house guest from hell
feeling a bit queasy from eating last nights reheated chinese food. Having the house guest from hell. Next time I will ignore H and follow my intuition. We had a huge fight over it and I let him over rule me, it was only for a night, now only for 3 nights, and really, I can talk to anyone, but this man is painfully boring and just a bit snarky, sort of better than/smug. So he's putting everyone down in his little grey cloud of boredom, and he is in my house. He's also really nosy. He sat down at my computer and then just clicked on the internet icon to see what site I'd been on. I was so affronted, I leaned over and clicked the internet shut. I just couldn't get over someone touching my computer without permission and then opening closed files... well...
so that is my labour day weekend. H is hiding in the bedroom. Poor thing he really is sick, and that rarely happens but I said to him, he has to entertain this guest, it's his friend, not mine and I am at the limit of my not so polished good manners.
Friday, August 30, 2002
footsteps in the sand
okay I know that 9 people visited me here yesterday, how do I get them (you!) involved? I really love when people comment and I would appreciate help with my confusion, so if you have a thought, an opinion, a comment, please give it... I really would like to hear.
BJ is in heaven, because I bought him his 'first magic hat' full of tricks for little fingers. He is so happy and looks quite cute with his hat and wand. Even though the box promised no skill is required (and indeed for the rabbit out of hte hat, there is no skill but much gullibility required on the part of the audience) but other tricks are well, tricky. I promised him we would learn one a day. Actually he would do one a day with H who's technical skills lean more in this direction. There is something about written directions which I find really hard to follow. My dsylexia doesn't show itself that much anymore, but maps and diagrams, well they are just hierogliphics to me.
Still rainy, still thinking. How are you?
okay I know that 9 people visited me here yesterday, how do I get them (you!) involved? I really love when people comment and I would appreciate help with my confusion, so if you have a thought, an opinion, a comment, please give it... I really would like to hear.
BJ is in heaven, because I bought him his 'first magic hat' full of tricks for little fingers. He is so happy and looks quite cute with his hat and wand. Even though the box promised no skill is required (and indeed for the rabbit out of hte hat, there is no skill but much gullibility required on the part of the audience) but other tricks are well, tricky. I promised him we would learn one a day. Actually he would do one a day with H who's technical skills lean more in this direction. There is something about written directions which I find really hard to follow. My dsylexia doesn't show itself that much anymore, but maps and diagrams, well they are just hierogliphics to me.
Still rainy, still thinking. How are you?
Thursday, August 29, 2002
rainy day thoughts
Had a disturbing session with the men's group as they all discussed the violence that they personally had witnessed. Every single man had seen or been part of gross physical violence. Two had seen men gunned down before their eyes, a third had cancelled going out with two mates to stay home with his girl friend and then both of the friends had been shot that night in drug dealings. The level of craziness of abrupt changes and fear in their lives is just, well, surreal. And I was thinking that in a way they are like women who live with domestic violence. After a while, violence becomes familiar and that is all they know so if they come into a non violent situation, they don't know the rules and feel uncomfortable and either change the situation so it becomes violent, or leave. Violence, at home, in the street, from loved ones, from authority (police) that's all they know. It was disheartening to me to hear of it. They were like Vietnam vets, with post trauamtic stress disorder, from growing up in Brooklyn! And they got no treatment. These physcial assualts, they are like rapes, you are jumpy, unsafe, terrified. And yet these boys get no help. They are only here because they have broken the law. If they weren't breaking the law, they would be beneath the radar. I will talk to them more about the familiarity of violence. For them it is not always possible to not get involved. If someone walks up and challenges you, you can say, sorry man and walk away, but what if he doesn't back off? I just don't live in their world.
The women were describing equally crazy things (so the home is no saner than the street) They all nodded as one woman talked of having to take the nobs off the oven before going to sleep otherwise the kids would play with it and perhaps start a fire. All the women in the groups had been involved in fires, though most of them had been started in other flats. I thought to myself, I have a 5 year old and I never fear he is going to play with the oven when I am asleep. It's never occured to either of us that he would do that. He knows he is not allowed near the oven without adult supervision and he has never broken that rule. Why do the other kids do it? Why would a kid get up in the middle of the night and turn on all the taps in the bathroom and flood it, and do that more than once? I don't even have the fears that these women face as reality. Everything feels out of control. And these children grow into into the men I am talking to today.
