Down

Well I'm down today. That sucks. I'm very much in a 'woe is me' mood. Actually I'm in a 'If I were a dog, I'd be put down right now' mood.

I can't clean, it wears me out. I do it in spurts but it's not really enough. I can't cook, it wears me out. Same as cleaning. I can't work at all. I can't exercise. I can't even really eat properly. I shake when I move. I've lost quite a bit of weight. I can't do a lot of things I enjoy and, frankly, I can't even pull my own weight anymore.

If I were on a farm and I were a dog, someone would've shot me by now, it's true. If you saw a shaking thin frail dog who didn't enjoy what it once did and couldn't even muster the cattle for you or, hell, protect your house - you'd shoot it. Unless you took pity on it - then the medical bills would be so high you'd have the vet put it down.

The letter from Telstra is upsetting me more than I thought. I had to leave a message and *shockingly* they haven't called back. I don't even know WHY I had to leave a message considering I called at 9am ON THE DOT so I could be the first one in line. But whatever.

The savings I made last month has basically depleted from my illness. I have other savings, but those are at a huge cost to me financially if I access them. The food stores in the house are depleting (market trips are also a big event for me).

The only thing keeping me from just saying 'fuck it' and hiding in a corner rocking back and forth for a week is my own damn determination and positivity (which is not present at all in this post, I'm aware). I got to say, my natural reaction is to revert back to a baby-stage and suck my thumb and cry and be rocked - that's how stressed I am. But I won't. I won't be put down - there's still life left in me and if I have to gather the energy just to do laundry so I can boast some kind of usefulness, I will.

I guess I'm just down and being hard on myself today. I guess I also don't take well to allowing others to take care of me. It's not me. I've taken care of myself since I was very young and made a point to be as independent as possible from as early as I could (much to my mother's distress). And now? Now I have to depend on people - and I have to have faith they just won't up and leave while I need them - and that's fucking terrifying. History hasn't been so great with me on this aspect. Baggage? Most likely.

I don't want the antenna installation guy to see me cry... I've put on happy music and I'm dancing. I've been depressed before. I've gotten out of it. I can do this. It only looks hard because I've made it look hard. Let's shine some light on this and cast away the shadows - so I can get over this crap. Grow up, Liz. Drink a glass of cement and harden the fuck up.

Happy and Mad!

I am up and down today. My moods keep either being really happy with life or really angry at people. I think both are still true.

The male has gone to a trip to my most favourite place ever and left me behind. To be fair, he's going for work and to be fair, I'm still in the midsts of some bizarre liver failure (more on that later). It's not like I could go if I wanted. Boo!

I'm happy with it though. We don't spend enough time apart where he just does his own thing and I do mine. We're either together - or he's at work. No inbetween. It's not that I'm sick of him it's just that the bastard (false, his parents were and still are married) really needs his own hobbies and life away from me. So now he's at a pub, hopefully drinking his arse off. I've directed him to the nearest strip club and am glad I'm the one holding the credit card. If his work is done before the arvo tomorrow he promised to go into the city and buy me my favourite chocolates! Yay! They don't have them in Brisbane.

I have plans that involve George Clooney now. I invited him over for some champagne and orange juice (he can drink, but I can't). No, I'm not delusional, I just like making up stories in my head and pretending they're real. Delusional would be BELIEVING they're real. Completely different. Completely.

I rented a couple George Clooney flicks and there's some salmon baking in the oven so I can make this recipe for cauliflower fritters. Fresh salmon instead of smoked. Eh. I setup a blanket on the floor of the livingroom and am about to climb into my most comfortable pyjamas to settle in for the night. Paint my nails. Read a book in the tub later with some of my bathbombs. I might make a bubble bar tonight too, seeing as I ran out the other day. I love being crafty!

The bad parts were really, once more, my doctor's negligence over my health and, once more, Telstra's negligence over my service. I guess what people and companies don't realize is I...kinda don't give up. My fiance told me Telstra pulled the same stuff with him and he just gave up. I refuse to. There's a LOT of flaws with their claims in rebuttal to my claims and I'm gonna wring 'em. Yay! As for the doctor - I have a specialist lined up for a second opinion already. On. The. Ball! Boo-yah!

