Ever since we started to make Sock Monkeys because we didn’t have money for gifts Christmas 2004 we are constantly pleasantly surprised at the level of love people have for them when they arrive in the mail or we hand one over by handmade hand. When people do things like take their monkeys travelling with them on extensive journeys, or enjoy taking loads of photos just because, and hang out with them regularly, take them on road trips and day trips, the list goes on and on – it blows our minds. Let’s just say that neither of us saw any of the joy that is making Sock Monkeys coming, it is beyond flattering for us and we love hearing people talk about their monkeys like they’re part of the family like the very first Monkey we ever made good ol’ Dr. Vegas complete with jealousy gimp mask and pinned on tail is part of our family. He’s more to us than just a router guard, but that job does keep him warm in the winter.

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.

For me it is all about getting myself out that door. Once I open the door, lock it behind me and find myself in the hallway, and my feet are walking down the stairs I know I am 90% there.

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.

I broke my toe and did not go to the New Kids concert.  Of all the things that I thought would keep me from the concert I never foresaw a broken toe. I honestly haven’t cried over either.

I don’t even know how I broke my toe, which is the funniest thing about it, had Rhonda not been here to witness what I will explain here then I’d have not believed it myself.  I know, talk about building a mystery.

So, we were going out in the rain to get Rhonda a tattoo down the street at Sacred Heart, because it was raining and getting chilly I put on my thicker purple pair of Wigwam socks, they are also perfect for rubber boots.  I always put my right foot into any type of footwear first.  Just as my foot was about to land completely inside a sharp pain shot out from the toe next to my baby toe, it is already an ugly hammer toe. I am extremely clumsy to the point I find bruises pretty much daily that I have no idea how I got, I drop and trip over things constantly, I also have a seriously extreme pain tolerance, you wouldn’t think it with the way I whine and complain about things but people exhibit much stranger body behaviors than I do, I’m sure of it.  I have dick all for balance so I grabbed the wall because my toe was screaming at me and I needed to get my other boot on.  I decided to walk it off, I started limping around the apartment and saying over and over and over and over MY TOE, MY TOE, MY TOE.  I took off the right boot, tore the sock off and there was NOTHING my toe was fine.  SUCK.IT.UP.

We left and I kept whining MY TOE, MY TOE, we got to the Sacred Heart that is really close to me about six blocks and they were full so we walked another twelve blocks to the next closest Sacred Heart Tattoo shop and they fit her in.  I had decided to go home because it was Thursday and I’d already had a really bad migraine since the Sunday past and the mixture of the radio and the steady buzzing of the tattoo gun was too much for me.  One of the other reasons that I wore my purple Wigwams is because originally we weren’t going far and in my rubber boots my feet walk the purple socks off but they are so comfy that if I’m not going far I don’t mind.  My other pair are thinner and don’t get walked off.

I wasn’t really sure what was going on with my toe, it was hurting but had almost stopped hurting and I had myself convinced it was just a very bad cramp.  I’d been walking on it for at least forty-five minutes by the time we got to the second shop.  Before I left I fixed my socks but decided to take off the right one and have another look at my toe and I found it to be broken. It was black with bruises.  I replaced my sock and my boot and limped home similar to how I got there but with a bit more ginger.  I am pretty sure my toe had gone numb.

Rhonda confirmed the bizarreness of the break to Adam and I reminded them both that when I was in kindergarten I fell off a chair backwards and cracked my head open and I didn’t notice and or cry until after everyone had rushed over to me and the circle I was supposed to be sitting in was reformed and not till then did I touch the sore spot on the back of my head and felt into the wee hole that was later sewn up with stitches. And then in my twenties I broke my clavicle on vacation in the Cook Islands and flew home on a delayed flight and had to overnight in LAX by myself [back when they still put you up in hotels for the night] and didn’t even find out it was broken until I got back.  That particular story I’m saving for a post I am going to call ‘Flying Broken and yet More reasons to hate Air Canada’.

My toe looks really nasty and hurts a little, the worst is that I was going to be going back to Yoga today so I had to email my instructor and say I won’t be back for a bit and because I am so clumsy I really must keep my flipper sandals on or I will forget it is broken, which might sound funny but you’d be amazed at how often I forgot my clavicle was broken and sent myself off screaming in pain from moving it wrong.  Basically I have cold feet.

Oh what I forgot to mention that I’m going to the New Kids on the Block concert on Friday? The love I have for my friends holds no bounds. Rhonda gets here on Wednesday she has a five star V.I.P ticket and I’m fifth row.  This is going to be one of those life experiences I’m sure.

I am not a fan. Not.At.All.

C.J and I were talking over email as we often do, here is an excerpt.

Me to C.J:

so umm can you believe i am going to the new kids concert! that is how much i love rhonda. holy shit i will NOT be able to stop laughing. taking 100 pairs of ear plugs. im seriously afraid that the place will smell like wet pussy from all the riled up ladies. ew gross times 900.

C.J back to me:

You are talking to a man that got swept into a Robbie Williams Concert on a wave of Estrogen. 95% of ALL un-planned births (Actually both pregnancies and births) are because of New Kids concerts. Please please please play it safe. Tape it up before you leave the flat. It’s the safest way. be it Sello, Gaffa or Duct….. tape it up before your journey.

Good thing Adam had that there vasectomy.