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.

Last weekend Adam and I were in Langley and spent a night way out in Chilliwack, there are some super nice mountains that far out of the city, beautiful British Columbia all over the place. I sent two texts messages to Twitter and I used a computer once because my phone was randomly texting important pertinent information to Safeway, and I needed my response to reach the person it came from but I wasn’t even on it for five minutes. Other than that I was completely unplugged. We were at my youngest Sister (in-laws) wedding. And lucky me I get to post photos!

It was three full days away from my cat though, with family I hadn’t seen or spoken to since we got married in 2006. I was afraid of anxiety attacks, migraines, one of my ass or intestinal ailments acting up, totally freaking out, losing it, ruining everything and having to go home. When I thought about it I realized that I hadn’t even spent that much time with a large(r) amount of my own side of the family since 1994, when I was 17 years old and we went back to Ontario for Christmas. I did make a trip back in 2000 as well, but it was hardly 4 days, also for Christmas but it was to visit a very specific person in the family and whoever else I got to see was great but I didn’t see that many.

I don’t like being away from home period, which upon thinking about recently I realized I’ve been like that since I was a kid, I remember I used to come home from sleep overs in the middle of the night. When my parents where still living in Prince George I would fly home early pretty regularly. I knew I was going to be out there from early Friday until who knew when on Sunday.

Back when Adam and I got married my relationship with the people who were to become my in-laws was strained to say the very least. I didn’t actually talk to my sister in laws or father in law at all at our wedding. I had mentally prepared for months to not let how hard that day was going to be get to me, it was one of the best acts I’ve ever put on knowing I was walking down the aisle in front of some people who had reason not to like me, or who had heard enough negative things about me that in only one day I wasn’t going to change anyones mind. I’m used to being misunderstood, but in the case of my soon to be sisters, fucking up the chance at a relationship I had grown up wanting more than anything sucked, really bad.

Over the years that we’ve been married my SILs and I have worked out our differences and we get along better than I ever could have dreamed. I don’t even remember how it happened, it just did. We started hanging out with Kristy my youngest sister and her boyfriend Greg who is now her husband and my brother. Sara started to make a point to come over and see us whenever she was here from Philly. It happened slowly but I was starting to feel like these two women really had my back, that they didn’t just like me that they were starting to love me like real family. Whoa, what a trip that was.

Most people know I’m an only child but what a lot of people don’t know is that I grew up with just my parents. I had an incredibly hard time making and keeping friends and whatever these problems were they were always my fault, that is all I learned was that it was my fault not how to properly socialize or make friends. I never spent enough time with anyone in my extended family to build an actual relationship with them, I don’t know any of them, I know things about them, and I’ve heard things about them but I don’t KNOW them. The time I spent so alone as a child is no doubt why as an adult I spend, at least by choice now, a shit load of time at home. It was in 1985 that my parents made a choice to leave our entire family in Ontario and go as far West as you can coming to British Columbia.

Not spending a lot of time with Adam’s family never bothered me. Not getting invited out for Thanksgiving, who cares! I didn’t have to pretend I wanted to be there and sneak out to smoke pot at any escapable moment I could find. I have enough trouble holding my shit together when my parents visit me instead of me visiting them, I feel trapped, I feel they don’t listen to me or respect my space. I try and set boundaries when they visit but it always leads to overly dramatic fights and periods of time when we have no contact at all. Again, my fault.

Aside from mending and building a relationship with my sister in laws the only other person on that side of the family who I’d met that I knew liked me for sure was my Grandma. She spoils Adam and I rotten and it’s awesome. She was the one Adam learned how to make sock monkeys from so my starting to make the sock monkeys helped me out there a bit I think.

I started to get excited about this wedding pretty early on, I think it is probably for the best that I kept most of my focus on Kristy and Greg and didn’t spend much time thinking about the big picture, which was three full days with the Carlson clan who I hadn’t seen since we married and I’d be meeting members of an entire new family that I’m now a part of, being an only child this was incredibly overwhelming, it is very hard for me to connect which titles go with who, I have the basics down, but try to figure out what the correct term for the relation of anyone outside a brother or a sister and I really don’t have a clue. We hadn’t even been out to Langley, Daddy Bland had stopped by our place a couple of times over the years, but I would rarely accompany Adam on a coffee or eating excursion if there was one. I didn’t see the point, he was never going to like me and it wasn’t because I started to call him Daddy Bland, that’s his middle name.

