Finally after nearly six full months of keeping it a secret I hopped a plane and headed for the United Sates of America to meet Aughra in MI and drive to IN to surprise and meet Jenn who is already dear friends with Aughra, they have had the pleasure of meeting twice now, but Jenn was told Aughra was coming solo at the end of July, not the case at ‘all!! It was really cute to see Aughra’s faux arrival date written on Jenn’s calendar she really had no idea when and that we were both coming! Our surprise went off without a hitch. Thanks a ton to Jenn’s husband for not only keeping the secret but for offering to keep us both a surprise.

People aren’t kidding when they say doing selfless things feels like a million bucks. I’ve always been giving but selflessness as a whole doesn’t come easy to me.

I’m cropping and uploading photos which are going to take forever but the set is [started] HERE. I am feeling pretty over stimulated [although in a good way, over stimulated none the less I stepped about a million miles out of my comfort zone and element] so I still need some time to decompress before I write about our amazing mission/adventures.

But here is a photo of the lovely ladies I have been blogging with for three plus years.

From the left we have the gorgeous expectant mother, and the beautiful text message queen herself, Aughra.

One of the reasons that I see a shrink is because I have emotional problems.

Talk about stating the obvious.

My emotions come in so many different sizes, shapes and colors; they are wild and hard to control. But I have had the pleasure of learning that for me controlling my emotions is also about letting go and acceptance.

It isn’t necessarily as cut and dry as saying, “I’m a crier”, because in some situations where you would think I am sitting balling about something I’m not. It puzzles me I always notice it and think to myself, holy shit I feel really bad about that shouldn’t I be crying? So then I will make an effort to cry, but nothing. I am a seriously bad fake crier I can not do it. But what I can do is cry my eyes out at the most inappropriate times and embarrass the living shit out of myself and then I’m also the asshole who used to find out someone died and started laughing instead of crying, or again, I just can’t cry. It is fucked I tell you. I must have out grown the laughing thing, thank paganism for that but nothing has seemed to slow the flow of the water works.

This isn’t something you can mention in a session and expect and instant cure for; I have been the epitome of the above paragraph since I was wee kid. It has taken me five years of weekly sessions to even write about it. But this time my blubbering outbursts at the Triathlon World Championships and then in my therapist’s office had a different spin. It was from the perspective of being proud of the fact that I am so passionate about really fucking awesome things, like books and sports and friends in other countries, and people I’ve met through my blog and when I talk about books and movies and sports and people I’ve met through blogging who have helped me accomplish personal goals and helped me deal with my social anxiety I get misty eyed and I used to really try and hide it, behind things like my ugly prescription sunglasses, but just the other day when I was getting my hair cut I was telling my stylist about having my photo taken with Tri-Athlete, Lauren Groves and I got teary eyed and I had told her how emotional I had been that day in general and she looked at me and said “are you getting emotional now?” And I said “FUCK YEAH!” For the first time in my entire life I just came right out, didn’t try and hide it and owned my emotions. Because I know and am starting to accept that I feel the things and people I love so deeply that yes it makes me very emotional, I think I have stated that the Olympics on my turf could possibly drain me of tears and it may kill me.

This is something I could never figure out how to deal with, I despised it. It bewildered Adam to no end, I think we have grown together on this one though because I really have had no choice but to just let it all go, this is my husband and it hurt trying to hide the emotions, it would hurt when he would laugh at me because he didn’t understand. And the knots hurt my throat, playing the watery eyes off as allergies was fake and I’ve only had adult allergies for four years so it was also a flat out lie. And Adam actually knows me so excuses didn’t work.

This is me, see me get emotional over the finals of Wimbledon every year, see me cry when I talk about passages of my favorite books, the mere mention of Africa, movies that I think got it right with something that matters to me, see me be happy that other players are going to get to shine but still cry because no Tiger for what seems like ever, see me get teary over a Michael Phelps commercial, see me cry and scream watching Simon Whitfield come out of the water, watch me tear up sending emails and snail mail to people I care about telling them how awesome they are and not expecting a response. I could go on and on but I think you get the point. I cry, and it isn’t because I am weak and I’m finally learning to be comfortable with just how deeply I feel and how it affects me and how my body chooses to release that joy with tears but they are tears of passion for the things I love.

