The Rules

focus

Imagine for a moment that all the road rules you know were suddenly gone, and a series of new rules had taken their place, however you have no idea what those rules are. What do you think your chances would be of getting from point A to point B without breaking any rules?

How would you feel to have everything you thought you knew pulled out from under your feet as a surprise to yourself? That is what life can often feel like for someone with Asperger Syndrome.

If you spend any time with me, you will quickly discover that I love rules, procedures, policies and especially, Having These Things Written Down. I suspect it is the same for many who are diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. I can’t speak for all Aspies, of course. The ones I know personally feel similarly to me.

There is one important reason I prefer rules to be Written Down, VS just unwritten type rules. It has been my experience that unwritten rules change regularly. People would say to me X is ok, so I would do X, and all of a sudden guess what? X is not ok. X will in fact get me in a lot of trouble, maybe even fired from a job.

Even worse than those rules are the rules that Do Not Exist Until You Break Them. Today I am going to tell you about one such incident.

I worked for an insurance agency once, in a call centre taking calls. I worked the late shift, midday to 8pm, or 11 to 7pm. The office was split over two floors and once 5pm hit, the late shift people would have to move downstairs for security reasons.

I had been working at this place nearly 6 months, and I had a desk I would always use when we moved downstairs. On this particular day, the computer would not work at that desk. Myself and my team leader spent nearly 20 minutes trying to work out what was wrong with it to no avail, so she said to pick another desk. I just went to the next closest one.

I did *not* know that I had Asperger Syndrome back then – nor did I know about light sensitivity. This particular desk had a lighting issue, for me. When I sat there, a light was shining directly into my eyes. I actually could not see the computer screen very well and after about 10 minutes of working there a headache began to develop.

Once I got off my call, I went over to the team leader and said “I’m going to have to move again, that light there is shining in my eyes”. She said “Here, put on my baseball cap, see if that fixes it so you won’t have to move”. I did what I was told and it worked – the light was no longer a problem. I finished my shift and went home.

At my 6 month probation review, I was told they wanted to extend my probation as they had some “issues” with me. I was told that my personality was a problem for them. I asked too many questions, and I “talked back” – interpretation, I tried to discuss the answers I was given so I would understand them better. Those ones, I won’t go into right now – other than to say these were all Asperger related, I can see that now.

The fourth and final issue was so petty, ridiculous, and stupid. I almost quit on the spot.

The fourth issue was that I was seen by management wearing a hat inside. I was not given a chance to discuss these issues at the meeting – which was held on a Friday afternoon – I was told to go home and think about what they had said, and return for another meeting on the following Monday to discuss things further and sign an agreement to extend my probation for an extra 6 months.

I went home absolutely furious – hello, there were no rules about hats that I had been told about. Furthermore, it was not even MY hat, and I was TOLD to wear it by the team leader! When I got home, I dug out the dress code from the code of conduct. There was nothing about hats.

I remember having an major meltdown that evening. I do not remember specifics but I do remember being curled in a ball on the floor, crying and screaming. I do remember thinking I had enjoyed that job so much and now I never wanted to go back there.

By Monday, cooler heads had prevailed somewhat. I went into that meeting ready to sign whatever they wanted me to sign – but having applied for a multitude of other jobs over the weekend. I was fully prepared to argue the hat issue, having spoken to the team leader involved who was also furious that had been raised, and I was ready to discuss all the other issues as well.

Mostly I felt that I wanted to keep my head down until I could find another job and get the heck out of there. Sometimes incidents like this show you who people are, and these people were not people I wanted to be involved with long term.

Three months later – three months where it was Not Ok to be ME every single work day, remember my personality was a problem for them – I resigned and was out of there. They weren’t paying very well, anyway!

This was not the first time this kind of thing has happened to me, nor was it the last. I have finally got to a point where I would rather not put myself out there to be rejected yet another time, even though I follow any written rules more than 99% of other people would – because I love the rules, you see.

If they tell me I can’t use my mobile phone at work, I will never take it out of my handbag. If they tell me I can’t use the internet for personal stuff, I never ever will, while people around me are breaking these rules constantly and my team leader is Facebooking up a storm even though Facebook is Not Allowed.

This is one reason computer games can be so reassuring and appealing for me – once I know the rules of a computer game, they rarely change. This is also why I need to be the person making – and enforcing – the rules in future.

Previous posts in this series – I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, then we talked about My Aspie Super Powers and My Aspie Limitations – then I spoke about a concept with The Cup Is Full.

Angry Snoskred, Asperger Syndrome, mistakes I made

Custody Battles Are A Special Version Of Hell..

