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I'm a full time carer for my highly disabled mum and step father & my autistic and hyperactive little brother.

Tuesday 24 February 2009

Chug Turns 13

---I started writing this just after midnight (which is why I specified 'today' and 'yesterday' a few times) but decided to leave it until after I'd had some sleep until I finished.---

Yesterday (Monday) Laura came to visit. I don't remember how the topic came up but she wanted Chug to start a facebook account which meant I had to start him a facebook account. This also meant I had to create a new email address since his last email account went inactive. I set him up a gmail account instead of yahoo as it's not as hard to get a decent username on on gmail.

Today (tuesday) I thought that I might as well add him to my Facebook. It turned out that he wasn't on there as I thought he was. The only explanation I could think of for this was that he'd neglected to read the confirmation email in the account I set up for him and didn't follow the link to complete the registration process.

This was after Tony had arrive to take care of Pickle, ofc. Elise had decided to bring her down later than normal, which meant I got a little more sleep. Still, I wasn't happy that Tony was coming. (Fortunately he didn't complain too much today. However, when he finally did complain it as particularly bitchy. I'll get to this later).

So while I was on there I thought I might as well make people aware that it was his birthday today so I announced it on my 'Wall' and also on Zoe's wall, suggesting that she might like to contact him. Well, thinking about it I don't think I did say it was his birthday, just that she should get in touch with him today. But the first thing you see after you log on is a news feed with highlights of what your friends have done on facebook, which should display my announcement that it is, indeed, his birthday. (Nobody replied to this comment or the one I left on Zoe's wall. But I have no reason to feel bad and Chug won't feel bad about it as long as I don't tell him. But then I don't think it would matter too much if I did as he's not the most sensitive of young men).

So, having read my morning webcomics, checked the news and my emails; Dave was ready to watch some Dragonball. I don't remember how many we watched, probably 3 or 4 episodes, 5 at a stretch (they're less than 20 minutes each). Then he took a break for a fag and I agreed to wait for him, but then I realised that it was nearly time for Chug to come home and that I should probably get him something before he arrived if I was to get him anything at all.

I went to Ego and browsed everything they had... I asked Andy his opinion, but everything he could recommend was either already in Chug's possession or they were unsuitable. He did make one good recommendation, though, but sadly it was a game that hasn't been released yet (it should be there within the next few days, apparently); Halo Wars (an RTS based on the Halo games for the xBox 360). I didn't get him this as I wanted to get him something on the day itself; I'm tired of giving belated gifts.

Eventually, seeing nothing else I could see fit to get for him, I got him a wireless internet thing for his xbox.

I picked myself up a couple of lindt chocolate bunnies on the way home, as I have fancied one for days now.

I got home, gave Chug his birthday pressy and watched more dragonball with Dave having given him a large portion of one of the bunnies' heads.

At around 7ish I started dinner; steak and chips but before that I was standing idly around the kitchen, unable to use the facilities as mum was making pancake batter (it was pancake day, today! :D). (In spite of the huge amount of space in our kitchen most of it seemed to be in use). Laura was there by this point but I have no idea when she arrived specifically.

I went to check on them once or twice as mum made the batter. One time, presumably the first time, they were tucked up under a blanket, facing each other on Chug's bunk and seemed very startled on my arrival. So I did what any older brother would do at a time like this; teased them silly. Well, I didn't tease them that badly but I did inform them that I would be back up in a few minutes to make sure they weren't "up to anything". Sure enough; the next time I went up there Chuggle was trying to set up my present to get onto xbox live.

When I came down mum had more or less finished her batter and I started frying the steaks and the next thing I knew Tony had came down from upstairs and was ranting and raving about Chug and Laura being alone in bed together. (This was less than 2 minutes after I'd been up there). He would not shut up about it for ages. I know it's wrong to let 2 people of that age alone in bed together and I certainly wasn't going to let long pass before I went up there again myself to make sure they hadn't resumed their make out session (at least not in bed as they had been). As far as I could tell chuggle and Laura were still trying to set up xbox live.

He eventually settled down but it did seem as if he wouldn't ever shut up about it at one point.

Chuggle was still setting it up as I cooked but was getting nowhere. He constantly pestered until I went to help, which meant leaving the steak unattended which meant constantly turning off the pans so they didn't burn if I was longer than expected every time I went up there. The meal took ages longer than I had intended.

I finished cooking at about 7:50, at which point I remember Tony wouldn't eat chips out of our deep fryer. I asked him if he minded having just steak and salad and he seemed fine with it so I offered to watch the baby while he put a plate together and had it. As soon as he got up he went to the next room to rant to mum about the fact that all he had to eat was chips and salad. (I'll note, here, that when I use the word 'rant' when referring to somebody's actions in real life I generally mean when somebody shouts or moans loudly without stopping to listen to anything that anybody else has to say or at least trying not to listen). When I managed to get him to accept the fact that I had already asked him if 'just steak and salad' was fine with him he started bitching about the fact that it was now after 8 and that we were supposed to be at Elise's by that point for the pancakes and birthday cake. He seemed so close to exploding completely that he had to go outside for a smoke. While he did that mum called Elise to find out if it was OK that we were running late. Apparently Elise hadn't even realised we were late and said it was fine. She even called Laura's dad to make sure it was ok if she was late home, and he was fine with that.

Mum had a random rant at Stavros while we were there but I don't think I'll go into details on this.

After the "festivities" (which weren't bad, all in all, I spent most of the time there playing with Dylans toys on the carpet with him, Chug and Georgia. Dylan gets extremely excited when we come to visit at their place; he spends so much time at our place and we spend so little at theirs that when we come to visit him the role reversal is a complete novelty. You can't help but smile) Mum took Laura home and took Chug in the car with her to see her to her house (we also have him see her to the door as often as we can get him to. Personally I'd have him walk her home but mum's refused to let him leave the house on his own all his life to the point where he just refuses to do so out of fear. I also believe that to be the source of his so-called agoraphobia).

As mum left Elise and Stavross popped to the corner shop (I assume it was the corner shop, as it's the only one near their house and it was nearly 10pm, so I doubt anything else would have been open) purely because of the novelty of being able to step out together with both children in the house, what with me and Tony being there.

As soon as Elise got back Tony told her all about Chuggle and Laura being left alone together. This particularly annoyed me because it's simply not his business. I know we've always called him 'Uncle Tony' (to his face. The only time we refer to him as such is to the babies) but he isn't an uncle or any kind of relative to either Chuggle or Tony. We wouldn't have told Elise unless it seemed appropriate as we'd already dealt with it and Elise would only go ballistic and shout at Chuggle needlessly. It seemed to me that he was waiting to tell Elise this specifically when mum wasn't there.

It took me half an hour to find my coat. (That's an estimated figure, it did take me a long time, though). I looked absolutely everywhere, until the point when Elise started insisting that I mustn't have brought it as I thought I had, however I was quite certain that I did (most of the time I have a pretty cloudy memory, at best, but regarding this, that night, I had a pretty specific mnemonic; Laura keeps staring at me. And I noticed at an early that it is the instinctual reaction for somebody to look back, eventually, when somebody is staring at them. I say 'instinctual' because it often applies when people don't realise they're being watched, they simply become aware of it. I caught Laura staring when I put my coat as I was getting ready to set off, I caught her several other times over the night including when I began to feel a little too warm wearing the thing, so I took it off).

