon Lightfoot.

I’ll have to accept that I’ll never get to see Johnny D and Three Chord Gord bust up the stage together and just be happy I get to make Adam as jealous as a pig staring at another pig rolling in shit and that pig can’t reach the shit because I got to see Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Van Morrison together at the same time.  Not on stage together at the same time though as IF their egos could have withstood that, their brains would have exploded and everyone would have been covered in musical genius brains, they couldn’t afford that.

Did you know that John Denver was one of the first artists to stand up against musical censorship?  I know, totally A.W.E.S.O.M.E.  I think it is funny that my parents never knew that till I told them but my mom always knew his real name and I always have to look it up. I just did, he was born Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.

The moral of this post is that John Denver makes me happy like sunshine on my shoulders, and blossoms still clinging to a vine.

Lately I have been feeling lost and extremely lonely.  That overwhelming feeling of knowing I am sitting next to someone who loves me more than anything I can see it in his face and I can’t reach out I can only lash out and depression hurts everyone.

It just feels like it is easier to have no one than have friends sometimes. Seems like less people to let down and disappoint that way.

I’m at a new and different place that I have never been to before. For over a week now I have been able to fight off abusing any of my medication, I haven’t taken even one milligram of extra clonazepam.  My brain is winning that battle for a change, my head is saying things to me like;

do you really want to sleep for that long
do you really want to lose all that time and not remember what the fuck you were doing
you won’t be able to read
you won’t be able to play xbox
you will get even more stupid bruises

I have even been eating and bathing which is new to me when I am this depressed I normally do not care how greasy my hair gets and I have an appetite I may have even put on a pound or two but I won’t know till the monthly bloating bullshit subsides.

On the flip side the hard water of Northern Ontario did a number on my face and hair, my face is a mess my hair is broken and although I would consider shaving my head if it was summer not in the winter my neck is already cold.  And that vanity has been my latest excuse an excuse that lasted six full days where I would not step outside.  Add that to hitting the end of my rope over any negative comment made to me about my weight right now I hit an all time low in the appearance department and when I finally did go out it was with Adam and I did my best to not make eye contact with anyone.   It pisses me off because I hate the pattern of finding a way through something just to find it almost instantly manifested in some other completely absurd behavior.

This is different than being a homebody, being hermity and having social anxiety. I normally jump at the chance to defend and brag about my naturalness and I have had adult acne since I was twenty-five so although I hate it I’m used to it, or I thought I was, same with my peach fuss I despise it but I accept it.  If there is one thing I am really starting to realize it is that it isn’t that I’m so much getting over any of my insecurities in my thirties it is that I am starting to accept that I have the insecurities that I have, more of a, yeah I’m insecure about that what’s it to you type attitude.

I can come up with literally any excuse not to go outside.  I am so bad Adam has and will respond with “good one” that is seriously fine with me he has been told by my shrink not to play into my anxieties and I personally think he does a fantastic job and I have no idea how he does it, he could do things like refuse to pick up my prescriptions and stuff for me forcing me outside but trust me he already does a lot.   It is strange to me that taking a few milligrams of clonazepam to get high and knock myself out seems saner than not going outside because of my acne.

I don’t know how to get over the abandonment issues I have so I can stop hiding in my apartment because my skin is better sort of now I know I’m stuck in this feeling like I have no family that I suck really fucking bad at friendships, that I feel like I have no where to “go home” too.  I don’t feel any connection to Ontario, there is nothing left for me in Northern British Columbia. Nostalgia is eating me alive right now. But with it comes so much anger I’m like a ticking time bomb. I don’t know how to move on to get to a place where I can be happy with only having forward to go and nothing to go back to.  And I don’t want to end up in the hospital and have to start all over like I normally do and I don’t even get it.

I’m going to get my eye brows waxed it better make me feel beautiful.

I have been dreading writing about this because I know it is going to be long and my feelings are still all over the map not to mention there will be things in here that once my parents have obtained internet access again [they check it once a week right now] they just aren’t going to want to read.  My mom will read it for sure my dad probably will but won’t admit it or he will just because I’ve said he won’t.

Today marks two weeks since they retired to Indonesia.

Until this very moment about three people know that I did not say goodbye.

I received a text from them and when my dad asked if I was ok I said yeah and gave some lame excuse for not texting more and just this morning received a group email containing photos.  I don’t really understand why TWO numbers did not come through, my mother not having her own phone is ridiculous, I’m TRYING to give my father the benefit of the doubt here and am hoping once they are settled she will have her own or at least a bloody email address he has no access to.

Everything happened so fast I don’t even remember how long ago it was that they went to Bali I just know because I checked my archives that they told us they were MOVING there in February of this year.  All I know is that before they went to Bali they’d been on maybe three other tropical vacations that weren’t all inclusive resorts. They went away once a year [always for two weeks and always without me] while I lived at home and twice a year once I moved out.  Jamaica was about the most extreme place they’d been to, they have never been anywhere in Europe and although they went to The Cook Islands three times - once in a rented house for a month - I almost fell off my chair when I heard they were even vacationing in ASIA.

According to the email received today my mom is already speaking good enough Indo that she is carrying on conversations with the locals.  That is pretty cool.