I guess it has turned into a bit of a vacation, but I love blogging I don’t think I will ever stop for good to be honest. I can’t wait till there are Granny bloggers.

I’m still reading blogs I’m just reading them off of Twitter links or through Facebook, I have not been able to face my iGoogle page because I will have to deal with my feed. It is too overwhelming for me. I think I will have Adam sign in and mark everything as READ and start over. That is what I normally do when it becomes overwhelming but I do it myself, this is the most backed up I’ve ever let it get.

You know what totally sucks about not signing into your feed though? I have no idea what is going on. Twitter although fast, does not contain very many of the people that I talk to on a regular basis in real life and Facebook which does hold a lot of people I talk to on a very regular basis is set up in such a way that if you don’t sign in at the exact right moment you don’t find out till the 23^rd that a RAD ASS girlfriend had her baby on the 21^st. Ok, so the baby was a wee bit early but had I have been signed into my iGoogle page I’d have known, damn skippy, right when she popped.

I find that I’m constantly sending friendly HEY HOW IS IT GOING? emails to people only to go to their blogs AFTER and find out everything sucks. Great friend Corinna, seriously.

I added a nifty little ‘Books Read in 2008′ thingy to my sidebar. I like it; it encourages me to make my minimum reading quota for the year which I am three behind on at present.

I took my blog roll down, NOTHING PERSONAL!!! You are all still on my feed and then some [just because you weren’t linked doesn’t mean you aren’t on my feed] and I promise I will catch up on it. I meant it when I said I was taking it back old school, I have not once checked my stats the couple times I have posted, not even once, I have not been on Technorati even once and don’t plan to head back, I’m finding I don’t miss checking either. It was a compulsive urge I had to make a conscious effort to stop doing.

My allergies are so bad this year that they are keeping me even more in doors than they normally do re: we golf, but we have no money this year anyway so the allergies are coming in handy for truthful excuses as to why I can’t be places. But really I know I’ve had a headache since 1994 I can DEAL, sometimes I just don’t want to.

DEAR ALLERGY MEDICATION SPRAY MAKERS: if you are going to charge me forty + dollars for a bottle that hardly lasts a month can you maybe make it with a sprayer thing that works and doesn’t clog ALL THE TIME and refuse to pick up the last four sprays that’d be awesome I would really appreciate my moneys worth in nose bleeds please and thank you.

While indoors if I’m not reading I am spending a lot of time listening to Bobby Darin, I AM A FULL ON BOBBY DARIN ADDICT now to the point I can even tell the difference between him and Frank Sinatra. At this EXACT moment, Country House, Blur is playing though. That Bobby Darin song If a Man Answers makes me dance a jig that has me busting out the mashed pa-ta-to and everything in between.

I am starting to feel a lot better about my body, I’m eating more, have more energy, feel some motivation to get out and I have been! And I’ve been spoiling myself I got my hair cut and my eyelashes tinted. I used to get them tinted in high school and in my super early twenties but yet never got them tinted when we got married, who knows.

Last Sunday I spent some of the best hours of my life to date watching the Triathlon World Championships [Airing on CBC at 1pm Pacific Standard time, Saturday June 14^th].

Seeing this event meant a lot to me and although I knew I would be emotional I didn’t know just how emotional.

My dad did triathlons and duathlons when I was a kid, his last triathlon was in the Cook Islands in 1998, he then moved on to half and full marathons. I dedicated the set of photos to him on flickr for Fathers day. Happy early fathers day Dad!

