There is a line in one of my favourite songs by Terry Reid, the song is called To be Treated, where he sings:

we are what we are when in danger and we are as we stand head in hand

The whole thing speaks to a place in me that just wants to be peaceful, doesn’t want to resent, to feel anger so strong sometimes it feels like my blood may boil over from my mouth, nose, eyes and ears covering me in my mistakes, disintegrating everything good I’ve managed to accomplish in its midst. The fight or flight feeling when I perceive myself to be in danger or feel I’ve been burned is normal but it doesn’t have to control me. I can’t control what other people do all I can do is continue to work on how I react to it.

In the big picture, when big problems happen in my life I don’t want to lash out, overreact, hold onto unhealthy thoughts, or allow myself to sit in the victim chair. I’ve been working on the big picture for coming on a year and it is still some of the hardest work I have ever taken on. It is up there with coming to terms and dealing with my relationship with my parents. It strikes me as incredibly odd and painful that I can forgive the man who came into my home in 2002 and sexually assaulted me and I can’t forgive two women who have wronged me from behind their computers. Why can I let go of so many other things in my life, why can I come so far with forgiving some yet have no love for a few?

I know that I like resolutions to things, I like to work things out, I can admit when I’m wrong, where I don’t think a lot of people can, it’s very freeing, like learning to laugh at yourself. I wish I could feel more compassion instead of anger, at times I do, but moving on is a struggle here. I think because I’ve been able to get my life on track regardless of how hard my depression gets in almost every other area I don’t understand why I can’t have a resolution to these two problems, I feel helpless and misunderstood, ignored, taken advantage of. I know I am NOT a victim, I’m not the only one at fault. I would assume I have to forgive myself as well, but if I had my relationship with myself listed on Facebook it would be complicated.

We all live in this technologically advanced world, even Adam and I who have only ONE computer (the horror!). Things move so fast the average person can not keep up. Yet we seem to be taking steps backwards in dealing with people and with the relationships that ensue. We act like adolescents when someone says or writes something mean about us, threaten to sue over the thought of a reputation. For real? By feeding into the trend of everyone living their lives online we don’t seem to be gaining any lasting enlightenment, we are limiting ourselves psychologically, I don’t need to even read a book or be a doctor to see that. A society where people don’t have to wear pants is doomed from the get go.

I spent most of the games feeling depressed and creatively blocked. I considered doing a wrap up post of 17 photos for 17 days but I didn’t take photos every day of the games, and even the photos I did take were pretty lacklustre, there aren’t many that I consider to be good photos. I did Tweet a lot, it went over pretty well for someone who doesn’t make a point to live Tweet a trip to the bathroom.

For me the only real highlight other than so many top ten finishes and fourteen gold medals for Canada was getting to go see the Canadian Men’s Curling team plus seven other countries. When the information on how the Olympic tickets were going to be sold and the prices were announced it became clear pretty quickly we wouldn’t be seeing any events. We didn’t even entertain the idea of getting to see anything anywhere but on a T.V., let alone see one live that both my parents and myself have played in the past and one that Adam and me watch. One that Adam is developing an odd obsession with, comparable only to when he discovered Tennis. (long story) So, when the opportunity arose from a friend who most graciously gave us, yes gave us Olympic curling tickets came to pass there was nothing else to do but go and to go wearing matching sweaters, something that we both agree is only acceptable on this one occasion. Adam wore my dad’s old curling sweater that I started to let him wear years ago because even though I love it, it is way too big for me. Oddly enough one of my closest girlfriends has the same sweater and lent me hers! Awesome. Getting to see Canada’s undefeated mens team second row right over the button is up there with best memories ever. Thanks again Steve!!

Adam went out exploring and people watching more than I did. There was also a time I didn’t think I would stay in the city for the games, and although I am glad I did, I think Adam would have had a better time had a I left. I hate that about depression, I’d been feeling so well and bam it just hit like a load of bricks almost a week in. I’m not in break down mode but I’m feeling really shitty.

It is nice that the helicopters are gone. I don’t miss the games at all, we watch golf. It’s over. We just changed the channel, there is curling on this weekend. But they left us with the cheque and the feeling remains that we are the province the country doesn’t care about. They came, they went, and now we pay.

Back on February 8, 2006 when I came out with the secret that I had been a chronic hemorrhoid sufferer from the ripe old age of 19 I never imagined it would turn into an epic saga filling my life with enough material that I could write a book on What to Expect When You’re Expecting Rhoids. Nor did I realize how much support I would receive, granted my archives for 2006 are a disaster and ALL of the comments from the whole year are gone, but at the time when I realized just how many people were suffering with ass issues of their own, or for whatever reason wanted to be kept posted on my ass, I decided I would blog the entire adventure including the surgery.

I welcome you to read the posts I’m linking to in this Prologue, I will only include the main highlights here to either welcome you to the saga or refresh your memories. I particularly love the guest post that Adam did I think he captured my fear quite well.

My first bowel movement took over an hour. I chugged glass after glass of water to take my mind off the fact it was happening fresh out of bed at 7 something in the morning with absolutely no pain killers in the system. Everyone knows that I Corinna Liscumb have a mild tendency to exaggerate but this is different and I would never do that in regards to something like this, Adam sat on a stool [haha I said stool] the whole time and basically held my hand. Although I would give anything to see my facial expressions there was no fucking way I was busting out the camera even for something as memorable as that was. In case anyone is DYING to know my second pooh was much shorter but just as painful and involved yelling and the word ‘fuck’ at times.

Even years later I often think how when I woke up all the nurses were talking about my tattoos instead of say mentioning that not only was there a lot of gauze on the outside of the area BUT that there was a piece of gauze UP inside my anus that was about the size of my thumb. I was actually told about that there piece of gauze in my comments by one of my loyal readers [isn't enough to call Sarah a loyal reader, she's a friend as well, we've both been there for each other through some heavy shit over the years, she's the bomb].