There's a list of four diseases I might have. Some are just flu type things. Some can reoccur so I need to be careful if I have those and some I carry for life, but can manage. Nothing is deadly, which is remarkable news. Of course, this is just preliminaries - the specialist can confirm or deny my results for me on Thursday next week. Each disease, though, my doctor says, WILL leave me tired and exhausted for a long time. All of them cause severe tiredness for months. Nice.

Still can't go back to work. Ah well. I was thinking of working from home. I sometimes work as a chat hostess and can make anything, depending on how hard I decide to work. And it's freelance so I can take a break whenever I need if I feel my liver acting up. (Ever felt your liver? It's WEIRD.) I dunno, I just HATE not working. I love working and I love bringing in money and I love saving it.

Speaking of which, I did my taxes. I love doing that too. I think it triggers that little niggly slightly-OCD side of me (I should really check if I actually have OCD... I mean, really.. I organize my cans alphabeticallty by type, name and then size [like fruit-apples is before vegetables -peas]). Anyway - I liked it. I spent all day yesterday relaxing doing my taxes and drinking coffee and getting excited when I remembered another receipt. I managed over 4k in deductions on the car!! Score one for Lizzer!

So yeah... basically what I said. Happy with life. Mad at people. Life IS good. Stressful, but good. I have salmon. How can life not be good?

Just thought I'd leave you all with a photo of me that makes absolutely no sense out of context.

A post about nothing in particular.

Bleh, I'm still sick. Don't know what happened but Tuesday last week when I went to hospital I came out fine and feeling great (yay for fluids!). Wednesday a little run down but still great. Thursday amazing. Friday, amazing - but that's when the results came back for the second round of blood. Saturday, run down massively from shopping with Sam and Aaron, Glynn's best mate (and best man) and his missus - loved the company though. Sunday - did a loooot of stuff from home, a bit of driving and spare-part pickup. Lots of cooking, and was worn out and needed a nap by 2pm. Ergh. Clearly I over-exert myself reguarly and it needs to stop.

I've gotten a heavy cough and sneezing in the last two days, which is new. I also keep feeling stomach pains - but part of me thinks it's purely mental. I didn't feel them really too much (except in nausea and, *cough*, gas) until I got my results, which leads me to believe I'm overreacting in that department. Of course, being aware you're over reacting doesn't really stop you over reacting. C'est la vie.

I'm really enjoying today, though, so far. I've been taking it easy. I have lunch with my man and his boss today, which I will look forward to. Glynn's boss is rather lovely. He's Muslim, so we're pretty mean to each other, but we never mean it. It's a back and forth Jew and Muslim comedy act and then a handshake and a laugh - every time. It's nice to get along and joke with your partner's boss. It helps me feel that his job is more secure, which helps my stress levels considerably considering work has been slow for me these days (I'm actually not allowed to work - doctor's orders).

I'm a little annoyed I can't get into my training for the fitness comps. I'm doing low-impact low-heart rate yoga and thai chi type moves but the second I feel too much stress, I have to sit down, which is about every 20 minutes of slow gentle working out. Luckily this type of training is pretty good for muscle definition on leaner muscles, which I do need to work on (and never do because I dislike low-impact workouts generally) so hopefully it will help a bit.

Other than that - the day is nice. It's warm but a little hazy and slow-feeling, which is quite nice. The ducks and chickens have been acting super cute and funny this morning, at one point gathering at the backdoor pecking at it, asking to be let in. I don't know when or how my chickens decided the inside of the house was available for them, but Glynn's been keeping squirt bottles by couch so he can shoot them (just like the carnival game!) when they try. Logically, I could just, y'know close the door, but honestly, I like watching them come inside and they tend to eat all the seed around the bird cages, which saves me valuable sweeping time.