Originally my parents were not supposed to have spent three weeks in the city. My dad was supposed to work right up to his last day in Prince George, fly to Toronto for two weeks return to Vancouver for two and a half days and then off to Bali.  Turned out he was able to work his last three weeks from Vancouver, his company put him up in a hotel a block away from our apartment and I was able to spend three weeks with my mother which was for the most part fantastic.

When they first arrived we were all at each others throats over anything and everything.  I think I appreciated that we were all on different pages emotionally but I think my dad thought I was just being selfish not giving all my attention to his retirement and how life changing it was for them both regardless of the move.

My family operates within a dynamic therapists refer to as an unhealthy triangle it is a pretty common behavior exhibited in many relationships.  I have almost always been the monkey in the middle.  As a kid I was pitted against my mother and therefore we were never able to bond, it doesn’t help that my mother and father both come from demonstrative families and I now have affection issues that go well beyond not being able to let most people even hug me.  We have never communicated as a unit we converse through each other.

Over the three weeks that my mother and I spent together things came up, conversations were had, abuse I suffered in ways I could never prove were confirmed.  I always knew I was held back I always knew it was my dad who was the liar and not me and knowing I was right would only make it better and would only enable me to let it ALL go if he had changed at all but he hasn’t.  Since my mother’s break down a few years ago all he has done is manifest his abusive behaviors into new ones and I am sorry but I am not going to put up with it and I made that clear so long ago now I think my dad really did mean it when he said to my face that I wasn’t smart enough to go to university because I have changed which is partly why this is so fucking hard.

If only my father had have left well enough alone, I would have played the good daughter and spent more time with him and maybe even pretended to like it.  Instead he decided to plop himself into our poang the very first second he was in the apartment without Adam present and launch into a speech concerning how I needed to get a job.  BUT his reasoning for me needing to get a job had nothing to do with our finances; he actually said that I needed to prepare for the day that Adam leaves me.  He said he’d seen it before, like this one time at his ICBC office some woman one day just got up and left her husband after four years or something for no reason at all she just got up and left.  I remember him telling that story as a kid and thinking it was crazy. As an adult I felt like screaming at him that AS IF it was over NOTHING did he really think she was sharing her LIFE with the fucking office. I listened to his little speech; I handled myself extremely well, I did tell him he was lucky Adam wasn’t home though.  After pondering the insanity of his statements I very calmly asked him how he, my father, someone who has said many, many times to me that if I keep concentrating on a negative thought I will make it happen and has constantly accused me of being an impressionable person would EVER want to put the thought of my husband leaving me into my head.  His back peddling got him nowhere.

My dad honestly has no idea how to handle the new Corinna.  He didn’t even know the old one so how could he, really.  I used to give him exactly what he wanted, exactly what he expected - a freak out.  I’ve told my father to fuck off to his face so many times he once said he’d plant me if I said it again.  I don’t even waste my time responding to his shit now.  So guess who takes the brunt of it all? My mother, we switch up holding the middle position when it suits my father.

For the first time ever I felt like my mother and I were bonding, we had some really good talks my anger and resentment towards her failures to protect me softened because I know trust me I know that she is also a victim here I thought I even forgave her because she kept saying she was so sorry that she just wasn’t there that she hadn’t tried to stand up to him enough.

When they left for Toronto it took him about two seconds to brain wash her back to normal.  When I talked to them over webcam my mother made a point to ask me to get back to her on how my shrink said I was doing.  Ok what? Didn’t you just spend three weeks with me having heart to hearts seeing me NOT freak out whilst learning some extremely heavy shit about my past AND I’m on the lowest dose of meds I’ve been on in years and have been for months now.  I was flabbergasted just blown away and mad.

We were supposed to talk over webcam again shortly after that so Adam could meet my Grandmother.  I sent my parents an email with our availability and added simply that Dr. B was proud of me.  I didn’t think I needed to say much else I thought having just spent so much time with me it was pretty obvious how I was doing.   In fact after I relayed to him all the bullshit my dad tried to pull and all of the dramatica events that took place over the month since I’d seen him that I avoided or handled with awesomeness the smile on his face when he said he was proud of me almost made me uncomfortable because he was literally beaming with pride at me. I felt so validated in that moment.

My parents didn’t respond to my availability email they just expected us to be around on the day and then I got an email asking where we were, we were online within fifteen minutes and they were gone.  My parents are on laptop there was no excuse for that when they didn’t even bother to set a time with me.  Two days later I got an email from my dad with the one liner - why is your shrink proud of you?  [my parents share an email account but I can tell them apart from the font used and style of writing]

Thank you for that bullet through the heart there dad.  I’ve only been working my FUCKING ASS OFF!

I responded that I felt that was a rude question, my dad responded asking why it was rude and I haven’t had a civil conversation with them since.

He is bloody lucky that I didn’t respond with the TRUTH the truth being Dr. B was pretty proud of me for not throwing his narcissistic ass out of my apartment when he suggested my husband was going to leave me.  Feels good, real, real good to know that my father doesn’t even see me as being worth being married to because I don’t have a job outside the home anymore, I’m not having babies and I don’t do the dishes everyday.