Sarah knew an ass surgeon, I can’t remember exactly what she told me but it included and was not limited to a part about how *most people* when crapping out that piece of gauze pass out cold. Not like I didn’t already know it, but that confirmed to me that I’m one tough bitch.

___________________________________________________

Although I still mention my ass surgery on here I’ve never felt the need to give an update.

Until now.

Even though everything looked fine on my initial follow up visit two weeks after, by six months I knew I had a problem.  Around this time I phoned the surgeon’s office back and explained that something wasn’t right, I was told that it could take up to a year to properly heal but to call back and come in if I had any pressing concerns. On the year anniversary, nothing had changed. By this time we’d done some research and discovered that having the hemorrhoidectomy did not mean that I would never get the rhoids again. OK FUCK WHAT? It explained a lot but I was livid, I should have been told that when making the decision to have this invasive and painful surgery in the consultation. My rhoids had not actually returned but I had noticed a piece of skin wasn’t tucking up inside like the rest were and it was easily irritated by say a thong.

I made an announcement on Twitter that I was returning to work. The day Adam walked in and said he had been laid off, I was on the phone to my girlfriend before he stepped out of his boots; she has gotten me all of my previous work in film, my schedule was shifted around a bit but I did get hours. Last Monday was my first day. Sometime during that 16.5 hours it felt like my ass had popped out a rhoid. I wasn’t surprised, I assumed this day was coming and I was working on location outside for that entire day, it almost made sense with my luck that this would be the time that they would return.

On Monday night when I got in the shower with what can only be described as despair I pushed that piece of swollen skin as far up my asshole as I could. I didn’t even have any Vaseline to help soothe the area, I recently hucked our container because it was from 2005. And sure maybe expiry dates aren’t completely accurate but I thought that 2005 warranted being thrown out. I returned to work on Tuesday and worked all 16 hours of it in a lot of pain but being the only female PA who was I going to tell? It was day TWO I was scheduled in till the following Monday. I OF COURSE didn’t want to let my girlfriend OR my husband down. But I had no choice I woke up Wednesday morning with the added thrill of a plugged nose and my cough had returned. I texted my on location contact/boss and my girlfriend/boss, but I only mentioned the onset of the cold out of no where. As I mentioned to her later I didn’t feel comfortable talking about rhoids over text message at whatever hour it was in the morning. THANKFULLY I was not fired, but I was taken off the rest of schedule for that episode. I thought for sure I was toast but I must have horseshoes in that dysfunctional ass of mine too.

I wasn’t able to see my family doctor until Saturday morning which was half my fault because my brain was set on I DON’T WANT TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF THIS – LA LA LA my ass doesn’t hurt so bad I can hardly sit.

I gave the doctor a quick rundown on the surgery, and my hospitalization at 19 (with a very serious case of thrombosed hemorrhoids) which began my ten year hot streak of internal and external rhoids before they were removed. I explained to him that I knew something had gone wrong with the leftover skin and prepared myself for the worst.

“What you have there is actually a yeast infection about this big [forefinger touching thumb around] causing the swelling, itching, redness”. Everything led this veteran rhoids suffer to believe they had them again. He did also confirm that the piece of skin was not a good thing and could cause me further problems down the road but that this was different. I was like “WHAT, I totally wash my ass man”, not to mention I have NEVER heard of an asshole yeast infection. He explained to me it has nothing to do with that, only not to wash my genitals with soap, I told him I hadn’t for years, I use hypoallergenic Vagisil wash. I know I have sensitive genitals, Vagisil wash is my friend. Taking this in was interesting because I don’t know the exact number of vaginal yeast infections I’ve had in my life, honestly WHO keeps track of that. It’s under five, and I’m almost 33.

This new development with my ass is both good news and bad. Good news no rhoids. Bad news FEELS like I have rhoids and right now I can’t work, I need a couple days, this stuff is supposed to work fast, which begged me to ask Adam the question(s) of “when a doctor tells you something like an ass cream works fast do you ever wonder why, like does he use it, has his wife used it, is he suffering from a yeast infected ass right now?” I guess now I’ll just keep my asshole yeast infection cream in my work bag and if it starts to act up again, take that, I have ASS CREAM.

Because I’ve been talking about them more frequently, I will introduce them to you. SIL Saz is my older SIL though not older than me, Adam is the eldest of the three of them and I’m the oldest of all six of us if you count our spouses which to me is pretty funny because in my family I’m the youngest, youngest cousin, grandchild, only grandchild on the one side BUT my dad has six sisters and one brother so being the youngest is super cool. Back to SILS. SIL Saz you may recognize from my comments, she reads the Greeper. SIL Smut is the younger of the two and has gone through various name changes, first I started to call her SIL Deux. Deux meaning two in French, and then when I got back from Bali I changed it to SIL Dua. Dua meaning two in Indonesian. Even though I know that I meant no insult with the word Dua who the hell wants to be second and technically she was third born anyway which means if I were going to keep it accurate she’d be SIL Tiga. But before Christmas SIL Smut and fiancée came over for a Wii night, Christmas spirits type visit and I didn’t even realize until they left that she had called her Mii for the Wii Smut. I enquired, she gained even MORE has the best kid stories of the three of them points . She got another one the other day, SIL Saz left a comment which begged a story. If I told you stories they’d both kill me, but from the one story I was able to FINALLY solidify a name for Tiga born SIL Smut.

Before we had dinner last night we opened gifts. All we knew was that SIL Saz was excited. This could not ever be a bad thing. I received the best belt buckle on the face of the earth and this belt buckle here is pretty bloody hard to beat. Now I am basically The Scorpion Queen. Adam received a Pan Flute that he is already playing super sweet sounds on that are not in anyway annoying. Not annoying AT ALL. And she gave us a poo calendar a Monthly Doos the 2010 dog poop calendar. It will likely go in the bathroom. WHAT? a poo calendar? Yes, picture an Anne Geddes photo but instead of babies on the leaves there is dog shit. Brilliant.