My sleep has been on and off. I've had a lot of vivid dreams, which is normal for me, but they've been waking me up a lot - which is not normal for me. Back in the day (1 1/2 years ago about) I had severe insomnia for, oh, 16 years. Pills, doctors, meditation - nothing worked. It was bad. Hypnotherapy, for some reason (and I swear before I tried I thought it was a load) worked insanely well. After a week I was sleeping through the night and for a year and half now, until this sickness came in, I'd been sleeping really really well. Nine hours a night, one quick wake-up to use the toilet, back to sleep quickly and waking up exceptionally happy and well-rested.

So now my dreams are waking me up. Weird dreams too. Dreams like me freaking out because a chocolate cake recipe asked for 3 cups of water and "THAT WONT MAKE A CAKE!" and me flipping out so badly I wake up in a sweat - unable to go back to sleep because the second I do that three cups of water starts to haunt me. Or last night my dream was about, of all things, me freaking out because I really needed to make soup. Dreams are like that, though - something is either going wrong you can't fix or you need this most random object ever and spend the entire dream looking for it. Or you dream you're losing your teeth. 99% of the time it's one of the three - for me anyway. (and the majority of my friends when we discussed it once)

Really now, I think I'm just rambling about my life. What else am I supposed to do right now? Last night, the boy cleaned the kitchen. I need to sweep and have lunch and other than that, I'm really really supposed to be relaxing.

I have about 4 dozen oranges I've slowly accumulated from my fruit and veg boxes (you'd be SO suprised how long food lasts when you buy it direct from the farmer - I've had avocados last 3 months in my fridge!). I really need to preserve them. It's a real shame I don't like marmalade (except madarin marmalade! SOOOOOO good.) otherwise I'd just make up like 20 jars of the stuff. I suppose I still can, actually! Christmas presents anyone?

I tend not to buy people presents for Christmas, not because I'm Jewish but because I really don't like holidays that focus on gift giving just for the sake of gift giving (like, I also dislike Valentine's Day - since it's mostly used these days as a reminder to give someone something instead of showing love). Granted, I celebrate Chanukkah, but the way I do it is much more focused on the religion aspect than the gift-giving aspect.

I was caught totally off-gaurd and unprepared last year when a giant box of Chanukkah presents showed up, 8 wrapped in gold and 8 wrapped in silver - for Glynn and I - from his mother and sisters. I actually literally cried when I opened it up and saw the little cards and gifts. Every single thing was picked out specifically for our personalities. It was so touching and sweet and unexpected.

I got chocolate face masks, chocolate pasta, a wooden-handled cake tester (I had told mother I just use pasta to test cake and apparently she thought I needed one - how sweet!), a book on homemade beauty treatments, and various other wonderfully picked items and Glynn got a book on toilet humour, some tweezers (he did need them), and some candles and soaps that matched the ones I got, but were just that slight bit more masculine. Bath time on night 8 was awesome!

That memory is another that will live with me forever. Just the ultimate kindness and consideration and overall surprise was touching and shows the wonderful generosity of my future husband's family - which of course must be where he got it from.

So this year, I definitely need to return the love for Christmas - although his mother makes WAY better jams and marmalades than I do and I've already made her enough soap to last her a couple years. Challenging! I'm actually looking forward to Christmas this year. I plan on making most of my gifts and it's good because I know they'll be appreciated.

Whoops, need to get ready for lunch. I spent an hour writing nothing! Yay!

Memory, all alone in the moonlight. I can smile at the old days. I was beautiful then.

I'm not one to fondly remember my past and talk about it in length. It's not that I don't like my past, it's that once things are over - I tend not to really think about them much unless it comes up in conversation or someone reminds me (such as my Bill Bryson Down Under and my Racehorse Billionaire posts were both because someone reminded me).

So I was a bit surprised last night when I found myself looking through old photos of myself. I notice the distinct lack of any photos Pre-Australia, but hey, Australia's been a fun place. I never really took full advantage of America while I lived there. I saw a lot of it - the entire West Coast, the entire highway down the Mississippi (which hits like, New Orleans, Detroit, Little Rock, Chicago and a whole slew of other landmarks I can barely remember at the moment, and definitely not in that order).