My mother had confided in me that my father doesn’t think we will ever be close again [although we never really were it was an act on my part to get by] because of MY depression, MY mental issues, MY temper, MY selfishness etc. It isn’t about me moving on in relation to my past with my youth anymore it is about trying to learn how to have a relationship with my mother and just with my mother and finding a way to eliminate him from the equation which I have tried to do before but he makes it worse for her and won’t allow this.

Due to what I thought was progress with my mother, I waited the whole two weeks they were in Toronto for HER to contact me didn’t matter how just some contact and she didn’t.  I can and will forgive her but in my own time.  I can only imagine the shit my father said to the rest of my family about me, I tell myself I don’t care they don’t know me anyway. My parents left their entire family for British Columbia shortly after I was born and now they have done it again leaving me. For a while I was able to concentrate on the free trip to Bali once a year so I didn’t have to deal with how I really feel about them going so far away but I would rather give up that trip and my mother have to fly here to see me than bow to my father’s bull shit.  I simply refuse to go through the motions of this life altering move on his time.  A lot of people assume that when you are an only child that everything is about you, for me it was the exact opposite, NOTHING was ever about me but it was made to look like it was and my father still to this day manipulates things to appear as such.  I made it clear to my mother that now it is about me and it will continue to be about me and that it is about fucking time that it is about me and that if he can’t handle that too fucking bad. I have worked too long and too hard to fail at putting a stop to the abuse in this family now.

When my parents arrived back in Vancouver I did not see them, I did not say hello or goodbye I did not email them, I knew seeing them would lead to a nasty fight and felt it would be better if we all just went with whatever positive memories we each had during the impromptu three week work excursion.   And by this time I’d analyzed the fact that my dad hadn’t actually planned on them spending more than two.five days with me before they left.  My dad made the choice to work up until his very last day had it not been for the fluke of him working out of Vancouver that is ALL I would have been allotted TWO.FIVE days. I wasn’t even invited to accompany them to Toronto.

I don’t know where things will go from here, we are supposed to be going to Bali in April but only time will tell, I’m mad, hurt, I feel betrayed by my mother but am trying to be understanding of the fact that 39 years of brain washing her to believe I’m a bitch among many other choice words I’ve overheard him call me trumps any work I got done with her in three weeks.

This is the week that it’s hit me that they are really gone.  I have no regrets over not saying goodbye I made the right decision for me.  I’m feeling unloved, abandoned, disrespected, unworthy and just down right sad.  I cried for the very first time since I was told they were leaving the other night as I was trying to fall asleep, Adam rubbed my back, and he isn’t going to leave me.

My parents left for Toronto this morning.  They will be there for two weeks, fly back to Vancouver for two days and then they will be officially retired and living in Bali.  They are already officially retired but they are still saying goodbye to family, my dad worked his very last day at ICBC yesterday, he was there over twenty years, I can’t remember exactly how many years over twenty but a few if not a bit more than a few.

I have an aversion to reading instruction manuals I sometimes wish that learning things was just an injection into your brain like in the movies because procrastination and laziness are committed hourly in my life.

My point is that I am still very green at taking photos but I want to post some because I’m sort of getting better at taking them and actually left my apartment on a semi regular basis with my parents here for three weeks.

And whatever, not like it was original, of course I took it from The Minx but I used to ALWAYS do photo posts.

When I get sick I am a pretty big baby combine that with seasonal allergies and night time barfing and things have been fantastic!

Boooo last Friday I had to cancel therapy re: being sick, no girl time re: being sick and I had only been looking forward to that for WEEKS! Adam is sick as well so we’ve been passing this shit back and forth and at first I wasn’t snotty I just felt EXTRA balloon migraine head with MILD head cold, NOW I’m getting full head cold and snotty. YAY! I’ve been having really awesome night sweats as well and I haven’t been forgetting to take my crazy people tits and so therefore I can not pin point a reason other than being SICK.

In other news, The Greeper has a new place that she likes to sleep. Pretty exciting shit eh? I know, I thought so too until it turned out she’s serious and has taken over half the spot I sleep in. She has of course had other phases, other places she goes back to. The fashion box, the tent, I’m sure she will get bored of sleeping right below BUT almost ON my pillow soon.

Our camera is not back from being fixed yet so we had to buy a back up one. We couldn’t delay the monkeys any more due to lack of photos, but at the same time we HAVE to be able to take photos of our product. This issue of course led us into a discussion of other things that could happen to slow us down, when we are just about done with a lot of the start up necessities and can now work on picking up our production pace. I mentioned that there would come a time that we’d make a monkey, look at it, hate it or it would not meet our quality standards and we’d have to start over. Really, did I say that out loud? Because it happened the monkey after I said it! YAY! We have informed the buyer, I figure honesty is best, there is only two of us and both of us had a hand in it sucking so we’ve had to start over. Now we have a physically challenged monkey in our apartment, at least Dr. Vegas finally has a monkey that isn’t going anywhere to play with mostly because it is blind and can’t speak. Once that red thread goes on for the mouth the suckers don’t shut up. Banana this, poo in your face that.