I am extremely glad that the day before the elite/BEST IN THE WORLD were to perform I went out and took some photos because it gave me the confidence to get in there the following day. Those first photos of the empty course and stadium, the uniforms and shots of the different nations flags were the best I thought I’d get and I came back to the apartment with tears of happiness flowing down my cheeks whilst trying not to hyperventilate and tell Adam how absolutely incredible it had been, how many people had been out, how many athletes and bikes and that THE WORLD WAS HERE! And he said “and you voted no for the Olympics” and I said “I stand by that, but but… you are right I was crazy to think I’d be leaving the city.” I uploaded the photos and declared that we should TRY and go out the following day and see if we could get close and get some decent photos. Knowing how much I hate crowds and how hard it is for me not to flip out all over the place I’m sure he figured I wouldn’t go. But I had to, the day before had me so pumped up. I watch triathlons and iron mans, marathons, track and field and the Tour De France on TV whenever they are on and Adam is kind enough to set reminders for me or put one on and lets me tell him my same running stories over and over and over again, and makes fun of me when I cry because I cry EVERY SINGLE TIME. I even wore my ugly old prescription sunglasses to try and hide the water works I knew were coming.

I knew that the women went off at 1pm, I watched the helicopters from out our living room window and decided we should head around 2:30 because I knew the men went off at 4:00 and I figured from where the helicopters were circling that the women were likely well into the run.

Walking towards the course I was already getting emotional and there was an open spot RIGHT where the women were coming around the corner and I opened the camera and just started shooting but I was crying so I had no idea what athletes I was getting, my batteries died so I actually watched for a bit and took some of it in while I started to clap mildly for the participants.

I decided it was time to head for the beach; we weren’t going to get close standing around watching the last of the ladies come in. I was in GO mode already in shock over getting that close to the action. We both had our phones in case we got separated and it was decided I was leading the way.

We were almost past the barricades that marked the do not enter area and where I could see finished athletes conversing and being interviewed by the media when I noticed a break in what I guess was security and I walked in and started taking photos and they let me. I thought Carolyn Murray was going to tell me to fuck off until I said “excuse me, I’ve been standing here taking your photo for five minutes and you’ve been so gracious may I please shake your hand and say congratulations” through you got it….. tears! She then shook the crazed fan’s hand. I swooned and looked back at Adam only to catch a fan having his photo taken with Lauren Groves [from Vancouver!!] and thought OMG why did I not ask for my photo with Murray??? HERE I COME GROVES!!! I approached and oh yeah uh huh I got my photo taken with her I got my photo taken with her and youuuuuuuu didn’t!

Thankfully Vancouverites are late to almost everything and we found PERFECT spots RIGHT NEXT to the V.I.P area. By the time the top seventy-seven male tri-athletes in the world had taken center stage right in front of my eyes I had the pleasure of proving myself a triathlon pundit explaining such things as lengths and order of the three legs to people who didn’t know and sharing information such as the divers under some of the buoys and other safety measures taken for the swim. Needless to say I was in my GLORY.

I thought I had my emotions under control and was even getting in some deep breaths, picture taking was going well until Simon Whitfield came out of the water, I swear I heard them announce him come out first but I saw him coming up in second and dropped the camera, Adam quickly stopped it from smashing into the fence and I started screaming and crying and clapping so hard I thought my wrists would break and I was gone so far into the moment the natural high was seriously better than getting a tattoo.

I was shaking and unable to control myself any longer or take clear photos or catch the men on the bikes because they were so fast it was insane. Adam took over the camera taking the cycling and mens running photos and I took over sneaking up to the rails.

I quickly lost myself again cheering for them ALL from every country, the women next to me said, “we are cheering for Mexico” by the end of it I had the entire row of people cheering for the same people and countries I was, it was crazy. I even had the row chanting U.S.A U.S.A when one tired looking American ran by. The only country people wouldn’t join me in cheering for was France which of course pissed me off but then I had to remind myself that not everyone was there for the love of sports in general some where there JUST for their countries. Of course I wanted one of the Canadians to win, but I am happier with how the Canadians did as a whole. All of the ones I saw gave it and gave it hard.