I even went to the car to see if mum had taken it with her. (Not that I could really think of a reason why she might have) and she kept telling me to go back and look in the house. Evidently Elise was pretty annoyed with me, after a while and practically pushed me out of the house, assuring me that she would bring it over in the morning if she found it (though she had adopted a tone that suggested she sincerely didn't believe I had brought the damn thing with me sometime previously and used it even as she said that). It wasn't that I was worried that she'd steal it or search through my pockets, it was more the fact that whenever I Lent her something she and Stavross would promise to bring it back for months and it would never materialise. (My copy of 'the Simpsons Movie', for example, took over a year and I only got that back when mum went and got it. I had gone up there a number of times, reminding myself in advance to pick it up while I was there but, as I mentioned above, my memory is extremely cloudy and I would tend to forget over the course of my visit). I just didn't want to have to go without a coat when I might need one with constant promises of its return that would go unfulfilled.

She gave Tony a lift home on the way back. After he got out I told her how he had told Elise on Chug and Laura while she was still giving them a lift and how deliberate it seemed. I am very aware of how hypocritical it seems to tell her about how he was talking behind her back when I was talking about him behind his back. I feel justified, though, because I wasn't about to start an argument with Tony deliberately.

I know this entry hasn't had much about Chug's birthday but a journal is simply a log of events from the author's perspective and this is how the day went from mine. A little more happened after we got home, for example; Jeff asked if Tony had acted up in any before he got home and mum recapped the events, inspite of my hints warning her not to, causing him to go off and stress (scratch the back of his head) and I explained things in more detail which was a foolish move, on my part. Nothing other than that is really worth writing about.

Well, I did mention that I thought it would be a good idea if Tony didn't come up for a few days. This advice was clearly forgotten as he came up and took Pickle while she was asleep on my bed as I was typing this blog.

Sunday 22 February 2009

Curry Night

So... It's Sunday now. Nothing interesting has really happened yet so I'll start at Thursday night/Friday. But I'll be brief about that day.

Thursday, 8pm; I fall asleep, fully dressed.
Friday, 00:00; I wake up, just as dressed and have pulled my bed sheets over me in my sleep, as I do. I was hot, sticky and uncomfortable. And, having slept for 4 hours I didn't fancy my chances of nodding off again. Failing to get off I go online and do... Fuck all for a while. María was actually online for a few minutes but the amount of chat between us wasn't even enough to be classed as 'small talk'.
02:30; Nothing else to do I go back to bed. I lay there for hours before I fell asleep.
08:00; Elise arrives to dump one or more children on me. I'm so tired I can't actually process how many I have.
12:00; Tony arrives. I go back to bed.
5 something; I'm woken up because we're going to some church thing. I'm annoyed that I wasn't really given enough time to shower but I do so anyway, since everybody else who was going to has apparently already done so. (That doesn't count Chug. He bathes for no man).
19:30; We set off at the time the social event was set to begin. This has essentially become a standard household practise. If it isn't Tony holding us up it's Chug, which was the case that night. And it's mental because he went dressed in whatever he was wearing when he woke up; all he had done was added shoes and socks.

I had already been told that it was a 'curry night' but I decided to go anyway; curry is something that the British are incapable of screwing up, it's as if it's ingrained in our genes. Obviously it isn't because it's not a British thing; we've only actually had it for 1 or 2 hundred years. And I don't think it was amazingly popular until sometime quite recently.

When I realised that it was Glynn Hughes who was cooking I was somewhat disheartened as this is a man who has gone to great lengths to avoid providing food for any church events, even when all he's been asked to do was sandwiches. I do recall him having words with some of the relief society when they'd asked him to do so and he'd said that he'd happily 'provide the drinks' (as he often did, as it required no more effort than buying a few bottles of the cheapest pop or squash that he could get his hands on) .

We arrived to find everybody was playing DVD Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The hall was divided into 3 teams, as the game is apparently set up for a multi-player mode of play. (Apparently not as many players as we had in attendance, therefore my team answered questions for 'player 1', the next for 'player 2', and so forth). All teams lost at £1000. Chug refused to participate in the game completely.

I went and offered to help Glynn with the cooking but he refused point blank. I tasted some and suggested he should add some spices but he said that 'not everybody likes it spicy'. I tried to explain that I didn't mean peppers or anything that would make it hot but Glynn just kept saying 'some people don't like it spicy', refusing to understand the difference between spices (such as cinnamon or musala) and peppers (chili peppers, etc). Looking I might have come across as a little condescending but I had no way to tell and no way of finding out retrospectively. I'd call and ask but I'm afraid I might be stirring a hornet's nest of some kind as trying to understand humans is something best left to other people.

I seem to recall that we had some mexican themed lunch after church one time and mum made a enchiladas (ie; I made enchiladas) and a mild chili. Glynn refused to try either of these on the grounds that he didn't eat hot foods. However they were both extremely mild and I can't see how he could qualify them as hot without trying them for himself. Everybody assured him it was mild.

Chuggle refused to participe in this, too; not only would he not have any of the food (which I admit that I completely understand) but he wouldn't even sit at the table with everybody else; he sat on a lone chair facing away from everybody. After a while Steve went and sat next to him for a chat. He must have ammused the boy in some way or other but it didn't seem to improve his attitude on the whole because he was back to his gloomy self as soon as Steve went to attend to other things.

Ultimately the food was edible though rather bland.

I spent most of the night talking to Lauren Thorley. I had previously assumed that her real name was 'Eden Ivy Lee', and that she had adopted 'Lauren' as a pseudonym because doesn't stand out so much, however she clarified that she'd changed it to Eden by deed poll some years ago. She seemed to be in good spirits, hard as it is for me to tell with people, though I think something might have been on her mind. She never seemed too cheerful when I first joined the church so I don't have much to compare her mood of that night. She thought I seemed miserable.

At one point she asked me what I had planned for the weekend and I honestly did not know what to day. I consider myself an introvert (though my friends and family find this hilarious) because I don't go out or socialise in general. My answer was "I don't know. Get screwed over by my sister and probably watch some cartoons" or something very similar. She smiled and said "You mean get stuck babysitting?". I was tempted to make a joke about incest but I decided not to bother. (I'd told the one about the 2 Jewish assassins who were hired to take out Hitler, earlier, and it had gone down badly).

(In the event that I have any new readers I would just like to clarify that I have never engaged in incestual relations. I hope that nobody took any implication that I might, but I have this dry sense of humour that some people tend to take seriously).

Her daughter, Hally, has grown as an almost surprising rate, but then I do tend to forget how much time tends to pass between the instances I see her mother and it's rarer still to see her. She must be 6 or 7 now. I meant to ask and I have no idea why I didn't do so.

I got home about 9:30 or so and eventually went to sleep at around midnight which I wasn't expecting given the amount of sleep I had already had that day.

If anything particularly interesting happened the following day I can't remember it.

Thursday 19 February 2009

Agoraphobia

I'm a little agoraphobic. I've been sure of this for several years until recently when I decided to look up the condition properly when I found it was more of a fear of the unknown.

Today I realised that Chuggle hadn't left the house in more than 4 days; since I took him and his girlfriend to the movies. And I took it upon myself to do something about it. All I wanted to do was take him for a walk through town (or anywhere he wanted to go instead) and back again. Even Mum was on my side on this one, in spite of her horrendous tendency to molly-coddle him.

Chug, however, refused point blank.

First he wouldn't get our of bed (He'd been in bed all day watching Dragonball Z, which is pretty much what he's been doing with Laura almost every day this week) and even when he did it was only to storm off and complain to Mum, whom I imagined would come down on his side.