Some of the time it isn’t like we want to sit on our asses, we’ve been trying to get for photo walks for days and the weather is refusing to cooperate. I do not have a problem going for rainy walks they are rather enjoyable but when you are trying to take photos rain and photo walks don’t mix and I keep forgetting to wear contacts and my glasses get covered in water spots. Even the night walk we’ve been trying to go on has been a no go. We managed to get out one day and I took a couple shots before it started to rain they are nothing special, I like the beehive picture I got and I really like the public art displays all over the city put on by Vancouver Biennale. The red man is one of many sitting in a big circle. When I first saw them I instantly thought of Bali because almost everyone there squats like these statues do.

This one is an older one I took of another display very close to us.

We want to go for walks so bad to catch some of the insane last minute preparation for the Olympics, the energy in this city is crazy simply crazy. I did walk by the art gallery where the Olympic count down clock is and as I walked past and saw the work they were doing on it ALL I could think of was a HUGE flowered moo moo that I wouldn’t even let my mother wear for her 100th birthday. I’m really hoping we get a chance to do a rain free day walk and night walk within the next two weeks here.

While looking for the above photo I realized that I have NOT shown you all a photo of Dr. Vegas in his BRAND SPANKIN’ knew WRESTLING SUIT [from Christmas] made for him by beyond awesome friends, what a seriously killer gift.

C.J had called us on Skype and I didn’t want to get him all excited so I didn’t mention he had caught us within an hour of Phaeds coming over incase she was late or it was one of those just checking in on me five minute chats. Worked out that the three of us were still gabbing away when she arrived. I snatched this video of Gus being Gus I guess, and four people speaking about spicy topics all at the same time. I’m not going to ruin it for you other than to say that Gus is the star and it is cool that Phaeds joined the conversation some of her spicier bits got cut though.

You may want to read the original Calendar Wars post and the link in the first paragraph. Or I guess you can just take my word for it in my brief explanation to follow the end of this sentence. [this should be good, me trying to give a brief explanation]

It started innocently, no that doesn’t work, it started as a joke, or so I thought. After the Men with Buns calendar was on the wall for a full year of course it had been made clear by me that I should be allowed to pick the next years’ calendar. To say I got him good that year, would be saying I got him GOOD that year. Two words: Jeff Foxworthly. A few more words: You might be a redneck if….  [I am after all a pure bread red neck, Grandmother lived and died in a trailer park]. Poorly written, not even remotely funny jokes, with cartoons of plumber butts, clam slam skirts and shirts, but not hot ones, HOES; twelve months of them.

My husband never one to be outwitted got me back in 2009 with The Big Breast Calendar. This is where some of you are like WHAT you love tits. YES I LOVE TITS! But even he admitted he copped out and went for porn, couldn’t out horrible calendar me so he went for tits. Only backfired on him two months, Ms. September and Ms. December were a challenge for him. There wasn’t enough of the car for Adam in the Ms. September shot, although oddly I found Ms. September to one of the hottest women on there, and Ms. December just should have never happened. You don’t want a description. Both women still had big tits, they were great, it was the photos.

One day I was on Flickr and I saw the side ads which on Flickr don’t annoy me cause they are for cool shit like Moo cards. I saw, or was reminded that you could make a calendar. I wish I could tell you ladies that I filled it up with hot photos of my husband, but where would the fun have been in that? Given that we are both pretty big fans of over the top dorky photos of ourselves it was a no brainer and thus Adam Carlson in Calendar ~ #adam2010 was born.

Cover photo: taken by me up in Prince George over Christmas the last year my parents were still living in Canada. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he had the halter on wrong before taking the photo.

Mr. January: If you know Adam at all you know he is extremely calm, he doesn’t swear very often and is basically the complete opposite of me when it comes to that side of our personalities, so the fact that for whatever reason he gave me the finger while I took this was out of character for him and like nice wannabe smurf hat. Neither of us makes resolutions so out of my picks for photos I liked this one for January because it’s sort of a fuck you to resolutions or whatever.

Mr. February: Adam was sick or something so I went out and got him some treats and such and your guess is as good as mine as to why but I decided that we needed wax lips. HAD TO HAVE THEM.

Mr. March: The original photo on Flickr is entitled: impromptu C.J look-a-like contest winner C.J is family to us, he has seen this picture, and has been overheard saying :”it looks even more like me than me”.

Mr. April: This is a mish mash of classic Adam moments, Showerhawk Wolverine face with kittehs, trying to eat cardboard instead of the Pocky, He wore flowers in his hair golfing, and Potato mouth (in our apron wedding gift which states: It Takes Two Socks To Make a Monkey, stemming from a hilarious joke Adam cracked out at a friends place one night).

Mr. May: As a you just had a vas-nipper gift I bought Adam some stress balls two years ago this May 23rd. I didn’t know how much pain he’d be in and thought he’d appreciate still being able to play with some balls.

Mr. June: Last year I commented on how I continually feel ripped off by June year after year in calendars and it is MY birthday month, the 14th every year; it just doesn’t seem fair, it isn’t like I take it personally but I’ve said it once and I will say it again June is continually represented in a prejudice way against awesomeness, in my humble opinion. Again, I’d really have liked to have posted a photo of say this nature but it would have cheapened the entire calendar. This here, is the money shot. This is the day that I bought my husband the worst underwear on the face of the planet it was all my fault they were just, well, you can see the photo. One of those worst wife ever moments. There are two more prime shots that were supposed to be on this page but no matter what I did the program wouldn’t let me upload them so we are all stuck with this one gem instead of three. My sincerest apologies.

