Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Inside my head
The conversation is blurring all around me. Voices rise and fall like waves. My hands are clutching for something to hold, something to give me an anchor here. A word makes it through the haze and I gratefully latch onto it. Pillow. I like pillows. There was a time when I would sleep surrounded by pillows. Right now I have only one pillow and sometimes I get a crick in my neck. My brother once jumped on my neck and I had to go to hospital. I hate hospitals, I hate the smell and the narrow corridors. I always feel like they are closing in on me, ever so slowly. Time is moving slowly today, I can never estimate the time it takes to complete tasks. I always think things take a lot less time than they actually do, or vice versa. Vice Versa, that was a movie I liked when I was little. Looking at someone fidgeting with a cork from a wine bottle. Back and forth, back and forth. A shape moves at the corner of my eye and I notice it's my cat Gizmoo, waiting patiently by the living room window, hoping someone will let him in. Daft cat. He doesn't realise he can just walk around to the back of the house and walk in the back door which is open. Ah well. I rise from the table to let him in, I notice my laptop on the way to the window. Oh wait! That new show aired yesterday, that means I can download it today! I sit down on the sofa to search for it and add it to my download list. Hmm now it's a little chilly in here, I head to the back door and close it shut. It's really cold! I should wear a sweater more often and why am I bare footed? Socks and Sweater. I head upstairs, running my tongue over my teeth. Hmm they feel a bit gross, I'll just stop in the bathroom and floss them a little bit. Ah. Much better! I head back downstairs and rejoin my friends at our table. What are they talking about? I have no clue, I sit there and it washes over me. Hmm. Washes. I wish we had a bathtub. I don't particularly love baths but now that I have no bathtub, I could really use a bath. Typical. It's very nice when it's cold in the winter and you want to get warm. Hmm, I'm still really cold! Oh crap, of course i'm cold, I still didn't grab a sweater or my socks. Right! I leave the table and stride purposefully upstairs, I grab a pair of socks from the wardrobe and pull a sweater over my head. I hear a beep that tells me someone is messaging me on facebook so I walk into the study, socks in hand, and see what the message is. It's my mum messaging me about the front garden and how is it going. I set the socks down before the keyboard and reply to her. Then I realise I'm being rude to our friends downstairs so I quickly end the conversation and go back downstairs. I sit down. Then notice Gizmoo is still waiting patiently by the window so I'm up again and I let him in. Sitting down again. Hmm. The voices continue to rise and fall until they stop and there is silence. I look around. Everyone is looking at me expectantly. Ehmm, sorry what were you talking about? I sense an irritation. They're trying to talk to me but I'm not really there. There is too much going on inside my head to make sense of all the voices and what do they want? I take a breath and find a line of conversation that I can follow and I hold onto it for dear life. It's a struggle and I can't hold on forever. I'm going to have to let go, i don't have the strength for this. And my socks are still upstairs and my feet are very cold.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Scary Things
I want to be a writer. I've always wanted to be a writer. I stopped believing I could do it and, indeed, stopped trying a lot of things. I'm now 26 though, and beginning to believe that I could do it. I love stories, I love language and I love creating my own stories.
I'm scared of a lot of things, which I have listed below.
- Failing
- Dark Staircases
- Cockroaches
- Clowns
- Expressionless Masks
- Being Confined in a Small Place
- Heights
- Ghosts
- Driving
- Landing in an Aeroplane (I always think the plane will either crash upon impact or go out of control and crash into the airport.)
- In movies, when you see someone but only the back of their head and never their face.
- Talking in large groups.
- Victorian Dolls
- Lifelike Mannequins
- Old Portraits of people where their eyes follow you.
Friday, May 25, 2012
A Game of Thrones
Possible Game of Thrones Spoilers Below!
It feels like I'm watching only to enjoy the moments I remember from the books and to curse when something happens that is new. And I hate that! I know that it's a great show and they did a magnificent job regarding casting and much of the locations and sets are very close to how I imagined they would be.
I just can't relax and even though I know logically that of course they have to change and compress a lot of things, because it's a different medium and they have to do that, I just can't feel it and every time I watch a new episode, I get tense and irritated when they change something.
Then again, I often get irritated or tense in my everyday life when something changes when I don't expect it to.
So! New Goal: Relax and don't get stressed about things when they change and try to go with the flow more because that's a lot more enjoyable!
Monday, August 29, 2011
Photos!