We clashed again and he took one of Mum's walking sticks and threatened to hit me with it, so I snatched off him and waved it over him menacingly, before throwing it somewhere else. (He told me to 'go ahead and hit him with it, as if I actually would, and that he'd call the police. I told him that it was fine if he called the police because any foster family that took him in would also insist he left the house once in a while for fresh air and exercise). I told him he had 5 minutes to get his socks and shoes on while I left the room, time which I used to make Mum and myself each a cup of rooibos tea and I had a slice of cheese and ham on toast.

When I got back he hadn't moved except to cover himself in a blanket (warm as the house was at the time) and I was getting pissed off.

I decided he was playing a waiting game to see how long until I got bored and went about my own business so I explained to him that I had absolutely nothing to do with my time and that I would wait there as long as it takes.

He'd complain that I wasn't being fair, but mum and I were agreed that it was perfectly reasonable to have him leave the house for a least a 10 minute walk every 4 days. He'd whine in some mock tone that was meant to suggest he was being treated beyond reason things like 'why are you doing this to me', to which we would reply that it was for his own good.

At some point Mum tried to explain that he'd been diagnosed as "slightly" agoraphobic and I said I'd looked into that and it didn't quite mean what she thought it meant. She looked it up on her lap top which technically proved me right, but it still seemed to apply to him; a list of symptoms is here. (Clinically it actually means a fear of having a panic attack, rather than a few of unfamiliarity/leaving safe places, as a thought, but from what it says on that sight I wasn't far off. I've never heard of Chug having a panic attack, though). Avoiding the issue as to whether or not he's ever had a panic attack I pointed out that I was slightly agoraphobic (which I've long held as true and relatives have often suggested I might be) and that Chug was a ridiculous case.

I asked him if he was afraid of crowds. After a short silence he said 'No'. I asked him if he was afraid of public transportation and, after another short silence, he said 'Yes'. I pointed out that he showed no hesitation using the train or bus last weekend do which he exclaimed "That was different!". It was almost amusing, but I was too annoyed to laugh. Mum assumed this difference was because he wanted to 'look brave' in front of Laura... "It wasn't just that!" "Ok," said Mum "You were there to keep him safe." "No!".

So I just continued to sit there. Eventually Mum said just go and find him some shoes, socks and a jumper, which I did thinking that I might even have to resort to putting them on him myself. I don't know what Mum said to her, if anything (Chug said that hadn't she said anything), but as I went to go back downstairs he came Chug came up to put his stuff on to go out. (I meant to question her about this, because anything she might have said I would probably need to remember but I never got around to it).

From the time I managed to get him out his room to the time I went to get his shoes and things it was more than 50 minutes. It was probably well over an hour if you include the time it took to get him to get out of his bed.

I don't know what I did, if anything, before it was time to cook.

I'd marinaded some chicken with some sauces mum had got from Nando's a while back (before I ever took chug there). Well, she didn't actually buy them 'from' nando's it was just their brand of marinade sauces. (I think they were actually purchased in Sainsbury's).

Worried that the chicken I had chopped, yesterday and sauces in the bottles wouldn't make enough to feed everybody, so I added a little port to one of them before putting the container in the fridge and added some lemon juice to the other. If I use them again I don't think I'll add any port to the 'sweet and sticky' one, I'll leave it as it comes.

Worried that the port, and whatever else I may have added, may have detracted from the sweetness I added some golden syrup before putting it into the oven.

I added some sour cream to the other batch, which I was frying, which was also a mistake but I was able to rectify it with some salt, sugar and lemon juice.

Both batches of chicken were generally well received but I'll serve them as it comes if I ever try them again.

The next time I marinade something I probably won't be using a store bought marinade.

Tuesday 17 February 2009

Chaperon

(I should have typed this up half a week ago, since I mentioned it several times in advance of the event, but when I haven't been busy I've either been tired or just plain lazy).

I suppose a chaperoned date doesn't feel like too much of a date at all. I wouldn't know since I was the chaperon, in this case, and I've never had a chaperon. They spent most of them time not talking to eachother; mostly because Chug is naturally aloof to... Well, just about everyone. The journey out of town he spent most of his time staring out of the window and I, wanting to give them the illusion of privacy, stuck my nose in my book.

(I must say that the first part of the Earthsea series has not been nearly as interesting as I hoped it would. I think LaGuin managed to recreate Tolkien's problem in precisely the opposite way; he writes pages and pages of detail that cover just a few hours, she writes pages and pages of detail covering several years and neither of them seem to have enough story within those pages and I get bored. Towards the end I was really forcing myself to continue, mostly because I have a Neil Gaiman book waiting for me when I'm done but I've reached the second book in the volume and I haven't found the will to read any of it since I finished the first one on the train, that day).

We then hopped on the next bus from the bus station after going to some trouble to find out which one it was. (Apparently it was from 'Stand E'. Again. It's always there, but since it's only once every year or so that I take the buses in Shrewsbury, which are the only times I ever ride on buses at all, I live in constant fear that they will have changed the routes and if I get on 'E' it will take me to completely the wrong place) I learned the value of getting a return ticket the hard way, which I will explain later. (I don't know why I never bother with them for trains, they're completely sensible).

They had already decided on 'The Pink Panther 2' (Steve Martin) the night before. I had been promising myself that I would attend a different film to them but there was nothing that started at the same time that had a similar run time; meaning there was nothing I could watch separately without leaving the 2 12-year-olds unaccompanied. (There was nothing I wanted to see, anyway. There was only one film that looked remotely interesting that turned out to be by Woody Allen. A quick check of the weather indicated that hell was, indeed, still in the middle of a heatwave so Woody Allen was still out of the question). So I got a ticket for the same movie.

The show time was at 4pm which gave us over 2 hours to kill, so I got them each some Ben + Jerry's Ice cream and gave them a £5 note to go on the arcade (I say 'arcade' but a 3m x 5m corner with 1 game, 1 lucky dip and a "who wants to be a millionaire" machine does not an arcade make by any standards), though I would have given them £10 but the cash machines had been shut down and the £5 was all I had to give them. After that we still had time to kill so I took them to dinner at Nandos, which made quite an impression on both of them. Chug displayed an uncharacteristic amount of machismo by ordering his chicken "extra hot" and putting their special "extra extra hot sauce" on everything and daring me to do the same after mocking me for my feeble (he didn't actually use that word but I doubt he actually knows what it means) choice of Lime and Mango chicken which, according to the menu he had studied (though not much further than the 4 grades of spice on the chicken) was the least spicy of the chicken they did.

I had to explain to him that, once you're particularly used to hot foods, you find that various chili peppers and chili powders don't actually change your food's flavour, much, it only makes it hotter and that my choice of lime and mango was made purely on the grounds that it seemed like it was one of the most flavourful. (Alternatively there was 'Lemon and Herb', however seem to have a lot of chicken marinaded in herbs while lime with mango was something I hadn't tried, though I have had them as marinades separately on other occasions, usually with various mixed herbs).

The kids sat themselves down before I could suggest that they sit opposite each other, as etiquette dictates, though I didn't feel the need to correct them since sitting adjacently on a round table can be more intimate and, since it was only a table for 4 and it was a round table I would have been between then, which would have detracted from that intimacy.

They were both suitably impressed by the place, Chug even complained that nobody had ever taken him there before (we explained this was because he had always refused to go before, favouring the allure of Pizza Hut, on the other side of the town). The place was more 'up-scale' than anything either of them were used to (hell, it was nicer that some of the places I've eaten and I've attended some pretty swanky venues, and it certainly had the most posh rest room I'd ever seen; it even contended with those that had attendants). I wasn't expecting a franchised restaurant of that type to look classy; I was expecting something with the atmosphere of a more generic fast food place. The only problem was that the music was so loud we practically had to shout to hear oneanother. (We even considered writing something to this affect on the feedback form that came with the menus, but when you have a lot of family in various areas of the catering business you learn what happens when you give the people who serve your food any form of criticism. I decided to comment online, nice and anonymously).