My Dad is supposed to be dropping two boxes of stuff off to Adam and I on Saturday, some of my stuff, some stuff they are giving us, some stuff that has been in the family forever that I am taking because I’m the last member of our family and I don’t want it leaving the family till I die I guess. Small problem though, my Dad and I got into one of our infamous fights today. Oh how I love them. Always in regards to the exact same issue(s) hidden by topics seemingly cloaked in difference that spread years, weeks, months some just days - we some how manage to piss each other off regularly even when not in big fights. My mom is going to be all upset now and that’ll be my entire fault too, I’m sure. Super awesome, we both resort to behavior befitting that of two year olds and just generally spin in circles for a while. Fun times. We have worked hard on things as a family but my Dad and I, man we’ll just always scrap, sadly that is just how we are, we can’t seem to communicate in any sort of healthy way. Wonder how many more phases this move to Bali holds in store for us.

Just finished my fifth book of the year leaving me three behind my minimum quota for 2008, I will get off my ass and post on them soon. This year has been good so far aside from The Time Travelers Wife. EWWWW.

I’ve been putting off writing this post because I do not in any way shape or form want to hurt my mother’s feelings. Although this is an extremely exciting time for my parents this is also a hard and sensitive time for my mother and I do not want her taking anything personal but I have feelings and they aren’t negative they are just feelings or I guess some are negative but I’m trying to be as positive as possible.

As I mentioned a while back, my parents have retired early, they are moving to Bali.

ASIA. From PRINCE GEORGE.

PRO: they are flying us to Bali once a year. Paid.

CON: THEY ARE MOVING TO ASIA.

My mother made it clear that IF Adam and I were having children they would NOT be going that far away. The fact of the matter is, and I’ve been given permission to announce it, Adam is having a vasectomy. He is also going to blog his whole experience, as most who read here are aware he has always done guest posts, this will be his first series.

Shortly before it was confirmed that my parents were in fact moving to Bali, I also found out that a woman who is more like the sibling I’ve never had, Rhonda, was moving to Ontario. She has since left because her and her man now own this here Edgewater Motel. Of course again this is a pro, I’m extremely happy for her, proud, every feeling you can have for someone you love so much. But con, she isn’t here anymore. I have known her since I was 13 years old. We’ve never actually lived in the same town or city at the same time but we have always been in the same province and always had regular visits or at least been in touch. Our friendship is one that is so close that I feel a complete calmness [or as close to calm as I get] and one hundred percent of every single part of me is present and Adam can see this other more of ME that exists but is buried come to the surface and sometimes it sustains me for weeks after she leaves. Almost all of my positive memories from my adolescence involve her, almost every thing ‘bad’ I did as a teen involved her which made it twice as fun. Having her at our wedding meant the world to me. Having her visit with Adam and I in our brown shoe box and such visits like last April when we BLEW UP STEVE are beyond wicked memories and watching her and Adam bond and seeing how well they took to each other made me happy because that would have been bad like Gus not liking Adam had it have gone the other way, cept’ Rhonda probably wouldn’t have made it a point to jump on Adam’s balls just to get the point across. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that I have gone through where Rhonda has not been there for me from beginning to end. GOOD LUCK DUDE!

Now I’d best start at the beginning. I never said anything at the time but both of these events although both wonderful in their own right did play a part in my recent breakdown. I’ve played the avoidance card with them both to the point that I just the session before last started to talk about my ‘feelings’ in regards to both. I was holding back all emotion because it isn’t about me and I had enough issues already going on to mask some of the real pain, it is about my parents and their fantastic retirement and Rhonda and her new business endeavor and both parties are flying us in to visit so I figured that I wasn’t allowed to be upset. But I was and as we’ve seen when I hold things in the outcomes are never good. There is no question that in the back ground of some of my misdirected rage was a shadow where these two bits of heavy news were hiding in plain view.

I was afraid if I came out and said “I’m really fucking upset that my parents are moving to Bali” that I would just get back something to the effect of “you are almost 31 and they are flying you both in PAID once a year get the fuck over it.”

I didn’t get that from my shrink, he looked at me with puzzlement and said “No, that is a loss.”

We had discussed briefly after my breakdown that it got lumped in with all the shit that had built up and that the moves wouldn’t be easy but we moved on to what was happening RIGHT THEN and I hadn’t given him that many details. Because some times stupid meaningless shit is easier to have a breakdown over than real life shit that actually matters.

What we know: I’m an only child, I’m almost 31, I’m married, and I’m not having children.

When I moved out here in 1996 I had a really hard time when my parents sent me a massive box containing almost everything I had ever owned and had left in Terrace, at 19 I had no idea that a lot of that stuff was going to have meaning to me now in my thirties and some really important stuff is gone and whether it be materialistic stuff like my old camp fire blanket or fifty plus paper back books I don’t miss at all, I’ve still at times been upset and they know it, that they sent it ALL out to me. I was upset for one because when I would go home to Terrace it was like I had never even lived there and secondly because I moved six times between 1996 and 2000, I simply could NOT hold on to it all.

When my parents moved to Prince George it was even worse, now they were in a town or I guess it has enough people it is considered a city that I had never lived in and didn’t care for, I had spent a lot of time there as a kid and it smells gross and is butt fuck ugly. Granted they did live in the middle of no where taking it back to our Smithers roots of bush living and owning horses and all the fun stuff I missed when we lived in the town of Terrace instead of in the sticks. But like anything in life I got over it, came to love going to Prince George and building stuff with my dad and doing fire wood, my parents making fun of my need to turn the ‘electric’ heat on in the room that I would sleep in. It is hard to believe that everything is sold and/or gone now, even the pets.