I've been enlisted to take photos at my mum's upcoming wedding in September. This means I have to practice. A lot! I don't know a lot of the technical details involved in taking good photos but I want to learn and I'm having fun so far! I was going to do a small description of all the photos but somewhere around the fifth photo down or so, that stopped working, so here, without any further ado, here are some photos!
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Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Case of the Reappearing Slug
This has been happening for the last four evenings. Before going to sleep I go into the kitchen to turn off the lights and lying inbetween my dishwasher and my bin is a rather large slug. My girlfriend is terrified of them so it falls to me to deal with it. I have this thing where I can't kill stuff unless they irritate me a lot (mosquitos with their high pitched squeal in my ear or when house flies converge around me and try to mate on my knee). So instead of terminating this slug, I pick it up in some wet kitchen paper and put it out of the window. Then go to sleep and forget all about it.
Until the next evening when I go into the kitchen and there is a rather large slug in the same place between dishwasher and bin. As far as I can tell, it is the same slug. Rather long and not too fat and when i look close, it is even a bit cute. My girlfriend is shrieking from the sofa that I have to kill it but if she wants it dead then it falls to her to do the deed I'm afraid! So i put the slug out of the window again and go to sleep.
The next two nights, the slug reappeared looking very happy with itself if I do say so myself, and again it goes out the window in wet kitchen paper. The only way I can think of it coming back in is to gloop up the outside of our house, then up the kitchen window and enter the small window at the top that we leave open so our cats can get out during the day, then proceed to gloop down the window, trail over the kitchen counter top and then down the wall to it's place between dishwasher and bin.
I am pretty certain it's the same slug each time, but I had never heard of such slug behaviour before! Sounds like a lot of effort just to be thrown out again. Surely in the garden there is much more things for the slug to munch on than to be found in the house. I think it's chuckling to itself really.
Now the only thing to do is to see if it makes another visit tonight!
Until the next evening when I go into the kitchen and there is a rather large slug in the same place between dishwasher and bin. As far as I can tell, it is the same slug. Rather long and not too fat and when i look close, it is even a bit cute. My girlfriend is shrieking from the sofa that I have to kill it but if she wants it dead then it falls to her to do the deed I'm afraid! So i put the slug out of the window again and go to sleep.
The next two nights, the slug reappeared looking very happy with itself if I do say so myself, and again it goes out the window in wet kitchen paper. The only way I can think of it coming back in is to gloop up the outside of our house, then up the kitchen window and enter the small window at the top that we leave open so our cats can get out during the day, then proceed to gloop down the window, trail over the kitchen counter top and then down the wall to it's place between dishwasher and bin.
I am pretty certain it's the same slug each time, but I had never heard of such slug behaviour before! Sounds like a lot of effort just to be thrown out again. Surely in the garden there is much more things for the slug to munch on than to be found in the house. I think it's chuckling to itself really.
Now the only thing to do is to see if it makes another visit tonight!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Holiday in England!
This is a very quick blog of some photos Myr and me took when we were in England. The first one is when we were at the natural history museum and is, I think, one of the only photos taken when all four of us are in the same photo with our dad.
Grandma, Anna and Richard in a restaurant
Nicola with Dad and Grandma
Bowling at Anna's birthday
Nicola and Myr :D
A Jetlagged Dad
Me, Anna and Richard
Just Dance 2!
Annabanana
And lastly a video of Anna and Nicola dancing :D
It was a great holiday. We spent most of it with either my mum and Cathy or with my Dad, brother, sisters and Grandma. We also managed to squeeze in a saturday afternoon with some Badger friends in London. The only bad thing is that we still wanted moar holiday when we got home! I'll do another blog again soon when I have more time :)
Monday, June 27, 2011
A bit of backstory on growing up with ADD.
I used to spend my french classes furiously scribbling in the back of my books entire scripts of whatever Buffy episode I was currently hooked on. I ran riot through the halls, and when teachers gave me into trouble (which happened at least a couple of times a day), I had no clue how to behave so I settled for looking at them unblinking in the eye...that just led them to thinking I was insolent as well as a trouble-maker. I daydreamed my classes away. Maths, sciences, french, geography and history held little to grab my attention and I would spend the hours gazing out of the window or doodling or fidgeting.