I just looked at them and thought, where is the sane space? I'm so grateful that most of them have religious beliefs, or they would have nothing to sustain them. They really use their spirituality to get to some sort of calmer, safer space. But no wonder they are on edge all the time. Where are the limits that are set and understood. This flooding and firing stuff... these are children who are doing it. What would I do if BJ did it? How would i stop him? I really get the sense that the mothers can't set limits which are understood by the children, without resorting to fear or violence. There is no accord, no reasoning between these mothers and the children and then to ask the adults to reason between themselves, well, where would that skill or knowledge come from!
more thoughts later, off to drink tea (my ultimate solution, to solve world tension over a hot cup of tea...)
Had a disturbing session with the men's group as they all discussed the violence that they personally had witnessed. Every single man had seen or been part of gross physical violence. Two had seen men gunned down before their eyes, a third had cancelled going out with two mates to stay home with his girl friend and then both of the friends had been shot that night in drug dealings. The level of craziness of abrupt changes and fear in their lives is just, well, surreal. And I was thinking that in a way they are like women who live with domestic violence. After a while, violence becomes familiar and that is all they know so if they come into a non violent situation, they don't know the rules and feel uncomfortable and either change the situation so it becomes violent, or leave. Violence, at home, in the street, from loved ones, from authority (police) that's all they know. It was disheartening to me to hear of it. They were like Vietnam vets, with post trauamtic stress disorder, from growing up in Brooklyn! And they got no treatment. These physcial assualts, they are like rapes, you are jumpy, unsafe, terrified. And yet these boys get no help. They are only here because they have broken the law. If they weren't breaking the law, they would be beneath the radar. I will talk to them more about the familiarity of violence. For them it is not always possible to not get involved. If someone walks up and challenges you, you can say, sorry man and walk away, but what if he doesn't back off? I just don't live in their world.
The women were describing equally crazy things (so the home is no saner than the street) They all nodded as one woman talked of having to take the nobs off the oven before going to sleep otherwise the kids would play with it and perhaps start a fire. All the women in the groups had been involved in fires, though most of them had been started in other flats. I thought to myself, I have a 5 year old and I never fear he is going to play with the oven when I am asleep. It's never occured to either of us that he would do that. He knows he is not allowed near the oven without adult supervision and he has never broken that rule. Why do the other kids do it? Why would a kid get up in the middle of the night and turn on all the taps in the bathroom and flood it, and do that more than once? I don't even have the fears that these women face as reality. Everything feels out of control. And these children grow into into the men I am talking to today.
I just looked at them and thought, where is the sane space? I'm so grateful that most of them have religious beliefs, or they would have nothing to sustain them. They really use their spirituality to get to some sort of calmer, safer space. But no wonder they are on edge all the time. Where are the limits that are set and understood. This flooding and firing stuff... these are children who are doing it. What would I do if BJ did it? How would i stop him? I really get the sense that the mothers can't set limits which are understood by the children, without resorting to fear or violence. There is no accord, no reasoning between these mothers and the children and then to ask the adults to reason between themselves, well, where would that skill or knowledge come from!
more thoughts later, off to drink tea (my ultimate solution, to solve world tension over a hot cup of tea...)
Wednesday, August 28, 2002
internet shopping hell
I want to buy something from Bed Bath and Beyond which is no longer available in the shops (their enormous beach towels are a delight) so I tap onto their site. All goes swimmingly until the checkout. The computer can't cope with a delivery to New York on an Australian credit card. There is a phone number to call. I ring it and get a chirpy computer voice giving me my options. I choose the appropriate option, press 5, and then the phone just rings out. This happens 3 times. So I can't buy my towel. GROWL. I hate the rigmarole they put you through, and it's an endless loop. You never get to talk to a human being (not that humans are always helpful, but at least they respond) So it looks like I"m never going to get that towel. Another small failure of consumerism. Then again, I'm tenacious. I will call tomorrow. I'll report back and tell you how I did!