Last weekend, up until the hangover on Sunday, was one of the best weekends I have had in ages. We’d met Sara at the airport in the morning to hitch a ride to Langley whilst also to pick up her boyfriend and headed straight for ground zero – my father in law’s fancy garage, already set up all nice, in purple and black for the Sunday gift opening. Family arrived all day, some from Dawson Creek, Edmonton, they came from all over. All recognizing me but me recognizing none of them. ONLY because it is nearly impossible for a bride to remember talking to her own family at her wedding let alone members of her new one, at least it was for me anyway, and I’ve heard that is very common.

We took off with Sara and Chris to set up the ceremony and reception hall and watch the rehearsal which Adam was needed for as he played the guitar and harmonica as Kristy’s wedding party and then Kristy and her dad walked down the aisle the following day. I still felt extremely overwhelmed at times and shed a few tears trying really hard not to let my anxiety get the best of me and allow my head to convince me everyone hated me. The bridesmaids couldn’t believe it when I told them I had social anxiety. I had told Adam I wasn’t taking any crap in Langley, yes I knew it was all about Kristy and Greg but this didn’t mean I was going to feel excluded. Not at one moment did I feel excluded. I even had some bonding moments with my step mother in law, I never saw that day coming and it was awesome. Real conversations.

Getting to spend time with both of my sisters at the same time was something I never thought I’d have in my life. I didn’t know if we would ever get along, but we do, and pretty well too. They are both such fantastic, yet different women. Sara and I both like reading, and looking like dorks in photos, she calls random people creeps, I call them jerks. Kristy likes country music SHIT I LIKE COUNTRY MUSIC. HA TAKE THAT INTERNET. Kristy is sensitive, I know I don’t have to tell any of you this but I’M super sensitive. And we all want to get along and want to have a relationship, that means more to me than I can really put into words, I’ve been trying to find them, I suppose they are here in this novel of a post somewhere. I don’t feel as lonely anymore. Talking and laughing with them, the cousins and aunts, uncles, grandma, and being myself – it made me happy, very happy, yet sad, because as an adult I haven’t been privy to times like this with my own side of the family. I never even thought family mattered to me. I have a wonderful husband and a cat, I’m set. But family does matter to me, I don’t know how to connect with my own (and I’m not talking about my parents) but connecting with my in-laws has shown me I can do it.

Weddings are an interesting thing, they can bring out the best and worst in almost everyone included. I needed that wedding, I needed that time with those two women, I’ve always bragged about their accomplishments, always been proud of the paths they chose but I didn’t know how to accept that we were all going to love one another unconditionally, that it was even possible, despite having more than just books and music in common, but we put up and took down that weekend together, Kristy got hitched, we partied like we’d never partied before and I was left thinking that Christmas can’t come around too soon so the six of us get to spend time together again, who knew that I would ever look forward to Christmas, let alone one with family.

“NO, but close.”

Right, so last Thursday night I had just finished watching the first episode of Fringe I worked on, and was ready to spend a resplendent evening playing Virtua Fighter 5 on the XBox with my most loving husband when all of a sudden my dinner which wasn’t particularly healthy gave my stomach that not so nice grumbly get your ass to the toilet now cause it may explode feeling and I quickly obliged. What started as mild cramping in my abdomen was soon complimented with a back door tempest which erupted into pain so bad I starting moaning and groaning in donkey tongues.

Although I am known as a whiner, I blame that on the only child thing, I’m also known to have a pain tolerance that defies explanation. One example, the classic statistic I fell into when I broke my collarbone in THE COOK ISLANDS, apparently 2% of collarbone breakages end up in surgery, I ended up in surgery with mine, three months shy of it having been broken for an entire year.