The film had some funny moments. The plot wasn't great but, then, it was a sequel which is something generally to be avoided with this type of film. It was funny enough to make me consider seeing the original (and by 'Original' I mean the first of the 2 Steve Martin PP films, not the original Peter Sellers version which I have seen many times and never laughed at once), as there's the likelihood that this was just another case of a movie company trying to make a quick profit following up on an unexpected cash cow.

When the bus back to the station arrived I realised that it I had no money to pay for the tickets and asked the driver (knowing that the odds were slim to none) if he accepted cards. This is why I should have got return tickets, as it would have been easier than paying for a return journey. I don't know why I don't bother getting them on buses when I always get them for trains. I will make a point of doing so in the future. He said they didn't so I said I'd just go to a cash point and wait for the next bus, but he said he'd lets us pass this time. There was only one other passenger on the bus and when she got off he asked me 'if that trick works often' and I explained that I hadn't intended for it to happen at all, that I merely hadn't been thinking ahead (but most of what I do is spontaneous or with reluctance and therefore I seldom plan ahead).

When we got to the station there was over an hour to wait until our train arrived (trains between my town and Shrewsbury arrive every 2 hours, so it was just a case of bad timing that we arrived half way between 2 trains) and so we waited on a bench on the cold platform.

While Chug had been very aloof with Laura on the way out there seemed to be something sweet between them, in a shy sort of way, and he did actually make eye contact and there were lots of embarrassed smiles between them. (I actually did catch a glance at them doing something which they swore me to secrecy about. Nothing bad, it was actually pretty innocent, but being 12 years old they're shy and easily embarrassed (especially since I'm always the first person to tease them on their 'puppy love'). I said nothing about it on the way home and I've been bursting to tell somebody IRL ("In Real Life"), such as Dimebar or Mum or Elise (or even somebody online). But if there's one thing I'm good at it's keeping secrets (or at least I am when I know it's a secret, if somebody fails to ask me to keep something on the down-low then I don't see how I can be held responsible for what I share with others. Or maybe that's just the aspergers in me...) I would write it in my journal, as that's always a suitable place to keep secrets (and I do write plenty of stuff that could be construed as confidential to others who didn't tell me it might be) however, having said I wouldn't tell I don't think it would be right for me to do so knowing that I'm going to publish my journal online, essentially telling the world (or at least the world who wants to know. So far I think that's one person).

She came to visit on both the following days and is here now as I type this (when last I passed chug's room she was on his WoW account while he was playing some xBox game she got him).

Yesterday I awoke with a nasty tummy ache and found myself doing squats to relieve it, assuming it was a blockage. Sure enough I felt whatever it was moving through my system quite rapidly over the next few hours. I made sure I had plenty more fiber yesterday, to try to make sure it didn't happen again, though it did.

I had Bink last night and he woke up crying to I took him down for some milk. I fixed him a bottle, put the fire on and we curled up watching the baby channels under a blanket and both fell asleep. (Which was a bugger, because 30 minutes before I next woke up we had a delivery, but as there was nobody there to receive it (the delivery guy didn't knock very loud and didn't even bother ringing the bell) he left a note telling me where to get it). I went to pick it up at 10am only to be told to come back at 1pm (it's 12.43 right now). I don't really know what I did before typing this, I did spend a while looking for torrent files (the latest episode of Kyle XY would have been broadcast in the U.S, however the only rips I could find were all over 1GB, so I'll wait for a smaller file. I know it might actually be quicker to download it at 1GB but disk space has really become an issue, lately).

When Bink woke up again (thus waking me also) I had another stomach ache, though not nearly as bad, so I did some squats and encouraged Bink to do the same for the sheer hell of it. (He seemed to think I'd gone mad).

And now the big question; do I, a guy who must have every moment of his time filled with something, even if it isn't very exciting, to occupy his mind, kill the next 10 minutes or so by dossing about? Or do I load a computer game, waiting for which and getting stuck in with eat those 10 minutes and demand more?

I guess the game it is, then...

Friday 13 February 2009

Shrewsbury

I've logged on to this with the intention of writing up yesterday but here I am; just staring at the screen.

Elise dropped off Pickle at around 8am, which was thoughtless because she knew Mum was going to the Shrewsbury hospital in today and we had to be on the road by 10. But she told her that we had until we set off.

So this meant calling Tony to take over while we were gone. We generally have to tell Tony appointments are way earlier than they are because by the time he actually turns up there's almost no time to actually make our destination. We told him the appointment was at 10 so, naturally, he didn't arrive until after 10.40 when the journey takes 45 minutes if there's little or no traffic. He even made a joke about how there was no point in setting off in the time left. His tone suggested that he either wanted her to be late or that he knew she wasn't telling the truth about when her appointment was. (She only started lying about it when she had 2 appointments on the same day a few months ago and only had time to attend the second. I suspect Tony didn't believe she had the first and is now playing mind games).

It's nice to drive with people since car travel means that everybodys eyes have to face forward and, for me at least, conversation becomes more natural.

I sat in on her consultation rather than be left with nothing to do in the waiting room and I'm glad I did as, although a lot of it was pretty gross, there was also some very humorous terms thrown about (such as something that sounded like a 'Pretzel Enima').

I then accompanied her to have a blood sample taken. I picked us up a couple of drinks from a hospital shop on the way (apparently they have more shops, now, all of which seem to sell snacks and soft drinks). I got mum a diet coke and I tried a carrot and orange juice thing which was surprisingly nice. (I don't like carrots, but I don't mind when stuff I drink comes with its juice in it. Mum said carrots tend to go well in things or make things taste better. I said, 'like what?' and she gave a couple of examples that included carrot cake. I pointed out that I did like carrot cake, especially for the cinnamon, but when I make carrot cake I tend to leave out the carrot cake and if anybody approaches my carrot cake mix with wallnuts I get very annoyed).

We then went to check out cinema times for Saturday, ready for Chug's little date. You see, Cineworld has the most annoying phone system ever. It's much worse than "if you want to blow your brains out; press 1. If you want to be annoyed; press 2. If you want to be put through to another annoying list of things that don't sounds like they apply to you; press 3!". These guys have a voice recognition system, which means you can't talk to other people while on the line to discuss the options or anything because the computer can mistake what you're trying to say for the various options. And you can't just stay on the line for an operator because it'll just keep reading out the same list over and over. The web site was little better, either. Neither the phone line or the web site had listings specifically for the 14th, and those films which I worked out to be actually showing on the 14th made up a pretty dismal selection of about 3 and there's no way a multiplex is just showing 3 movies on valentines day.

The cinema, however, was closed. (And it was after 1pm). There was a notice in one of the windows saying that it would be opening 30 minutes prior to the first film but didn't mention when that would be. (Over the week I even tried looking up details for listings at the Odeon, the nearest one of those being another 30 miles away, however their website was just as useless. I ruled out going to that one because I don't know how to get to the cinema from the train station in that town, or even how to get to the bus stop... or the address of the cinema to know which bus to get on. Actually I don't think I know what the address of the Shrewsbury cinema, either, and it's been a while so I don't know if they've changed the bus routes or anything so I'll have to take a look at that, too).

It appears the customer relations for Cineworld are pretty non-existent. The phone message actually gives the web address of the people who created the voice recognition software. I don't know if I should really complain to them, it's not their fault that the company who hired their product didn't add a way to speak to be put through to a human.