Mr. July: Classic Adam, you can see the dedication to his craft of making me laugh in his eye.

Mr. August: The photos here are taken from the day that we started what we call The Creepy Carlsons, now we go out of our way to take creepy photos like this one that Adam took. Two examples of how fun my husband makes our marriage are apparent in his dorkiness in the other two. It is also his birthday month so the photo of the crazy eyes is fitting.

Mr. September: Who doesn’t have photos of themselves pissing in the bushes. There is one kicking around of me in the Dominican Republic I just thought of now, hilarious.

Mr. October: I took this photo the morning after our wedding, he claims he is pretending to be Gus, I say either go on a fucking picnic together already or admit you were trying to run away from the marriage.

Mr. November: This time, he’s being more of a horse. Still wearing the halter wrong.

Mr. December: This photo is entitled Find the Dill-weed. Adam named it himself.

I’m the type of person who can’t buy something for someone without having to give it to them the second I buy it, this was coming via mail and was so hard to keep my mouth shut about you can’t even imagine. I was laughing at nothing constantly, I showed it to a girlfriend who was over via the photos who was very impressed by my selection knowing us both very well. Well shit, that just made it even harder to wait for it to arrive.

The day it did arrive I was doing an interview with the Liquid Inspiration Podcast boys C.J and Daz and was in the middle of telling the story when Mr. 2010 himself walked in the door from work and we were all privy to his “you got me” response right there on the taping. Since seeing it he has mostly been heard muttering to himself about how the hell he is going to top this. *coughs rubs lapel*.

This goes way back, in March 2008 I entered breakdown mode. I was hospitalized, it is all on the blog. I was also on the Bloggers Bowl for Big Brothers Team and was friends personally with all the bloggers on the team when it was formed; the main blogger running it, we’d been friends since new years 2006, off our blogs. The details are irrelevant except for the part where I threatened to throw down the gloves because things started to fall apart with this group right around this same time and I was upset, not even remotely in my own mind and made a stupid comment that has since that very day never ceased to be used against me when needed by the organizer and her husband. Having been friends for the amount of time we were, she and her husband knew full well the only person I had ever harmed with violence was myself. I apologized to everyone on the team even those who I had not insulted and took responsibility for what I said. I was deeply embarrassed and ashamed that my depression and my temper where getting away from me to that extent.

Enter me early last year, still trying to recover from the breakdown which had originally been brought on by my relationship with my parents falling apart. Take a that a step further, my parents were now in Indonesia and at the time all we knew was that my mother was having a breakdown and was in the hospital and completely terrified of my father. Here came the hardest time I have ever faced in my life. For people who weren’t reading at the time, there is no Canadian Consulate in Bali, you have to deal with Australia but you obviously have to deal with them through Indonesian laws. To say I was dealing with a lot would be an understatement: Three consulates, foreign affairs, the hospital, and all the while trying to keep my dad from finding out our plans, which consisted of Adam flying to the other side of the world in under 72 hours to rescue and bring my mother home not knowing how she really was or what my father was really capable of under these circumstances. I did this with no help except from my husband and the legal contacts and dealing with my mother completely out of her mind and in hysterics. I was a wreck and at the time although I had no idea how to feel about my father, I was still an only child at 31, about to watch my parents go through a divorce after 39 years of marriage and after they had already retired to Bali.

Just for the record, i am not trying to condone my actions, only to say that both parties would have had to avoided twitter for weeks to be unaware of my state of mind, because they were both following me and I wear my heart on my sleeve.

March is Earth Hour month, and I realize now that we were both playing the keep your enemies closer card but we had agreed to work together on Earth Hour. The organizers were following myself, her, and one other blogger as the main people highlighting the event in Vancouver. The year prior my post was the first one up on the event in the city but by the time March 2009 rolled around my blog was just an alley compared to her traffic. I still managed to get my post up, it wasn’t as good as I wanted, I hadn’t promoted the event to the degree I had wanted to but I did my best given the situation I was in and when her post came out there was no link to me and I was livid. Were this just a regular post I wouldn’t have cared, she had done this to me before where she knew I was doing something that someone had done a talk on, for example, and intentionally left me off the linking of bloggers participating in whatever. But I never saw it coming, having the carrot yanked back over a CHARITY while I am in family emergency mode and nothing makes sense anymore.

I flipped, at first I was sort of calm, but for me this was the final straw, I’m sure she saw this as payback for a nasty post I had written within a day or two of the part of my breakdown where I was taken to hospital via ambulance having overdosed on clonazepam, seroquel and a bottle of wine. I never took the post down because I wanted it left as an example of what not to do when you have a massive fallout with someone and to this day I’ve spoken to numerous people who still have no idea who I was talking about as I never did use names. It was for the most part the depressed ravings of a mind with a raw deal.

I have all the emails exchanged between us but they are on another hard drive, and to be honest I only glanced over the response which unfortunately turned out to be the one that must have said something about me leaving her alone and not contacting her again, because when I sent her back her post with the exact line where my link should have been and she still refused to deal with me and honour our agreement, I made it a point to call her a cunt. But what I did read of her response was so insensitive and again, this is charity we were dealing with here, one that having been friends she KNEW meant A LOT to me. Where I completely fucked myself was when I couldn’t leave it at that. I could hardly see straight, Adam was watching this happen, he tried to get the computer away from me, but I was out of control, how does ANYONE do that to someone when they KNOW that their life is literally falling to pieces around them, for real not just blog drama bullshit, real life shit that my family is still dealing with; we are a family, but things are different. I couldn’t get control over the fact that she took advantage of me at a time where I was at my lowest, I didn’t get to be the person that Earth Hour dealt with because my blog wasn’t what it was back in 2006. I’d found Twitter and though I’ve always had a solid supportive reader base I’ve never wanted to be a social media maven, I just want to blog, I just want to write. That is all this is for me, and that is all it ever was, somewhere I could be myself and write, even prepare for a novel. But the small amount of popularity this blog brought me was so threatening to her that she had to shut me up for good, leaving me basically not allowed to even have opinions anymore and voice them. I just wanted to support a charity that I care about, I wasn’t trying to gain anything, I wanted to help spread the word. I couldn’t believe someone could be so cruel at a time of such disaster and I just couldn’t leave it at cunt, I was so distraught I do not remember exactly what I said but it was something to the effect of “don’t fucking fuck with me, I am so fucking sick of you fucking with me” or “if you fuck with me again… “. As a friend put it, “what did she think you were going to do, walk up three blocks and bang on her buzzer?”. I don’t know what she thought, but instead of calling my husband, or emergency medical services, or even just taking a step back and thinking of anyone but herself for two seconds, she missed the chance to realize that the Vancouver police may have other more pressing matters than breaking up a chick fight that never happened.