Had my final women's group and now they talk. We talked about mothers, but the most energy went on how to disciplin kids (which was not what I wanted to talk about but where the conversation went) and these mothers consider themselves good because they only use the belt on rare occassions. I tried to talk about patterns, and if they hit a child now, what do they think the child will do once it is bigger than them... some women keep their children in fear forever, but is that what they wanted? One woman said that she doesn't belt her child because she didn't like being belted when she was a kid, but she only has one child. The woman with the most children, (5) had the most violent approach. Of course if I had 5 children when I was 25 I would also be out numbered and crazy. We couldn't get to why they had so many children, I couldn't go there on a final session, but it all feels so... so unglued.
They all have children from different fathers, and there is no cohesiveness there. The fathers also have children from all these different women, so the women are competing for his time. One woman said how the other 'baby-mother' felt she was getting more attention, and I was struck by that label 'baby-mother' and 'baby-father', like, he is my baby-father, ie the father of this child, but no longer any relation to me. Or, are you living with your baby-father, no I'm living with someone else. It is all so tangled and then there is the thread of violence through out it. Attempting to cut through the confusion? I feel confused just writing about it. Where is home if you have 3 different baby father's visiting your siblings, but yours does not? This constant differentiation of half siblings, step siblings, viritual strangers, living under a roof for a time and then some staying, some moving on. There are foster parents, birth parents, step parents. Where do you belong? Sigh. I suspect these kids grow up belonging no where. Some link to the mother, but there is such conflict there (one woman relayed how her 10 year old son attacked her with a knife when she was 7 months pregnant with the 5th child. And I thought, he knows how few emotional resources there are, and this bump will spread them even thinner.) I feel far more depressed after talking to the women than I do talking to the men. That is a consistent pattern and I wonder at it.
Meanwhile, I am befriending the staff there and feelling better about that, but glad to be leaving the women't unit. Which is such an odd situation for me. I've never had trouble connecting with women before. Will think about that some more...
I want to buy something from Bed Bath and Beyond which is no longer available in the shops (their enormous beach towels are a delight) so I tap onto their site. All goes swimmingly until the checkout. The computer can't cope with a delivery to New York on an Australian credit card. There is a phone number to call. I ring it and get a chirpy computer voice giving me my options. I choose the appropriate option, press 5, and then the phone just rings out. This happens 3 times. So I can't buy my towel. GROWL. I hate the rigmarole they put you through, and it's an endless loop. You never get to talk to a human being (not that humans are always helpful, but at least they respond) So it looks like I"m never going to get that towel. Another small failure of consumerism. Then again, I'm tenacious. I will call tomorrow. I'll report back and tell you how I did!
Had my final women's group and now they talk. We talked about mothers, but the most energy went on how to disciplin kids (which was not what I wanted to talk about but where the conversation went) and these mothers consider themselves good because they only use the belt on rare occassions. I tried to talk about patterns, and if they hit a child now, what do they think the child will do once it is bigger than them... some women keep their children in fear forever, but is that what they wanted? One woman said that she doesn't belt her child because she didn't like being belted when she was a kid, but she only has one child. The woman with the most children, (5) had the most violent approach. Of course if I had 5 children when I was 25 I would also be out numbered and crazy. We couldn't get to why they had so many children, I couldn't go there on a final session, but it all feels so... so unglued.
They all have children from different fathers, and there is no cohesiveness there. The fathers also have children from all these different women, so the women are competing for his time. One woman said how the other 'baby-mother' felt she was getting more attention, and I was struck by that label 'baby-mother' and 'baby-father', like, he is my baby-father, ie the father of this child, but no longer any relation to me. Or, are you living with your baby-father, no I'm living with someone else. It is all so tangled and then there is the thread of violence through out it. Attempting to cut through the confusion? I feel confused just writing about it. Where is home if you have 3 different baby father's visiting your siblings, but yours does not? This constant differentiation of half siblings, step siblings, viritual strangers, living under a roof for a time and then some staying, some moving on. There are foster parents, birth parents, step parents. Where do you belong? Sigh. I suspect these kids grow up belonging no where. Some link to the mother, but there is such conflict there (one woman relayed how her 10 year old son attacked her with a knife when she was 7 months pregnant with the 5th child. And I thought, he knows how few emotional resources there are, and this bump will spread them even thinner.) I feel far more depressed after talking to the women than I do talking to the men. That is a consistent pattern and I wonder at it.
Meanwhile, I am befriending the staff there and feelling better about that, but glad to be leaving the women't unit. Which is such an odd situation for me. I've never had trouble connecting with women before. Will think about that some more...