I would still like to send a strongly worded letter to somebody or other.

We then went to the catering warehouse and picked up a few needful things and one or 2 slightly more frivolous ones.

I don't remember much of what happened after going home. Or I might do, but I'm too lazy to access those memories because I've been typing almost since I woke up (except for the usual distractions, and the usually unusual ones) and haven't had a drink this morning so I'm getting a headache which I'll need to do something about soon.

I do remember that Dave and I watched 'Night Watch', one of the DVDs I picked up at ego last week or the week before, before he decided to go to bed and he even managed to stay awake all the way through which was good because he normally doesn't last that long if we watch something that late at night. It was a good film, I wasn't expecting it to be Russian (I guess I didn't do enough research on it) but being foreign isn't something that would usually stop me from watching a film. In spite of the way they were clearly going for a 'Blockbuster' it wasn't too cheesy.

And there I'll stop to get some painkillers, a drink and maybe even some kind of snack to have by way of breakfast.

Wednesday 11 February 2009

Eye Contact

Well... What's happened? Fuck all. I wasn't even going to make a post today, but if nothing has happened then whatever I do report will at least be quite short.

Errr...

Hmmm...

OK, well yesterday, sometime after chug got home he was on the phone to Laura. Or, at least, she was on the phone to him. He had the phone squeezed between his face and his ear while playing Star Wars; Knights of the Old Republic intently, saying absolutely nothing and probably not listening, either. So I came in to tease him, as any older brother should. And, for some reason, she had him put the phone on to me after a while.

So we chatted for a while and whenever Chuggle came up I would deliberately mention him loudly as well as whatever context in which we were talking about him, mostly to annoy him. It's hysterical to watch him give me dirty looks (ie; an angry expression, for anybody who isn't familiar with the term). Then she said we'd being talking for around 45 minutes which I said was impossible, she was apparently looking at some timer on her phone. I continued to dispute this but she wouldn't believe me so I told her what I was doing exactly 45 minutes ago; I had been looking at the clock in the dining room and was told to go and make dinner by my mother. I wasn't cooking anything special but it still took me 15 to 30 minutes to so, and I think she may have conceded or at least humoured me. She also told me that we were having what was possibly the first 'real' conversation she'd ever had, including with her Dad.

I wasn't sure if I should believe her or not, it seems unlikely to reach that age without having one at some point, but then again I rarely converse with people myself, due to Aspergers. Plus her dad isn't much of a talker (and, from meeting him, possibly not much of a thinker, either). I have heard that she doesn't have any friends she hangs around with at school (from the guys at club) or from outside it. Plus her Mum lives somewhere in South Wales. All I could think of was of how sad that much be. Not just to be lonely, but not even getting a degree of conversation. Then again, I think it's something I know well, and most people must go through it at some point or another. She said that her 'conversations' with Chug is usually her talking and him not saying anything and then, after 5 minutes.

So I gave the phone back to him and kicked him off his PC, going on there instead. He fussed and argued and told me, repeatedly, to let him back on it but, from my perspective, if I was on the PC and he was on the phone he was far more likely to talk. And if I was there to tease him there would be something to provoke some conversation.

And it worked. He claimed that all the did was argue while he was on the phone but I suppose they're both too young to know (and Chug is both young and autistic) that it was a very flirtatious argument, if it could be called an argument at all. They hung up on each other, they pressed buttons to make noises in attempts to bother each other (something of a phone war it was) and generally bickered. Then there was the smug tone of heir voices which is generally considered to be flirtatious. I'll have to explain it to him at some point later.

I've reached the conclusion that I'm going to have to sit him down and start giving him the 'girl talks', or whatever you'd like to call it. I'm not talking about "the birds and the bees" mechanics of sex, I'm talking about much more basic stuff. And I mean VERY basic, starting with things like Eye Contact. Besides, I'm almost sure he knows the basic mechanics of sex. Most kids do, these days. I had an encyclopedia with some interesting diagrams long before I reached his age. More complex stuff, things such as condoms, STDs and such can wait until he's 14 or 15. (Not that I'm expecting him to be 'getting any' at that age, but I'd rather he know and not do it than do it but not know. I don't want to have any extra nieces and nephews to look after from him before he's ready).

Though, come to think of it, I don't know how much about it he does know. I really hope that "the mechanics" not one of the things I'd have to explain to him.

Not much to say about today, either. I looked after Bink for a little while this morning while chatting with a close friend online. A while later I swapped babies with Tony, who was downstairs; he had Bink and I had the Piglet. And a few more hours still Elise picked up Bink, Tony had Piglet and I got to watch the rest of Iron Man with Dave. It was far better than I expected it to be, not only because it's based on a Marvel comic (I don't know what age I went off marvel, but at some point I decided that all the costumes and pseudonyms were silly, especially considering that the marvel and DC universe had thousands of costumed heroes between them, most of them with super powers. And you know they're running out of ideas for new powers and silly names for them). It made me realise that, in a lot of ways, Iron man was possible Marvel's answer to DC's Batman. (Playboy millionaire sinks millions into creating cool crime fighting gadgets. There's probably a bat man/iron man crossover out there, somewhere I should get my hands on...) Though the Iron Man movie wasn't nearly as good as either of the recent Batman movies I would certainly watch the sequal.

Elise came to take Piglet home surprisingly early, today, around 5:45. Apparently Piglet is having her first swimming 'lesson' tomorrow (I don't know if you can call it a lesson when you're only 10 months old. Then again, she tends to call everything "wblwblw" or "Aggahh!!" or "Hmhmm", so she may have a word for it). I find the idea of the precious little girl splashing away in the pool adorable, I just hope Elise takes a camera or something.

With no baby to watch Tony went home, I went to pick up a few things from the super market and then I made dinner. (I say "Made", what I really did was take some pies out of some boxes and put them in the oven, took some chips out of a packet and put them on to fry, as well as a few other things. The only real 'cooking' i did was to make to chop some chicken breast and cook it in a mushroom sauce. She didn't ask but I added some port and Cognac and a little salt and pepper. I had a taste of it when she was done and severely regretted not adding garlic). I only went to the market for chips, but I also picked up some Cadbury's Mini Eggs (childhood favourite) and a big box of Thornton's Chocolate for Chug to give to Laura.

I'd put the first items in the oven and then I went to give the box to Chug. As I said, I've come to realise that I'm going to have to be the one to give him those 'fatherly' talks. These are talks I never had, unless you count a few conversations with CP in my youth. But I don't really think the advice of mum's ex-husband are things that I should be striving to apply to my life, especially when you consider that he's a special forces trained ex-mercenary who has a track record as a rapist (though never charged with anything). (CP is Chug's biological father. Though Chug is kind of aggressive he's quite unlike his 'old man' in a lot of ways, and we hope he's going to continue being unlike him).

I had him pause his game and come and sit next to me and tried to make him make eye contact with me as we spoke. (This is something that doesn't really come naturally to us Aspergics, but it can be learned, however I've found that when I'm with somebody I'm close to for a prolonged period I will tend to forget to make eye contact completely. I don't know if there's any etiquette to this I can read up on, as far as I can tell it's all natural behaviour learned or almost from birth for humans). If he could do it with me (make I contact) then he could do the same with Laura. He refused to make eye contact with me on the grounds that he hated me which, to be fair, wasn't a particularly good reason not to make eye contact with somebody. I know that we often avoid it with people we feel hateful of but it's hard to do when having an argument with them, especially a heated one.