One of the biggest challenges in my life was a nasty custody battle that the Other Half and I went through. I’m nt going to write very much about that here on the blog.. I can’t go into details for obvious reasons. I don’t want her googling things specific to the case and ending up here.

Custody battles by their very definition set people against each other. It is a “battle” – and the only people who profit are the lawyers. I think there’s been enough of that in this world. If you are engaged to be married, consider making a “parenting pre-nup” – people do that for money but not for any kids who might arrive? I think that’s very unfair to the kids.

If you have children and you are currently happily married, here is what you should do. Sit down now, while you are still together, and make a plan that puts the children’s needs ahead of yours. Kids need access to both parents. Kids need to be put first. Kids need as little disruption to their life as possible. Consider making the Childrens Bill Of Rights your guide to how both parents should act if the worst happens and you end up seeking a divorce.

If you get divorced – that is between you and your partner. The kids are often damaged beyond repair because their parents are angry, just furious with each other. They cannot see past their rage. There is parental alienation, there is asking the kids to choose sides, there are things said in the presence of the children which can never be unsaid.

NOBODY HAS THE RIGHT TO DO THESE ABUSIVE THINGS TO INNOCENT CHILDREN.

No matter how mad you might be, no matter how terribly the other person might act, no matter what one party does to the other party. Yes, it is abusive – emotionally. It can scar a child for life. It can change how they relate in their own relationships. It can create fears and make it impossible for them to have a marriage of their own that works.

In a situation like divorce, you have to choose to take the high road, 100% of the time. If both parents did that, things would be simple and easy. But there is often one party who refuses to behave in an acceptable manner. Sometimes one party believes their needs trump everyone else’s needs. To those people I say – Karma is going to get you eventually. Trust me on that. I’ve seen it happen.

I screwed up myself. I was young. I was idealistic. I saw how that woman treated the child I adored and it made me so angry. I made mistakes because of it. I did not like how she treated me or the other half, either. I allowed my anger to dictate my actions. I eventually learnt there was another way to deal with things, a better way. By then the damage was done.

I’d do things very differently now but when you’re in the moment, and this woman is calling you after she’s sat down and interrogated the child for two hours about everything that happened over the weekend and she’s on the phone to bitch about something insignificant that happened on the weekend, it is hard to keep your cool.

An example – she called to admonish us because we “exposed” her child to the wrong brand of soap. He’s a delicate child and can only use a certain brand, according to her. She has no proof of this, the child does not have a rash of any kind, but she wants to make sure that in future you adhere to her soap standards, or else. I wanted to throw the phone. I kid you not. But I was pleasant and polite, and I agreed to do what she wanted, to keep the peace.

But the demands kept coming. It was only a matter of time before the word No was said in response to a ridiculous demand. I can’t even remember now which one it was. There was so many of them. Saying no to her was the worst thing we ever did because it enraged her – we should have just kept saying yes and then doing what we wanted anyway.

So what if you are taking the high road and the other party is not? It is difficult. Sometimes it seems impossible. Sometimes taking the high road is no fun at all. You still have to do it. Write “Sometimes taking the high road is no fun at all” down. Put it on your fridge. I have it written on a piece of paper in front of my computer. It has kept me going through struggles I cannot write about here on the blog.

If you’re a Dr Phil watcher like I am, you may be aware of the case of Sam and Lindsey Porter, two children who were picked up by their father for visitation and then never seen again. Ya’all in the States need to know we in Australia tend to get shows a lot later than you do, and also a lot of shows are repeated over and over on Cable.

A lot of people are anti Dr Phil and anti Oprah. I like Dr Phil and his approach to things. I don’t always agree with him but that’s not the point. I like Oprah’s lipstick lately, it is sparkly, and she always wears great shoes. Both Dr Phil and Oprah inspire people. We need more inspirational people in this world..

More importantly, I believe you can learn a lot about yourself from watching other people and both these shows give all of us an opportunity to do that.

When I first saw the show where Dr Phil was talking to Tina Porter I went to the Sam and Lindsey website mentioned on the show to see if there was any news about the kids, and there was not. I honestly hoped that the father had taken them and left them with someone else. The father was being held in jail because he would not say where the kids were.

The other night my parents were here for dinner (both of them are huge Dr Phil fans lately) and they mentioned that the kids had been found – and they were not alive as I’d hoped they would be. As soon as they left I got online to find out more. This article seems to have the most info – Porter children’s bodies identified. They were found on September the 9th.