I grew to like P.E because I realised I was not so bad at it and it allowed me some escape from the monotony of my other classes. I had (and still have) a very low tolerance for boredom. I enjoyed English although when I was in primary seven whilst I was taking my English exam to determine which class I would be put in in secondary school, I failed to notice that I had to turn over the paper...as a result I got 61% which meant I was put in the lower class where I was soon bored. I was not allowed to retake that paper. I also enjoyed music (although I was terrible at most things except singing) and drama. I loved being someone else for a short while.
At home I ran riot as well. I was always outside (before my mopey teenage years) climbing trees and getting dirty and getting into fights with the boys in my neighbourhood. It was always the boys against me, my best friend Vicki and my brother Richard. I got into trouble a lot growing up for not doing this or forgetting to do that. I grew up believing I was lazy and not too bright. I couldn't understand how people could sit down and spend even an hour doing homework. I would try but something would catch my eye or a thought would interrupt and I'd go off on another tangent.
One place where I could really focus and be myself and relax, was with reading. I would devour books. Nowadays I read less because I have agreed to read no English books during the week but if I didn't have that stipulation, I would still be the same when it comes to books.
I was thirteen when my first school very politely kicked me out and asked me to never come back. They had had it with me who was quiet, but got into trouble every day, got into fights with other girls, hardly remembered to do homework, daydreamed her time away but when she put effort in, could get high grades.
I think they were at a loss. And the head-teacher at the time called my mum who was working and too upset to leave her car to come get me, asked her colleague to do that for her. And then next term, it was off to the local public school.
I had always difficulty hearing people (so much so that mum began to think i was hearing impaired) that I went to a specialist to see what could be done. He told my mum that there was nothing wrong with my hearing but perhaps it is a psychological problem.
I did things impulsively without giving it much thought. I decided it would be a fine idea at the age of 12 or 13 to give myself a fringe...that ended with me cutting around the entire front of my head and my mum freaking out and dragging me to the hairdresser where the stylist did the best she could but I still came out looking like a boy.
The years from 13 to 18 were the most difficult I think. I was still coming to terms with my mum being gay (who came out when I was 10), realising that I was gay, struggling with bullies who knew my mum is gay (I can still hear the shrieks of 'Yer ma's a dyke!', and a depression that turned me into someone who hardly left her room. I became even quieter at my new school and hardly spoke to people and tried to keep my head down. I still had difficulty focusing and concentrating but it went under the radar I think because the classrooms were a lot bigger and because I was so quiet, and most of the quiet kids were the concentrating academic types.
Things got better in my last two years, I made some nice friends, enjoyed my English and Drama classes a lot and saw more friends outside school. I was very focused on people though. Usually one a time. I would be totally focused on one friend and be jealous if they had other close friends. I'm not sure if that's a gay thing, an ADD thing or just a Kat thing. Luckily I don't get so hyperfocused on people anymore!
After school finished, I started a course in HNC social sciences which was psychology, sociology, history, modern studies and close reading. I enjoyed it a lot at first but as always my concentration slipped and I stopped going. When I was 19, we moved to England. I went to university in Portsmouth but I didn't like it much. I was doing English and creative writing but I didn't finish my degree, and indeed had to repeat the first year. I liked some things about it like the sci-fi society and the people I lived with in my second year there. But I wouldn't do it again and I don't want to go back.
After university didn't work out, I moved back to be with my mum and Cathy where I almost burned their house down by forgetting i was cooking something on the stove and reading in the living room. The fire brigade had to come out, it was a big mess. As i've mentioned before I got a job in a bookshop which I loved. I got bored at times but mostly I loved organising the books and talking about the books and I was in my element! Then I met Myrna and very impulsively decided to move out to the Netherlands to live with her! Did i have any idea about how to speak Dutch? No. Did I have a job waiting for me? No. Did I know how much you needed to know Dutch to get a job in Groningen? No! But I went. And it was a struggle for the first year until I got my first job and now I have twice as much hours as the first year and things are better. It was really living with Myrna and her picking up behavioural things from me that led us both to thinking that something was up.
Now i've been taking methylfenidaat for almost 2 weeks and I think it is helping although there was a bit of a slacking off in the last few days of last week. I feel calmer, and I can order my thoughts a bit better. I notice things more and I'm noticing more when things need to be cleaned. I've also started my new job at the university cleaning, and I'm enjoying it! Nice people. Tonight we're BBQing and I'm looking forward to that.