My argument got more heated when he declared our talk to be 'over' and that he was going to go back on his PC. I pointed out that I was right next to his power socket and could turn off all of his electrical appliances with one movement. I think he came close to calling my bluff, though I wasn't bluffing and I think he saw that. He stormed off to tell mum and I followed so that I could reasonably explain things. (I think that Chug has finally realised that, if I follow him when he runs off to mum after I tell him off, punish him or simply "lay down the law", as I had just done, it means I'm going to explain things to her and she'll probably come down on my side). Mum did agree with me, though she wasn't certain, but Chug still wasn't having it. I'll try again tomorrow, but I'll try harder not to back down this time as I'll only have 1 more day before I take he and Laura to the cinema.

I went down to finish cooking and we all ate.

Dave and I later watched some Doctor Who (episodes 5 + 6 of the 2005 season) before he went to bed at about 9 and I started typing this. (It generally takes me several hours to write all of my entries as I happily allow myself to be distracted. For example, at about the same time as I started writing this I started browsing some shoes that I had been meaning to buy for a while).

These are what I ordered; Like them? Want to know why I like them? They're PUMPS!! (Plimsolls) or as close as you can probably get without a time machine. We used to have to wear these indoors, back in primary school; they were our "indoor shoes". They don't make these, anymore. I don't know why, they were worn by children in schools all over the damn country and they were the
most comfortable shoe you could possibly buy (after you broke them in). I first saw them in one of Dave's "Rollersnakes" catalogues. I couldn't find the specific shoes I fancied online (I think the ones I wanted had some sort of iron maiden motif) Anyway, I book marked the page (I had to do something, I suppose) and more or less forgot about it until today.

I wanted something dominantly black that I could wear in public without people jumping to conclusions about my tastes or personality (as most of my first picks had skulls on them) but ever so slightly ostentatious and I thought the checkered pattern would cover this. They're still pretty conservative in my opinion.

This is what I was originally going to get from the rollersnakes site. I still might, tbh. The ones I did order were on amazon but this design isn't on there as far as I can tell. I like the colours, I like the design... They look a little like carpet slippers but that's forgivable. And there probably will be times when I want to advertise my tastes, if not my personality (I don't see how footwear can prove this, but they do say women look at your shoes before anything else. If this is true then it shoots the 'girls are smarter than boys' argument out of the water. Besides, in my experience they tend to look at your package before anything else)

I'm looking at them now and I'm seriously reconsidering them. They don't seem to 'ostentatious' now, but if I actually put them on and went out they might. Since I don't normally give a damn about what people think of me or how I dress, I shouldn't let it get to me. (Especially since I don't care how I dress either, most days).

After ordering the black and grey checkered shoes above I continued browsing Amazon and found this pair, shown on the right...

Had I seen these first I don't think I'd have bothered with anything else. Possibly the least subtle of anything I looked at today and yet probably the pair in which I most saw myself. (I know that one of the figures appears to have cleavage and therefore women's but you'll look closely you'll see that one is a queen but the other is a king. You know, from playing cards... I think I'd have preferred a Joker motif but you can't have everything... Though I may yet find some with such a design. If I can't find some with Jokers I'll get this pair, next). You, the casual reader (and I imagine most of you exist primarily in my imagination) probably wouldn't like them, but that's ok.

I was still browsing shoes when my good friend came back online (whom I will henceforth refer to as Gydha) and I must confess I continued to do so for a while as we chatted. I did write more about our conversation, giving no particularly specific details but when I logged on today she said that she was 'aggressive'. She said it was because of the housework she had to do but I thought I would delete this small segment just to be more respectful, just in case.

And, as should be obvious, I continued to type. I don't think I've ever written so much about stuff I did while I was writing the very account of that stuff. I think there's a paradox in there, somewhere, but that's cool because when you look at things from a metaphysical point of view being caught in certain paradoxes give you some measure of immortality.

And you can't really complain about that, can you?

Sunday 8 February 2009

Stupid Cupid...

Cupid's stupid for a number of reasons, today.

Chug's girlfriend has a crush on me. They spent hours on the phone with each other and every so often she would find an excuse for him to put her on to me. She finds excuses to stand around with me when she's here, if I'm cooking or something (neutral territory; she hasn't actually set foot on my floor, let alone me room) and apparently she was asking my mother how old I was and if I had a girlfriend. Mum said I hadn't, but that I was 26. I'm actually 25, I don't know why she said that or how 1 year makes a difference; if I was a year or 2 older then her then it would be fine, but every year of difference after that makes it more and more questionable. She's 13 years younger than me, I don't think 14 would be that much more of a turn off.

(In any case, I'm not into 12 year olds so if she was to come on to me I would let her down gently).

In some of the instances of the excuses she took to speak with me she asked me for advice about Chug, why he's such a recluse etc. I tried to explain about Asperger's syndrome and how it affects us socially and how we sometimes didn't even know our own feelings, even as we're having them, until it's too late, giving personal examples such as how I sometimes blush without actually feeling the emotion of embarrassment or how I don't realise I'm stressed until my mouth and throat have broken out with ulcers.

Later I took him to her place. A minute or so after I turned back home I remembered that I hadn't told him to ask her or her father about the cinema next week and that he'd probably forget even if I did ask him to do so.

The walk home, alone, seems so much faster than the walk there while accompanied by Chuggle. Every few minutes I had to stop for him to catch up or go back and move him onward at more haste with my arm behind him. He was complaining about the distance when we'd got as far as the town library which is less than 10 minutes away. Laura lives about a mile away, give or take. He seemed to complain more about the walk than he did last time, as that time we didn't know about the foot path which would have allowed us to get to her place without going up hill at all.

Part of me actually wishes he attends the local high school, hell as it is with no facilities for people with AS. At least he'd walk 2 miles a day, like I did, and wouldn't be such a pussy about a little walk where he actually got to see his girlfriend at the end of it, something which should be more than worth it if he got the opportunity to kiss her for the first time or put his hand down her top (and, naturally, get slapped for it). But, then, I'm not even sure if chug is actually interested in sex. I've never known him to pay close attention to women in skimpy outfits or, unintentionally, find his eyes gravitating towards breasts while talking to somebody with large ones and let them, still unintentionally, linger there longer than they should. I haven't noticed him drooling over any men, either.

Plus there's still Juhela on my mind, but I said spoke of her yesterday and the whole thing that happened there hasn't really weighed on me any heavier today.

Then today (today; today) one of my exes logged on and we spoke a little. María. María lives in Venezuela and we've never actually met but we had this long term, long distance relationship going on. At first I didn't really feel anything for her, it was pretty much just an infatuation and part of me knew it, but then we had this moment when it seemed like she was going to split up with me and for less than a day I was miserable... And one of the worst things about the way I felt that way is because I had this feeling that, sooner or later, I was just going to shrug it off and say that I didn't care; that I didn't feel the way I thought I felt about her. Then, after a day of forcing myself not to, I just let her go. That night she logged on and I told her but she had decided that she wanted me after all and begged me to continue with whatever it was we had for a relationship. And I agreed; I had gone through an emotional roller coaster with a girl I hadn't met for over a year at the time and she'd put up with me in the same way... I realised that there must have been something there. Then a year or 2 after that she dumped me for some guy with bipolar depression who lashed out in his low times. Only this time I think I really had fallen for her and losing her hit me hard. She left him, too, and that was probably far harder for her.

Well, that's the abridged version of how our 'relationship' went. Naturally there were many more details and a lot more complexity to it but I can't really illustrate the entire story here. It'd take ages, for one thing.

We didn't say much, other than that she was studying at the time and I told her about Chug's first date coming up.