To me it is about ROOTS and I feel like I am losing them. I don’t really give a shit if I sound like a baby. This upcoming move is hard for me to deal with. I did not grow up in close ‘healthy’ relationships with my parents. My father and I were very very close, but it was NOT healthy back then. Now we are still very very close and it is healthier and we work on it. My mother and I were not close when I was a child and are working on building a relationship now that I am an adult. My parents and I have worked incredibly hard to deal with our pasts. But there are feelings that remain that I can’t do anything about, there is nothing that can be done to change them, there is no real ‘getting over it’ there is dealing with it which I do and in dealing with that means that sometimes I get upset about it. IT being, that I never had a say in moving to British Columbia, I was born in Ontario and my entire family except one Aunt who stole from my husband’s boss at our wedding live in Ontario. I talk to one of my cousins over MSN and one of my other cousins is on my Facebook but I don’t think we’ve ever spoken. My favourite Aunt died on September 14, 2001 after an amazingly courageous fight with colon cancer. My contact with the family in the east has always been extremely minimal for reasons that would need a whole new post and then some. As a kid I visited once or twice on unaccompanied minor tickets and we went back as a family in 1994 which was a royal fucking mess and I went back alone to see my Aunt for Christmas 2000, but of course pissed off the rest of the family because I only saw my Aunt. Umm she was dying get over it.

A feeling of loneliness even with Adam right next to me is rearing its ugly head. My in-laws are starting to warm to me a little but it is hard because building a relationship has not been easy and it dates back to when Adam and I met. So yes I’m feeling a tad sorry for myself I don’t have any siblings to turn to, I don’t have what I originally dreamed would be awesomely close relationships with my SILS because I was never socialized properly and it fucks with me in a major way in my adult life. As if that isn’t obvious to people who know me mind you. I have nothing left in the north. I have a bunch of season’s passes for the Smithers and Terrace Ski Hills and I WILL ski in Smithers again some day but the north will just feel different now. How long will it take until I’m just another brain washed city folk knowing nothing of the problems the government ignores in the north, how long will it be until I don’t even know about the pine beetles any more until the north burns down and I see it on TV because realistically I have to move on?

Our parents retire and their lives move on without us, and I’m not going to have a baby just to keep them close. In some ways we will probably talk more. Living in the sticks they are on DIAL UP! In Bali they will FINALLY have high speed; they bought us a web cam. THANK YOU! I despise the phone but I’m always on line so Skype will become my new best friend not to mention we should be able to have book club meetings via web cam. I’m trying to just let it go and not think about it but it is so far away if something seriously serious happens it is not just a ten hour drive or fifty-eight minute flight. I’m just worried and nervous and scared and excited all at the very same time and it is all very confusing. It is no secret I don’t have a lot of close friends RE: FUCK UP MOST FRIENDSHIPS BECAUSE I’M CRAZY. Oops am not supposed to call myself crazy. I will punch myself in the arm. There, ouch.

I’m working on it but this is tough, really tough. I’m seeing them in May then probably really quick in September and then that is it until we go to Bali.

So here, I’ll close with the positive, once a year we will fly to Indonesia. In Bali a driver will pick us up because driving there if you are not a native is apparently insane and only those with a death wish would do it. We will be taken to the house or villa I think it is considered a villa, it is ocean front, with pool and pool ‘area’, two storey house, master bedroom up stairs with king bed with wrap around the house patio and doors out onto it from bedroom and main room, lower floor with TWO bedrooms both with queen size beds and doors that open right onto the pool ‘area’. There is much much more but I’ll save it for when we go. A few lucky couples and friends and SILS have already been extended invites to join us after we go alone the first time of course, there is potential for this to end up having many many positives once I get over that they are in ASIA.

Last week was a seriously huge week for Adam and me. We were both completely absorbed in ourselves, I a bit too much.

We had the absolute pleasure of selling our very first Sock Monkey to Phaedra, the ‘official’ site where they will be available is not finished yet, just email us through the contact page if you want details on obtaining one. We have now sold two monkeys.

Phaedra’s Monkey who she has named Bobby has already been out on the town ripping it up. Here he is hanging out with Marc Emery. Oh, I know one of OUR Monkeys is hanging with Mr. Emery, CRAZY!!!. ROCK ON BOBBY!! The Monkeys we make for people never cease to make us proud.

Photo © Phaedra on Flickr

Looks like Bobby will be joining us bowling as well, and the Bollwitt’s [R and J] have a Monkey and we have the original Dr. Vegas so who knows what sort of monkey business will take place. Naked bowling as per Keira’s comment and Monkeys? I’d say sponsor us or I mean me. [Please]

My Parents also dropped the HUGE news on us that they are moving to Asia, Bali to be exact. Everything is happening extremely fast right now. They put their house on the market last week and it is sold already. Adam and I are currently in negotiations with them over what we can have, buy, lease, and/or ship of theirs. Right now we are very concentrated on the Yamaha piano that I played growing up and some other stuff. It’ll be interesting I don’t think we can fit the piano in here Adam says we can and he wants it really really bad. I think our land lord is going to kill us but oh well we only like her 50% of the time anyway.

