Archive for the 'Bali' Category

The Mansion

Published on February 13, 2012 by Corinna Carlson | 1 Comment

Update: Mrs. E passed away over the weekend of February 25th 2012.

Sometimes I get to thinking about how long I’ve lived in this apartment building, I didn’t see this as a place that I‘d be stopping over in for long. I have lived in two different suites but it isn’t like that changed the day to day happenings of the residence.

When I moved in here, I was only 22 and already had so much furniture the place almost didn’t fit it all. The landlady was old and creepy, already in her 70s. She’s still alive, but barely, she isn’t the landlady anymore and she needed to be put in a home ages ago but she wasn’t, she still lives next door. She falls a lot, I helped get keys one day when she was trapped in her place. I thought she was going to pass over Christmas; they had to bust her door down to rush her to the hospital. When I got back from Bali at the end of last month, she was still going.

We’ve had the strangest relationship, myself and Mrs. E. We went from despising each other to the point that I used to write hilarious blog posts about her, to realizing that I’m actually closer to this woman than I have ever been [was] to any of my grandmothers. I see how sad that is; it isn’t like we’re all Tuesdays with Morrie close, but when you consider the fact that I have lived in this building for twelve years, longer than I have lived anywhere in my entire life and have spent little time with any of my family outside of my parents, to me, it makes perfect sense.

I can hear loud, strange sounds and coughing coming from her place, nights are the worst, listening to someone slowly dying. I don’t know what normal numbers would be but a number of residents have died since I’ve lived in here including one Gus Greeper and another of them being Mrs. E’s husband. He used to smoke out near the hallway, tucked away in the stairwell, where the smoke would billow, it couldn’t escape properly and it would hang in the air and seep under my door. Many tenants tried to have it stopped over the years but you just didn’t mess with Mrs. E when she was landlady, oddly you still don’t mess with her and she hasn’t been the landlady for a couple of years. Sometimes the smell of cigarette smoke will wake me up out of a dead sleep and I will swear it’s his ghost. Sure, my bed is directly under the window but I smell it when I’m awake in other parts of the apartment at random times as well.

This is a woman who came into my locked apartment when I was literally naked from the waist up, uninvited, and WOULD NOT LEAVE and now I’m SAD she’s dying. I would say that her NOT having keys to the suites anymore with her retirement has strengthened our relationship. I don’t think I will ever understand the majority of her behaviour but the life progression that she has seen me make from 22 to almost 35, well shit, I’ve gone from cops at my door to so calm it can be creepy. Let’s not fool ourselves of course I still have a temper. I remember one day years ago after we’d had a row, her muttering under her breath, “not a nice girl, not a nice girl.” That is a post for a different day, but even little things like that, when at the time she was just as evil, make me sit back and actually take a moment to be proud of myself.

I’m not even the longest standing occupant, there is a dude down the hall who lives next door to my old suite and I know for sure he has been in here longer than me, he gave me a book on farts one time, and my neighbours on the other side of the suite I’m in now out resident me as well; their bed hits my bedroom wall while they’re having sex. There might be one tenant on the first floor as well but I’m not 100% sure. A few people have come and gone that I’m still in contact with but for the most part, as with almost everything else in life, I keep to myself.

Of course I don’t know whether Mrs. E will die alone in her apartment or whether someone will put her in a home, where I suppose she could also die alone. There is no happy ending there. But I remember being upset in Bali that I might not get to say goodbye. I’ve gone through so much living in this building that my shrink doesn’t even think living in here is healthy for me and even though Adam and I outgrew this suite before we even became an Adam and I, I’ll always have devastatingly fond memories of my extended stay in The Mansion.

We just got a rent increase, it’s balls.

No time to go round and round.

Published on April 3, 2011 by Corinna Carlson | 13 Comments

The latest session that I had with my psychiatrist was one of the most needed ones I’ve had in a while. I’ve moved into this new scary place, and I’m finding the fear induced anxiety, eight full days of it now, incredibly painful.