According to my mother, I saw a lot of the middle too, but I don't recall a moment of it. Nor do I have photos of my numerous trips to Mexico, Canada, or the Redwood forests. A pity, really. I simply did not appreciate what I had enough to feel photos were necessary. Now, I'm almost an obsessive photo taker. Who cares, though? I have a million wonderful funny things I probably would barely remember had I not taken photos, gone through them and smiled at the memory. So my camera might annoy some people - it's been worth it.

So - I leave my photographic memories to those of Australia, simply because that's when I started taking photos of things. I would like to share some with you. A little piece of my past, to greater understand the person who does all the things she does - or just to mock the silly lifestyle I have had. Either one.

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This photo is the first photo I ever got with my new motorbike. I remember my 22nd birthday was fast approaching and I was really upset that between the ages of 21-22, I had done nothing to improve my life. So I decided to get a motorbike licence. As you do. I decided on Kiki, the beautiful 1989 Honda CBR250R. She's my girl. She's a bit small for me now, but she's going to be with me forever. Someday soon I plan on teaching learners how to ride on her.


This photo is from the time I married myself. What? Yes, you heard me right. After a particularly nasty break-up (those who know me will remember the time I was BILLED for my relationship) I decided I wanted to marry myself! What better use for that dusty dress I had planned on marrying someone else in? This photo was taken by the amazing Greg Morgan, a rather colourful-looking but down to earth fellow who just likes to smile and have fun. You always know he's around because he jingles from his multiple piercings. Anyway, I really had this shoot to sell the dress - but figured while I was in mourning over a relationship AND on Facebook, I'd make a fake me and marry myself. I posted this and some others as proof I married myself. The dress is still for sale. Damn resale value.


For a few months, an ex-pro motorbike racer took me under his wings and taught me how to ride. He worked with me on simulators (this photo) and on my own personal bike. He taught me how the pros do it, but from a newbie viewpoint. He taught me all about camber of the road, how to read a road and how to properly lean in the corners. I will forever be grateful to him for doing this for me. I still, to this day, ride in a very much racer-position (I even get mocked for it by other riders! "What do you think you're doing? racing?!") thanks to the positioning he taught me. Without him, I would be an exceptionally poor rider. He literally saved my life on the roads. Thank you, Redroo!

This is from when I decided to convert to Judaism. This is the shul that yes or nos you in Melbourne. This time I was no'd. Repeatedly. Seven times, actually. (That three thing? yeah, turns out, it's a MINIMUM, not a guarantee) I was really happy to have come all this way to see this beautiful shul, so I took a photo in front of it. I spent much time on this trip studying Judaism so I could convert. It was a major turning point in my belief in Gd, my diet, my lifestyle and my faith. I am so proud of myself for undertaking this experience and connecting myself to a higher power - even if it's not for everyone, it really did help straighten me out a bit.

This is the day Glynn proposed. This is my first photo ever where I'm wearing my new ring. I like this photo because it shows the love we have for each other in something a little crude like a public kiss. I remember when I picked out my ring, the silly male was given it by the clerks to give to me and he turns to me, holding the ring in the palm of his hand and says, "Here ya go!" and hands it to me! So romantic! I also remember running back and forth along the Queen Street Mall in 5" heels so I could transfer money over to the credit card so we could buy the ring (no I didn't buy it myself, my fiance had his money in my account after selling his house - trust, man) and the shop was closing. They opened JUST so I could have my ring. It was a terrible idea, as I spent the entire drive home in peak hour traffic staring at my hand instead of the road.

This is from when my girlfriend and I were Indy girls, about 4 years back. We found, of all things, celery in the bathroom of our hotel. So we thought we'd be silly. This isn't a huge memory, but it's a fun one. I recall a lot about Indy and generally getting my teenager wild-on a few years too late. I didn't do drugs or anything, but I had a good time. With celery in my ear, apparently.

This is just from the time I mud-wrestled the dog and won. WHAT? It's a good memory. I won, didn't I?!

I remember when my girlfriend (not the one shown above) and I decided to take up belly dancing. We decided to try to find one in my area before the city but were a bit, um, disappointed. Some moves were so basic, we already knew them and at one point, the lady was counting beat and said, "1...2... what was the next number? Geeze it's okay if I lose count at 8, but at 2?!" Ha. It was quite adorable, really, but not for us. So we learned via Ambyr in the city instead and last year did a show for my partner's birthday where we bellydanced for him and took him to dinner. You never saw a man so happy - two bellydancers on his arms at dinner. He looked like he won the jackpot.