Adam yelled over and asked if it could be menstrual cramps. No fuck no, menstrual cramps had nothing on this, this felt like my innards were being twisted into bows and balloon animals. But just to be sure I lifted up a drenched and dripping sweaty leg to see a bowl of blood. Fan-fucking-tastic. Having had a hemorrhoidectomy this was immediately bothersome but I had been on the can a while by this point and my ass wasn’t 100% sure what was going on because my contracting intestines were on some sort of long standing contract that only your worst enemy would take out on you to make me feel like hell.

The tempest cleared long enough for me to take 200 mg of Gravol and just hope that the contracting would stop and I’d get some sleep. When I woke up in the morning I still felt horrible, except now add drained and tired to that list. Even though I drank loads of water and had a decent sleep nothing was better, as soon as I sat down for my morning pee everything started up again but worse, because I didn’t have any food in my system and I was only drinking water. I did try to eat some tomato soup but that didn’t go too well and I threw it up in my mouth. We tried to get ahold of our doctor but they weren’t answering, so Adam walked over and explained my symptoms and he was told to take me up to the hospital. There was no way I could walk so I laid on the floor in the fetal position wondering how women have fucking babies, while Adam got ahold of a cab which I wasn’t sure about either because I thought for sure I was gonna barf any second.

The downtown hospital is a joyous place, it is one of those you only go to if you REALLY have to, this was my second trip into emerge there, granted this one wasn’t a self inflicted driven right to the door by the ambulance bill ya later kind.

Check in complete. Enter emergency waiting room, or a loose version of what at first sight appears to be a psych ward. Before I am through with my visit I will be privy to a ranting yet 90 days sober drug addict being taunted by a man claiming to be bipolar in cuffs whilst insulting the cops and making everyone in the waiting room uncomfortable to say the very least.

But, back to me, I was supposed to give them a urine sample basically right upon arrival. Always one to appreciate the little things, I was extremely excited about the innovation in giving urine samples, the funnel on top of the regular looking container with the lid and a nice little hand-wipe all in a sterile bag just for me. I went on to explain to Adam that this funnel was such a fantastic advancement that I couldn’t even believe it, why had no one done it sooner?

I proceed to sample my urine, all the while thinking how great this funnel is when suddenly it catches on the edge of my track pants and falls straight down into my underpants, drenching my pant leg in pee and part of my shoe as I watch a puddle of pee form on the floor next to my foot. I burst into tears. Are you kidding me? Is this for real? The waiting room is basically full, I thought the funnel was fantastic and now I want to murder it. I clean up the best I can covered in soaking wet pee and find the positive of the whole ordeal to be the track pants I’m wearing are navy blue fake velour rendering the wet spots less obvious — although this did nothing to help with the icky feeling I had with the cold material drying against my leg. “Do I smell like urine?”, I whispered to Adam as I started swigging from the water bottle so that I can get my pee on again.

I got in with the doctor relatively quickly, and felt like a super star explaining why I had no urine sample. This lovely visit confirmed something I have known all along, that my hemorrhoidectomy had not taken. I had The Rhoids again, internal and external for extra measure, if I only had a dollar for every doctor in the city who has had their finger up my ass I’d be comfortable. Not rich, not yet anyway, but comfortable. After another urine sample I didn’t botch and some blood work they let me go home saying I simply had a nasty viral attack on my intestines causing the back end tempest and at the moment still contracting intestines. I was told to make an appointment with my GP, take it easy and rest, back to solids slowly and lots of fluids.

What a way to kill a day and a half. I’d love to say I’m 100% better, but my energy is still really low with an even bigger interruption to my already lacking food intake and this was about the last thing I needed because I’ve already been bitching about losing too much weight since the stress hit in January. My intestines were contracting for a long bloody time because I am still in discomfort today, so I am resting and trying not to laugh a lot which isn’t too hard, unless of course I let myself think about how awesome it was to walk around with my bottom half covered in my own piss for half a day. That pretty much made the visit, the guy in cuffs had nothing on that.

My parents have had this sign for ages it existed when my name was still my maiden name Liscumb. I am pretty sure I even asked my dad the exact story from the sign while I was in Bali but I was on vacation brain and I have no idea. It has been repainted since it was on the green fence that held my dad’s old horse in Prince George. The weather there did a number on it. I never lived in Prince George so we must have had it in Terrace too.

