Sorry – I’m still trying to get the hang of embedding videos. Let’s try Spot being a contortionist again, and see if this works:
Thank you for your patience and advice!
Jan8
Category Archives: Writing
Jan4
Will This Work?
I have a very short 9-second video to share. I think I’ve figured out how to do it… maybe.
Let me know if it plays?
Jul25
This is Why You Think I Don’t Love You Anymore
I can’t read or see or DO anything. I had better uploads when I had dial up. THANKS OBAMA!
I’m pretty sure I can’t even upload this pic.
Tried three times…four
May8
WordPress, What are Ye on About?
Since when is the European Union a country?!?
They didn’t even try to identify it on the map. I’m guessing I had a clever spammer visit yesterday…
May1
Spiders and iDJ, Sittin’ in a Tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
I couldn’t resist using that childhood teasing rhyme, because it is rather perfect for the story I am about to tell.
It has come to my attention that I have never shared the story of how Spiders came to be living in a tiny town in the west of Ireland with the wonderful iDJ. Since we just celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary, perhaps it is past time, or a titch late? Well, I do have a shitty sense of time, and it feels like a few weeks ago rather than 10 years.
We met online. Usually people in Ireland express amazement at this, but it seems perfectly natural for us, being geeky and all.
I had been having poor luck finding anyone online to date in Cleveland, Ohio. When I met a man in person it did not go well (a man my dog decided was dangerous and physically put himself inbetween us, and an intelligent long-haired redhead who in person was super-critical of me from my appearance to my interests). I decided to move my search parameters to encompass the country that my father loved so much – Ireland. It was mostly a lark, to me – maybe something would come of it, maybe not – but I’d meet some Irish lads either way! My mindset was: sure, I’d import one or export myself if love was found: but I expected it to take years.
Without even a photo of me uploaded yet, I had hits. Very disappointing hits. A cocaine fiend, a man who seemed to hate me because of my nationality (why talk to me, then?). Considering this was in 2004, and it actually took effort for someone to talk to a strange woman 3,000 miles away – why be an ass?
I can’t actually recall iDJ’s first communique. He contacted me first, despite not seeing a picture of me, carefully chosen and whatnot, like you do. He had a photo up, however. One of my first comments was ‘shame your hair isn’t longer’.
His response? ‘It is!’
And that started us off: a mutual agreement that men should have long hair if they can.
He first came to see me in Cleveland in July 2004. We were mostly in love by then, even with all the terrible-connection Skype calls (he still had dial up, I was on satellite) and plain old phone calls we had shared. He was such a romantic soul, and passionate about his interests (music and photography especially). We both agreed that if there wasn’t a ‘spark’ when we met in person, then we would at least have a very good friendship.
We did have the spark, right there and then in the airport parking garage. I think we added another hour to the parking fee by making out while leaning against the back bumper of my Firebird.
Even better, once I got him home my good boy Spot jumped straight into his arms, and my very good dog Shade (RIP) didn’t try to insinuate his huge body between ours like that other jerk. I do trust my furry ones to be a good judge of character.
They were right, too. iDJ came to see me in Ohio again in October, and I went to meet him and most of his friends and family in Mayo in late December ’04/January 2005. He asked me to marry him on New Year’s Eve day, at the top of ‘our’ mountain, which we can see from our house to this day.
Going back to Ohio without him was hard.
The next time we met in person, we got married. The wedding itself is a whole other tale!
Ten years on, we haven’t killed each other, still kiss each other goodbye every time one of us leaves the house, and his hair? Down to his arse and still growing.
Mar3
Inbox = Cleared!
It has taken months, but I finally have gotten my inbox down to ZERO unread emails. This is both my private email, and my blog email! Yes I know I have been rubbish at commenting these last few months, but now I feel as though I can be me again! No pressure! No backlog!
I’m looking forward to being able to read everything you crazy, beautiful people post. Let’s hope it happens!
We won’t talk about the Hotmail account I’ve had since 1997 or so that I probably haven’t looked at in a year…
Sep5
Cartoon Craziness Challenge – Build a Burger?
Well, hell, I thought. That’s a tough one. Invent my own hamburger with anything on it? Sheeeeeit.
Once again, Mental Mama and The Indecicisive Eejit have given me food for thought and inspired a titch of creativity. I think this is their last cartoon challenge, however, and for that I’m a bit sad.
Back to Build a Burger. It seemed a difficult concept at first – but my Imagination Goop flowed rather quickly and gave me an Idea. Making the Idea into a work of art was harder. There’s a story, of course!
