Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Social Anxiety

    I was going to write about blogopolis and then just link you to the post that I wrote before Aus Blog Con, wherein I described all my issues with social situations and then let you read it. And then I thought, HEY! You guys are special, you probably deserve a whole new post of me talking about issues.

    So. Blogopolis.

    It’s in a fortnight now and while I am very excited, I am also refusing to think about it too hard, in case I freak out and have to hide under my bed covers for a little while.

    I have social anxiety. I never know what to say to people. I freak out and panic before walking into a room filled with people and I either end up talking too much, or not enough. That’s the short version.

    Because of this and because I have had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of my blogging friends at previous events, I have to consciously remind myself to talk to new people and to seek out people I want to meet, rather than just hiding in the corner with the women I am comfortable with.

    Being pushed out of my comfort zone can only be a good thing and I am working on attending as many things as I possibly can. If nothing else, I am getting fantastic at hiding a panic attack under a frozen smile.

    Blogopolis is freaking me out in a number of ways:

    1) I am worried I won’t get to meet the people I am desperate to meet.

    2) I am freaking out that people won’t like me because

    a) I seem standoffish (no, I’m just trying not to lose my shit) or

    b) I am hiding in the corner, with my nose in my phone, freaking out on twitter.

    3) I have nothing to wear because my jeans don’t fit me anymore and

    4) I am going to get lost. This is the least likely thing to happen, but I’ll panic about it anyway, because that’s what I do.

    Logically, I know that most of these things won’t come to pass. I’m sure I’ll be fine and if I’m not fine, I am going to pretend like hell I am.

    So please, if you see me in a corner freaking out, come and rescue me. I would love to talk to you.

    And in the event that I’m not freaking out and you want to talk to me, then come say hi. I am not scary and I really want to meet you too.

    The strangest thing about my social anxiety is that despite it, I quite like people.

    Also, as an ending to this rambling, quite crappy post – I collect business cards, so if you’ve got a blogging business card, I WANT it. I’m planning on slowly pinning them all to a wall near my desk, and I need more in order to start. So if you can help with that, I want your card.

  • I’m still swearing and cursing, ever so slightly.

    If you’re following me on twitter, you might have seen this tweet from earlier today.

    Which involved this:

    And a whole lot of internal swearing.

    Not our fault – not the lady whom we hit’s fault either. Instead, it was a truck who caused the accident and then drove off, without checking on anything.

    We’re really lucky, a witness stopped and waited for the police to arrive. He’d seen the whole thing, including the truck not giving way and the fact that we had no where to go.

    I’m still shaky and so incredibly annoyed. The other lady’s insurance should pay for everything to be fixed (fingers crossed).

    But, it’s stress I didn’t want or need and really, I’d just like to get through ONE tax time, without something major fucking up, or breaking, or dying, or needing to have lots of money spent on it.

    Is that too much to ask?

    Also, I know cars are designed to crumple, but considering the collision happened with our speedo showing no speed on it (so maybe, 2km an hour – we could see the truck driver being a dickhead and Nat reacted accordingly) – isn’t that rather a lot of damage to our car?

  • My house appears to be ever so slightly, haunted

    When my grandmother was dying, she saw fairies dancing in the painting hung at the foot of her bed. She saw a little brown dog curled up on the couch and a few days before she went into hospital, she insisted that there was a cat inside her house, despite her cat being outside.

    People were very quick to say that she was hallucinating because of the medication and I’m not going to say that they’re wrong. I’m also not going to say that what Nan saw didn’t exist.

    A few weeks after her death, while we were cleaning out her house, I saw the ghost cat too. I nearly tripped over it in fact, and dodged, because I saw a cat, which then ran under the table. A cat that didn’t exist, except that it looked like a cat my grandmother had owned previously. An hour later, I saw the same cat/ghost, out of the corner of my eye again.

    I believe in ghosts. I always have and there is very little you can say to dissuade me. I have been to Sarah Island and felt the anger and sadness emanating from the convict walls there and the waves of cold and anger that boil through the paths. I have been scared spitless, on a path at Port Arthur, just knowing that it felt wrong.

    I believe and I don’t care if you don’t.

    When we bought our house, I was very careful to make sure there was no “bad feel” anywhere in the house. And while it felt cold and damp and in need of renovating, it never felt like we shouldn’t be here and I never felt like we ought to leave.

    We bought this place over three years ago now. Since then, time and money have conspired against us and we’ve managed to do very little in the way of renovations, short of clearing up the indoor pond and getting the kitchen and bathroom floor replaced.

    What has happened though, are enough small things that I am starting to seriously believe that we have a ghost.

    A while back, Nathan and I were sitting watching TV, when the dining room light began to flick on and off. Not a minor flicker, but on and off, for around a minute, before the globe blew.

    The doors will open and close occasionally, with no rhyme, or reason. Suddenly, they’ll just slam open, or shut.

    We have the things that fall off benches, a full beer that threw itself and landed a good metre from the table and a few other niggly things that have me declaring “It’s the ghost” and Nathan rolling his eyes at me.

    My brother heard footsteps through the kitchen when he was staying here one night and thought that I was walking around. On inspection, he was the only one awake.

    I’ve been touched, twice. Both times cold and strangely not scary. Once on the shoulder as I stood in front of the mirror, and once on the cheek as I was laying in bed.