This is the view from the back of the house from the top storey patio.  That mountain there that you can barely see was very hard to capture.  I made many a mental note to get a photo when it was more visible and I forgot and never did. Things like that made the place feel more real because I was able to say to myself fuck it, you can get it on the next trip.

That patio is also where the Monday massages took place. Just had to call up the woman and let her know that there would be three of us. I got there on a Monday night so I missed that day’s massage but still got two in while there. Decent massage, little different from anything I’d experienced before, I’ve had full body massages but never had it include a full butt massage as in those hands slipped into my crack on way more than one occasion.

This is the front of the house from the steps leading from the beach to this wee gate. Before I had seen the house in person I had a really hard time guessing and even picturing how my parents told me it was set up, for some reason I had only seen photos from this angle.

Facing this way on the left is the office and a bathroom and the outside sitting area, on the right is the kitchen and the kitchen eating area.  You do most of your living there outdoors.  My dad asked me after I’d been there for a decent bit how I liked living outside. I remember saying I honestly hadn’t really noticed but loved it, probably from camping so much from such a young age and spending so much time outside as a kid it just seemed natural for me to slip right into.

I noticed while pulling the above photo for the post that a cup of MY kopi is in this photo, I had mentioned in my last Bali post – Part Tiga that none existed which I have discovered was an unintentional lie.

Selamat pagi – which means good morning, as I’m about to swig from my water bottle. I’m wearing what I slept in here so I know that it’s still morning.

I read a decent amount while I was gone, I never ever read as many books on vacation as I think I will BUT I would still bring the same amount of books plus my eBook because no matter where I am I want a variety of books to choose from which is partly what makes having an eBook so awesome, although I don’t use it much I know I will because I will eventually have to face that not cutting down on weight for trips to Bali just to be able to have a copy of a book is pretty silly. But right now I don’t feel like that.

While gone I finished Rant - Chuck Palahniuk, started and read Still Alice - Lisa Genova, Blindness – Jose Saramago, When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris and started The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood.  I enjoyed them all, although Still Alice has me convinced that I have early onset Alzheimer’s, for real, not being an asshole. And it was sort of interesting being around a bunch of rabid anjings and kucings [dogs and cats] having just finished Palahniuk’s, Rant.

One night I went to walk into the kitchen to get a drink of water or a bir IN THE DARK and a gecko fell off something from my opening the door and hit me in the face. I screamed like a pussy of course, it scurried off my forehead and I watched it run along well away from me. That was my only negative encounter with any lizards, although they are there and they are big, not tiny wee friendly looking things like the geckos, fucking lizards and I HATE lizards. I only saw one decent size so lets say medium lizard, thank fucking gawd.

Early evening here barbecue is being used for dinner, I can see the cover is off. Super bloody awesome cool thing about this time of day is the changeover between the birds swooping all over and catching bugs to the bats coming out and fucking annihilating the bugs. People ask me about the bugs, and there were a lot of flies, spiders, red ants, moths and mosquitoes but I was there during the windy season and so therefore the bugs for the most part kept off me.  I did have a few choice bites though, couple huge ones on my ass. I have never understood what it is with bugs and biting ass, but I always seem to get the biggest bites there.  And as mentioned right at the moment when evening meets night, you don’t even notice the changeover they look almost exactly the same as the birds, but the bats come out for the hunt and really they are your best friend if you want to sit outside as I am likely doing here it is fascinating watching them, trying to catch the birds accepting that their shift is finished as the bats suddenly emerge.  This is also why I FLIPPED when I opened the kitchen door as I wasn’t immediately sure if a bat was swooping by me or if it was a gecko.

So, I’m not the best sleeper in the world, unless it is a bed fat chance that I will fall asleep in it around it on it, planes can suck it I hate them I almost NEVER get any sleep.  This day however, it was my third day there I think, I can’t have been there long because I am reading Rant I fell asleep not once but TWICE. UNHEARD OF. My dad caught me sleeping on camera so I can remind myself that I was able to get myself into a relaxed enough place for that to have happened. Adam gave me grief over falling asleep in the sun to which I quickly informed him that not only had I waited the PROPER amount of time before entering the sun after applying my sun screen, I also had a my stop watch next to my head to go off AND my parents also woke me because I told them how long I was doing my front for. SO THERE.