How does something like this happen? It is simple. One parent puts their needs ahead of the needs of their children. One parent puts their anger, hurt, and other emotions ahead of the needs of their children. One parent puts their need to win ahead of the needs of their children.

Mr Porter was very selfish. It seems to me from what I have read –

– He wanted to stop paying child support.
– He wanted to win.
– He was angry at his ex-wife.
– He wanted to take those children away from his ex-wife – if he couldn’t have them all the time, then she couldn’t either.
– I firmly believe he intended to kill Tina Porter as well. She is extremely lucky to be alive. She was within moments of being murdered.

You hear people give parents who kill their kids labels – like monster,for example. He is not a monster. He is a pathetic, stupid, horrible, crappy person. That’s all there is to it. I see people also try to blame this on the “drugs”. The “drugs” had nothing to do with it. I don’t believe what people will say to remove responsibility from the people who do these things.

If he was mentally ill, I might be willing to have a little compassion. I saw an Oprah show where this guy who was depressed killed both his kids.

He was having thoughts which he never told anyone about because he thought his kids would be taken away. Because he never told anyone, he couldn’t get help with it. He was in therapy and could easily have got help. They would not have taken his kids away, they would have just made certain he wasn’t left alone with them. But his wife left him with the kids while she went to get her hair done, and when she came back they were both dead.

As much as I wanted to judge him and say how horrible what he did was – and it is a horrible thing – etc, I was remembering the irrational thoughts I had when I was depressed – all of them towards hurting myself, thankfully, and not someone else.

However this Porter father? I hope he never gets out of jail. He tortured Tina for years refusing to say where the kids were. He *enjoyed* doing that. That’s before we even get into the murders of two innocent children who more than likely, loved their father.

In fact I wish we could create a special kind of hell for him, where Mothers get to torture him back. Each Mother would approach the tied up man, and choose from a long list of painful yet not life threatening options – everything from slapping him hard across the face to pricking him with sharp needles to hot wax torture, *and* each Mother gets to kick him hard in the nuts. All day long, every day. The Death Penalty is too quick and easy for him. He deserves to be in pain. He has caused everyone who loved those kids such pain.

Please, if you are a parent, don’t ever do these harmful things to your kids. Take the high road – and ask your partner to commit to doing the same long before you consider a divorce.

Are you looking for the Hump Day Hmmm’s? This week they are at Emily’s blog so head on over to check it out.

Hump Day Hmmm, mistakes I made

Snoskred Is Getting Organised – Are You?

I am all for making positive changes in all areas of my life, but sometimes you have to put the blinkers on and focus your sights on one specific area. Right now for me, that area is organisation – or organiZation if you’re from the US – and time management.

I have good reasons for wanting to get organised. I want to start a business over the next two months. I realise that if I started a business now without having the right skills in place it just would not work. So it is time to take a deep breath, suck it up, and get to it. At the start of this week I made a personal commitment to myself – I am getting organised.

Now some of the stuff I am going to say here is going to seem.. lame.. silly.. possibly even stupid. In order for you to understand where I’m going you need to know where I am at now. I’m not going to lie to ya’all. ;) here’s my major issues.

I am easily distracted.

I have trains running just fine on the tracks but then suddenly they crash. IE – I can be in the middle of doing something and then my mind throws out something else I need to do, and I will stop and change direction.

I’ll be in the middle of writing something and remember I wanted to check a website. I will be in the middle of one task, and remember one that needs doing RIGHT NOW. Yes, this is happening as I type. I haven’t updated the Aussie Blogs List yet, cos I took a day off today.

It happened again just then, as I was typing this. I noticed my glasses were dirty. This brings us to another issue I have –

I don’t put things back where they belong.

I was watching a West Wing in the lounge room yesterday. Part way through, guess what happened? I noticed my glasses were dirty. So I came in here to my desk and took my lens cleaning cloth out to the lounge room. I had to stop typing this post to go and get it.

My computer is a mess.

On the inside, that is. Information goes in, but I have no easy system, no good way of finding things, my desktop has always been a nightmare of files just dumped there. In fact here is how it looked at the start of this week.

organisearticle

I need to take charge NOW.

When I am running my own business, working to deadlines? All those little distractions and things not being where they should be and not having a system of where things get put and how to find them again on the computer – these things are going to add up and drown me. Especially because the business I want to run is computer orientated.

So how to fix it?

Step One – Done!

Get my computer organised and start a system of where things go that will work for me.