It was exhilarating to be so close to all of those amazing athletes, some of them personal favourites. If we had better cameras we’d have photos of the sweat coming off their shoulders.

Watch for us during the men’s swim, [we are on the athletes left coming up the beach] good chance you’ll see me freaking out.

Have a breakdown of the magnitude of the one I’m still physically recovering from ever again.

I can’t tell if it really was that bad or if the natural progression of my age since my last bad one is making a full physical recovery seem near impossible and has gotten to the point where YAY! I don’t want to leave my house again and that is the last thing I need to be feeling right now.

Last year when I finally hit what I considered a healthy weight [see below] I was STILL criticized by some for my lack of obvious muscles, and was called fat.

I’ve always been small, until an unfortunate running injury [that I still have, LONG story!!] most people have known me to be extremely athletic with an athletic build, athletic lifestyle and always fit. I remember a day a friend and I got up, went for a run, went skiing, hit a bucket of balls at the driving range on the way down from the hill, and then decided to hit a ten pin bowling alley before calling it a day and heading for a massive meal. I was running between 44:30 and 46 minute ten ks on the pavement and in my sleep. Those days are left as some of my fondest memories and I yearn for them to become a reality again soon. And the worst is I know that I’d be FASTER now.

Adam said the other day “you HAVE to start running again” and he is right, when I am running nothing can stop me, nothing can get me down, I’m clam, collected and in control, probably a bit more arrogant than normal but someone you want around all the time not ONLY in small doses, not someone who is unreliable and not someone that there is ALWAYS something wrong with. When I look back on my life thus far the hardest and worst times have all taken place in periods where for whatever reason I stopped because of them or was already on a short break from running.

This post isn’t about my running history though it is about weight, the point there being that when I’m running which I was basically my whole life up until late 2003 you could call me thin, you could call me skinny - even though I’d be smacking you upside the head for the skinny remark in my mind and stabbing you with invisible lasers - but you could NEVER call me anorexic I was too built and I ate like a mother-fucker one of those skinny bitches [that term makes me want to rip my FACE OFF!] who could eat anything in any amount and did.

For someone who grew up being the smallest of all my friends and still is, except for one, but she has a healthy body, I got so used to the remarks that when they stopped it was as if I had descended upon some odd fantasy land where I was viewed as a WOMAN with curves and BOOBS, I was proudly referring to my weight gain as my honeymoon fifteen and did things like this, but that wasn’t supposed to mean that I’d welcome becoming an anxiety stricken unhealthy too thin depressed self loathing person in the second year of my marriage and drop to a weight that I know is lower than I’ve ever been in my adult life. I refuse to step on a scale, the lack of my clothing and undergarments fitting leave me pretty confident that my estimate of my current pounds is scary enough and I haven’t owned a scale in over a decade.

Aside from my weight, and how unhealthy I am in general, no energy, sleeping loads, hair falling out and just knowing I’m sickly I’ve been pretty happy mentally, steady happy, I’m recovering from set backs faster, when I freak out it is toned down times a trillion million for serious, I’ve had two days that have been real bad but the rest have just been the occasional normal down days there haven’t been any bouts of depression lasting more than a few days, I’ve stepped away from the computer when wanting to be an ass hole, I took a break from posting as you can see by the front page of dates and I’m coming back to posting complaining about my weight for a reason.

If you are over weight, fat, too thin or skinny which ever term you do or don’t prefer here is something I know you don’t like - PEOPLE COMMENTING ON IT TO YOUR FACE! Look, I get it, people talk, I’ve gotten that one for years and it has helped me greatly but this is where you talk behind my back about how much weight I’ve lost. Unless you want to help me in a positive way to get my weight back on then fuck the fuck right the fuck off. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about anyone who talks to me in a genuinely concerned way, I’m not talking about my inner circle I’m talking about people in general, this ISN’T just about me it is about anyone who struggles with depression, unwanted or wanted weight, trust me, just trust, when I say NO ONE wants to hear it. WE KNOW!!!!!