Basically Dr. Vegas stole my tanning googles and I’m stuck in sun glasses. Not cool little buddy, those will give me tan lines. I wore my contacts every day I was there because it was so bright that my glasses were useless. We have to make Dr. Fever some swim trunks and matching ones for Vegas because Fever is still wearing his country western cowboy hat from his days back in northern British Columbia.

CRAB IN THE POOL!

They hung out together a lot, they are brothers and both doctors – they have a lot to talk about. My mom commented on how much more worn Dr. V is than Dr. F and I was all dude, Vegas gets around, he travels, he goes to concerts, parties, weddings, he hangs with the ladies and he is with the band I don’t know what band but there’s a BAND and he’s WITH IT.

The gazebo is another awesome place to sit and read.

And watch the sun set from.

This photo falls under my favourite photos, I am photographing the lights from the fishing boats. Mine didn’t turn out, I suck in that lighting. The fishing boats are tiny seriously tiny outriggers. I will cover those in another post.

This is the only photo I took inside up stairs, that is primarily what my dad wears every day, retirement is so seriously hard as you can TELL. The windows in the far right there open to the front patio where you can watch the sunrise in the morning and watch the fishing boats come in.

These are our diggs when we go visit, my bathroom had no mirror while I was there but I didn’t mind, I can go a while and not need a mirror, for serious. If the trip hadn’t have been a surprise my dad would have put a mirror in for me but he couldn’t do little things like that, everything had to be HUSH HUSH HUSH don’t do ANYTHING to that bedroom because my mom is snoopy, really aren’t all moms though?

One morning near the end of the trip I was sitting cross legged on the bed text messaging Adam and I had JUST pressed send when my bed started to tremble and shake or more like slide back and forth, took me about as long as it did during the earth quake in Vancouver for it to dawn on me that it was in fact an earth quake. I yelled up stairs “don’t you feel that?”, it rumbled a bit more and stopped. It hit Kuta about 100 kilometers from us. Wasn’t one of the ones that caused major damage around that time in September but still, that only means the people in Kuta were lucky that day.

As I mentioned windy season, my dad has a shirt on so it was one of the cooler days, again with the kopi mug I see it, the afternoon cup o’ kopi I am now an unintentional two time liar. Oh right this is the ONE day it stormed, if you look out the doors you can see the seats from the sitting area pressed together and against the wall, the storm wasn’t long but it was EPIC. And if you look really closely you can see some water on the tile.  I wasn’t really sure about the tile when I got there because generally I do not like being barefoot anywhere and I was worried they’d be slippery. Best tiles ever, who needs shoes, that is all I have to say about those tiles and that it was a delight for the first time really in my life to be shoeless everywhere around the house.

Almost every afternoon anytime after fifteen hundred hours cocks come into my parents yard and help my dad with his gardens, they clean out the bugs, it is a sight to see. I don’t know why they go by cock there instead of rooster but they do and you can talk about cocks all day long. COCK COCK COCK. They are not like farm cocks or any cocks I’m used to, for example I DO NOT remember them being so vociferous in the Cook Islands where I did not stay at a resort, they were all over our house I have loads of film photos of them. The cocks in Bali NEVER SHUT UP.  They must really like the chicks and warring over territory.  I call this cock the cock dwarfer.

That concludes Part Empat. Catch up on the Bali 2009 series here: Part Satu, Part Dua and Part Tiga.

I don’t have any photos of myself drinking the kopi, the opening to this post is super misleading I do have photos of me drinking the bir but I never got wasted on it that was the mischievous sock monkeys Dr. Vegas and Dr. Fever getting wasted on the Bintang. When I did take photos of my food it was sometimes visible, it is a Pilsner and is a very good bir I enjoyed it almost everyday. No one paid me to say the bir was good, the bir is just good.