Thanks to this wonderful article – How to Keep your Desktop Organized (without getting insane) my desktop now looks like this.

oscreennow

Step Two – In Progress

I am a digital packrat. There are folders full of files. Take for example our photographs. We have a lot of them. We never had a system for organising them other than to put dates on the folders. Consequently, we now have a lot of this –

organisearticle2

Yes, that right there is the date we began putting some kind of name on the folders. But the no name folders go back to *cringe* 2 years before that date.

There is no magic wand I can wave here, but thanks to another article I read – A 3-Step Cure for Digital Packrats, and How to Know If You’re One of Them – I now know how to cure it.

I’m looking through two folders a day, naming them, putting aside good photos I want to use for the thought of the day photos. I am also looking through two bookmarks folders a day, sorting, deleting, moving. This will take time – If I tried devoting one day to it, I’d still have a lot of folders not labeled. Better to do little chunks daily than overwhelm myself right now.

Step Three – Time Management – Done Daily

1. Create a daily list of tasks.
2. Give each task a priority A, B, C,
3. Ensure that you work on the “A” tasks first.
4. Handle each piece of paper on your desk only once.
5. Ensure that you make the best use of your time.
6. Don’t postpone anything – Do it now!

Step Four – Day Planner

odayplan1

I have done this for the last three days and spent a day preparing for it before that. It’s rocking my socks, ya’all. You have no idea how focused I feel right now. It’s a happy feeling. :)

Step Five – Checklists

odayplan3

Yes, this is possibly the most lame of all the things I am doing, but it is helping me remember the things I do daily. I plan to update it in a week or so when I have identified more things I do daily. This is laminated so I can tick the boxes each day with a whiteboard marker and then rub that off ready for the next day. Yes, in the past I would forget my head if it were not screwed on, apparently. Now I have the checklists, sitting right in front of me, there’s not much chance of that.

Step Six – Email Check

One of the ways I get distracted is by the little envelope that pops up when I have new mail. Solution – open the mail in the morning, check emails, reply emails, close emails. Open again at lunchtime, dinner time, before bed. So if I don’t reply urgently, now you know why – and you can know when to expect that reply.. approximately.. ;)

Step Seven – Time Off For Good Behaviour.

This new stuff I’m doing is pretty intense right now, because I have a lot of organising I am doing. The major two things I need to finish are sorting my google reader and going through my archives here. These are both time consuming. So at lunchtimes, I step away from the computer for an hour. At dinner time, I step away for two hours.

I plan on having at least one light schedule day each week until I have a good handle on things, but I still want to make sure I get two of photos and bookmarks done each day. I took today off, got a haircut, went to see a house, put in an application so we might be moving, got my glasses fixed, did a little shopping. Whoa, what was that? Yes, we might be moving to my dream location. More on that tomorrow.

Step Eight – Buy In Bulk

The inexpensive things I find myself looking for, I need to purchase them so I can have one in each location I may need them. The lens cleaning cloth is a good example. They’re not expensive and it will cost me less to buy 2 more of them (I have 2 now, one in the car – one on my desk) than my time is worth to keep chasing them from room to room.

Step 9 – Put Things Back

The things that I can’t buy extra of, I need to put them back when I’m done. Simple, hey? It’s not as easy as it sounds, but I am committed to doing it.

What happens next..

I’m taking it one day at a time right now. I am hopeful that in three to four weeks I will become unconscious competent in being organised. However I think it may be a habit I need to keep working on and these skills of time management are going to be so useful to me in my business, I’m going to keep using them.

All I know is, I’m feeling motivated. I’m sleeping a bit less because when I wake up, I want to get onto the daily tasks I have set. I’ll update you urgently on developments. ;) so stick around!

get organised, how to guides, life lessons, mistakes I made, moving forward, work

The Hump Day Hmmm – My own personal temptation island.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference

Back in the days before the reality tv show Temptation Island existed, I met with a man who can only be described as a powerful force – a cyclone perhaps – of temptation in my life. He was tall, blonde, devastatingly handsome in an Aussie Bloke kind of way and he possessed a set of legs the likes of which I have never seen since. He also enjoyed wearing the shortest of short football shorts and Rexona musk deodorant which on him took on a new fragrance I cannot describe at all other than to say it made my brain turn into complete spaghetti.

When *not* in his presence, I was happy to admit that he was financially a nightmare – he spent money like water. I spent money like water. The two of us together would have spent our way into a large financial black hole. He was also emotionally damaged and drifting through life without purpose, having been the driver of his car one evening on the way home from a function where he had not been drinking but the roads were wet and he was in a ute and the back end spun out when it hit some loose gravel. The passenger side of his car ended up wrapped around a tree. Sitting in the passenger seat at the time was the love of his life. He woke up having been thrown from the vehicle with two broken legs and was trying to make his way back to the car when help arrived, at which point he passed out. Some hours later when he regained consciousness in hospital, they told him that his girlfriend had died. He would not let ANYONE sit in the front seat of his car from that day forward – male or female.