This is something ingrained in society that will never change but infuriates me and I had forgotten how much. At the weight in the above photo NO ONE commented in a negative way unless they themselves were anorexic. If you were in my most inner circle it meant congratulations because I had finally done it, I had finally put on weight, and I finally FELT like a woman. Right now I feel like a fucking pre-pubescent girl, I feel disgusting, unhealthy and sick and no one in their right mind should want to look how I look at present. This past week has been the worst yet. I have been sick in the guts almost every day, nauseous, winded coming up the stairs and not able to get up and stay out of bed for long periods. I’m hoping that writing this is the intervention I need to get physically healthy again and I think I need to face that I’m going to need my doctors assistance my shrink knows I’m struggling and we talk about it but that doesn’t seem to be enough. If only one of them could prescribe me a start off of twenty free pounds, I’d even sign a wavier promising not to add it all to my tits.

Starter GOALS:

Get out of the house EVERY DAY no matter what rain or shine for at least a half an hour or more,

Eat a minimum of three times a day even if I have to force feed myself or drink protein shakes

Vasectomy Series by ABCIV Post 1*

its hard to concentrate when you just took a nut punch from the doctor, but ill give you what i can. the ingenious thing about the “whiffleball” procedure is that you are completely distracted the whole time. as soon as your cock is out the nurse gives you a tootsie pop and flips on the tunes. i could not resist cutting a “mixed bag” disk when i saw the option suggested in the info pack. few things in life give me the pleasure that making a mix-tape does. working within the constraints of a theme is terrific.so peep this - welcome to my scrote:

Mixed-Bag

1. A Plea For Tenderness - Jonathan Richman + The Modern Lovers
2. Barber Shop - Tom Waits
3. There’s A Love Knot In My Lariat - Montana Slim (Wilf Carter)
4. Monster (In My Pants) - B-52s
5. Big Balls - AC/DC
6. Love Whip - Reverend Horton Heat
7. Broken Arrow - Buffalo Springfield
8. Multiplication - Bobby Darin
9. I Gotcha - Joe Tex
10. Bring On The Pain - Radiskull + Devil Doll (Joe Sparks)
11. The First Cut Is The Deepest - Cat Stevens
12. Bye Bye Baby - Big Brother + The Holding Company
13. Nutbush City Limits - Ike + Tina
14. Hot Pants - James Brown
15. Funky Worm - The Ohio Players
16. Pistol Packin’ Papa - Montana Slim
17. Don’t Touch Me There - The Tubes
18. Knock On Wood - Otis Redding
19. Hard Ain’t It Hard - Woodie Guthrie
20. Tiptoe Through The Tulips - Tiny Tim
21. Mama Told Me Not To Come - Three Dog Night
22. Gimmie That Nutt - Eazy E

*dicta-typed by wife

By the time you read the first sentence of this post Adam will have had himself snipped. Had a vasectomy. I don’t remember having to shave my hairy ass crack for my ass surgery but Adam did have to shave his balls. But I’ll leave the nuts and bolts talk for Adam because the boy goin’ blog about the whole thing. I would assume you’ll see his first post as soon as he can comfortably sit and write. Maybe if I picture a laptop long enough and concentrate hard enough one will just miraculously appear, that would seriously rule and prove me wrong on sooooooooooo many things.

There has been talk of this upcoming V in various forms over the past few months on GG. At first I was keeping pretty mum on it because Adam had not told his family, his relationship with his family affects me, I wish we were both closer to them but we aren’t and I asked him if he was going to call them and tell them or if he cared if they found out via the internet. He said via the internet was fine. I went from alluding to it to admitting it.