The kicker the hugest news of all is that my parents are I kid you not, flying us out once a year. Did I mention they were moving to Bali? They are having a house built for retirement and of course once the insanity of knowing we get to go to BALI ONCE A YEAR wears off [if it does] I wonder what phases I’m going to go through with this? I’ve already mentioned to my shrink that I feel like I am losing my ‘Northern Roots’. He said that is normal but it is just starting to bother me. There was a big deciding factor in their decision to go so far away that did consider us, but I’m choosing to keep it private at this time.

That news combined with the sock monkeys starting to sell has us both really excited and really busy. The possibilities feel endless right now.

Having a family book club with the limited amount of time that Adam and I spend with my parents means that this was only our second meeting but the interest is heating up and talk of adding web cams or Skype like devices so we can meet anywhere anytime are thrilling until we all remember my parents are on dial up and so we have to wait and wait some more for that option.

The rules are not typical or they are a far cry from the rules of the book club I got myself thrown out of, for being myself too, which is the saddest thing about it. Really there is only one rule, do not talk about the book club book until book club. This is a lot harder than it was in the old book club because I didn’t live with any of the other members. And how can I be sure my parents aren’t pre-discussing the book? I don’t have any Big Brotheresque technology at my disposal to spy on them. And unless I find my Christmas and Birthday presents which I did every single year of my life until they caught on and wrapped them WELL before they brought them into the house with me in it, they are very good at keeping secrets.

Although it makes more sense to choose a book that no one has read, sticking with only one rule keeps it more fun and less ’so structured it feels like school’ and the first book picked was a book that none of us had read. On this trip home we had all decided on 1984, George Orwell, my dad and Adam had read the book my mother and I had not - Adam read it again as a refresher as did my dad - but I had recently bought it having decided it was literally unacceptable that I had never read it.

The end of the year was very busy, what with having to play Guitar Hero III every day and having a job outside the house, plus throwing my back out. I didn’t even make it through The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger, so I was forced to do something I almost never do and read two books at the same time, I started 1984 on Friday December 21, and we left on the Saturday. I was not able to read it nearly as fast as I would have liked, I found myself enjoying it so much that not only was it hard to remember the number one rule of book club but I was constantly re-reading over passages and paragraphs I liked but sometimes because a book that deep, for myself anyway, was a lot to digest in the normal speedy fashion I would finish a book I was late on finishing for a club meeting.

The only tradition I took from the previous book club was the one where we’d rate the book out of five stars at the beginning of the discussion and then again at the end of the discussion.

• Adam - 5 stars
• Corinna - 5 stars
• Mom - 3 stars
• Dad - 4 stars

We all kept with our original ratings at the end of our three plus hour discussion.

This meeting I think we all had epiphanies on just how great of an idea starting the family book club was. Being so far out in the bushes there really isn’t a lot we can do together as a family, not to mention I/we have completely different relationships with each parent. But we do play scattergories together, we hike and golf together and we all enjoy reading.

We printed some 1984 book club questions off the internet as a general guide but they were pretty weak and we didn’t end up needing them. The different views brought to the table from four people coming from two completly different generations, two of who had read 1984 at very different times in their lives made for brilliant topics and tangents in themselves. Listening to my parents describe their childhoods and then relate them to Orwell’s novel in the sense that looking back you can now take a glimpse into the beginnings of his fictional world forming, meant learning new things about my parents past as well as the time, bloody fascinating. It may now be the 21st first century but it is still almost creepy how bang on Orwell is with his descriptions of things such as Newspeak, inner and outer party members, proles, telescreens, Big Brother, the recording of history. The fact that for years people have been handing over personal information without even a second thought, OnStar being a perfect example. Sure you don’t have to slam a golf club through your window or walk ten kilometers holding six babies but when you think about it doesn’t the thought of a corporation, fuck the Government here, a CORPORATION knowing exactly where you are at ANY time creep you out in the least?

Adam warned me that once I read 1984 that I would see it everywhere. He wasn’t kidding. For a few days I felt surrounded by 1984. While stuck up North we popped in The Red Violin and even having seen it two previous times the whole Communist China section with the constant use of the name of ‘Comrade’, the speak, the banning of western music struck chord after chord with me. And when we returned home Adam felt like watching Notes on a Scandal, less than five minutes into the opening narrative by Judy Dench she uses the word Proles. I became so obsessed that my first read of 2008 was Animal Farm, it is not at all hard to draw parallels between the two books but I gave Animal Farm only four stars. I found the ending a tad bit rushed.

We don’t know when the next meeting will be but it is my mother’s pick.

And now I have finished two books whilst still reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, I may just start a new trend in my reading ways.

Allow me to begin this year in review type post with a little something i like to call ‘i have a shitty memory’ as a foreword, or something. 2007 was so freaking thick it seemed more like 3 years two months and seven days instead of just a regular year. maybe thats why im feeling so nervous right now, like the contents of the last twelve months are really worth sharing and re-living. when you work like a bastard for something that might not even exist like hope or an idea or just nature you cant measure progress or quantify how successful you are becoming because the process of becoming is the end that wont end. it seems to me old fashioned to take stock of your life at the end of december, but that makes it hard to do otherwise so why not turn off the meter now? its been a betty of a year.