I met him at work. He came in to buy something. He bought it from my boyfriend at the time, who I worked with. As well as the rest of my family – both parents, sister, uncles and aunts. At the time I felt completely trapped, like life was moving forward at such a fast rate of knots and I had no power over anything. I really didn’t know what I wanted in life. But from day one there was something between us and neither of us were sure exactly what that something was.

So, we all got to be pretty good friends. This was back in the days when I had a huge group of friends. He would visit the share house we all lived in (a story for another time) fairly often, but so did a lot of people. I used to cook the dinners in the share house and all the boys would be out working on cars or something, but he would come in and chat to me while I was working. I thought it was just me, that I was the only one who felt anything until one day and I can’t remember how or where or anything except he told me that if I wasn’t with a good friend of his.. I can’t remember the words really, I just remember thinking wow, this is heavy stuff. What do I do now?

Logically we talked about it. We discussed the complete explosion that would be created if we did get together. We discussed the fact that he was not comfortable making any kind of move while I was still with my boyfriend, and neither was I. We discussed the fact that I was not comfortable breaking up with my boyfriend without knowing more or having some kind of future plan. We discussed the fact that he did not like future plans. We discussed the fact that he and I were both financially irresponsible. And, we discussed the fact that we were both just plain crazy about each other. Endlessly. And at the end of all the discussion, we decided the most responsible thing to do was to do nothing – other than accept we weren’t going to be together because neither of us (me especially) were prepared to turn our lives upside down for something we knew nothing about.

As time went on and it got closer and closer to my wedding day, he told he he thought I was doing the wrong thing getting married, and I agreed with him. I didn’t know how to get out of the situation I’d put myself in. He didn’t know how to help me. Underneath it all for me was this feeling that I was meant to be with him. However the wedding was a like a Japanese Bullet Train and I didn’t know how to stop it – and I thought if I tried, I might just get run over by it.

I could just end the story there, but that isn’t where it ended. One night, weeks before getting married, myself and a few girlfriends had gone on a girls night out. The boys had all gone on a night out of their own. Adelaide was a small town and we were having our respective nights out in Hindley Street. So that increased the chances the boys and girls would meet up at some point.

I was young and I also drank a fair bit, back in those days. By the time we met, in a nightclub I cannot remember the name of, I was fairly drunk. He was also drinking but nowhere near as drunk as I was. What I’m about to tell you might change your opinion of me, I’m hoping not, but I’m taking a risk here telling you.

I have no idea now how it happened. I cannot tell you how we got from inside the nightclub to outside the nightclub. I cannot tell you how we ended up in each others arms. I can tell you that waking up the next morning to see him lying next to me, I felt terrible, but not for the reason you might think.

You see, after we’d decided to get a taxi back to his place, he’d gone back inside. My husband to be’s brother had spotted us outside, and cornered him to discuss what was going on. Said brother was very drunk and didn’t remember anything later, but at the time he’d threatened to punch my temptation island’s head in if he touched me again.

By the time we got back to his place, he’d already decided not to let anything further happen. I was still fairly drunk, but he’d told me what the brother said, and put me to bed where I promptly fell asleep. When I woke up I was panicked. Would brother remember seeing us? Would this mean the wedding was off? But at the same time, I *hoped* he would remember. Because I was hoping for salvation from this doomed wedding train.

No salvation came to me as a surprise, and a few weeks later I got married. My temptation island was there. He danced with me, and we both brushed tears of regret away while we danced. I have not seen him in many years but I wonder where is is now.

I often wonder about the choices I have made in my life. Would I have ended up here if I had chosen differently? I’m happy where I am now, I’m glad I’m with The Other Half – who is financially responsible (well, more than I am, he loves his gadgets but it isn’t bankrupting us). who is happy to make future plans, and we’re crazy about each other. I know that this is where I am meant to be – I just wonder, would I still have got here if the brother had remembered?

The topic today is meant to be too much of a good thing, I’m not sure this fits – it might be not enough of a good thing but the other post I wrote ended up getting too personal for me, and I’m mentally drained after going there.

This is a post I wrote some time ago but did not post, I felt it was too personal. However reading it over today having just written a much more personal post I’m feeling ok with it.

Hump Day Hmmm, mistakes I made

Heartbreak leads me to Stumble..