I did have a Bintang with this photo of my Bali fusion meal in Kintamani where the people are very poor and you find mostly restaurants all fighting for the best view, they are all buffet style with a real menu if you insist however being a high tourist area they gotta get you in and out fast. It is pretty high elevation wise and is actually cool there, I didn’t end up needing the sweater I brought that day, the only day I took one anywhere, but I did notice a big difference in temperature specially sitting to eat outside. Turns out I would not have needed my sweater anyway because they sell full on winter scarfs up there, totally tripped me out. We were leaving the restaurant and I noticed loads of tourists with these orange face cloths and they were steaming and seeing how I was still sort of upset for not getting steaming cloths to wipe off with at any time on my twelve plus hour flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong, I was all over this and sought out the orange steaming cloths, there was a table on the way out containing a huge pile and I quickly grabbed one and wiped my hands and face, I handed the cloth back to the pretty girl and said “terima kasih, sampai jumpa lagi, terima kasih”. (thank you, goodbye, thank you; I seem to be as repetitive in Indonesian as I am in Canadian, go figure.) I was left standing there and that was bad because I remember not being in the mood to be accosted by sellers that day, it does at times become extremely overwhelming so I turned to head back into the restaurant to find my parents just in time to see the girl dip one after the other then soak and twist drip and fancy fold the same towels from the same bucket of water and then return them to the pile on the table. I told my dad that I had just wiped myself down with who-knew-how many different people’s sweat and who-knew-what else to which he replied, “that’s Bali”. It was true, I had no witty rebuttal.

I am almost positive thanks to a lot of reconnaissance and a great girlfriend who dated a Hindu man for years that this is Hanuman. He is one of my favourite photos because of course I have aspirations of being tattooed in Bali and this photo was taken on my second day of exploring and I saw it through the lens and was instantly hit with THAT is my tattoo. I didn’t think I’d be smacked by something that I wanted to put on my body so soon into the trip. Little did I know that not only would he turn out to be a monkey but that he lead an army of monkeys and we make sock monkeys and we call members grunts of The Sock Monkey Army. This little guy spoke to me and when I read up on him I knew it wasn’t just a coincidence and even if it is who fucking cares I love him now, in some variation I’m getting him tattooed.

This guy walking down the beach was awesome, I saw him and did the run grab the camera tip toe sprint don’t trip on the tiles everywhere and break your knee or split your lip open get blood spatter all over my parents’ off white exterior everything to get this shot. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out considering I didn’t even notice the huge ass sickle sticking out the back of his pants until I had it offloaded onto my parent’s computer. The Balinese people are incredibly strong, I have photos of ladies carrying grape crates on their heads it takes four people to lift it up, yet one woman carries it. A tad mind blowing to see that for reals up close talking to them as I did on a photo walk one day with my mom, not sure if any of my favourites were taken that day though, I don’t think so.

The photo of this monk is from a temple the name escapes me but the Dalai Lama went there, he lives there more or less alone and the place is huge, I have numerous photos from this temple in fact this photo of me is also one of my favourites, I like how the sarong looks. It is disrespectful to enter temples in Bali without a sarong assholes do it but it isn’t cool with the locals, they cringe like when they see a copy of Eat, Pray, Love.

Stay tuned for Part Empat where I continue to discuss my trip through my favourite photos.
Part Satu
Part Dua

A few months ago our close friend Phaedra went on a European journey that is still going but for the sake of the story I will leave it at European journey. One of our best buddies C.J lives in England so before she left I said “hey if you get a chance you should go see C.J” She was headed to Italy but hey why not just throw it out there, plus they both have our Sock Monkeys. C.J and I talk over email multiple times a week so at some point I mentioned we had a friend heading over near his side of the pond. As luck would have it Phaedra ended up in London, C.J lives near London, low and behold soon there were plans for beers and a Monkey Meet-Up. Mr. Bate and lady friend to their Monkey, Lester P. Mason were also in the original meet up plans but they were unable to make it.

The four of them, Phaedra and Bobby along with C.J and Joe Pepper Jones met at a pub. Never in one trillion years would either of us EVER even have considered people actually meeting over having one of our Sock Monkeys, if that doesn’t make you feel good about yourself and what you are trying to put out into the world I don’t really know what would. We were both and still are flattered beyond belief that two people who didn’t know each other and had really only communicated through comment threads on some posts on this here blog, ended up drinking beers and having shits and giggles and making new awesome friends.I have been given permission by them both to use their photos in this post which was totally nice.

