Around the world
Beyond the wall
Before the haze rolls in

Above the trees
Into the clear
Up where the clouds grow thin

Across the sea
Glistening with gold
I’ll take the wind and sole

You’re almost there
You’re out the door
Its not too late
A few steps more

Around the world
New worlds await
Just flip the latch and through the gate

Go through the gate
The garden’s gate
My mother’s gate.

Revisited some of my YouTube favourites tonight.

A great performance and such a sad friggin’ song.

For once it is right, but I’ve no more strength to muster. It’s depleted, left, gone. I’m acutely aware of the destructive influences and, fuck it, I may just give into them. It’s been a long time coming.

Earlier this evening, just before I was about to run out the door to visit a friend, the unmistakable shrill of the telephone sounded. In a similar situation, I would normally either ignore the ringing or, at the very least, rush to the computer room’s telephone to see who was calling through that phone’s caller ID before I postponed leaving the house. Tonight, however, I almost automatically picked up the phone thinking that it was the friend I was about to visit as he had already rung earlier to ask where I was.

When I answered the telephone with the customary “hello”, the voice that responded to my greeting was not that of my impatiently waiting friend. It was the cordial but very straight to the point voice of my mother’s de facto partner. Ernie (let’s use his real name here) stated that my mother wanted to inform me that one of my uncles had passed away.

Instantly I found myself on guard. I adopted my professional receptionist telephone manner and said something to the effect of, “Oh, that is so sad!” Ernie matter-of-factually went on to ask if I would like the family’s address to send a condolences card, to which I replied, “Do they still live in Burpengary?” Almost instantaneously, he rattled off the correct address and that was that. Nothing more was said. Through his tone, the phone call was plainly over. The necessary information was given. There was nothing more to be offered.

After the telephone call ended and despite the sadness of the occasion, I found myself beginning to dredge up all the anger, upset and disappointment from the past contacts from my mother. I was amass with conflicting emotions and yet not-so-strangely numb. There is no denying it, my mother’s behaviour in the past has been very cruel. Now, it has obviously come to the point where I am no longer worthy of even speaking to.

I guess that sounds rather harsh, as my mother is obviously dealing with quite a significant measure of grief over her brother’s passing, but enough is enough. Over the years, she has put me through hell. Although, unlike my brother, I didn’t receive her physical abuse. She has verbally and emotionally abused me since I was a teenager though.

I can honestly say that I have done nothing to that woman to warrant her pitiful behaviour towards me. Am I finally coming to the conclusion that I am not to blame for this situation? Hopefully, because I think, although I’m not totally sure yet, that this is really the case. She MUST take responsibility for her actions. She MUST shoulder ALL of the blame for the breakdown of our and many other of her relationships.

As I was writing this post, I heard a clank at the front of the room. For some strange reason the video player, which hasn’t been switched on for ages, came to life and started rewinding the long-forgotten tape which was housed within it. I instantly searched for the location of the remote, just in case either myself or one of the dogs had mistakenly nudged it. It was innocently sitting at least a metre away from me on the couch and it was switched to the TV mode rather than the video player mode. Was the timing of the video player mysteriously turning itself on a coincidence? Probably! I must say, however, that it was a bit of a Twilight Zone moment.

What’s with the real world encroaching on your Internet time? Geez, how rude of it! I was at the start of what could have been quite a serious convo with a friend via Gmail chat earlier tonight and the phone rang. The phone call kicked the real world in and I realised that I had to sort out my offline life for the evening. I didn’t get back to the computer until hours later and it was like … poof! … I should have stayed with the computer. Mmmm!

It’s not only that, but I have become completely obsessed with the online game, Guild Wars over the past few months. Losing yourself in hours of Guild Wars play is a fantastic way of … well … losing yourself. If dissociation can ever be a good thing, then Guild Wars dissociation is the best. After hours of constant play, I find myself wanting to control the real world with just a simple click of a key, not to mention expecting to speak to only people with green exclamation marks hovering over the heads. I mean, you don’t have to worry about anyone who’s not sporting a green exclamation mark, right? It’s weird, but after hours of Guild Wars play this sensation of needing to hit a key to control something in the real world is a literal sensation. I actually find myself thinking that that’s what I have to do. Mmmm, obsessed much?

