Moolies

Personal heroes

I don't have many that I out and out admire with no negatives, but Peter Tatchell is one of them. He is a powerful and articulate debater, demonstrator and protestor on behalf of many oppressed gay communities on a worldwide scale (and other community groups too). He puts himself on the front line again and again, lives on a pittance and has given over his life to the cause of helping the oppressed.

I can remember a time when he was looked upon with some derision in the British press and I can't for the life of me think why, other than an underlying homophobia post AIDS or something. Anyway. Peter's latest extraordinary piece of action has been widely reported, with him being beaten nearly senseless whilst trying to deliver a petition to the Mayor of Moscow. The petition demanded the right to raise marches. Unfortunately the Mayor of Moscow seems to believe that gay people are evil, unnatural and all that fucking rubbish.

Tatchell was on the Today programme this morning explaining the turn of events from a personal perspective and was as ever an articulate and passionate speaker. He was beaten by a bizarre coalition of neo-nazi's and righht wing church goers, has an eye injury and concussion (he was surrounded by 6 people, was beaten and kicked whilst lying on the pavement). The police stood by and watched it happen, then waded in and arrested him. Astonishing. It could of course be that they were worried for his safety, so wished to remove him from the scene. Somehow I doubt that.

Some of the Russian gay community were torn as to whether the protest should have gone ahead. Me, I'm always in favour of protest. Even if it does no good, it's extraordinarily important to stand up, and be counted.

I'd be proud to stand next to this man (if a little petrified). Any time.

Stuff. Hey, nothing negative.

Just to make a change.

Well. I lied. Aha. A little. I reicked my ankle the other day. Relatively badly but not badly enough to warrant treatment. A week later, BOY does it hurt like the very devil.

James has been on riotous good form the last couple of days, laughing himself silly at anything and eveything; eating like a trojan and running about the place whooping with delight. It's such a relief to see him back to normal - he hasn't been himself since the hospital visit last month.

Nora and I made binoculars from her "Bob the Builder" magazine today (from two loo roll cardboard tubes plus accessories!), and just 'because', I also made her a crown out of glittery paper. It reminded me of how much I loved making all kinds of nonsense as a kid. I just searched for "Susan Stranks", a major inspiration to me as a kid (in the making things stakes) but the info available is not illustrative enough. I had a book by her called "Things to make and do" which was fantastic.

Just recently, Nora and I have made stuff more or less every day - fcor the most part, that W"stuff" has been plants - we've been doing gardening. Two different sorts of sunflower seeds (hopefully some will grow and not keel over and die like last year); cress - of course; radishes, tomatoes, peas, some kind of butterfly flower mix thing. Rather unfortunately we did a bunch of planting out over the weekend, in to pots. Since then it seems to have forgotten that it's the spring, and today was offensively windy, and around 5 degrees! Shit! In fact, it was so bloody horrible we didn't go in to the back garden to check. Ulp.

On the plus side, an apparently dead Clematis has been repotted in a very nice pot, and has miraculously come back to life. The Rosemary has been free of Rosemarey Beetle I(fuckers) for a decent amount of time and the Bay is growing like billio.

Plus I made the most amazing cake. You will please purchase the following recipe book: "Arabeseque", by Claudia Roden. 3 countries: Morocco, Turkey, Lebanon. The Lebanese section is amazing, and apparently the Turkish one has many a gorgeous secret to reveal. Mackay made Moroccan baked fish the other day. Delicious.

Ah, so I'm doing ok but still not going to bed early, eh? Dang fool.

Jamie's first word

"Baw"

...as in "Ball".

Double 'l' pronunciation takes aaages.

First word though, eh?

And the chickenpox has gone down enough for him to sleep through last night.

Erm...  something else positive... I eventually got my powerpoint finished! Now I'm on the next one. Ayeesh.

So

Had a bit of a freakout over something that actually didn't happen at all and looks like a weird database issue (ohohooo no. Not going to elucidate because at the moment I feel entirely stupid).

What have I realised in the last few days. These highly depressive episodes usually shed some light on the issue:

If I were listening to a friend, talking about the things that are making them miserable ie: exhaustion, illness, ilness in children, death of someone vitally important to them and their sense of self; an ear infection that's putting them in constant pain & deafness and won't go away, as well as chronic, often quite debilitating back pain I would scratch my head, look bemused and say "And you're wondering why you feel bad?".

I have to stop giving myself a hard time about everything in my life. As well as the usual late thirties questions re: route annd journey, after being voluntarily derailed by children, I'm subject to more than several really horrible goings on at the moment.

That all having been said, the other thing I realised is that I'm exceptionally lonely. That's a result of James still being an infant and (still) sleeping in our bedroom. I only stopped feeding him a wee while ago, which of course nailed me in to the house. Having been so shellshocked during the period vdirectly after I stopped, I've not really managed to get anything together and think of myself as someone who can have a social life. I'm not used to putting myself first. At all. So. That's something knowable, that I can work on changing. James still sleeping in our bedroom is only half the story really. My sleeping has become so erratic that I rarely go to bed before 12.30 (James wakes at 6! Erk), by which time McK fell to sleep long before.