Keira-Anne on flickr Foto

i dont like the tone of that paragraph. i dont know where to start, or what to communicate. i feel like punching a picture of dan brown. i suppose the most important part is that were all still here. the most important statistic of all is whether your site is alive or not. every url contributes to the topography of the world tho we cant touch it we have conceptualized a new home that became a community and a country then a new world. this could be described as a conservation of energy and by re-enacting those significant moments that were shared and affected by the people and computers in this world the energy will return to the people and computers because the feelings didnt fade like our footprint that will always be here crossing and gathering infinitely.
(punching back cover of Davinci Code).

Tony Pierce on flickr Foto

i would like to thank ayebody who this last year has accepted me for my wooden-nickel self because of your respect for ol chokey. you are shining examples of humanity. i might feign resistance to technology, but that doesnt mean im not completely humbled by the world of computing. i love that the blog medium uses its powers for good, that means that every one of youz is making positive changes to real people and minds, and that your propensity will return to sustain you back. i am still shocked and awed that ol CJ Hixon flew a plane all the way from heafrow airport to rainy ol vancouver just to see the Greeper. you know what that means? that means that sometimes Dateline is WRONG STOSSEL people who you meet on the internet wont kill you unless theyre already a psycho the internet has very little to do with it. as you can see, CJ refrained from killing myself, my wife and the cat. that’s adam 3, Stossel 0. put that in yer moustache.

see instead of the murders, what happened was that by this peppy young lad trotting over here we got a huge feelin of the world is great after all. imagine watchin the news and when you are eatin on some chicken (or soy-type poultry thingie) nugget or something and the anchor sez your name out loud and you cant know WHO heard it but you assume that somebody else did and you have yourself witnessed an affirmation of your gooduns and that, is hard to beat. CJ bein his ever endearing-charming-effervescent-bastard self burns up some quid and in return there is a permanent rainbow over any memory associated with 2007 because that will always be the year that we met the Hixon lad. a done deal!
hypothesis: bein good by people is good, and makes Stossel eat his words often.

now if you are a troll who hides in the bushes and only reads feeds, you may not have noticed the subtle pimpins what have taken place here in idyllic Greeperland. the presidents of Audihertz-alajara, Materfacit-tania, and Chindogu-stan offered humanitarian aid to our not yet three years old republic. let me expound; peep my expoundinz:

Corinna has known David since grade whatever. he is quite a bit cooler than ice cube, and totally cooler than ice-T. he is an example of how technology brings people closer who have already bonded. and believe you me mister Drummond, besides all of your technical expertise you gave Corinna someone she could really trust in a place where distance both practised and geographical limits connection. you are a big source of shtrenth. word. if dave was in a rap video, he would be the guy riding shotgun who doesnt say anything he just looks cool while some jackass dances on the roof or the hood or something.

Tony Pierce on flickr Foto

now if our pal Jenn were in a music video, it would be less pedantic than U2 but kind of like when someone walks around singing and stuff and other people see how much fun shes having and how cool the song is and start followin her so that by the end of the video everybody is lost in the moment and rippin it up whatever theyre doing if its dancin or singin along or shakin hands with strangers or public speaking. i think that happens because the real inspirational people arent hocking books at the conference centre theyre living in the world and connecting human like to everybody around like how dry ice is more dense and has to expand out of its container and onto the floor and our shoes. is this not a truly wondrous masthead?? huzzah!

and the lastly but sure not leastly technical shout-out goes to the Burns & Allen of blogdom john + rebecca. this is form and content incarnate. you two make everything look completely effortless, like Gretzky himself. you guys are two little Wayne Gretzkys. youll always be at the allstar game and will always get to pick your number first. but we all know that Wayner didnt get to this status by only honing his hockey skillz, oh no, he transcends the game because the game can be found within his character. there is no difference between the game and Wayne–they are themselves, each other, and together, more. they enhance the other entity and expand the potential of that simple concept, those little rules that make hockey. i think its pride and dignity. but those are byproducts. were all proud of you, and proud to be by you. clear as mud.

so now that i have wasted a perfectly good attempt at spreading an even layer of 200, i will backpedal and spew out all that i have forgotten thus far before they start playing that music to get me off stage; dont worry, i’ll rassle em when they come at me.

there are several people. whats more, these people are folks. such as, uh, therefore, education, um, what is, the iraq…