She wanted to charge me with harassment. If this same situation had happened in 1999 when people still talked face to face, it would have gone something like this:

me: so fuck you bitch you didn’t give me credit for that paper and you promised cunt face

her: don’t talk to me like that

me: i’ll talk to you however the fuck i want to talk to you, you fucked me over, did i mention yer a CUNT?

her: i’m leaving now you are scaring me

me: well then stop fucking me over

(no cops)

Cops didn’t arrest me, she just apparently didn’t exist after that.
I wasn’t charged with anything, but the officer’s suggestion to basically clam up was the real goal of her legal threat.
But see after she did this she continued to follow me on Twitter under other accounts she ran and for a while I let her, seeing if she’d come to her senses and we could talk like civilized people. I knew from the get go that she hadn’t unfollowed Adam, and still had him listed as a friend on Flickr, meaning he could see all of her photos, even ones blocked for friends and family only. I had taken her and her husband off my Flickr immediately. A few months went by and I realized that not only was she still following me on Twitter under a different account, my photos were appearing regularly on her husband’s Flickr homepage, and she still had my husband listed as a friend.

I messaged the mr, this problem was between the girls, and told him that what they were doing was malicious. Keeping me at bay while still accessing my life was having it both ways, I felt totally played but I cut contact as suggested all the while knowing that was what she wanted all along. I offered to drop the whole thing, and again, offered to act human. We both got dropped as requested, and they were out of our lives.

But you try living online and avoiding people.

This morning I woke up to find myself blocked from a contest that last year I won runner up in. If you read the comments on my Best of 604 post, the post by the blogger who finished behind me, and the comments made by the organizer herself, in most circles I am considered the winner. This in no way means that I can’t be nominated, but honestly I don’t feel I deserve to win, I didn’t blog for three months of last year, mostly due to this mind you, it was one of the most violating and cruelest things someone who actually knew me had ever done to me. But the fact remains I’m blocked. She is going to be interviewing past winners and well, I’d be one of those, the category I was in had the most blogs nominated and most votes cast and I didn’t even do one post on it, until after. I have never openly campaigned for anything I’ve been nominated for in my life.

If somebody nominates me this year, all I want is some maturity instead of the smoke show and tear gas. If we ladies can’t get along, how can we expect peace in the Middle East? We both got hurt, but it was a speedbump miles and miles ago, a dime on the horizon. It never should have come to this. And I am sickened by us both.

I guess I make it a resolution to not make any. If I want to change something about myself I’ll change it, resolutions, shmesolutions.

Here is a funny photo of me on Christmas Eve. It was Adam’s idea, on our walk, to use the Red Olympic Mittens as beer holders and they were tall cans and thus were a perfect fit, genius. Holy he will SO fit in when I take him up north. We have plans to eventually head up north with one of my very best friends and his lovely lady friend who I have come to love dearly as well, as it turns out he and I have both lived in Smithers and Terrace so we have a lot of wonderful things to show our significant others. I’m more excited about Smithers, the beauty of the place is undeniable. I think we should hit Terrace first or it’ll be an even worse let down.

In the year 2010 I would like to accomplish some if not all of these things that I will discuss below but they are more like goals, things I think about when it isn’t just the Christmas season.

• Finish my Bali series. I still have shit loads of great stories and photos to share, one that is pretty hilarious yet painful, and photos that although are on my Flickr have not been posted here. And now with returning in April, which was the plan until yesterday and is now up in the air due to Adam being laid off, I’m given even more reason to finish that series. I’m also planning to continue to try and get this charity off the ground with me dad.

• Re-write my about page and continue to learn how to use Wordpress properly and get myself moved to a new template.

• I’d like to have February 4th pass this year and remember my dear friend PH as he was, loving, brilliant, someone who believed in me no matter what people said, someone who should still be here, but isn’t, I just want to remember him fondly. I want to give myself permission to remember the good times, and not re-hash and relive the loss in such detail as I have done for the last few years now. I want to free myself from the guilt and the pain, but I won’t know if I can do it until the date approaches.

• I get asked a lot of questions as a blogger, some on Twitter that are too long for 140 character responses and deserve a post, others over email, and in comments, I’d like to start a series this year where I take it a step further than responding to all of my lovely comments which I appreciate so very much and am very thankful for and writing the posts. (with the persons’ anonymity kept if they choose). I get asked some heavy shit, that if I wasn’t a lazy blogger I’d have posted on ages ago. I have actually apologized to people I’ve promised posts for and I’m now putting it into writing I’m going to engage you all more by posting what you wanna know.

• Read at least 20 books, I missed my quota again this year damnit. But I mentioned to Adam that I wanted to try and take the 50 book a year challenge (yeah right who am I kidding) and his response was “but that would mean we won’t get to spend as much time together.” *swoon* I love my husband. 20 books it is.

• Get the 2010 Calendar Wars post up.