    It’s spooky and it’s occasionally creepy and I absolutely believe that we have a ghost.

    Earlier today, after my friend and her children had left, Nathan and I were sitting in our bedroom chatting. To my left there is a closet, with stuff being stored on top of it. One of those things is a lamp with a glass shade.

    As we were talking, one of the panes of glass in the shade shattered, like an explosion.

    There was nothing putting stress on the glass (it’s a loose frame type thing) and nothing fell on it. It just, broke.

    Which is yet another thing to add to our “we’ve got a ghost” files.

    Frankly, if we had the money, I’d seriously consider selling this house to move to a less haunted place. Not that there is anything wrong with sharing real estate with a ghost, I’d just prefer I wasn’t getting touched and having lamp shades shatter.

    What about you? Do you believe in ghosts?

  • Let’s talk about zombies

    I was rearranging my pantry shelves yesterday, when I found myself struck by an urge to count just how many kilos of sugar I had. After I counted the sugar, I guesstimated the pasta. After that, salt. Then rice.

    Sugar: 15kg
    Pasta: 25kg
    Rice: 14kg
    Salt: 5kg (need more)

    It wasn’t until I added all of this up, that I realised, maybe I’m hoarding food staples, just a little. On top of my basics, I also have rather a lot of dried beans, peas, barley, chickpeas, soup mix, split peas and tinned tomatoes.

    I like to tell myself that I am hoarding in case of emergency, or an accident (maybe a giant national bank explosion, complete with money burning and computers wiped of their precious 1’s), but really, I think it’s because I’m worried about zombies.

    But then I started thinking even harder about zombies and realised just how badly protected I would be here. Sure, I’m away from major cities and inhabited areas (plus), but I’m surrounded by farmland, with nothing to stop invading hordes (minus). Yes, they would have to make it through the sheep and cows first (plus) and we could probably pick them off with arrows (plus) but after that we’d be forced to retreat to our roof and I’m not going to vouch for the safety of that.

    Even further, I realised just how heavy all that bloody food was, as Isaac, Amy and I filled a plastic container with food (therefore, opening up more room in my pantry, for more hoarded food) and then discovered that I had no hope of moving the bloody thing once it was full. It only had pasta, rice and beans in it, albeit, probably 40kg of stuff.

    Sigh.

    Food staples are heavy.

    I’m thinking, that in the event of a zombie attack, I need to have a plan, all planned out. Somewhere to hide, preferably with running water and 40ft high stone fences AND a moat. Also, crossbows.

    And then, I’d need to sort myself out an army.

    It was while I was thinking about an army to kill zombies, that I came across the perfect idea.

    TRIFFIDS.

    What other plant eats decomposing flesh, has the ability to walk and blind things, all while shooting poison?

    IT’S PRACTICALLY PERFECT.

    Sure, I’d then have to protect myself from the triffids, but a solid electrified fence should work, once you add in the stone walls, right?

    So there. I have a plan in case of zombie attack.

    I just need to find myself some triffids.

    ***

    PS. I think I’m getting a little fluey, and I’m not sure how much of this is making sense.

    PPS. On reading this back through, I’m pretty sure I might have just accidentally written out the plot to Plants VS Zombies without realising it. I don’t know, I’ve never played the game.

    PPPS. Who cares if I did, game designers obviously have the right idea. ROCK ON.

  • Killing ducks and 5am starts.

    There was no daylight when my children came into my bedroom this morning, demanding breakfast and hugs. I stumbled out of bed to check the time and change Isaac’s nappy and wasn’t impressed to discover that it was just after 5am and bitterly cold.

    Words were spoken and children were sent back to bed, while Amy screamed at me “BUT I CAN’T SLEEP” and Isaac wailed that he “NEEDA MUMMY BED”. It wasn’t an ideal way to start the day.

    20 minutes later and Amy had gone silent and Isaac was snuggled against my back, poking me in the legs with his cold feet.

    “MUMMY! I SWEEPING NOW. I SWEEPING. MUMMY! DOOK! I SWEEPING.”

    Apparently he needs an audience to be sleeping. Fun times, fun times.

    The morning improved slightly once Isaac started to snore and we woke up at the somewhat more respectable hour of 8.30am, to snuggle and hug and watch a DVD. Amy is off school this week while she recovers from the ‘flu and I am taking advantage of our slow mornings.

    However, things started to go downhill when I went outside to feed the poultry and discovered one young duck unable to walk. A broken leg, I suspected at the time, and she needed dealing with.

    I whinged to my parents about it for a bit and then Nathan and I headed outside to do the job. An hour later, the duck was no longer in pain and I’m getting duck for dinner. It feels like it should be a win/win situation, but anything involving death doesn’t normally make me happy. I’m not a kill-y sort of girl.

    I was able to rule out a broken leg however, as I skun and gutted, instead finding some pretty major internal bleeding and quite a few broken ribs. With the wind here lately, I reckon she’s had a crash landing and hurt herself that way. Wind can be downright dangerous for ducks and she was only very new to flying as it was.

    This is the reality of raising ducks and chickens. Sometimes things happen and you need to kill them, before you have time to come to terms with it. Luckily, most of the time the killing has purpose and we end our day eating ethically raised meat. Chooks that got a chance to peck and free range and live and ducks that get the same thing. It makes their lives worthwhile when they end with a purpose.

    So, how was your morning?