I had an introductory half-hour therapy session last night, and now I’m totally cured. Hooray!

My first official session is next Friday. I’ll likely go to at least one more session this year if not two – it’s not so much that I think I’m SUPER CRAZY but rather that I have money sitting in my Health Spending Account at work that won’t carry over to next year, and there are only so many pairs of glasses I can wear at once.

My decision to go with the therapist I chose has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it’s next door to delicious frozen yogurt, either.

It was actually quite difficult to find a therapist, but not for the reasons I was expecting. I’m not sure why, but I kind of assumed there would be a test and maybe an essay and a line up where they pick out the cutest of the crazy people to take home to save. Really though, the choice was entirely mine – and made much harder than it needed to be, thanks to my unreasonable list of demands. I went through the entire list of Accredited Counsellors in BC, and rejected a lot of them based on:

• No website
• Ugly website
• Is that Comic Sans? Oh GOD no
• Email addresses ending in yahoo.ca or hotmail.com
• No email addresses at all – I’m not going to CALL you for an appointment; this is the fucking future
• Funny name
• Ugly shirt
• Too much emphasis on babies in your profile
• Location – I’m not going to Surrey; I’ll stay crazy
• Proximity to frozen yogurt

In the end though, I found a few candidates that seemed suitable. I emailed for an appointment, got promptly set up, and here I am all sane and shiny again. At least, I was until a rather disastrous meeting a few minutes ago regarding my unreasonable insistence upon having my contributions to the company I work for acknowledged with actual dollars more fitting to someone of my considerable talents as opposed to a part time dishwasher paid under the table .. but that’s angst for another day.

Vaguely hopefully, but very frustrated. Having to indirectly prove your value just sucks.

i can't wait for this week to be over - i'm running out of pussy bows

Tuesday’s pussy bow is both full of grace and extra ridiculous:

It’s hard to tell in the picture, but the shirt is baby pink with black polka dots. It’s also got a secret – under the bow the buttons are wide open and there are boobs everywhere. Take that, society!

I have my first therapy consultation today. Tonight I will glaze a ham in celebration.

Hey, buy my iPad.

Happy Cyber Monday, everyone! It’s about time there was an international day to celebrate the most awkward of all the erotic arts: cyber sex! Who among us can say they haven’t engaged in a little textual intercourse and rubbed one out while lying to strangers about your physical attributes? Cyber sex is both a rite of passage and coming of age story (no pun intended) all rolled into one, and I for one salute my crusty brethren with a proud and sticky hand. Fap on, brave soldiers, fap on.

It’s Pussy Bow Week ’round these parts, kids. If you don’t know what a Pussy Bow is, I will tell you: it’s a large floppy bow tied at the neck of a blouse or dress. They were popular in the 70s as 1930’s retro and were in vogue earlier this year and last (I am nothing if not behind the times when it comes to fashion). If they sound ridiculous, it’s because they kind of are – all floppy and silly up around your neck, looking like you had leftover material you didn’t want to waste. They’re not anything I’d normally wear: you can’t show off too much cleavage if you’ve got a giant bow wrapped around your neck like you’re the worst present ever – but for some reason, I own multiple items with pussy bows. Items that never get worn because of the no-cleavage thing. I’d be fine with that, but that was then and this is the Brave New World with No Boobs Allowed .. so here I am, Making an Effort:

For this entire work week, I will wear nothing but Pussy Bows. I swear with all the the internet as my witness that for the next five days, no one will see a peep of my juicy melons (unless you are Ed or looking through my windows). I will dress my neck up in a different ridiculous floppy bow every single day and document the results for prosperity and science and also because I spent yesterday cleaning out my drawers and now I’m wearing the stuff I forgot I owned. It’ll be fun and frustrating, which is totally what I need on top of my impending mental breakdown from stress and emergency red text depression.

Today’s pussy bow is red!

every time i typed "pussy bow" it came out as "pussy boy", which is an entirely different thing

We are being good little monkeys and are paying our mortgage on an accelerated bi-weekly plan with the maximum percent of extra allowed. It’s all fine and good, except that I get paid every two weeks and Ed twice a month – so in the months I have an “extra” payday, I don’t really get to enjoy it because there’s an “extra” mortgage payment coming out.