I think that of everything that comes with my depression I find the agoraphobia and the social anxiety the most frustrating and the most expensive. It is worth mentioning that I had no problems with agoraphobia or any sort of social anxieties until I was unfortunately sexually assaulted in my own home in May 2002.  From a few days after the attack till this moment that I sit here writing this, anxiety and I co-exist together whether I like it or not.

I was going to Yoga regularly until I went away to Ontario [in October and November] and I haven’t been able to return since I got back. Not without trying mind you.  Shortly after I discovered that I could in fact leave the house at least once a week for something that I fell in love with pretty quickly I informed the instructor of my issues, I didn’t have to tell her about my poor posture that is pretty obvious but I did mention the broken collar bone and subsequent surgery from 1999 and how I blew my I/T band out in 2002 and went on to not only run and train on it but run my first half marathon on it. Stupid right, but so are father / daughter rivalries and had I not finished that race, not that I’m not a failure in his eyes already but at that time there was no way I was going to let him have the satisfaction of my not finishing. And thanks to arrogant ignorance on my part I may never run again.  I never told her the shit about my dad obviously but she started to work with me, made sure I was careful with my shoulders, would remind me when it would be something my core may not like, she was and is a GREAT instructor.  I wanted to go a lot more than I was going so I told her about my leaving the house issues and because she talked of Facebook in class I added her on Facebook.  My goal there was to make myself go.  Because I want to, I want to go every bloody day and there is no reason I shouldn’t but I can’t I can’t get out that door not since I got back.  Even when I try to fool proof my excuses they still win sometimes.  And I know I just have to get back over there one time and I’ll be fine, I’ll start going again.  I am thankful because my classes are already paid for and so she doesn’t have to be supportive but she is.  I write it in my planner every day under 10am. And that is progress because once it starts to go in the planner and I have to actually see that I’m pissing away exercise that I love when I can’t run, it’ll get me out. Let’s aim for Monday.

Tricking myself does sometimes work and Adam also has ways he can get me out but they work maybe 45% of the time, if that.  Normally if I get out, I’m ok, I’ll still act like a semi illiterate mumbling idiot until I feel comfortable around you and then all of a sudden my crazy ass vocabulary comes spilling out and it is like you are talking to a different person.  A very old friend, like sand box days, once told me he loved our conversations because of the words other than FUCK I chose to use in my sentences and to this day it is one of my very favourite compliments ever received.

I am as my very close friends and new friends find out very quickly notorious for canceling.  And trust me when I say I absolutely hate this about myself.  When I say yes to an invite of some kind, or ask someone to meet for coffee or a walk a movie, or buy tickets to something, in that moment and likely till within hours or a day of the time that I am supposed to meet you or a group or go to a concert, it starts.  The internal battle, knowing I will be fine but when I feel ill and am shaking and can’t eat and become over-come with a panic attack it stops me dead.  Most of the time if it is a coffee or walk date I can’t get myself out for it becomes excuse city, I want to get to a place where I can flat out just say “I would not have made this date if I did not intend on coming, I am letting my social anxiety get to me, you are important to me, this is not personal” the only problem with this is that other people’s lives do not run around mine and I don’t like fucking up other people’s days.

I wish I knew the secret formula that gets me out because this isn’t just a problem with friends, with friends it hurts because I stop getting invited to things period and some people who don’t get it or really don’t know me use it as an excuse to drop me, why not though? It is the easy way out.  But I have missed seeing my VERY FAVOURITE artist on EARTH because of this, last time Neko Case was here it was for a two day festival and I only made it to one day.  I could have brought my Neko concert total up to four times but I just could not get myself out the door on the second day.  Also, I bought tickets for Adam’s birthday to The White Stripes one year and I bailed at the VERY last minute.  Still a sore spot with Adam, and I don’t have a problem admitting that because I in no way expect people to accept my agoraphobic issues it is just super awesome when they do.