There were things I wanted to say. For example, I sent her an email about 2 years ago which I never got a reply to. You can't just bring something like that up in conversation, it would sound as if I've been obsessing over this why she hadn't replied. I'd also learned she had a new address and as I don't know how long she had that I don't know if her old one was still active when I sent it. But then, when I found out she had a new one (about a couple of months ago, when I added her to facebook, on a whim) I sent her an email there, too, and never got a response.

And I couldn't mention that email for the same reason. To be thinking about an email sent 2 months ago with no response might not seem as bad as thinking about one sent 2 years ago but I still didn't know how to bring it up without seeming like a freak.

Looking at the last couple of paragraphs it does sound kind of like I've been obsessing, but it's genuinely been something that's been at the back of my mind since I sent them.

We more or less made small talk until she logged off.

Then, of course, there's my Norwegian fantasy lady...

Saturday 7 February 2009

Laurence and Charlotte

Yesterday (Friday) was a good day. Well, it was better than most. I managed to sleep through until after 1pm without anybody waking me to look after somebody's baby. (It's not the babysitting I object to, it's the fact I do this almost every day; apparently without choice and certainly without pay).

Elise did come around after 3 with both children, I had one and Tony had the other. I did make it clear before she even arrived that I was going to club with Chug.

TBH I'm not really going to club for my own benefit, anymore, as I don't play WoW (though nobody there really plays it anymore either) as the average age of its attendees, these days, has to be at least 10 years under me. (When I started going they were about 2 years younger, on average). The main reason I've been going, lately, is because Chug has started seeing one of the other attendees, Laura, outside of club on a regular basis. They spend ours on the phone with each other on weekday evenings, she comes to visit him here on snow days and he goes to her place on saturdays and sundays. I take every possible opportunity to tease them, and those opportunities never seem to end. I'm a cruel bastard.

For example, it's been a running joke for a couple of months that Laura is a boy. (Ofc she's not). I think I might have even started that. It was certainly me who gave her the name 'Lawrence'. When she and Chug became and item he became 'Charlotte'.

I went on a bit of a spending spree while I was there; before I even went on a computer I had purchased 4 DVDs (on offer, 4 for £10. I Am Legend, Drop Dead Fred, A Scanner Darkly and Night Watch. Night Watch is the only one among them I haven't seen, I probably picked it as I needed 1 more to get 4 for £10. Thinking about it now I would have spent less than £9 if I just got 3 of them, but I can console myself that Andy warned me that Night Watch was pretty fucked up, so I will look forward to it). I also tried out SimCity Societies while I was there (everybody else at club tends to play FPS games, which I love but can't play because they make me nauseous on consoles and give me migraines on PCs). It's been at least 10 years (though probably more) since I last played a SimCity game. (I don't remember what console that was for, though it certainly wasn't for the PC. I had rented it and it came without a manual and, as I recall, there was no tutorial level. I had no idea what I was doing and my city sucked ass).

I spent a lot of time there trying to discern what's on at the nearest multiplex on the 14th, as I'm going to see about taking Chug and Laura to see a movie. (Part of me wants to sit a few rows behind the young love birds to spy on them, but somehow I think I'll be watching another screen room).

I ended up buying the game; it was "pre-owned" but the last guy had took it home, unwrapped it then brought it back claiming there was a scratch. So I got it brand new for half price :D

I don't really remember much of last night other than that.

I know mum had Piglet, last night, which meant I had her all day today. (Tony calls Saterday his 'Day Off', but almost every week he gets bored and comes up anyway. He didn't, today. Which was a mixed blessing).

Piglet was especially awkward today. As she's getting older she's getting much more lively and inclined to exploration... And she already a handful before she could crawl, diving in every direction. Now she's clinging to objects so she can walk with them side on. It's important to let her have a degree of freedom on the floor now (though there are certain people, such as Dave and Jeff, who disagree. Neither of them have nearly the amount of child care experience as I have, so I don't see how their opinions matter, though Dave will bitch a little if he sees her on the floor).

Laura was here for most of the day, today, down in Chug's room. Naturally I took the piss whenever the opportunity arose.

Obviously I don't want them having sex or anything but I have noticed that most of my teasing tends to be about whether or not they've kissed yet. At the very worst I'll say something about how they have to "use protection" if a situation arises where protection is needed. (Chuggle is, as yet, far too shy to even try to kiss here. And, from some of the responses to my teasing, I really think that Laura might be a little bothered by this. Of course I can't be certain about it, due to my condition, but I like to remind myself that my aspergers might negate any ability to read body language or vocal inflections but does improve my deductive reasoning and lateral thinking generally make up for it).

Actually, thinking about it, the worst I've ever teased them was probably telling "Lawrence" that if "my sister got pregnant" I'd know it was her.

I felt obligated to ask if she was staying for dinner, unsure as to whether we could accommodate her. I made diced chicken, baked in a creamy mushroom, mustard and port/cognac sauce. (My own recipe. Sadly it's something I tend to cook when we have nothing else, can think of nothing else or can't be bothered to make anything else). Apparently she said 'it was the best curry she ever had. I found this amusing :)

She went home around 9ish (several hours later than she as supposed to, as I had to make several outings while I was cooking; first to pick up some frozen chips (not washing, peeling and chopping my own in a meal of convenience, then to get some egg fried rice from the Chinese take-away at the end of the street (tried making my own in the past but I always seem to get it wrong) and then taking the Piglet home).

(Stavross was supposed to take her home, but when he arrived half an our previously his daughter was asleep, so he said he didn't want to wake her and that we should call him when he is awake. 20 minutes later, when she did wake up, his phone had been conveniently switched off).

I dozed off on my bed, fully dressed, until Dave started yelling at me that he'd won one of the best axes in the game. I wasn't too impressed on being woke up like that, but the joke was on him when he took a portal back to Dalaran and had to spend an hour or so trying to get back on to that character. Well, that joke was really on both of us, as I spent most of that time sitting in the arm chair waiting for him to get on, get his stuff enchanted and finish.

Having recently discovered that we can plug my portable hard drive into the PS3 to watch videos, listen to music or look at pictures downloaded to it I spent a lot of the time through the miscellaneous content of that hard drive. I also spent some time looking at film and game trailers while trying to find some final fantasy trailer, which I wasn't even sure was a new film or a new game. Eventually I found myself gravitating towards pictures of my ex wife and re opening some old wounds in the process. (Definitely not a good idea this close to valentines day).

However I can compartmentalise pretty well. Though I don't know how true that is... Sometimes it might seem that the emotions I feel are a shadow of the real thing, that my palette might be missing a few essential colours, lately I've come to suspect that my brain or my body doesn't know how to interpret them. For example, I can't really gauge how stressed I am at all until I start breaking out in mouth and throat ulcers in the least convenient places. Sometimes I'll blush in a situation when I should be embarrassed, however while my body is telling me how embarrassed I am my I can't feel the embarrassment that's supposed to come internally, if that makes sense.

(I used the same word far too often in that last sentence. The tell tale sign of a poor imagination)

It's another mixed blessing.

When Dave finally got off the PC he went for a smoke and had me decide what we were going to watch. I eventually decided on something we'd already seen before; Starship Troopers, as I'd be able to play on the PC while still following the story. It's actually better than I remember. Those bits I remember as cheesy don't quite so bad, now.

I didn't play any games, obviously, choosing to write this instead.

And that's about it, I guess.

Wednesday 4 February 2009

Poor Little Bugger

I had Bink, last night (Tuesday night). The poor little bugger has at least one infected tooth (Tony argued, as Tony always must, that it wasn't infected; it was rotten. Which I suppose is true but I imagine that the second reason we don't want our teeth to rot is because rots cause infections. The first reason is because we don't want to form cavities to form which will expose our nerves). We found out that it was a rotten tooth today after an emergency dental appointment.