I managed to buy the blackout blind we definitely need for Nora's room before James could move in there, so now we need to arrange for Nor to have a long weekend with one of the Grandparent options, then I can get the blind up and we can plan.

Of course on a night when he's waking and crying because he's covered in sore, awful chickenpox, the prospect of him sleeping in the same room as Nora does make me feel slightly concerned.

That is what I have learned. Hopefully it's useful. A couple of days ago I was thinking I should throw the towel in and use Prozac for a while (I've been depressed since September) but I don't feel quite as awful at the moment.

Bleedin ell. Life.

Ah

Well. I'm not really doing very well at the moment, am I?

I have the usual malaise. What am I doing, where am I going. The need for change coupled with the intense desire to give everything up and just be with the kids. I'm not sleeping well at all, and it would be obvious to an idiot that I'm run down.
I don't really have a close friend close by to talk to about all of this. Two of my closest friends live in the States, and my other good friend is too wrapped up in having two infants, as am I.

I don't really want to go on about it. Not really sure what to do though.

It's a link! An honest to goodness link!

Tom has passed on two very interesting links this week. This one is a TED talk by Ken Robinson about creativity and schooling. I get the impression he's talked about this so much he could talk about it in his sleep, but this talk impresses on so many levels. There's a lot to learn from him and his presentation style, but more importantly, there's a lot to learn about what he's saying.

Hear, hear

Or not hear.

Left side feels like I've just got out of a swimming pool, but much more annoyingly, it still hurts - a bit prickly, like. So this must be because of the extent of the damage and blockage. Basically, I'll phone the nurse for an appt next week at my local Docs, and once I've run out of antibiotics, assume that it's relatively better, put some Otex drops in there to soften it all up, then they can squish whatever it is all out with warm water.

In the midst of writing that down, I suddenly thought "Have you gone entirely mad?" I think... hmmm. I think that what I'll in fact do is go to see the doc once the antiB's have finished, get h/er/im to check the drum and to OK me putting ear drops in, then I'll do that and make an appointment to et a thorough syringeing.

Don't mess with the ears.

That was pain

...and this is being off my head on Tramadol.

Not something I'd recommend, and neither would my body, apparently, given that I've thrown up twice today. Hold on - make that 3 times! Good lord...

Given the choice between feeling like a nauseous zombie with no earache, or earache -I'll still go for the Zombie option. The word "acute" was designed for ear infections. Apparently my ear drum is a little perforated, and there is a vast reservoir of pus behind it. Nice!

I'm finding it difficult to type, my conciousness is so blurry. Needless to say - heavy antibiotics are currently killing everything in their path.

I'd like to open the betting on next week's illness. Any advance on bird flu?

Pain

Ear infection.

Woke at 3.

Going to the local NHS drop in centre. Should have some antibiotics by the tie everyone wakes up. Mackay *has* to leave the house at 9.

Have had 3 ibuprofen, has made no difference.

Wow. This is pain.

Sore spots

Nora is being a complete star with her growing coterie of red-to-yellowing spots and blisters. Some of the blisters are looking distinctly violently red around the outside, which I don't like (particularly one on her back) and the other thing that makes my heart sink is that the newer spots, which have yet to enter blisterville are not only all over the place but in places like her lower eyelid, right on the rim, or seven or eight of them all clustered around her chin directly below her mouth. She has loads in her hair and well, basically all over the place.

We spent this morning in "Take your mind off it" mode going to play kickabout on the common with James finding running toward the road (a good 200 metres off, mind you, but I could read his mind - ooh, shiny! Moving! Nice!) a little too interesting. Then "Dumbo" for the second time in three days. My drug addled, exhausted brain didn't make it through "Baby mine" this time round either.  Luckily since Wednesday my mucus levels have reached terrifying proportions, so nose blowing is a regular occurrence. This afternoon though she seemed a little feverish again and quiet, which I don't like. If some of her blisters do become infected (very common apparently) then she's hardly going to be welcome in the NHS drop in centre, now, is she. Maybe I can take a photo of the offending blisters and MMS it to a weekend doctor and he can prescribe over the phone. Hey, don't look so incredulous, it might just work!

So any complaining, and there has been some, is entirely justifiable. If I felt like some kind of freak, and I had little pockets of growing soreness all over that wouldn't go away, would I cry a bit every so often? You bet I would. Gentle - very, very gentle but long hugs and lots of reiteration of braveness helps a little. I have found that Nor respects what you say if you are honest with her and look her in the eye in the way you should be in a situation such as this. Of course, you pick and choose your truthes, as it were. Usually going for really positive ones that will make her feel happier.

I hear James awake and shouting, no doubt still with a throat as sore as mine (is it me, or are colds genuinely nastier than they used to be? I've been pretty sick since Tuesday with no real sign of change other than that I've got used to it, plus I'm currently half dazed with codeine.

I'd better go.