————

I remember being around twenty-six when my biological clock started to tick. I found this extremely alarming because I had fought endlessly with the self proclaimed pundits over the facts that “I was young” and “would change my mind about not wanting children when I was older”. I do not believe twenty-six to be old but it isn’t young either. I’d already been through more at twenty-six than I’d say most folks have gone through by fifty; until the ticking time bomb started my mind wouldn’t wander into hypothetical ‘baby bliss moments’ very often. I also met Adam that year. I was blatantly honest with Adam that I did not want children but that my body was seriously fucking with me and telling me I did but that my mind was working overtime telling it to fuck the fuck off. I spoke with a girlfriend I was extremely close in age with who also did not want children but was also feeling the effects of the good ol’ biological clock and how hard it was to fight. Other than finding someone who was my age and didn’t want kids but the clock was still ticking that was all the knowledge I gained from that conversation. Totally a let down.

I had never and did not want children and neither did Adam. At this point our relationship was still new so we didn’t discuss the whys. But like a lot of couples we had a couple of pregnancy scares. One that was just that a scare, for whatever reason my period didn’t show one month it was a January. The second I *may* have been carrying something, my period was over a week late but I was not showing positive on pregnancy tests and I had been to a walk in clinic when the bitch still hadn’t shown up and showed negative there as well but when I finally got my period it was EXTREME. More extreme than any period I have ever had. I won’t go into detail, I think every woman has either heard this particular story before or had it happen.

These incidents sent me on a mini lets constantly talk about a hypothetical baby and how AWESOME it would be to have a REAL ONE kick. This didn’t last long because eventually even the hypothetical kid grew up and we seriously boooo-ed on that. Once the hypothetical crap past we got married already knowing but having not revealed to either side of the family that we were one hundred percent not going to have children. With my being an only child and female it just did not seem fair to tell anyone before the wedding, but even when I would allow myself to fantasize for real about kids it would always be as a mom of two boys and I’d be a hockey mom but it never went past the hockey mom part.

I am not going to bash on my childhood or bash on my parents, what would that prove? The past is the past, although yes it is one of the biggest reasons that I do not want children. The truth is I despised being an only child and the neglect I felt was something that five years of therapy is still helping me work on. I can’t change the truth or how I remember my youth, I can just deal with it.

On and even more personal level what was torture for me aka highschool a place that ultimately lead to a suicide attempt with a lengthy hospital stay and how I was treated after this incident also play largely into my no baby reasons. Sure, I had my ass kicked a few times, was verbally abused in the hallways almost daily, my locker vandalized with nasty shit written on it almost weekly, I’d have to have people come pick me up at school from time to time, the tires were popped on my car, twice, and my photo was posted up in the males washroom with obscenities I won’t even repeat next to it and so on and so on but it is nothing, just NOTHING compared to the fate of a child targeted by bullies today and there is no way to determine who will be the loser and who will be the bully. And even if there were it wouldn’t change my mind.

There is nothing worth taking that risk for me.

There has always been a part of me that feels slightly guilty because there are so many women who want children and for whatever unfortunate reason can not have them. But it isn’t my fault that adopting is so hard. And I believe strongly having felt it that if you make it through that biological clock ticking away at the high decibel it tended to tick at that you know what you want, better yet, I’ve always known deep down what I want and it isn’t a child. I think babies are pretty fun, but the part where you hand them back over is the best. Kids like me since I’ve truly left any thoughts of having a child behind me, my energy towards them is entirely different and they are responsive to me, they used to scare the shit out of me before and I know they could sense me coming a mile away. I do get scared of being old and alone, like what if Adam dies? Or when Adam dies what if I’m pretty young but can’t bear to have another man in my life and am forced to live alone forever in pajamas with lots of cats and all the seasons of Oz and Sex and the City and masturbation becomes my life and I only order in, even my books?

And last but not least I obviously suffer from various super fun mental illnesses. Between the possibility of passing that on and my child having to deal with half of what I dealt with being a kid, a young adult and an adult, there were some great times, but not enough to even consider bringing a child into THIS world.

We always talked about Adam getting a V but we didn’t think we could afford it. And so we just dreamed of it until the fateful day it came up in a conversation with a couple who had made the decision to get the snip snip snip too and we discovered they are free here in the lovely nation of Canada, felt like idiots for a second for not knowing and then he made an appointment. We’d already been welcomed into the club; we are now just making it official.