That blows, especially when the extra cheque comes in December – I want to buy presents, not be all responsible and stuff. I find very little joy in being responsible; heaping piles of it in gifting my loved ones – so once a year, I’d like to be able to go “wheeee!” and shop for others with reckless abandon (instead of the rest of the year, when I reckless abandon for myself only). To make this happen, all I’d have to do is change our payment from accelerated bi-weekly to twice monthly – can’t be that difficult, right?

Getting into our mortgage account aside, it’s actually not difficult at all to make that tiny little change. However ..

It’d add another thirty fucking months to our amortization. I don’t pretend to know what the fuck that is, but “amortization” literally means “kill to the death” in Latin .. and having to do it for an extra 30 months just seems like a really bad idea. I thought maybe I’d have to increase our payments a little to make up for the two fewer payments a year, but I can’t DO that because we’re already paying the maximum. Any pleasure I’d get from having two extra non-mortgage-earmarked paydays pales in comparison to the thought of paying the bank for an extra two and half years .. and that sucks. $5000 in spending money < additional $40000 in mortgage paid.

Unless I’m thinking about this all wrong, that is – anyone? Money and numbers are not my thing. I know what the numbers say on paper, but paper assumes I’ll be paying this amount at this rate with this lender for the rest of time and I know that isn’t likely. Leaving everything alone would be the easiest route, but the easiest route is often the least interesting and I am nothing if not petulant and bitchy when I don’t get my way.

Other stupid grown up stuff: I have a consultant with a therapist this coming Tuesday afternoon. I could have gotten in tomorrow, but I’m no so crazy or a danger to myself that I want to skip the Buffy sing along so Tuesday it is. In the meantime, I may turn to HARDCORE DRUGS to force myself to sleep at night – Benedryl will take care of my non-stop allergies AND knock me the fuck out, so it’s win win. My kidneys can take another one for the team; they are strong like bull on account of all that drinking I don’t do.

If you’re poor like me because of goddamn home ownership but want to participate in the Black Friday frenzy like the rest of the world except without having to go outside or trample old people, try these on for size:

Oscura

Universal
Genre: Platform
Price: $0.99 (sale price, 50% off)

I had this app on my Wish List, because the reviews said it was short and I didn’t want to pay full price. It went on sale this week, and I’m really glad I grabbed it – the game is GORGEOUS. Yeah, it’s short, but it’s also really pretty and a lot of fun. I’ve got so many games that it takes more than pigs in hats to hold my attention for any length of time, and this game hit the trifecta of interest: game play, graphics, sound. Worth the buck!

Glowfish

Universal with a separate HD version for $2.99
Genre: Platformish
Price: $0.99 (sale price, 60% off)

Pretty, pretty, pretty. Most of my favourite games involve elevators or zombie removal, but Glowfish is a nice change from all the carnage and demand for inventory control. There’s an HD version of the game available, but I didn’t even notice I was in lowly regular def – they did a really great job of this game. The music is fantastic, the gameplay engaging, and it’s SO DAMN PRETTY!

Chillingham Manor

Universal
Genre: Puzzle
Price: Free! (sale price)

Less pretty, more fun. An interesting puzzle game with a cheesy story line and a guy who desperately wants to be Hershel Layton, Chillingham Manor was a surprise to stumble across. It’s a matching game, but NOT a match-3. It took a round or two to figure out what the fuck, but once I did I was hooked and have already played through it once and started again. If you like puzzle games and guys in top hats, get this app while it’s free.

Hungry Master

Universal
Genre: what the fuck
Price: Free! (possible sale)

This game is weird and Japanese and weird. It made me laugh and restart every time I died (via trampling by marshmallow rhino), and kind of has to be seen to be believed. Special magic explode all indeed. Free, so worth a look and a raised eyebrow.

There. Great deals for you, and you didn’t have to put on pants. You’re welcome.

