This blog post comes with a few warnings.
Firstly, I am using this post as therapy. If there was ever a reason to press delete this is it. Secondly, I am going to be complaining a lot and talking about movies a lot. Again, no hard feelings if you decide to delete. Third and finally this is going to be long as I have a lot of complaining to do, so either set aside your weekend or again, delete.
Nothing serious has happened. I have just gone through a bit of a catalogue of minor setbacks that have grown into a monster in my head and have left me curled in a ball on the floor wondering why I can no longer feel my legs. Anyway, all of this has led me to the conclusion that March has been rather crapola and the crapola has crept into April as well.
Oh the difference a few months make, when last I was on my 26th post on the joys of New Zealand and now all I have for you is a list of moans, depression and insanity.
In order to be expeditious in this one way cyber therapy session I have decided to list my tales of woe:
1. My 5 year old is prone to nose bleeds and because he is 5 does not realise bleeding on smooth wipe clean surfaces is generally the better option. Instead, following getting hit in the face by his sister, decided last night to have a nose bleed all over my light blue fabric sofa. I tried salt, soda water, Vanish to no avail and now the blood stains are even darker and around the blood stain the fabric has gone back to its original colour thereby highlighting how unbelievably filthy my sofa is normally.
2. On our last holiday to Vietnam which was for the most part lovely we had three days of nonstop pouring rain. Not drizzle, utter downpour. As we were on holiday we had no choice but to grin and bear it and get out even though we were ill prepared clothes wise. Ultimately a portion of our days were spent stuck in the hotel where I used the nice computer in the room to look into other holidays as this one sucked.
3. After we left rainy Hue in Vietnam for Hoi An we had one day left and my husband said, look we need to go out with a bang on our last day to cheer ourselves up after all the peeing rain. So we did go out with a bang. He got salmonella poisoning on our last night, we had to extend our hotel room after check out because he was so sick and the kids and I spent our last day wandering aimlessly around the same streets we had wandered round aimlessly for four days before.
4. I don't know whether I sweated differently in Vietnam but something happened with my sunglasses that resulted in two big red angry spots developing on either side of the bridge of my nose right on top of the bone. They were so painful I could not wear my glasses anymore and they were so large and red I could not even cover them up. In terms of size and obviousness, think of Hellboy prior to being shackled by Rasputin and having his whomper stuck in that satanic hole that made his horns grow.
5. My 8 year old has started shouting at me saying "ALRIGHT!.... FINE!" quite a lot and it makes me sad.
6. The train in Vietnam from Hoi An to Hue ran over somebody. The bump was so big it knocked our things off the table. We were held for 45 minutes while random passers by and some of the train staff walked up and down the tracks, I assume trying to find the body. All we saw was a wallet, a licence plate and two mismatched shoes collected in a heap following the walkabout. No police, firemen or ambulance. We moved on after this. I remember jumpers when I commuted to London and all of us complaining about the delays, inconvenience and selfishness. I feel ashamed now. I have to say I think that bump will always stay with me and there is still a part of me that hopes it was a sack of potatoes someone stupidly left on the track instead of a person.
On our return from Hue back to Hoi An the train stopped briefly for a moment and my 8 year old said rolling her eyes "Oh God, we haven't run someone over AGAIN have we?" Speechless!
7. We are in the process of moving apartment and I am finding it all unbelievably stressful. It has been made worse by the fact my dear husband has been away for two weeks and will be away for a further two to three weeks thereby absolving himself of all responsibility in the flat hunt and management of this move. It really isn't is fault but I am peeved so I am going to blame him.
Furthermore, the way things work here with property is just bizarre.
I looked forward to coming abroad to understand a different culture and different ways of doing things but honestly I don't know what's the matter with these bloody people. Okay, I take that back. There is nothing wrong with the way things are done here. It is just different and unfortunately I am too old and crusty now to not let myself get drawn into being annoyed or frustrated. I won't bore you with this fortnight of stress whereby we have had to pull out of a deal and then start looking for alternative apartments to find there is only one other available in the development that we like. We have to be out of our apartment in just under a month and given we can potentially save half of our monthly rent by leaving we have no choice but to move.
I wish I could get past the apparent lack of haste here. My very good agent said she has dealt with landlords who have actually forgotten they owned an apartment because they have so many. This is what I am dealing with ladies and gentlemen. It truly is another world!
I miss the UK on this score as we have a very sensible approach to home purchase or rental. Purchasing is particularly good. You go and see a house once. Put in an offer of hundreds of thousands of pounds having only seen it once. I mean, you don't need to see anything more than once when you are making the biggest investment of your life. Then you tell the vendor "if I do not have an answer in six hours I am walking okaaaay" while clicking your fingers three times in the air. Like I say, sensible.
Anyway, as you can see my stress really hasn't been caused by anything that serious. Well apart from that poor chap under the train or the potatoes, I hope. Yet I am in a complete knot.
I am unable to deal with stress these days. Having never been a particularly loud vocal stress bunny it has taken its toll on me physically with depleted adrenals and a host of other health problems. Anyway, it has reached a point where stress does leave me feeling physically ill. I thought the best thing was to have a good cry but I am unable to do that either.
I remembered one of my Dad's favourite shows "Everybody Loves Raymond" and a particular episode when Raymond's wife Deborah is going through her monthly lady schizophrenia and wants some time to herself. Ray peeks through the window while, she is having her alone time and sees her crying on the sofa for no reason. Anyway, she gets extremely cross with him for spying on her but also explains that sometimes crying is good for you and helps you get all your stresses out and it does not have to be about anything in particular. She suggests he tries it. He then gives it a go sitting alone on the sofa and cannot squeeze a drop out so instead puts on Lady Marmalade and dances round the living room. I tried something similar yesterday but it is so inferno-ally hot here at the moment I think my eyeballs are completely dehydrated. So the sick knot in my stomach remains and I feel in a permanent state of exhaustion.