I’ve been a busy bee the last 24 hours or so. I’ve been using my StumbleUpon toolbar to “stumble” all the blogs listed under “Blogs I read daily via Google Reader” and “Australian Blogs Community” in my sidebar. So if you’re in there, you’ve been stumbled my friends. ;)

The reason I have been keeping myself busy is.. I had a major disappointment yesterday.

You may recall back in May, I wrote about my heart being broken when a house in the place I want to live turned out to be too small. I don’t usually like to make the same mistake twice, but yesterday I did it without even realizing it. Last Tuesday when we went looking at houses we’d seen this one that looked like it might work for us. It was very close to the beach in a quite peaceful area. I called the real estate lady and asked if we could arrange to look at it, and we made it for Monday next week.

I was pretty excited because it looked big enough to fit all our stuff in, and it was solid brick – many of the homes where we want to live are weatherboard or generally beach shacks you couldn’t live in during a winter. Sephy fired up Google Earth for me and he sent me a photo which had me daydreaming of beach walks every day taking my camera with me.

house1

The house is somewhere in this pic. ;)

By the time the other half got home from work, I’d already mentally packed all our stuff and moved in to the place. He had received a phone call from the real estate lady saying she had been in contact with the owners and they’d had a bad experience with cats and they wouldn’t accept us as tenants, so there was no point even looking at the house.

I was completely shocked. The next thing I know my eyes started to water all on their own and I was bawling. It sounds stupid to you guys I guess, but there is such a strong urge in me to go and live near that bay. After the tears, I started to get angry. Our cats have never done any kind of damage to a house. They have cat towers, they are desexed, they don’t pee on the carpet, they are well looked after. The worst they might have done is fur up a curtain, but that comes out in the wash.

Even worse – the current tenants clearly had young kids. So if I’d had kids instead of cats, it would be fine. I don’t have human babies, I have feline ones, so I can’t live there. It seems to me this is discrimination, and completely unfair. If they said to a couple with kids, sorry you have kids, you can’t live here, imagine the outcry!

Funnily enough it happened almost exactly two months after the last time.

“There’s nothing like work for getting over a disappointment” from Memoirs of a Geisha. I have to say, it really works. :) I’m feeling a lot better already. And it benefits all you guys in my sidebar as well because you might see some traffic from Stumbleupon now.. I hope you do. ;)

house hunt, mistakes I made, move to the beach

Offensive words and the Aussie way.

Aussies reading this, I need your input and comments. ;) Recently during my blogging chicks commenting challenge, I found myself breaking my own commenting rules. Specifically – “If you’re seeing red, get out of there fast – and as politely – as possible”.

A very judgmental blogger had stated that they would not read a blog if it contained swear words, and stated that they felt anyone using swear words basically was a bad writer incapable of expressing themselves in any other way. Them’s fighting words to an Australian – at least they were to me.

Living here in Australia I hear swear words all the time, it’s a fact of life. There is not one single word that shocks or offends me. Not even the C word. In fact I know people who use that as a term of affection. If one was offended by these words, you would probably find life quite difficult here in this country – Aussie readers, do you agree?

At the same time I have recently changed the way I do things here at the blog with regard to swear words. I put a * in them. This is something I do for the readers, not for me. That is because I do understand that some people are offended by these words.

So over the past few days while I have been cleaning my bookshelves (a job I finally finished) what this blogger said has been bugging me. I’m not going to link to the blog because I do not feel she deserves the traffic.

To write off everything a person says because of the occasional swear word? Isn’t that akin to writing off everything a person says because they are {insert one of the following – black, white, yellow, pink, gay, lesbian, heterosexual, republican, democrat, right wing, left wing, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, is my point made or should I continue?}. So I am a “swearer”. So I am going to hell. Or something. That doesn’t mean I am somehow “lesser” or my words have any less meaning.

I won’t lie to you guys (and Christian readers, please do not be offended by this, read the whole thing before you get upset) – I have struggled with this commenting challenge. First of all, it’s the blogging *chicks* and I’ve had some really terrible experiences with women during my life time. So the reality is, women scare me. Mostly. :) And I say that being female myself.

The other thing I have struggled with – many of the blogs belong to people who are Christian. I have always been somewhat scared of the apparently very religious after some bad experiences with the religious in my teenage years. The Christians I have known have never acted like true Christians – they preach, but do not *practice*.

I used to be Baptist. I used to go to church. The trouble was, the church I went to was more like a social group with cliques and some of the people were extremely nasty. It put me off church and Christians so much that I’ve never gone back. Since then I have often felt people who believe in God are as alien to me as people who believe UFO’s are coming to the earth to collect them.