• Get through the Olympics with moisture, the essence of wetness, still left in my body from all of the glorious uncontrollable joy crying that I have just learned to go with and take as it comes.

• Show up at events I’m invited to, no matter the guest list. February will be my first test.

• NO MORE FAIR WEATHER DICK FUCK ASSHOLE USER FRIENDS.

• And last but not least continue to be myself again on my blog, stop letting feelings of victimization keep me from writing my mind and letting my depression issues keep writing themselves into stories of the past and present. There are some things in my past I’d really like to find the balls to write about this year, I’ve dealt with them, but there is no doubt these are situations that should be talked about, not to rehash, to educate.

I started this hanging my hanky out of my pocket thing in Bali and seem to be keeping it up back in my home country. I am not trying to be cool or make any kind of fashion statement, we only allow nose tissue in here if we are really sick and have fire nose and thus have both switched to hankies. I say that wearing a leather belt, it was a gift, so it shall not be denied the awesomeness that is the attached guitar belt buckle. Like my Browns boots I got em before I went as green as we can afford to go.

It is hard when you have Ninja knee high socks AND Unicorns to say that you’ve found a pair that are cooler BUT I did. These socks have red foxes on the feet and happy little mushrooms and little trees and if I ever got a chance to meet Neko Case I would wear them and be sure and show them to her.  It isn’t my fault that they also match the t-shirt I got the first of four times that I have seen her live being the Fox Confessor Brings the Flood tour, the only other group I have ever seen that many times is the local super star husband and wife pairing that make up Mojave [I have their t-shirt too].

Dr. Vegas is taking a huge liberty here in wearing the very naked Hunter S. Thompson’s frames that will be the aviators he is being made.  You will also have a hard time not noticing that this is the first time that Dr. Vegas has appeared without his mask in quit some time, in fact if memory serves the last time he was photographed without it was because he was pretending to be Woody Guthrie.  Adam and I were just saying that Dr. Vegas is on a journey of some sort right now. I wasn’t the only one changed forever by a trip to Bali.

“He hasn’t been completely the same since he got back” said [father] Mr. Adam Carlson just as this was going to print.

Gus was very into the Wii and watched us play a lot.

If you’ve ever wondered if I’m an energetic person even though I claim to be a hermit though I also claim to be a runner and doer of the yoga and a player of the golf, then this video is for you.

C.J do check out the tunage in the Adam bowling videeeeo. Although seriously WTF, she is NOT growing on me AT ALL. We are really into iTunes Genius mixes right now, because I loaded the entire CD library onto the computer and C.J very generously gave us some CDs, Joanna Newsome shows up a lot, and it is never a good ending.

And get this, I’m going to backup all the music, soon.

Tis the season to look wrecked in photos.

Just because I have a hard time letting in new things doesn’t mean I don’t listen to good music (I can hear C.J. cringing across the pond). I used to claim I liked a little bit of everything but when C.J, Adam and I discussed the topic of people who say the will listen to anything I discovered I do not in fact like a little bit of everything. Quite the contrary.

50s and 60s Adam and I are pretty much on the same page music wise. 70s we veer off at Barry Manilow. Let’s just say it’s a testament to our marriage that we have no internet on our phones, one t.v., no working MP3 player and one computer, OH and let us not forget I’m an only child and I don’t share good. The t.v. and the laptop are generally in the same room, the only room other than the bedroom.

We had a 50s 60s and 70s station on one day, if we are working on monkeys or cleaning these are the easiest for us to agree on before we come into a situation where our love of music has to be enough to get us through each others playlists and keep an open mind to maybe even liking some new songs. No doubt I end up liking more stuff Adam listens to than he does me BUT I did introduce him to Tool and John Denver, so top that.

Rarely do lyrics the first time you hear a song stop you dead in your tracks. But this deep, sensuous, dirty, am I hearing these words right 70s soul started to embed itself into my cranium and when I looked at Adam I could tell instantly he was having the exact same what the fuck am I hearing reaction.

Ill be the other woman
All your life
Just as long as I am the only one
Other than your wife
Your wife how would she feel
If she caught us together
The same way I would feel
if I caught you with another
Home I know comes first
And second to that Ill be
When youre not there with her
I want you right here with me

Ill be the other woman
Just as long as I know
Im the only other woman
You make love to
Ill be the other woman
But Ive got to know
Im the only other woman
You make love to

The neighbors are whispering
Saying that you dont care
If you cheat on your wife for me
Youll cheat on me for someone else
Ill be your part time love
But thats as far as Ill go
To be your part time fool
Would be stooping a little too low
Loving a married man
This I really dont mind
But a married Casanova
Is a little out of my line

Ill be the other woman
Just as long as I know
Im the only other woman
You make love to
Ill be the other woman
long as I know
Im the only other woman
Ill open doors for you baby
long as I know
Im the only other woman
you make love to
Ill be your part time love
Ive got to know
Im the only other woman
you make love to
Oh yes I will
Yes I will

Here is a YouTube video so you can get a feel for how catchy soulful and awesome it is, but it doesn’t make it any less disturbing.

Now we are both addicted and can not stop listening to this song by The Soul Children and laughing. We aren’t assholes, I’ve even been the other woman but nobody was married so It wasn’t a home wrecker type situation it was a we lived in different provinces, we were both in our twenties and if he wanted to fly out to see me and tell his girlfriend he was going to see his grandmother and other choice lies then let him situation. At that age, I didn’t see the big deal, plus he made me feel like I was the main woman. But when it comes to marriage this song just kills me. When the relationship with his girlfriend ended, she still does not know about me and writing this she still won’t trust me or I would not be writing this, we tried to commit but because I ended up looking at him as more of a fall back guy, while I dated as well, I couldn’t trust him to be faithful to me after we had both been unfaithful from the very beginning. It was an extremely interesting three plus years but when it ended it ended badly. I never want to feel jealousy like that again in my life. In fact I’d have to say that is one of the things I learned the most about myself is how destructive jealousy can be.