The entire time we’ve been living in Sparta, the suite below us has been vacant. We looked at it when we were buying, but it was really expensive due to the additional room (the balcony was an office) and it had lousy windows in the second bedroom. I’m happy with our home, but every now and then I get wistful about the balcony/office – we never use ours because it’s loud and dirty and there are undead gnomes everywhere. If it was enclosed, it would have been mine – I don’t have a room of my own in Sparta, and as an only child who hates to share, I yearn for a private area that holds more than one. It’s not like anything I do is a secret, but I want a Kimli room that is completely mine to decorate and hide in as I see fit.

Anyway, this isn’t about my lack of a secret lair – it’s about the downstairs suite. At some point in the last month or so, someone moved into 217. I assume they’re new to the building, and I wish them the best of luck for three reasons:

• The suite has a history of gas leaks (that haven’t reoccurred since the last time we were in danger of explosions, so they may be fine)
• Suite 217 is full of amorous dead things
• The new tenant of 217 is a newborn baby

Settling in to a new home is difficult as it is – I can’t imagine what it must be like when you’re lacking in basic motor skills and the strength to hold your head up. It must be pretty frustrating, which might explain the all wailing we hear in the wee hours of the morning.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately, so I’m usually awake well past midnight tossing and turning. Almost every night for the past two weeks, the baby downstairs has been crying up a mega storm around 1am. It’s not a big deal – the soundproofing in the building is actually quite good (the only reason we can hear Stompy Clomps upstairs is because she replaced all the carpeting with wooden shoes), and if anyone in the room with me is snoring (the cats snore like crazy) or the roads are wet and cars are driving by, I can’t hear anything. However, it’s been quiet enough lately that I CAN hear it, and while I’ve never actually seen or heard anyone else down there, I have to assume there are parents somewhere desperately trying to soothe Angry Baby. After all, if I can hear the shrieking through the floor, it must be terrible and crazy loud for them each night (and that probably sucks).

I’m posting my iPad on Craigslist today. I thought about it some more yesterday, and I’ve decided I want to go back to laptop land. I can’t justify having both, and there really isn’t much that I can do on my iPad that I don’t already do on my iPhone. I really don’t use my iPad as much as I thought I would, and the added functionality of a laptop far outweighs the things I’ll miss. I’ll really, really miss them, though – there are two games in particular that I really love but are iPad only: Corpse Craft and Cannibal Bunnies. And to be perfectly honest, I could live without the bunnies – but Corpse Craft is one of my favourite games (and it’s on sale this week for $1; go get it) and the thought of not having it on my iDevice is for sad making. I even emailed the developer this morning begging for a universal version. Boo for exclusivity I will no longer have (assuming someone buys my iPad)!

So hey, how about that turkey? I wish I had some.

red text is bad, right?

My benefits include access to an online Employee Assistance Program, which I signed up for today. Out of curiosity and refusal to think about PCI compliance for one second longer, I took their self-assessment quiz to see if they agree with my self diagnosis of “depressed, holla” – and judging by the emergency red text that seems to think I am mere seconds from flinging myself out my window and onto the pavement below, we are on the same page.

About the crazy, I mean. Not the flinging. If I flung, I would break my iPhone.

I’m navigating through the maze of the internet to find myself a therapist. If anyone out there has one they think is super awesome and wouldn’t mind sharing contact information with me, please email me – otherwise I’m gonna go with the person who has the best name and specifically mentions they specialize in “EFAP” (which, as far as my exposure to the internet is concerned, means they’re an expert in cyber masturbation).

Baby steps, and all that. Still, I feel good about Doing Something about all of this. The world is woefully short of rainbows and ponies as it is; being trapped outside my own happy silly place is cold and lonely.

not shown: ponies

i am the sum of all my parts

I’ve been quiet lately. It’s unlike me. And it’s because I’m depressed as fuck, and I don’t know what to do about it.

I didn’t post about it because I loathe myself when I’m sad and mopey. I’m annoyed at myself when I’m off kilter. And right now, I’m mad as hell that I let things get this bad before I said anything about it.

Also, I’m blogging about this at all so I don’t accidentally click “purchase” on the MacBook Air I’m eyeballing. Because that would cheer me up, for sure – but to what end?

Don’t get me wrong, I really want a laptop (and incidentally, I’m selling my iPad 2 – email me if you’re interested). I just can’t tell if I want it so bad because I think it’ll fix all my problems, or if because I am tired of the limitations with the iPad.