I grew to like P.E because I realised I was not so bad at it and it allowed me some escape from the monotony of my other classes. I had (and still have) a very low tolerance for boredom. I enjoyed English although when I was in primary seven whilst I was taking my English exam to determine which class I would be put in in secondary school, I failed to notice that I had to turn over the paper...as a result I got 61% which meant I was put in the lower class where I was soon bored. I was not allowed to retake that paper. I also enjoyed music (although I was terrible at most things except singing) and drama. I loved being someone else for a short while.
At home I ran riot as well. I was always outside (before my mopey teenage years) climbing trees and getting dirty and getting into fights with the boys in my neighbourhood. It was always the boys against me, my best friend Vicki and my brother Richard. I got into trouble a lot growing up for not doing this or forgetting to do that. I grew up believing I was lazy and not too bright. I couldn't understand how people could sit down and spend even an hour doing homework. I would try but something would catch my eye or a thought would interrupt and I'd go off on another tangent.
One place where I could really focus and be myself and relax, was with reading. I would devour books. Nowadays I read less because I have agreed to read no English books during the week but if I didn't have that stipulation, I would still be the same when it comes to books.
I was thirteen when my first school very politely kicked me out and asked me to never come back. They had had it with me who was quiet, but got into trouble every day, got into fights with other girls, hardly remembered to do homework, daydreamed her time away but when she put effort in, could get high grades.
I think they were at a loss. And the head-teacher at the time called my mum who was working and too upset to leave her car to come get me, asked her colleague to do that for her. And then next term, it was off to the local public school.
I had always difficulty hearing people (so much so that mum began to think i was hearing impaired) that I went to a specialist to see what could be done. He told my mum that there was nothing wrong with my hearing but perhaps it is a psychological problem.
I did things impulsively without giving it much thought. I decided it would be a fine idea at the age of 12 or 13 to give myself a fringe...that ended with me cutting around the entire front of my head and my mum freaking out and dragging me to the hairdresser where the stylist did the best she could but I still came out looking like a boy.
The years from 13 to 18 were the most difficult I think. I was still coming to terms with my mum being gay (who came out when I was 10), realising that I was gay, struggling with bullies who knew my mum is gay (I can still hear the shrieks of 'Yer ma's a dyke!', and a depression that turned me into someone who hardly left her room. I became even quieter at my new school and hardly spoke to people and tried to keep my head down. I still had difficulty focusing and concentrating but it went under the radar I think because the classrooms were a lot bigger and because I was so quiet, and most of the quiet kids were the concentrating academic types.
Things got better in my last two years, I made some nice friends, enjoyed my English and Drama classes a lot and saw more friends outside school. I was very focused on people though. Usually one a time. I would be totally focused on one friend and be jealous if they had other close friends. I'm not sure if that's a gay thing, an ADD thing or just a Kat thing. Luckily I don't get so hyperfocused on people anymore!
After school finished, I started a course in HNC social sciences which was psychology, sociology, history, modern studies and close reading. I enjoyed it a lot at first but as always my concentration slipped and I stopped going. When I was 19, we moved to England. I went to university in Portsmouth but I didn't like it much. I was doing English and creative writing but I didn't finish my degree, and indeed had to repeat the first year. I liked some things about it like the sci-fi society and the people I lived with in my second year there. But I wouldn't do it again and I don't want to go back.
After university didn't work out, I moved back to be with my mum and Cathy where I almost burned their house down by forgetting i was cooking something on the stove and reading in the living room. The fire brigade had to come out, it was a big mess. As i've mentioned before I got a job in a bookshop which I loved. I got bored at times but mostly I loved organising the books and talking about the books and I was in my element! Then I met Myrna and very impulsively decided to move out to the Netherlands to live with her! Did i have any idea about how to speak Dutch? No. Did I have a job waiting for me? No. Did I know how much you needed to know Dutch to get a job in Groningen? No! But I went. And it was a struggle for the first year until I got my first job and now I have twice as much hours as the first year and things are better. It was really living with Myrna and her picking up behavioural things from me that led us both to thinking that something was up.
Now i've been taking methylfenidaat for almost 2 weeks and I think it is helping although there was a bit of a slacking off in the last few days of last week. I feel calmer, and I can order my thoughts a bit better. I notice things more and I'm noticing more when things need to be cleaned. I've also started my new job at the university cleaning, and I'm enjoying it! Nice people. Tonight we're BBQing and I'm looking forward to that.
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