This reminds me, I’m one of the lucky ones, if this were the 70s I may have gotten into some real trouble but the only other female I have to be jealous of in Adam’s life is Gus and that bitch better watch it too.

I was, as she had bluntly put it: dead.

The end of the school day came and nothing happened. Had I relaxed? Of course not, attending school from grade six till the day I graduated was like being thrown into a different shark tank in a different country every god damned day. I never had a fucking clue what those fuckers had in store for me. The bullying I experienced in school was at such an intense level I have just started to stand up straight in the last couple of years.

A girl I had been friends with back before THE dreaded rumour, that never, not for one day, in Smithers or Terrace [only two.five hours apart] was I ever to live down, came up to my locker to talk to me. I don’t remember exactly how she got me outside, I remember she was nice to me but I wanted any positive attention I could get, so I trusted her. As we walked down the hall towards the backstairs to the door leading to the buses, a direction I did need to walk in anyway, I didn’t think anything of it until we hit the stairs.

The buses were to the left but she made me turn right and I knew instantly I was in trouble, the smokers, the bad kids, the bullies hung out round those parts and there she stood the girl who was supposed to be the ex-girlfriend. I remember she slammed me against the cement wall, she started punching my face and as I lifted my hands to defend my face she punched anywhere should could land one and was kicking me too, whilst screaming a bunch of venom at me, I did not try to fight back. Even back then with a really sore face I remember thinking why the fuck is she not mad at him? I don’t remember how I got away from her.

I remember heading back into the school, sliding down the wall, putting my head in my lap and balling. I heard the door open and froze. Outside, she hadn’t just beaten me up once, she came at me multiple times while I was trying to get away from her and the many onlookers. The girl who had lured me there in the first place must have had a change of heart, it was her who walked through the door picked me up and walked me to the principles’ office where, let’s face it, I spent a lot of time – not because I got in trouble but because I had nowhere else where I felt safe to go except the sick room, but this time the school had to call my parents.

The last time, I was off school property when I got beat up so I was able to hide it from my dad, fat lip and all for a couple of days. There was no hiding this and I was beyond horrified. Sometimes I’m really not sure how I made it to sixteen before making a valiant attempt to knock myself off. My dad had to come get me, I was a mess, crying, in pain, scared and bruising and it was because I made out with some stupid boy and my dad would know that. My being a huge loser must have been so embarrassing for my parents. Smithers is really fucking small, man. But worse than that, again, I had been a victim of violence that could by a sick and twisted individual be blamed on me. She did, the girl who shit kicked me on school property, thankfully she got suspended.

—–

I think one of the worst things is that I do try really hard to let shit go, in my offline life it isn’t even an issue. I don’t feel like that high school loser, I believe in myself, I feel capable, most days I even like myself. I’d have to say the work and relationship building with my parents is a pretty strong indication of this. But to move on in a cyber world, not a real world where you actually talk to people when you’re pissed or want some well deserved answers. Cyber people actually think you’re stalking them when you email them once to ask them why they deleted you off something, which no one has done to me lately that I care enough to ask, but catch that word there? Is was: CARE. I CARED. But do it, call me a stalker for that ONE message and have a great ol’ time believing I’m spending every moment tracking your life because I cared enough to notice that you didn’t and thought I’d ask why. By normal people standards, it is actually considered healthy you know, talking, asking questions of someone you THOUGHT you were friends with that may help you further yourself as a person. If this is the definition of a stalker we are in big big trouble people.

I’m only human, I can only take so much, I can only take the highest of highest roads for so long. I do, as we all know, suffer from some at times pretty serious mental illness, this shit eats me up inside. It burns. It hurts. I’m done sitting here taking it like a man, I was just told recently that it’s unbelievable we’ve taken this shit for so long. For a while I thought I was doing the right thing not speaking openly of the open online attacks that took place on Twitter against me. I thought I’d let it go. But I discussed things with my psychiatrist, you know the doctor you see when you recognize you need help and want to work on yourself that I’ve been seeing for well over six years now. YET, I am a terrible, just fucking terrible person right?

I realize that a lot of my extremely supportive readers that are not on Twitter are going to have no idea what I’m talking about but I can tell you this, there is no way they couldn’t have noticed my ridiculously long break from something I love doing because I don’t feel that I am being fully myself or ever can anymore, I am trying to avoid adding fuel to the drama scene, but it seems even when I think my life is drama free it turns out it isn’t, I don’t think anyone’s ever really is. And maybe I used to thrive on a little drama here and there but I’m pushing 33 fucking years old and if there is one thing I’ve learned about drama in the thirities is that it is nonsense, a blatant waste of time if you will, not something that in honest truth I want to spend an extensive amount of words on. So it pains me to give this any attention but the situation as a whole leaves me no choice.

Since June I have not posted at all on my depression, the main topic of this blog, yes I was out of the darkness for a while and had a really good go of it. But it wasn’t without its lapses, we are talking clinical depression here. I count myself very lucky to have had more good days than bad in 2009 – even with the drama surrounding my family, and other ridiculous shit online.

When I wrote this post in January about taking a woman we’d been friends with, Adam since university days myself since 2003, to child protective services it was because I was ready. I was sick of the lies being spread about me for doing the right thing and very personal things about my life where being attacked to a large online audience on her blog. And BS about what she thinks happened was being spewed to whoever would listen to her. To this day, and thanks to current events it will stay this way, we still know more about what happened than she does, her recent actions took any chance she ever had of knowing what I saw.