I respect the right of everyone to worship whoever they choose, don’t get me wrong, but I do find it difficult when people are very judgmental and impose their religious views on others, especially in the areas of topics like a politics, sexuality, a womans right to choose, and the worst of all in my opinion, the religion where parents refuse to let their very ill children have blood transfusions which would save their lives. It’s an alien concept to me that you could care more about a religion than your flesh and blood child who is dying in front of your eyes.

I had a moment of panic at the start of this challenge when I opened up the first 10 blogs and the majority of them were Christians. But I’ve stuck with the challenge because I have found points of commonality with the people – even with the Christian people, several of whom I have now added to my google reader. Had you asked me at the start of this challenge would I be able to find Christians worth adding to my google reader, the answer would have been NO. Probably with a swear word in front of NO, too. :)

There’s blogs on the Australian Blogs Community that I struggle with because they have a very different point of view on some topics to what I do. I’m still willing to hear what they have to say. I listen to people who consider themselves left wing and right wing. I am incredibly tolerant in so many areas. Even I am surprised by how tolerant I am, from time to time.

What I have trouble tolerating are people whose minds are closed – who won’t listen to others and who will never change their opinion even when evidence suggests they should. This is why I have trouble with people who identify themselves as “right wing” or “left wing” when it comes to politics, because they seem to blindly support one side or the other. I’m a person who supports the side that is *right* and that means I can swing from one wing to the other in a heartbeat.

My blog has 5 hits for the F word on Technorati. Google comes up with 23 but it counts several of these more than once. If that negates everything else I have ever said here on the blog for some people, then so be it. ;)

As I go back through my posts I will be editing swear words to have * in them. I apologize to any readers who may have been offended by my using these words in the past, and I do intend to use * in them in the future. It’s not because of that very judgmental blogger, it’s because I do respect and care for my readers and I do not want to impose my swearing on them. I know not all of them come from a place where the F word is as common as hello.

Sephy posted on this topic today also, these two posts tie in quite well together.

I meant to write about interpretation today but it didn’t happen. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get my act together on that one.

Australia, commenting on blogs, feed readers, mistakes I made, women

My heart is broken.

Yesterday was an absolutely glorious day. The Other Half and I went to a few places to have a walk on the beach. The last place we went is in the new town that both of us really want to live in and it was a place we drove past last time but didn’t stop. It’s more interesting than a normal beach, it has mangroves and a big wooden bridge across them, so you can stand there and look at the little crabs doing what little crabs do.

crabs

There were little fish in the stream which was running out of the mangroves, the stream was a funny color because it had rained, and the fish were eating little bits of food coming to them as a surprise

fish

The tide was out, and you could walk out for miles along rocks and sand. And we did, we spent over an hour walking there, just soaking it in, looking in rockpools, finding hidden beach life. It was so peaceful. Absolute, utter silence. It was incredibly incredible.

bay1

As we were leaving we noticed that one of the houses we’d looked at was maybe 3 houses away from where we actually had been. I began to imagine a new life, beach walks twice a day, peace, silence, no screaming kids. The house was listed as having three bedrooms and a rumpus room. There’s only two of us but we have a lot of stuff. We live in a four bedroom now. It looked like it would be big enough, and though the bricks were a little dark I said to the other half, why don’t we go to the real estate agent and see if we can have a look?

And so we did. Half an hour later we pulled up out the front of the house. The real estate lady was there waiting and already had the house open. It had screen doors (something we really miss now) and we went inside to a quite dark room which would have been the lounge. Then up a couple of steps to the hallway which ran the length of the house. At one end of the hallway there was a giant wood fire and another living area. Then it had a kitchen and dining. The kitchen was fairly old and country style, but I liked it. Mentally, I was already moving in boxes.

The bedrooms were somewhat small. It had one bathroom. As we walked back towards the laundry I said, so where’s the rumpus? The real estate lady said – it’s out the back, but you don’t get access to it, it belongs to the owner and he stays there on weekends, holidays, that kind of thing. Hmm. Not brilliant news, but I’m still prepared to accept compromises I guess. Then we go outside, and there is no undercover area for a bbq or outdoor setting (we have both) except the owner has one attached to the rumpus, which we wouldn’t be able to use. There was no garage, either.

After we’d been in the house we were standing out the front and all you could hear was the trees and parrots flying past and I just really wanted to live there. Even if the owner stayed out the back from time to time. Even if we didn’t have a garage. Even if we had to give the pool table to my parents to make it work. My mother would be furious, she spent years trying to get rid of a pool table, but maybe I could talk her into it. The idea of beach walks, maybe two minutes walk away, whenever I felt like it.