But I’m stalling again, so I’ll ignore that train of thought for the moment. I am really, really fucking depressed. Like, dangerous levels. Bus tire levels. Thinking maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I just wasn’t here at all levels. This terrifies me – more so because I orchestrated a day at home alone just in case I decided to see how long it would take to draw blood with a butter knife. Yes, I’m mostly embellishing for effect – but I planned it out. Started thinking about who I could give all my stuff to so Ed wouldn’t have to deal with it. I have a lot of stuff; it would take time to divvy it all up .. but then. What then? Where the fuck is this coming from? And how do I make it STOP? I don’t want to be like this. I don’t even want to be inside my own head right now. Things are so, so, so bad inside here – my safe place; the one place I could always retreat to because it was filled with cotton candy and ponies – but it’s all dark and scary and there’s NOTHING. Great heaping fields of terrible, terrible nothing. I would welcome wolves.

I upped my meds once this year, and that caused all new exciting problems. Dialed them back, was fine for a short while. Darkness started creeping in again; so I upped the dose once more. It’s not helping. I don’t know what to do. I miss myself; hate this brittle shell of a Kimli sitting in the dark waiting for a house to fall on her. I miss seeing the good in everything; seeing the fun in every square inch of my existence instead of this oppressive wall of nothing. I’m scared for myself when I can think logically enough to be worried. I don’t know what to do to fix this, so I’m going with angry: I’m mad as hell about being mad as hell, and something has got to change and it has to change NOW before things get fucking stupid.

Where do I go from here?

Help.

We survived the weekend with aplomb – actually, it was mostly enjoyable. We arrived around 4:30 on Friday afternoon, and surprised my mother as planned. We hit up Romeo’s for dinner – an old favourite – then drove around town a little, seeing what’s changed. Mom mentioned she needed a new phone, so we went to the terrifying new Uptown complex and found her a suitably fancy (but not too complicated) new phone with bells and whistles to replace her archaic devices:

i should donate this to the museum of natural history

I think this Caller ID box predates the Crusades. BC Tel hasn’t existed since 1999, and the phone it was attached to was the one I used circa 1991. Not shown is the equally crusty answering machine; one with an honest-to-god micro tape that recorded incoming  calls. This simply wouldn’t do, so I bought her a new phone that had an answering system built in – my mother is not yet ready for voice mail – with a big bright display that showed who was calling. I even programmed all her important numbers in for her, and helped her record her outgoing message (which is weird but not “ha ha” weird). I am an excellent daughter, and I am glad that people talked me out of getting her a computer – after all the trouble she had answering the new phone, I know there’s no way she’d be able to grasp the internet and the thought of being tech support for her until the end of time makes me weep with preemptive frustration.

Friday wasn’t all ancient telecom artifacts, though – my mother is newly addicted to frozen yogurt. She took us to Qoola and even bought me a gift card so I can visit the locations in Vancouver. I will do this soon, as the yogurt was delicious – I thought Pinkberry was the ultimate, but Qoola is Canadian and even more ultimate so they win all my love. Hooray!

Mom turns in early, so I stayed up to watch Grimm before I resigned myself to sleep on the fold out couch. I had forgotten that mom picked up a sofa bed from some random place, and I try not to think about who or what had slept on it before. The Mystery Couch isn’t big enough for two, so Ed braved the plywood mattress and we called it an evening because there was nothing else to do in a house with no internet.

Saturday was cold but spectacular, and as mom had things she needed to do, Ed and I were free to do some errands of our own. We parked downtown and walked all over the damn place: Johnson Street, Market Square, Chinatown, Government Street, Trounce Alley and everywhere in between. I got a hat, and some measuring cups for some reason (okay, the reason is that they’re awesome). We looked into Converse colour availability for Josh and Shan, went to Nando’s for lunch, and wandered through my favourite alley in all the land:

i want them all. i can't wear them, but i want them all.

i love fan tan alley

it's like coming home

We had enough of downtown, so we went to Beacon Hill Park:

sometimes i forget why i left

my army will destroy you all

hey look it is ed he is upside down

Mom was taking us out for Chinese food, so we headed back to the house to collect her. When we come to town, she always takes us to John’s Noodle Village – it’s a tiny place in a grubby strip mall, and it just happens to have some of the best Chinese food we’ve ever had. Mom can always take us to John’s; we won’t complain. We all stuffed ourselves silly, then sped home at dangerous speeds so Ed could watch hockey.