I was straight up honest with him that last Sunday I’d upped my Clonazepam by a milligram because in order to be in the gym I have no choice but to find ways to get food down my throat and this is the fantastic it feels like I have a dryer than fuck metal bar across my esophagus anxiety the kind that if I do get food by it’ll just laugh at me whilst I double over from the waves of nausea. Given that I have been learning to sit in my feelings this new thing where I actually learn to experience feelings in the real word again and do things for me is turning out to be a wee bit challenging.

I’ve had more than one situation trigger me into this anxiety but unfortunately to get out I can only deal with one thing at a time. It may seem strange, but I don’t often find myself crying in my sessions, lately though I’ve noticed that I have been crying more in general. I used to be a crier and then I wasn’t and then I learned how to accept being a joy crier and I left it at that and kept suppressing real tears and firing them off in destructive bullets of anger instead.

When I found out in February about a week before what would have been her 89th birthday that my grandmother had died in January and that no one had told me I was quite devastated. After the vitriol spewed by my Aunt in my comments you’d really not think that things could’ve gotten much worse from there. I didn’t call my mother right away to offer any condolences, I had no idea how to deal with a betrayal of that magnitude, had no idea how to put my anger aside, myself aside to make it about her loss and I questioned whether I would call at all. I did end up calling, I called her on what would have been her mother’s birthday, it was still the day before here. I don’t remember a lot of the conversation but I know that at no time was any mention made of anything except my grandmother and current events. I don’t think I need to go into detail as to how fucking hard that was I wanted to explode on the inside.

Shortly after this phone call we received an email saying she wanted to come stay with us. We were both pretty floored she had the balls to ask considering no explanation, no apology has been issued for the offside attack launched on me, not to mention she doesn’t think that not telling me that my grandmother died was wrong she feels she did the right thing. And in this case I don’t really give a fuck about opinion entitlements, I don’t know how to forgive that, but somehow I found myself telling her she could come for five days.

Enter discussions with close friends who ask me very very good questions and challenge my decision, to the point that I even tell the Dr. I ain’t letting her come. But he talked me out of it. He suggested some great ideas and we discussed for about the millionth time laying down boundaries with her. The boundaries I try to set with my parents generally dissipate into the depths of I give the fuck up pretty quickly. But at that moment, I felt good, for real, I figured that I’d handled the phone call and left my dad and everything else out of it, so fuck it, I could do it, I could have her come visit, plan it all out before she got here, not even discuss my father, I even emailed her and offered an olive branch of another day saying she could leave on the morning of the sixth day, I told her the schedule with my psychiatrist so she could book the week around it, getting the full five days with me and was confident with the right boundaries we had a shot at a new beginning, for just the two of us. Or at least a start.

As I’m writing this I realize how ridiculous it sounds.

I’m 33, when the fuck will I ever learn.

To save a few bucks she decided to ask me if she could come for eight days; let us not forget, I used to be a travel agent so I know damn well that all international scheduled fares go down after a seven night stay, but she decided to show complete and absolute disrespect for this entire fucking try-a-thon, one I felt forced into anyway. But you know what? I didn’t freak out. But I did hold my ground and it was hard because she of course said she was sorry and that she was crying but piss off with your guilt trip seriously. The exchanges we had made it clear that if I didn’t do this now If I didn’t say no, NO this is our year, and I’M doing things for me right now and it isn’t a good time and it isn’t about you and NO I’m NOT saying that I’m never going to talk to you again but I can not do this right now.

I feel really fucking guilty and it was the initial anxiety trigger but it is fear, fear of finally putting my foot down, the pain of knowing that she hurts but that she has to live with the decisions she has made in her life and that I can’t do anything about them. My parents keep accusing me of not moving on when in reality I don’t think they realize how far I have moved. It hurts, but it isn’t forever. If I hadn’t set this boundary with her then there wouldn’t be any chance for change because I’d have only been enabling the same behavior I have for years.

I’ve been advised to cry more and feel the sadness, It is supposed to help me push through the anxiety and fear. I think that I had been concentrating on the same goals and personal improvements for so long that I forgot how scary it is to start new ones. But if i don’t move on, neither will the anxiety that keeps me down.