All the way home both of us tried to figure out how we could make it work. I could almost hear Tim Gunn from Project Runway in my head “Make it work!” but no matter how we sliced it, there was no way us and all our stuff and our two cats could fit in that house. It didn’t have Austar. It didn’t have a broadband connection. We probably could have those fitted, and if there was a rumpus in which to put the pool table we would have explored it. But there wasn’t.

I was really pretty tired, I’d been up for 24 hours trying to put my body clock back onto schedule. We got home and it was just after 4pm, and then those kids across the road started up screaming and playing and yelling, and The Other Half came in and said to me “It’d be worth getting rid of half of our shit just not to hear those kids anymore”.

It didn’t hit me till I got up this morning and was chatting to Sephy online and telling him about the house. My heart is broken. :( It’s like a new version of life was coming towards me, stretching out its hands, and at the last minute it turned around and went the other way.

We’re just going to have to be patient. What we want will turn up. We have to believe that. And now I’m going to be more pro-active – I’m going to get in touch with all the property managers there and let them know what we’re after. But today I feel really grumpy. :(

house hunt, Jervis Bay, mistakes I made

Sleepless

It’s 1:30am and my mind is wide awake. The other half went to bed quite a while ago now, and I don’t want to go in and read till I’m tired because it will wake him up. Much of this post won’t make a lot of sense. It’s ok, I just need to get it out.

I’ve made many mistakes in my life, but the one that keeps annoying me today is why did I place my faith in other people when I should probably have struck out on my own and created what I wanted to create, especially when those other people suddenly decided they didn’t want me to be involved in things to the same extent I originally was.

Those people let me down and yet, I continue to support them. Those people say nasty things about me when they think nobody else is looking. Well, people are looking and whether you like it or not, they have no good reasons to treat me badly, so they let me know what is said. And I don’t say anything, and I probably should, but I figure for the good of everyone, it’s better just to let them talk and try to show them by my actions that I am not the person they think I am.

I know this – I have done a lot of good things. I don’t talk trash behind peoples backs – if I am going to say something about you I say it to you. Maybe I should have done what everyone was urging me to do – create my own empire, make my own site, do my own thing, but that would have taken the focus away from what is really important, and it would have meant a lot of the work I have put into things would have to have been put into creating the empire, and realistically that would have been a waste of my time and energy.

People think I’m holding grudges, but I don’t. I’ve put the past behind me, well behind me – they are the ones with the chips on their shoulder and no real desire to remove them. I was told to build a bridge, and I did. And let’s face it, someone who said some very nasty things about me, and continues to do so from what I am told, recently I put a fair bit of effort in to doing something nice for them – for the good of the bigger picture.

People ask me why, when I was treated so badly by certain people, I continue to stick around. It’s a good question and one I find myself asking myself today. I have a little piece of paper on my desk. You might have seen it in the doll pictures. Maybe you can’t make out what it says, but it is the answer, and that is why it sits there on my desk, right in front of me, day after day.

desk1

It’s entirely true. What it says is – sometimes taking the high road is no fun at all.

It hasn’t been fun. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t enjoy the way certain people treat me. But the good things that have come from me taking that high road are very worthwhile and one day, maybe, those people who have been so unpleasant will come around and see my actual actions instead of making sh*t up. They’ll look and see and maybe they will eventually think – damn, she did that, even while we were talking crap about her? Even when we kicked her in the teeth, and then kept kicking her in the teeth, over and over till most of her teeth were missing? What would I have done in her shoes? Would I have stuck around? Would I have stuck it out? No f*cking way. I’d have resigned publicly, made a huge fuss, gone off and made my own site, and split the community even further from what it already was.

Right now today, I am truly wondering if this has been worth it, when people won’t let go of the past, and they still seem to think kicking me in the teeth is a great idea. And maybe what I should do is exactly what *they* would have done in my place – resign publicly, cause a huge fuss, go off and make my own site, and split the community. But I can’t do that, not because I can’t go make my own site, I have in house technical support and my own server is finally back online etc, but because I believe the community is split enough already, and further fractures will only do more harm.

It’s time. People need to stop trying to hurt each other, and remember why they are involved in any of this at all.

Today I did go make my own site. It’s actually for all my stuff, because now my server is back online I’ve managed to get things into one place, and some kind of order. It’s got all my scambaiting audios there in one place, well a lot of them anyway. I’m going to get back into doing more of that stuff soon.

mistakes I made, moving forward, moving on, people talking about you, scambaiting, taking the high road