I recently have had an album on nearly constant rotation on the car CD player. It is by a little-known indie/grunge band called Sugartooth. They only released two albums, and I only have the first one. Back in 1997 a guy at work (who was quite married and practically begged me to let him into my pants – I did say no) gave me a copy. I forget his name (but not his face) and I will be forever in his debt for introducing me to Sugartooth’s music. One of my favourite lyrics inspired my crappy drawing – from a song called Black Queen, “I was hungry, so I ate all the words I could swallow.” Poetry does still show up in rock music. Yes, Sled – I know it isn’t your cuppa whiskey, but you might be surprised. Raucous, yes – but also emotional. I need emotion in my music.
On to the cartoon.
I knew I could only fit a few words into my sandwich, so I picked four of my favourites. I love them for the way they sound, or they way they feel in my mouth, or the memories I have when I learned the word. ‘Vegetables’ is straight up juicy – it makes me salivate when I say it. ‘Ubiquitous’ is a memory of my father naming annoying children at the next table “ubiquitous” – with a long suffering sigh – and me loving the word but not having a clue what it meant. ‘Serendipity’ – you just have to love it. Luck. I think I read a book when I was a wee child and a dragon-ish Thing was called Serendipity. Also, it is something I’m short on and would gladly eat more of… Sanguine because it is a slippery word in my mind and also is important to me for a bit of fiction I was/am writing.
Hope you bothered to read all this, it was equally fun to do and significant for me to share.
Jul28
Day One of my Staycation
Ghastly word, “staycation,” isn’t it?
But still. I have the week off and unless the weather turns fan-fucking-tasctic, I’ll be mostly cleaning and sorting out my messy-ass house.
Today: took a shower. Sad that I have to put that there, but I hate them. It’s an achievement like the rest.
Cleaned the poop from the cat boxes and picked the dog poop out of the yard.
Found the smelly thing in the fridge and gagged twice before taking it outside. Finally! It’s been driving me crazy, that stank. Cleaned the whole fridge on Saturday and missed the rotten chicken somehow.
Went through my underwear/sock drawer and tossed a bunch of stuff. Didn’t toss it very far. Into the rag pile, because I can’t throw anything away. But I have a fun and thrifty and generous idea of what to do with the rags, so it’s all good.
Cleared and cleaned the top of my dresser. Damn but that took a long time. Soooo dusty and cluttered.
Vacuumed the bedroom, and mopped most of it. Didn’t get into the piles of crap on my side of the bed – because said piles aren’t of my crap. How many computers need to live in the bedroom!?!?
Cleared out the bathroom in preparation to wash the dog. She’s shedding again so it will be a furry mess when I get around to bathing her. Vacuumed and mopped, too – figured I might as well only have her wads of hair to clean up (rather than hers, mine, two cats’ worth, and of course hubby with the long golden locks).
Piled up more crap on the upstairs landing for sorting later.
Took pictures of today’s tigridia blooms. Killed the caterpillars on my now three? four? year old purple sprouting broccoli plant.
Vacced and mopped the stairs, piling even more crap onto the landing that was ‘meant to go up’ but never quite made it.
Cleared and vacced and mopped the entryway and hallway – and discovered a disgusting nest of clothes-eating moths. Seriously, pupae cases and caterpillar poop and all. Put every last scarf and glove into the wash. Sterilised the weird wooden thing we keep all the scarves and gloves in and put it outside to dry. Recycled old phone books, unwrapped new ones. Ignored the pile of crap on top of the bookcase that still needs sorted, but at least the front door opens all the way now.
Scrubbed the icky floor mat that sits inside the front door. Ewwwwww. That took ages, too.
Laundry was done but a glove sprung a thread-leak and turned the whole load into a massive tangle which had to be unknotted and then put on another spin – the knot made the load uneven and everything was still sopping wet. Hung it out on the line to be smoked by hubby’s BBQ later on. Meh, it might have helped.
Gave up on getting anything more done, and quickly (and badly) vacuumed the living room and kitchen to get the tumble-dogs off the floor.
Cracked a beer and sat down to relax before doing the dishes and bringing in the laundry off the line, and *sniff* – realised that I forgot to put on deodorant after my shower.
Ah well, I’ll probably need another shower after washing the dog anyway.
The boys were NO HELP AT ALL.
Jul11
Cat inna Hat Challenge!
Ah, I don’t normally do these, but I felt the immediate need to draw a cat in a hat when I saw The Indecisive Eejit’s challenge.