my fortune lied - watching someone watch hockey is far from "great excitement"

He did have to watch the game with my mother though, who likes to provide her own form of commentary as the game rolls on. I read a book and got cozy – too cozy, in fact, because I started to overheat around 9pm and had to go sit outside in the dark three times so I wouldn’t pass out from heat. Unpleasant, and more than a little worrisome.

chester made for good company, though

As pleasant as everything was, we didn’t escape completely trauma free. On Saturday evening, I told mom a bit about our London trip. As soon as I mentioned Marks and Spencer, she lit up and started rambling – she used to loooove M&S underwear and I needed to buy her some. Right now. Lacy stuff. Maybe even a g-string!

OH GOD. My mother went on for about half an hour about how I should buy her some g-string underwear, and went into TOO MUCH DETAIL about it all. You may think it strange that I, of all people, have areas of TMI – but this is my mother, damnit, and she wanted saucy underpants so she could .. do .. things .. oh god, I blocked it all out. We didn’t meet him, but my mother spent most of the weekend talking about Stanley – I get the impression that he is her “special friend”, and will likely be the end user of the lacy British underpants she asked me to buy. I sort of hoped the conversation would just peter out, but no such luck – the next morning, she called up a friend to ask her about underwear sizes. It was decided that I need to get her underwear in a UK10, and she repeated the g-string line another 12 or 15 times. Why? Why me? Why does my mother want me to buy her g-strings? Does she even know what a g-string IS? If so, how would she know this information? OH GOD.

Still, fulfilling her request (sort of – M&S doesn’t sell g-strings; hallelujah) meant I had to place an order online, which meant I might as well make it a BIG order to justify the shipping cost. I ordered her damn fancy pants in varying degrees of fully traumatic laciness, and some (many) pairs of tights for myself. I have half a mind to add a note to her box of underwear that says “please do not ever tell me what you do with these”, but she wouldn’t get it. Which means I’ll probably hear all about Stanley and what he thought of said lacy underpants. I hate my life.

i want a life like the one on tv

As payback for the underwear, we did Groceries at Mom’s. Mom hordes things – I counted 41 unopened boxes of Kleenex stashed around the house – so we helped ourselves to a year’s supply of Saran Wrap, tin foil, toilet paper and dish soap. She didn’t give us any frying pans or knives this time, but she did try to give us yet an other quilt (that we left behind – oops). My mother isn’t at reality TV hording levels yet, but it’s pretty bad and I’m not looking forward to the inevitable move – who needs that much laundry detergent?! No one, that’s who.

And finally, the bucket is still in full effect. I thought she had stopped peeing in the bucket, as Friday night was entirely bucket free – but Saturday night’s alright for peeing (in a bucket) and it made a glorious comeback several times, and all was right with the world.

Except for the g-strings.

*shudder*

When I finally told my mother I had gone to London, she gave me shit because I hadn’t been home to Victoria in a long, long time. I just checked my archives, and she has a point – our last trip over was in March of ’10. Oops. Victoria, try though it might, just can’t really compare to London – but I did tell my mom that I would come home soon. I’d like to think that it’s because she misses me, but I really know that it’s because she wants her wastebaskets she bought at Ikea when she was here in January and left for me to bring over. Baskets are in the car, I have enough electronics to drown out almost everything, and we’re off. The wi-fi on the ferry is a nice touch, but that won’t stop the towering resentment over paying $160 just to get us there and back for two nights. Up yours, BC Ferries! Your expense makes me seethe!

I should go outside while it’s still dry. There’s snow in the forecast, but we’ve had a lot (relatively speaking) of sun so far today. I’m naturally not dressed for any kind of weather, but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to spend most of this trip in danger of getting blown off the deck as I shiver and swear. That, plus the Island Farms soft serve ice cream I’ve already devoured, is the only reason to take the ferry at all.

I wonder if my mother is going to tell me more about the men she’s seeing. I am afraid yet dreadfully anticipative.