And finally, from the time my fiance and I went on a 3 day getaway to the mountains. This is honestly one of my best memories. I was really woo'd on this trip by my wonderful partner. We went to the markets and got gourmet foods and soaps. We fell in love all over again, really. It was just after we got engaged. An engagement-party if you will, just us. This is the Escarpment Resort on Mount Tamborine. We went on picnics and watched the sun set over the countryside from the top of the mountain.

It's the little things in life I remember most fondly. Kindness, love, passion, learning - all those things are what really made my life these last few years truly special. I will treasure these times as long as I live.

Reminiscing

This is a good photo with a nice story. My girlfriend and I were in Gove, NT working as waitresses. You can sort of see the pool next to the hotel I was working at. Those houses are about all there is of Gove and that's about it for a good long while.

During the night one night, a helicopter came down to work on some Telstra lines in the area. Apparently, Gove is so far away from anything, they helicopter in tech support. Ha!

We had worked about 12 hours and it was extremely late when my girlfriend decided she was going to at that very moment find the pilots and get us a first thing in the morning ride in the 'copter. Luckily for us they had been in the bar and we hadn't realized it (they really didn't look like pilots) and they stumbled back drunkenly to the helicopter.

"You're not gonna fly in that condition!" I yelled.
"Nah, mate. Just checkin' to make sure she's still here." He patted the machine.

That's when my girl swooped in with her charm and grace and begged the men to take us up in the 'copter first thing in the morning.

"Only if you get us some rum." he said. Rum was hard to get after the bar closed. It's illegal for liquor to be sold after a certain time. It's also illegal to get beer unless you return an equal number of bottles. Some really weird liquor laws up there. Anyway, we had no way of getting rum! So my girlfriend begged and promised the next day they'd get a rum for free at the bar.

I don't really recall what happened, but I don't recall them ever getting rum and I recall us going to bed with the knowledge that, at 7am, we were going up in a helicopter to see the beaches of the NT from the sky. We were there at 7. By 8, we thought they weren't gonna show. By 815, we had gotten in the 'copter and were starting out way up!

It was so beautiful from up there. You could see the little tiny shops all along the street (just one, really) and a pile of tents (no idea who for) next to the beach. It was warm and beautiful and the sun was shining and it was amazing. I think we only spent 10-15 minutes in the air, but it was a real wonderful start to the day. It was almost a shame work started at noon.

Sometimes I feel so blessed to know I got paid for doing something like this.

The next day, another waitress left and asked us if we wanted the last half of her bottle of rum.

The Month of Living - Day 16

My liver is failing. I didn't want to say anything to everybody too soon, because it was just one test result - but now it's two. As of twenty minutes ago I was informed my liver is showing all signs of failure for some reason or another. I've been given a third emergency blood test and should know Monday what is causing this to happen.

I am not allowed any strenuous exercise. I am not allowed much at all. I've been ordered to not even go for my morning jog or eat anything with fat in it or even really do much other than stay rested as much as I can. I am not even allowed to work. Obviously, the MMA fighting is off for now.

You know what I am thinking right now? I am alive. Right now at this very moment - I am alive. I can feel the plastic of the keyboard beneath my fingers and that is wonderful.

There is a very small (but very real) chance I might die. There's a million things they can do before it comes to that, yes - but it's there. It's small and it's unlikely, but it's there. And you know what? So what. So I might die. I'm alive now. And there's really something to be said for that.

I am going to take each day as they come right now and I am going to be so very happy that I am alive for this moment - because life can be taken away so easily. And I suppose, that was the entire point of this month since Day 1, was to learn to appreciate that moment of existence in here and now and go, "Screw tomorrow. Screw yesterday. I can't change either one nor can I predict the latter - what matters is I am alive and here TODAY. I can change today."

I should never have had a Month of Living. I should have had a Day. Because each damn Day you're alive is a damn good one. The hard part is really never forgetting that.