Her comment is actually one of the best, somewhere it states something about her being a GREAT mom now. AWESOME. That is one reason why we called, because we were worried about a BABY and she needed HELP, if you are confused at all here read the post link. The fact that we are still being villainized and hated and completely misunderstood by a large group of people who say oh we don’t want drama but just keep on fueling this fire with green wood is down right disgusting, to accuse me of being the ONLY one who is STILL keeping it going is a farce, I’m being bullied, I repeat, for doing the right thing. I have a RIGHT to stand up for myself. It is also pretty funny that her sidekick who called me insane on Twitter was nowhere to be found in those comments in January, you’d almost think they hadn’t even met yet.

Her fantasy that I’m stalking her is pretty humorous but only when you are looking in from outside the box, not when you realize it is yourself she is saying this shit about. I openly admitted that I looked at her flickr photos because I missed the kid, a child that she has lied multiple times about how much time myself and my husband spent with and her for that matter. Think just for a moment how much it would suck and how easily you’d get over a good deed being twisted to the point of your being called a stalker if I’m lucky, insert other choice words here.

The day that this attack happened, I was attempting to be the bigger person, I was talking to someone on Twitter who was friends with her and her name was IN those tweets to me, so instead of being a dick face I acknowledged her being mentioned in a tweet something like ____ is great to be friends with because she’ll give you her books when she’s done with them. I wrote that to show I could keep our shit out of the Twitter community. Suddenly I had an onslaught from the woman in the  twitter picture, a full page of tweets – leave her alone, she doesn’t want to be your friend, stop trying to contact her, other people may stand by and watch this but I’m sick of it or something that is not verbatim, I choose not to torture myself reading over that entire attack. I got really fucking mad, I told her to fuck off, to shut the fuck up, that she was just a bully, she knew NOTHING. To which the final tweet calling me insane was sent. Reading that, knowing it went straight out to close to 8,000 people instantly, there are no words. I thought when I got back from Bali I’d be fine that I could start posting again, and when I was depressed it would just happen but it isn’t happening and I’m really fucking depressed and not because of THIS per se but because I suffer from it. A mental illness that she knew damn well I suffered from, I’m not sure where she gets off attacking someone she knows is mentally ill.

And about her accusations of not leaving her new friend alone, I sent her, in the last year, two emails, one was before Twitter had what is called fixed replies so you could see people you didn’t follow talking back and forth and she was going on about Yoga and how she was going to go. I go to Yoga at the West End Community Centre, we both live in the West End, she knows where I live, I have no idea nor do I care where she lives, it would make sense this is where she’d go, I emailed her and told her when I went and stated I didn’t think we’d both be able to relax in the same class and pushed send. The other, I sent her because on my website in that comment from her in January it mentions I never told her what we did, and she had also threatened to tell the authorities that we had made a false or malicious claim if we didn’t tell her what we’d seen, with a deadline, right there on her blog. If she ever did try her claim, your guess is as good as mine. Draw your own conclusions.

I emailed her that second time because you go through shit in life and it changes you, you make mistakes you move on and you look back and you think sure, even If I’d do it again, which I would, even with all this extra pain it has caused, and not tell her first, I decided I would finally meet with her. I messaged her and told her that’d I’d tell her what we had witnessed and why we felt it necessary to phone Emergency Medical Services, I was even going to tell her why we called her in so late at night and how it was EMS who made us call child services.

But that’s stalking, it has to be when her seminars describe me as having never been close to her.

True: Emergency Medical Services does not pursue every call. Also true, lying to the government to take someone’s kid from them is not only totally gutless it carries the consequence that it’s illegal, it’s a clear risk/reward. The first thing you have to do is TELL the COPS. That part is almost laughable because I do not have the power to have them show up at her door in under twelve hours, which they did.

What I can’t stand is the above. This sidekick in the Tweet, has also intimated that we shouldn’t be put in the same room together, shit, I’ve had the cops called on me for less. Her tweet alone made me feel the pains in my face again, everybody watching and no one stepping in. It’s behaviour like this that makes me choose to be the bigger person and bow out of events I’m invited to when this bully is too, no, not because I’m scared, far from it, the truth is on my side. The point is she won’t shut up about me, so tell me why would I put myself in a room with her and induce negative energy and more rumours? My job isn’t PR, it’s monkeys.

So this post ends on the dark notes, the sad disturbing knowledge/affirmation that when it comes down to it she doesn’t want knowledge or care about the truth. She wants blood, and any hopes I held of civility were only leading me down the hall to the back stairs.

And if you don’t like what I have to say, I’ll leave you with a line of hers;

*I have SO much more than you do, 18 months later. And all it took was saying on a blog that I hated my daughter. So thank you for that, really. ~ Terra Atrill aka Zoeyjane

(*no idea where she grabbed 18 months from in January 2009 when she wrote that on my blog,  it hadn’t even been a year)

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.

There is a small back story here, Tiana likes cupcakes, and I had sent her a re-useable bag from the distributors of the cupcakes at least one year ago now, bit longer maybe.

Today I went out with the sole purpose to take this photo because I’m having the can’t get the fuck out of the house I’m a hermit blues again. Lovely. But I am still trying to make it out and it wasn’t raining for a split second so I thought fuck it, I’ll go get the photos.

I can’t wear my wellies anymore they are shot to shit I got them in 2003 before they were cool to everyone and their mother, granted here it doesn’t really matter everyone should have a decent pair if not even a stylish pair of wellies, I quite frankly want a pair of Hunter wellies to replace my shot pair. I wore my knee high boots instead I have black leggings on today so it worked and with my black you can call it a trench coat if you don’t know what a good one should like I didn’t have to worry about my ass. I get paranoid in my black leggings ever since this happened (link).

When I got home I found myself stuck in my boot, literally, these were tailored when I got them as I have chicken legs and so they have extra lining exposed and the zipper got caught in the lining WHICH in all the years I’ve had them I’m realizing I bought them in 2000, has never happened and so I ended up making VLogBlog Five as well for your viewing pleasure.