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
thoughts on niceness
I was in a magazine store and saw a picture of Rosie O'Donnel looking quite different to her past image, with the by line of 'no more nice guy' or words to that effect. And Iwas thinking about how her image used to be so 'nice' - opiniated, but nice with it, and how she battled weight. Well, I also used to be nice, always saying the pleasant, soothing thing, and I think that I drowned my nastiness in sugar. There is this syndrome of not allowing the nasty side any voice, and it needing some outlet. I'm not so nice anymore, and certainly more open since I've started this blog - IRL as well as here.
But I still struggle with sugar. It was really a form of comfort for me, a quiet rebellion (my father was obsessed with looks and sexuality and really wanted us to look sexy) and a way of protesting. But I really don't think I use it like that anymore, and indeed my weight has been stable for over 8 years now. I've reached this point, at around 230, and this is where I hover. To loose 10 pounds takes so much energy and constant thought, that it exhausts me, and then it just creeps back on. I'm so tired of that pattern. I'm on this zone programme, which is good as far as it goes, but I want something to deal with my cravings. I just long for chocolate, like it is a drug. I guess I don't want to suffer. I want to eat the prescribed amounts and find them totally fulfilling and not want anything else. Of course that doesn't happen. I remember an aquantence who had her stomach stappled and then disgusted my friend by whipping up mars bars (cf snickers without the nuts) and then drinking them down. And I thought, I would do that. It's so rarely hunger that drives me and yet driven I am. It's the edgy uncomfortable feeling - distinctly not nice. And so I wonder if on some level I still want everything to be nice and smooth and am sweetening it all with chocolate...
We're going out for dinner tonight, as we did all last weekend, and I'm ordering more thoughtfully, but restaurant food is far more fattening than what I cook at home and I'm that familiar pattern of being good all week, and then gaining on the weekend. Well, H goes away for 6 weeks in 2 weeks time (we could have gone with him but I elected to stay here, saying I couldn't be a tourist in this city any more, I needed to put down roots, and so he goes without us) Let's see if I manage the food differently without him. It's been a fantasy that it would be easier without him and now I can see if that is indeed true.
how's it going with you?
I was in a magazine store and saw a picture of Rosie O'Donnel looking quite different to her past image, with the by line of 'no more nice guy' or words to that effect. And Iwas thinking about how her image used to be so 'nice' - opiniated, but nice with it, and how she battled weight. Well, I also used to be nice, always saying the pleasant, soothing thing, and I think that I drowned my nastiness in sugar. There is this syndrome of not allowing the nasty side any voice, and it needing some outlet. I'm not so nice anymore, and certainly more open since I've started this blog - IRL as well as here.
But I still struggle with sugar. It was really a form of comfort for me, a quiet rebellion (my father was obsessed with looks and sexuality and really wanted us to look sexy) and a way of protesting. But I really don't think I use it like that anymore, and indeed my weight has been stable for over 8 years now. I've reached this point, at around 230, and this is where I hover. To loose 10 pounds takes so much energy and constant thought, that it exhausts me, and then it just creeps back on. I'm so tired of that pattern. I'm on this zone programme, which is good as far as it goes, but I want something to deal with my cravings. I just long for chocolate, like it is a drug. I guess I don't want to suffer. I want to eat the prescribed amounts and find them totally fulfilling and not want anything else. Of course that doesn't happen. I remember an aquantence who had her stomach stappled and then disgusted my friend by whipping up mars bars (cf snickers without the nuts) and then drinking them down. And I thought, I would do that. It's so rarely hunger that drives me and yet driven I am. It's the edgy uncomfortable feeling - distinctly not nice. And so I wonder if on some level I still want everything to be nice and smooth and am sweetening it all with chocolate...
We're going out for dinner tonight, as we did all last weekend, and I'm ordering more thoughtfully, but restaurant food is far more fattening than what I cook at home and I'm that familiar pattern of being good all week, and then gaining on the weekend. Well, H goes away for 6 weeks in 2 weeks time (we could have gone with him but I elected to stay here, saying I couldn't be a tourist in this city any more, I needed to put down roots, and so he goes without us) Let's see if I manage the food differently without him. It's been a fantasy that it would be easier without him and now I can see if that is indeed true.
how's it going with you?
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