Once again, though, the real world has to take precedence on occasions and I find myself having to cook, clean, work and all sorts of random crappy real world stuff. Mind you, have I recently mentioned just how much I suck at being a housewife? Cooking and cleaning and all that jazz are things I do not do effectively by any stretch of the imagination. Mind you, my hubby sucks at the traditional hubby stuff too, so I guess we make a good pair. Yikes! A good pair … what a scary thought.

The real world just sucks, let’s face it.

Mmmm, I am writing dribble. Is it making sense to anyone but me? I doubt it!

Anyway, speaking of the real world, I start my new job next week. I have to travel into Semi Big Smoke for a few days training on Monday. I wonder if I will have any time to hit the shopping centres? Screw the working part of the trip. Who needs to be concentrating on that? :p

What I do have to do during my trip to Semi Big Smoke is to find a dentist to go to. Before Christmas, the filling in a tooth that I had root canalled a few years back split in half. It feels like one half of the tooth is just hanging there, desperately trying to stay adhered to the gum. It feels horrible and it’s painful if I chomp down on it. Dentists … yuck! If I don’t get my butt into gear and do something about the poor tooth soon I am scared that I will end up losing it. That would be horrible though. I mean, I am only in my 30’s for goodness sake. I can’t start losing all my teeth yet, surely!

OMG, this post has turned out to be really quite random. Time to give up on it I guess. Better luck keeping on track next time, hey.

Current Mood: Hot

I can’t seem to shake these blues lately or, for that matter, the strong feeling of wanting to just disso out for a good long while. It’s playing havoc on my ability to leave the house. I really have to psych myself up for it as it is the last thing I want to do. These sensations have been making it very difficult for me to complete my work on the weekends. I guess my saving grace in regards to the whole work thing is that this fake personality seems to take over when I am out and about taking photos. Although I can sometimes feel uncomfortable about the fake personality taking over, at least it enables me to approach people to take their photographs and, if I happen to strike a mean drunk which is a rare but unfortunately a real possibility, their comments are like water off a duck’s back for that moment in time.

Having said all that though, there was one thing I had to do for work the weekend just gone which had the potential to be enjoyable if I wasn’t in the middle of such a funk; that being driving around the nearby communities taking photos of the businesses and houses that are involved in this year’s local council Christmas lights competition. In the spirit of Christmas and with the hope that it will cheer me up a little, I’ve decided to post some of the photos I took. So here goes … Christmas lights central Queensland style:

Happy holidays everyone!

Current Mood: Annoyed

I am severely annoyed! My website was down for days during the end of November and it was all because of some hotlinking piece of garbage from MySpace. This imbecile decided to steal one of my photoblog photographs and hotlink it in the numerous comments he made on MySpace profiles at the beginning of November. As a result, throughout the month of November, before I knew what was going on, he leached away all of my monthly bandwidth allowance. I was also forced to remove the photograph from my photoblog so that my bandwidth wouldn’t be completely depleted in the future. What an absolutely ignorant asshole that guy is!

I ended up making my own MySpace profile so that I could contact the ignorant asshole in question. I carefully worded a message letting him know the consequences of his actions. Honestly, I was as nice as I could be throughout the message without compromising the importance of just what he had done to me. I mean really, the guy stole from me and broke my copyright of the image. That’s pretty full on! Of course he didn’t reply. I threatened to contact MySpace if he caused any more problems for me; that and my message was in English. He’s from Venezuela so, as far as I know, he might not speak English.

Despite my threats to contact MySpace if he caused any more problems for me, I had in fact already contacted MySpace via the contact form that appears on their website. For days I received no answer from MySpace, that is until today when I logged into my email only to find what looked suspiciously like an automated return email from them.  An automated response … how slack!

As a result, I have re-contacted MySpace, this time using their breach of copyright form. Hopefully I will receive a return email from a real MySpace employee this time. If I don’t, I think I will explode with rage.

Maybe I should replace my hotlinking image through cpanel with a picture of a woman’s extremely hairy and moist private parts. *insert a wicked, evil grin here* Would that prove more of a discouragement for morons who try to hotlink my images?