Aughra + Jenn = Greeperland order of merit (shining beaconz of Bloglight and womandom)
Blogstock = People exist! (Duane, BANG! Keira, BANG! Tony, BANG! you like that shit? thats a free linkz what that is)
also Blogstock = meeting new Jagz and Stoddartz + Danielliz & Chadz an such
Bollwittz = margreetaz + Dave-Oz + Biehlerz + JennieRothz + Danz + such
Netchick = aka Tanya also = a just swell 10 year blogger who encourages the arts (aka GuitarHero)
also = Reilly + Miranda + Al + Vern + Monica + Chris + Nelson

whoa. i am spiraling out of control. i blame my first Liscumb family Crimus. yes, it was everything you could possibly imagine plus more. we didnt just have snow, we had flight delays. we didnt just see a moose, we saw multiple moose. four dude. four moose. and five mule deer. no cougars tho. ive wrestled enough cougars to know that ive never wrestled a cougar. we got that dang ol duvet that corinna was pining for since the nineties. thats the last century or something. her ma read nite before crimus and then Santa came. it was radical. i have two famlies now. how about that! ah yes, and a wife that loves me SO much that she bought a jeff foxworthy redneck calendar for us to stare into for a hole year, to make our plans on, to map our dreams… after i puke my guts out from looking at it. she must love me or something.

well, look at me, following coherent thoughts to their logical conclusion.. weve all come a long way. hi sarah! id have you in my sqwadron any day. basically, like ice man and maverick at the end of Top Gun. Nocturnal, i think you create matter out of a vacuum, or something. you are like philo from UHF. which makes you one of a kind and also awesome. DLAK! give me your epilepsy, please. Tiana, Brent, Your ass will be whupped in the future! (in guitar hero)

so in this year of bangs, of psychologists at the pictures, of travelling bloggers, of hemhorroidless bums, how do we end something that is only beginning? well, in an instant such as this, there is no magic 8ball to shake, no almanac to consult. in this case, i always ask myself, “What would Rhonda do?”. but no one knows what Rhonda would do, thats what makes her the enigma she is. so, to Rhonda : we will miss you out here.

hapy new yearz. an hapy 30th boday an 1 year aniversary Chokey. we luvz yoou.

and to the rest of you special yous, I’ll see you on Facebook.

As expected today was slightly crazy.

• work 9-1
• doctor appointment re: back
• psychiatrist re: crazy
• last minute shopping re: Christmas

In between the doctor and the psychiatrist I met up with two seriously pissed me off awesome situations.

I needed to go to Canadian Tire because there is a product on the telly that I want to get for my parents.

Actually, wait, let me be more specific, there is a product advertised on the TELEVISION that people watch, it is a commercial and at the end of the commercial it says available at these stores and one of them is Canadian Tire. I have seen it oh perhaps twenty times in the last two months maybe more and I work now so I watch less t.v; let us not forget that.

I think if it hadn’t been for the information desk that was available to customers at the front of the store I may have let this one go but an information desk says to me that you have information. On products. That YOU sell.

There was no information at the information desk, even after my elaborate story with description of product, name, and the mentioning of the commercial at least six times.

I moved on to the next guy at the paint desk, I was just going to search the whole store because I had close to an hour but he made eye contact with me so I thought HEY why not, I’ll ask him. This guy at least tried to look it up in the computer but I couldn’t see what he was actually doing so for all I know he was watching midget porn.

I wander around and find nothing. I find many similar things, I find things I end up buying as gifts for my parents but no go on the televised product they sell that so far two staff plus the staff they yell out: “HEY HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF ______” can’t find, no one has even heard of it.

One more try, finally, someone wants to help me, and guess what folks, together we found the product but not in the store in the computer, they were sold out so I went with a gift card and I will print out a picture of it for my parents and if they don’t want it and buy something else FINE but I am never buying anything off of the t.v that looks cool from Canadian Tire ever again. I’m not kidding you in a store called Canadian Tire I questioned myself as to whether it was at all possible that I had seen the commercial on an American station.

Now for the psychiatrist’s office. I intentionally sat down in the chairs directly outside of the reception area so that I could read 1984, it is a bit quieter out there. I am trying to read this book super fast because we are having another family book club meeting and because my dad and Adam have read it and my mother and I haven’t [I can not believe I have never read 1984] we are discussing it. This happened last time too when we went up to visit, everyone was done the chosen book but me and we had to wait on the meeting until I was done. Bad me.

I was trucking along, just starting to get into it when a woman in the reception waiting area started to read out loud to her child. For about two seconds I was cool with it, I was all, I love reading and kids should read and parents who read to their kids are rad and BLAH I couldn’t bloody concentrate at all on my book so I started to make sounds and hand gestures and I slapped my book on my leg. I think she might have noticed because her voice lowered and I was able to digest the words in my book again.

The reception lady wanted to close the doors so I had to move inside. I sat down and began to read my book again but I was so close to the woman and her child that there was no possible way to block out her reading of the Berenstein Bears and because it involved reading and not say an obnoxiously loud cell phone call in a public closed in waiting area where I would have NO PROBLEM telling you to SHUT IT I was torn because it was a kid and it was reading so I myself decided that I would then read my book out loud to myself and so I did and I know she heard me because when she would stop reading out loud, I would stop reading out loud also.

I find it insane that this woman was so thick she didn’t get the point and SHUT IT or AT LEAST lower her voice.

I had all these thoughts running through my head whilst trying to read to myself and of course exploded the second the door was closed. Turns out the shrink was happy that I had the balls to read my own book out loud because he agreed that it IS a small waiting area and that there was no need for her to be reading the book out loud and the only thing I could have done better would have been to POLITELY tell her to shut it by reminding her that it is a public place you don’t own it and I’m trying to read in relative QUIET please.