During these times I find blogging very helpful. I tend to write in periods of high stress or high happiness. Obviously as the reader I cannot guarantee which you will get.
I also find disappearing off to my freaky insane fantasy land tends to calm me down immensely.
The latest one that I have concocted to escape reality is I have won an Oscar for best screenplay and best actress having already scooped best screenplay at the SAGs and Golden Globes but my goodness the best actress Oscar was just a complete shock after all Meryl, Julia and Tilda were in the category too.
I go on to give this hilarious speech which everyone agrees is the funniest acceptance speech ever given and also talk about the fact I spilled pizza sauce down my dress as Ellen was handing out pizza during the show but luckily my dress cost $100.00 as I had it made while on holiday in Vietnam so I don't really care. I would have felt much worse if I had ruined a borrowed dress from Alexander McQueen, chortle chortle chortle.
Then I go on to press and poke a hole in these so called feminists bemoaning being asked questions about "who are they wearing" tonight. Look the Oscars are what they are folks, a night of glamorous escapism for the punters at home. Let us enjoy it. We don't want to talk about your movie. We heard all about it in the press junkets and we don't want to know about your politics. There are other forums for that. It's Oscar night, just twirl around, tell us where your jewellery is from, smile and look nice then go back to campaigning the day after.
Anyway, what an honest Joe I am everyone and suddenly I am on Jimmy Fallon talking about my $100 dress and on Ellen remarking, well I am just so down to earth Ellen and then Graham Norton and whammo bang, just like that I am the new darling of Hollywood, the ingenue de jour even though I am actually a fat grey 47 year old mother of two but hey, that is why I just don't care about all this stuff you know man!
Yes I am insane. Only child syndrome. Lonely childhood etc.
Anyway, instead of imagining myself making everyone hoot at the Oscars because I left my kids at home because Brad Pitt asked me to be his plus one I have tried to focus on reality and specifically the nonsense my friends have got up to recently which has kept me lifted.
As I like lists here are a few examples:
1. My friend, let's called her Mo, honest, doesn't rhyme with her real name, told me a story about how when scooting down to school with her children each morning she tends to eat a raw vegetable on route. When I say scoot, I should explain that she scoots as well, on an actual scooter. So she was scooting down to school to collect her kids while eating a carrot. Not a crudite but a whole carrot. Anyway she took a big bite and a gust of wind ( I can only assume due to the scooting speed) blew the lump of carrot into her throat at which point it got stuck and she started choking. In her words (sort of) "I genuinely thought I was going to die because it got so lodged in my throat and all I could think about was this will be so embarrassing if I die choking on a lump of carrot. It would literally be death by health".
2. Mo also made me laugh recently when I asked if I could borrow her garlic press as mine had vanished to which she replied, "I would love to lend it to you but I am afraid I broke mine by trying to crush four cloves of garlic in it in one go".
3. Mo's dippiness then took me back to my other dear friend. Let's call her "Whazie". Again, doesn't rhyme with her real name, who is equally dippy. She came off her bike very badly years and years ago and hurt herself in a rather unpleasant way. She was cycling through the rough gravel tracks of Richmond Park and decided as it was very hot she was going to remove her jumper over her head but because she is Whazie and gloriously dippy decided to do this while still pedalling at speed. As you can imagine she then hit something in the path, flipped off her bike and fell on her arm which got dragged through fox, horse, dog, cat and squirrel poo laced gravel. Her arm was badly infected and she was in a lot of pain poor thing. Yet I think one should feel more sorry for us given we had to watch the large clear plaster over her wound fill up with pus over the course of the evening at the pub.
4. On a recent dinner with our friends Dosie and Dilip (again not their real names) we got onto the subject of colonic irrigation and the benefits, pros, cons and whether we fancy giving it a go to which Dilip replied, "it makes no sense to me, it is like being sick backwards". This makes no sense to me but had me choking with laughter, not on a carrot I should add.
Anyway, I am trying to focus on these little tid bits which are ambrosia for the soul. Proper ambrosia not rice pudding and attempting not to get into a knot over things that are unimportant and not worth stressing over.
So, apologies to those of you who stuck this out till the end. It has been very self-indulgent of me but I needed an outlet.
I went to Pilates this morning and as I sat there trying to get my toe socks on and wondering whether I had grown seven toes as the socks just would not cooperate I heard Kylie Minogue's "I should be so lucky" playing on the wireless. Singapore local radio playlists are pretty much stuck in 1985 and as I was feeling tired and glum I thought to myself "Yes Kylie, I should be so bloody lucky" and then I remember Mo and Whazie and the fact the kids and I have been watching the new Star Wars movies lately and they think they are brilliant because the actors are all so dreadful so they continually rewind various bits and laugh and laugh and laugh and imitate their terrible acting, particularly the bit at the end when Anakin becomes Darth Vader, goes all Frankenstein's monster and screams "NOOOOOOOO". Always, a winner.
I also laughed when my little boy was talking about a strawberry and with great emphasis referred to how "juicy" it was. Again, total paint dry for anyone else but made me giggle immensely. "Juicy" is just a weird thing for a child to say.
He topped that yesterday while reading a book to me about the oceans and pronounced "scuba" as "scubber diver". Again, small joys that keep one happy.
So, life is actually fine and I am just going through another one of my many miserable old bat phases. I will put it down to menopause and leave it at that.