Elise spent most of yesterday here with both of her children until she finally decided she would rather be somewhere else, though we still had both children at this point. The reason for this, due to the pain in his teeth, Bink has been highly sensitive, today. I'm not saying that he's not normally sensitive; the boy is set to become one of the finest people I know if we play our cards right, but today he burst into tears at the smallest of things; particularly the word "no" and especially when phrased as "
No!"

Apparently Stav has also been ranting about the cause of his son's oral decay; he claims it's the fact that he's been given milk in the night when he's supposed to have only water. (Elise has claimed that he was going back to sleep readily with water and she wouldn't even have to refill it because Bink would only sip it and go back to sleep whereas he would generally drain the bottle of milk). Elise blames us for this because, apparently, it's only since the last time he slept here that he's been refusing to have water in the night. I wasn't in the room to respond to this, I was in another room and she was being deliberately loud, possibly to get a rise out of me. I didn't feel like coming in because it's hard for me to know whether it's acceptable to but into her conversations with getting told off (by her) for it. Apparently the fact that I have Aspergers doesn't concern her at all. (But then, whatever does?)

In anycase, both mum and Elise have referred to Stav's behaviour as 'bullying' which I assume means that Stav has been losing his temper with Bink when he start's crying

This accusation of theirs (concerning the milk) was the cause of much private snickering between other members of the family over the course of the day as this theory because, while it was true that Bink completely refused the water I gave him and he would only accept milk, when last I had him, I have never heard of anybody who thought that milk might cause tooth decay. But then Stav is a Scouse ("
ˈskaʊs"), a notoriously stupid breed and Elise is just particularly stupid anyway. (I don't know if I ever made this comment previously in this blog but as I can't be bothered to check I'll say it anyway; during both of her pregnancies Elise I would frequently mention that her offspring would be born smarter than her parents combined).

He kept waking up in floods of tears, during the night. I took him down to give him some calpol and bonjela for the pain once or twice. At one point he was crying so for so long, no matter what I tried, that Dimebar came in and complained, so this lead to the second time I took him down for painkillers.

At one point when I got him back to sleep I got up to go back to watching the cartoon ("Death Note") I had downloaded to my PC, however Bink wasn't properly asleep yet and demanded I stayed. I explained to the distressed 2 year old that I was only going to the desk and he asked if he could come with me, which I allowed.

He sat on my lap and watched it, though he complained of some discomfort (and that he might fall off at any time, even though I assured him that I wouldn't let that happen) but somehow I don't think he was really into it; it's pretty much intended for adults but then he's never really into the programmes on the TV much anyway (though he will often dance to music if the song is upbeat enough). Eventually he cuddled up to me and I decided to put him to bed. Once I had put him to bed it was clear that he wasn't going to let me go this time either so I just stayed with him and went to sleep.

He woke up at about 10am this morning. I took him downstairs and called Tony, asking if he could come as soon as possible; explaining how Bink had been up all night, Crying. And Tony can't say no to Bink, so he was up pretty quickly and I went back to bed until sometime between 3 and 4pm.

Apparently Bink needs to have 4 teeth removed. When you look in his mouth only one has had any particularly obvious

Nothing interesting happened since then except for RocknRolla, the latest Guy Ritchie film which I had wanted to see last summer (but nobody wanted to go with me and I don't particularly like going to the cinema alone). It was quite late when Dimebar suggested we watch this, something I didn't question because I assumed he knew how late it was. About half way through the film, when he was about to go for a cigarette, he checked the time and it was after 1am and he said he couldn't watch the rest but told me he wouldn't mind if I did so without him, something I wouldn't normally do but I made an exception with this case as it was something I had wanted to see for a while.

There was something missing from the film, though. I never really noticed before but I think the other Ritchie movies I've seen must have had a certain level of complexity to them because this one seemed to lack it. It was still highly enjoyable, though.

Monday 2 February 2009

My Sledge

One of my very earliest memories, possibly my earliest, is of mum driving me to some kind of camp (though, thinking about it now, it could have been on open-air market that was simply snow covered) and buying me a sledge. I wasn't even one year old at the time. I was dressed in a snowsuit in which I could barely move and securely buckled into the a child seat on the back seat of her car.

The sledge was made of bright orange plastic with black plastic handles on either side and another on on a string at the front and was pretty wide, by today's standards. She made a make-shift seat in it by putting me in a little sleeping bag, propping me up with cushions and wrapping me, tightly, with a blanket.

She did this as a means of taking me with her to run her errands as the snow was too thick to drive or to use a pram. Years later she told me how passers by and acquaintances had commented on what a good idea it was and how cute I looked in the sledge.

I used this sledge for every snow that fell on the hill behind our house for years. I had hoped that, should I ever have children, I would sit them in it when the snows fall and push them down the hill or wait for them at the bottom of as the trundled their way up the hill to slide back down.

Today my sister came around asking to borrow a few of our old sledges to take Bink up the hill and go sledging and mum declined because, apparently, she had lent her mine when she was staying with the Grogans (the family of one of her ex-boyfriends. I actually liked Charlie, in spite of his boisterous and presumptuous nature and the fact that he was known to have been a drug user, before his release from prison, and that his mother firmly believed he still used hard drugs at the time) and it had disappeared when they had moved house.

Elise had nothing to say in reply other than summarising what mum had said in very sarcastic tones. When I called out (I had Piglet on my lap, at the time, and wasn't about to run out into the cold) asking for clarification on what had happened to my sledge she made further, louder sarcastic comments for me to hear about me making a fuss over something she had done years ago.

I am upset about this. Deeply upset. Thinking back to my early childhood that sledge was, perhaps, my dearest possession for years (right next to my teddy bear). I would prey for and desperately anticipate the snows every winter, feeling immensely disappointed if they did not come.

I can't get amazingly upset about something that has happened years ago. But I am a little upset that I can't get upset about it, as mad as that might seem. I am upset that nobody saw fit to tell me until today, and even then I wasn't told directly as much as they forgot that I was in the vicinity when they had this loud discussion on the doorstep. I'm very distressed that she can regard my feelings on this matter so lightly, feeling no remorse and even finding them pathetic (as indicated by her sarcastic tone over the matter).

For years I've been saying how close I was to giving up on her; to losing all remaining love for her. Today I really think it happened. Today I decided that I was finally washing my hands over her, that she was no longer my sister. Until now I had been afraid that, should I do this, she would cut me off from my niece and nephew, both of whom I regard far more highly that her. But I should have realised that she would never do that as long as she needed a free babysitter. She might keep the kids at her place for days or even a week but normal service would always be resumed.

Today was the straw that broke the camel's back. Which is weird, in a way, what with all the things she's done to me and mum over the years; the (literally) hundreds of times she's made me get mum out of bed to answer the phone when she was ill over stupid little things that didn't really matter (yet she claimed them to be emergencies), all the times she's borrowed large sums of money from either of us and neglected to pay it back; trying to talk me into walking long distances in the hot weather when she knew a lift would be coming any moment, making me watch her children because she told mum I had agreed to do so, even though she hadn't actually asked me in the first place and things like that...

Not to mention all of those times she came at me with knives because I turned off her CD or was playing with her hair dryer...

What seems weird about it is that, upset as I am over the less of my sledge; I'm only as upset as one could be over losing something years earlier, which is to say it's like spilled milk. I feel like the straw that broke the camel's back is a petty and almost insignificant one , but when she's determined to pack so many to the beast it was only a matter of time.

I officially hate my sister, as of the 2nd of February, 2009.