Yah, it’s rubbish but I enjoyed the 10 minutes it took to do it – I use the Brushes app and it is ‘fingerpainting’ on an iPad. I can do much better work, I promise – my favourite being Ivy and Stewie. Please, have a look – I promise I’m not usually so… quick?
Apr26
Boys and Girls, Guys and Gals, Men and Women
Well. Isn’t that a broad topic? Gender and gender issues have been on my mind a lot lately. Always a big thing for me, actually, but I get outraged and angry so very quickly that I rarely get a chance to think rationally.
Anger is an energy, according to most of the former members of the Sex Pistols, otherwise known as PIL. Yes, it is, and if I could harness my own I could power a small city. (Great song by the way)
My family will confirm that I have always been prone to rage. “Temper tantrums” they said when I was little. “She’ll grow out of it.”
The thing is: I have never grown out of having temper tantrums. I have never seen the reason why I can’t be loudly outraged, to the point of kicking or throwing things, when shit is just that dammed stupid and I’ve had enough, enough, enough!
I can explain, or excuse, a good bit of my ability (or inclination, or sheer desire) towards letting loose and having physical expressions of rage by seeing my father lose his shit, and taking him as a role model. But my mom never did that, and my sister never did either: so why did I?
The only reason anyone has ever given me to not lose my shit, too, as an adult, is that women just don’t do that. So, is it a gender thing? is my first question. I have always been taught, by example, that women aren’t allowed to show anger. Or, god forbid, outright rage. Why the hell not? I certainly feel it, why do I have to hold it in? Isn’t that the same as holding in the tears when they want to come? Emotion is emotion, right?
Maybe not so much. Why is it that I refuse to shed tears unless I’ve really lost it, and only when I feel safe with the one I’m crying in front of. Or I do it secretly, which just makes me feel so alone and pathetic. I fucking hate it, and that’s a fact. Why did I choose the stereotypical male way of dealing with stuff that makes anyone want to cry?
Why is it that I have seemingly, unknowingly, chosen the male way of dealing with extreme frustration? Why do I react this way when my sister doesn’t? It can’t be nurture, it has to be nature. I had two older female role models, but what felt right to me was to be like dad.
So. Does that mean I’m a boy in my secret heart? Well. If it does, I’m a gay boy. Or a bisexual boy with a preference to other boys. My dad and my sister both read my blog, and while they don’t need details, I rather expect that they already know I’ve been adventurous with my sexuality. And I also know they both don’t judge me for whatever they think I’ve done. I love them both very much for that. (It’s not ever been as weird as you might think, guys! Or it didn’t seem weird to me…)
As usual, I’ve rambled.
I recently got quietly angry over a comment that I literally walked into at work. Some shit about how one fella’s wife has no ‘spacial awareness.’ I come through with a pallet full of boxes – that I personally didn’t put on that pallet, and the squeeze is tight and two of my boxes fall off. “Perfect example, women have no spacial awareness!”
Me: “you mean whoever loaded this pallet did a shit job of it, right?”
“Nope, women are shit at spacial awareness! Hahahahhahahahhaha!”
Didn’t say a dammed word at the time, because I was furious. I grumped about that for hours, really annoyed. I couldn’t decide if they were having fun with me as a member of the crew, or if I’d actually been slighted, hard. Truly, it was meant in fun. However. It put me in a shitty mindset, and that helped me make the decision: that was fuckin’ sexist and I had a right to be annoyed.
I never want to be the annoying asshole, but I also think I can, and should, speak up when it sucks to be the butt of a joke just because I’m female. I am sooo tired of that old joke. How do I respond, however, in a way that I can not only show that I’m not getting really angry (I’m not) but that it isn’t fuckin funny, either – so next time maybe don’t, okay?
All the over-sharing background just leads up to the last question. Is is me? Is who I am and what I feel based on my genitalia? I didn’t have a choice about what I was born with, but I’ve been dealing with people badly, awkwardly, my whole life. I never seem to quite understand anything other people say or do, confidently. I’m rather more comfortable at the moment with my interactions with the guys, and have a lot more fun with the boys than I ever did with the girls. It’s nice to take an insult as a joke, and a compliment with ‘shut up you’re distracting me!’
I’ve gone nowhere with this, and I’ve been writing for hours now. What do I tie this up with? I guess this: most of my followers appear to be CIS women – so how do you feel? Did anything I’ve said hit a chord in your heart-strings?
*sorry, dad, if I’ve upset you in any way. I know you aren’t the same person I knew as a kid. It’s still my history, upbringing, and the things I took on board when that was what kids do.
heretherebespiders 