No need to be coy, Roy

Published on March 16, 2011 by Corinna Carlson | 10 Comments

On Monday our new kitty Roy Kucing got to take his cone-head off after being neutered, Roy has been with us for two months as of yesterday, he’s 6 months and some days old. Roy enjoys running amok, attacking feet, escaping and sprinting down the hallway, plotting, slurping while he baths, purring excessively, posing for incriminating photos, tomfoolery, stealth missions, hanging out in the bathtub, his own brand, talking a lot, mischief and mayhem, throwing his dry food on the floor like a witch doctor, the Poang and playing with Teenie Sardinis from Fat Cat; he’s sent three to unmarked and undisclosed graves, one was so dirty it had to be recycled, and there’s one kept on backup because I’m a sucker. He is basically the coolest cat we could have asked for not to mention he’s a handsome little devil who woos every woman he meets just ask the ladies at my vet’s office.

little trooper.

To be honest we weren’t planning on getting a new furry little buddy so soon but after coming home to an empty apartment after our trip out to Chilliwack for Crimus time, we were both in agreement that it sucked balls not having a furry little buddy and started looking into rescuing. We ended up finding a kitty who needed a home from VOKRA which wasn’t the worst experience but wasn’t the best. I’ll leave it at I’m doing my best to give them the benefit of the doubt that they actually care about cats and not just the money needed to keep themselves running.

Roy Kucing in Adam's pants.

For a long time, I joked that after Gus every animal that I got would be named after the Paul Simon song 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, or at least 5 would be and I’ve now used 2 of the names, but I didn’t honestly think it would happen given that there are two us who have to pick names for critters now and contrary to popular belief I do not always get my way. I was also hoping that Adam would want to incorporate the use of the Indonesian word Kucing meaning cat into the name.

Crazy Eye Poang Roy Kucing

Since Adam and I met we’ve been counting kitties, we umm text message each other in the voice of The Count with how many kitties we see on an outing if we aren’t together and if we are together we shout out ONE ONE KITTY. After we had both been to Bali and back we started to do this in Indonesian, both the numbers and the kitties – SATU SATU KUCING! I posted about this way back in 2005 for those of you who may be thinking we’re even more off of our rockers than you originally thought – you might want to give it a read. Roy Kucing slipped off the tongue well and once one of my very best girlfriends Meghan told me she’d had a dream we named our new cat Roy it was set before we even had the little buddy home, that he would be Roy. Roy Kucing.

No need to be coy, Roy.

Life Happens

Published on January 11, 2011 by Corinna Carlson | 8 Comments

I feel like if I just go on and write posts from the pages of notes I have on things I’d like to write about that I would be leaving a huge elephant in the room but at the same time I don’t plan on saying anything I wouldn’t have already said anyway nor do I plan to give it too much attention. But in having put myself out there and written about my family in the way I have over the almost six years I’ve been blogging for now I can’t say it surprises me that someone related to me has viscously attacked me, no one ever said trying to break cycles of abuse was easy, I’m not going to say I’m not hurt and that I wasn’t really pissed off but I can’t say I’ve lost any sleep over it. Given that I have never not approved a comment on this blog, no matter how mean, and the fact that all members of my family or anyone who reads here is entitled to their opinions and although there is no question that it was hard, there was no way I wasn’t going to approve it; a part of me knew it was coming from the four emails of a similar, granted shorter, FULL CAPS nature that I had already received and ignored.

If there is one thing I have learned in the last two years it’s that you can’t tell people you have changed, people either see it or they don’t and no matter what I do or don’t do, there will always be people who don’t like me, will never like me. And you know what? For a while now I’ve been okay with that and it isn’t easy by any stretch, given I crave approval and want everyone to like me. But 2010, although a year of little blogging, was a year of many, many lessons learned.

The fact of the matter here is, whether you find out from reading through my archives or have been following this roller-coaster with my family from the beginning, I have always made it clear that there is no one that I feel close with in my family, the one person I did died in 2001. So when it comes right down to it, I don’t feel the need to really defend myself against anything she said, take it or leave it, buy it or don’t buy it I’m not here to appease anyone. I acknowledge that reading some of the things that I have written about my parents over the years can’t be easy for them, but at the same time – then stay off my blog.