Up the Wall

25 November 2011 at 11:45 pm (Education, Insight, People, Plinky Prompts, Rants, Relationships, Self, Wellbeing)
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I'm generally a laid-back girl, usually opting for the path of least resistance. That is the reason that the few things that drive me crazy really push me to the border of certifiability.

Stupidity 2

Actually, come to think about it, there are only two real things that drive me crazy – two major things that branch out into smaller instances, but we're looking at the big picture here.

The first is a lack of personal space and time. I need a corner, if that's all I can get, to build my book fortress and call it mine, with nobody messing with it. Sharing everything really makes me suffer. My old workstation, which I couldn't customise because someone else would be sitting there next shift, made me twitchy. Now I'm putting up with dodgy chairs instead of the comfy sofas, all for the bliss of having my computer desk as my exclusive territory.

Personal time may or may not be associated with my personal space. I really need some time alone each day, away from any kind of responsibility, to read or listen to music and decompress. That's either a half-hour sprawled on the bed with a book after the young one is tucked in, or a bimble to the supermarket with my mp3 player on, or, if I'm really lucky, a wander about town while shortstuff is at school. I become cranky and snappish if I don't get it, particularly long-term, as it tends to happen when we're visiting with my mother, who doesn't understand 'doing nothing time'.

The other thing, which makes me see red and gives me opportunities to exercise my self-control (not always successfully) is human stupidity. I used to spend considerable lengths on time on Yahoo Answers, and the sheer amounts of ignorance and idiocy spouted there were staggering. From the 'Catholic vs Christian' dichotomy to the father who was worried that his newborn daughter would become a lesbian if she breastfed, I would invariably end up debating ways to give that gene pool a good bleaching.

Now I'm on other debating communities, and some of the opinions I hear expressed there make me nearly foam at the mouth. I want to give some of the consistently WTF? authors a good shake (until their teeth rattle) and find out which planet they fell out of and if they maintain any link at all with reality. Just like the claim that public school-quality pizza is a full balanced meal. The stupid… it burns!

And then there's also the cunning stupid, when people attempt to pull a fast one and then wonder why I call them out on it. Like Jerry Springer guests. The bigger the jackass, the louder the bray.

I'll be looking for the latest edition of the Darwin Awards soon. And if I ever find any evidence that the stupid is contagious, watch me go all Ellen Ripley on the morons unfortunate enough to be within range. Really.

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Tick Tock, Goes the Death Clock

24 November 2011 at 11:02 pm (Family, Insight, Internet, Plinky Prompts, Relationships, Religion, Self, Special Days)
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The Death Clock's predictions can become more than a little entertainment for Halloween as years go by.

“Nutrisco et Extinguo” Memento mori _DDC5301

The Death Clock (http://deathclock.com/) is a little widget that predicts one's date of death, based on a few lifestyle questions. It has been around forever and I've been amused with its predictions several times, especially comparing its four modes – optimistic, normal, pessimistic and sadistic. However, as I'm growing older and the dates creep closer, the whole thing becomes more food for thought than a joke.

In fact, if I found out I had only ten more years to live, that would make me 49 and would be a better deal than a certain sadistic mode prediction that offed me at 46, if I remember well. Not that I'd be particularly chuffed, but it would certainly be better than a lot of other possibilities.

My biggest fear is dying while my son still needs me; on top of that, leaving him young enough not to remember me well is my worst nightmare. Ten more years would make him 13. He would still need me, no doubt about that, but he'd be able to cope. I'd make sure to use these years to imprint his Greek heritage on him: take him visiting, especially as long as his grandmother is still alive, teach him the language, perhaps see about getting him dual citizenship. I'd hate to see that part of him wiped out through ignorance, while it would help remind his father of me.

Beyond that, I have very few goals to achieve. My bucket list would be very short. I don't care for a career now, let alone if I knew my time was running out. I don't care for travelling; I don't feel there's a single place on earth to see or thing to do to be complete. I'd just spend my time doing what I enjoy. Writing, getting as many stories of those that swarm inside my head out of it before they fell silent. Reading the words and worlds of others, especially during times when my own strength might fail. Above all, spending time with my husband, quality time, without letting the petty concerns of day to day life get in the way. I'd help him with everything right to the end, but refuse to burden myself with business that must remain unfinished.

In the end, I would just make sure to get my green burial, hopefully with a rowan planted over me. I like the idea of returning to the earth literally, back into the circle of life, feeding some of the creatures that grow to feed others of my kind. I expect my faith would be my refuge, empowering me to face the transition without fear but with hope, and to let go of what I used to have and know, as must we all.

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Deck the Halls

20 November 2011 at 9:42 pm (Entertainment, Family, Food, Greece, Plinky Prompts, Relationships, Religion, Seasons, Special Days, Travel)
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Not our own hall, though. Not if I can avoid it. Not this time.

You see, I plan to be in Athens for the holidays this year. Last time was in 2009, and I've missed the atmosphere so much.

We haven't booked tickets yet, so I don't know exactly when we will be away – any time between 17 December and 2 January. I want to be there as long as possible, and not only because I desperately need seven workdays to bring my paperwork up to date, failing which would create no end of trouble.

You see, we say 'holidays' there, instead of just 'Christmas', because Christmas is only the beginning of the festive season. During most of the 12 days, the party goes on non-stop. There are so many name days to be celebrated, and a good few of them involve such popular names, that an overdose of treats is very likely, if one really keeps in touch.

The week between Christmas and the New Year also hosts more parties than any other time in the year: one long revel to celebrate the birth of the Son and chase the old year away. Add to it the fact that presents are exchanged on New Year's Day, rather than Christmas, and you can understand we could never be satisfied with a day or two of celebrating. Oh no. That's just a warm-up.

So I'm going to do everything in my power to be down early, to enjoy the build-up of activity. To decorate the tree in my mother's living room, which I haven't done since 2006, together with my little one. To welcome carol singers on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. To go to church at dawn and hear liturgy in Greek again. To have the pork and leek casserole that is traditional Christmas Day fare in my part of the country, and my mother's incomparable melomakarona. To visit with uncles and aunts and cousins and old friends, who haven't seen my son since he was just crawling. To see old friends, walk along crowded decorated streets, and welcome the New Year with fireworks at midnight and clinking glasses of bubbly with the family that made me and the one that I made, all together.

Despite the bleak economic climate in Greece right now, all I can think of is spending time with the people I care for. Nothing else matters. We've faced the spectre of poverty here as well, and we're just beginning to raise our heads above water, but I'd do anything to never have to spend another holiday season separated again.

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Risk Nothing, Win Nothing

16 November 2011 at 11:43 pm (Britain, Family, Greece, Plinky Prompts, Relationships, Special Days)
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Those who have been reading these ramblings with any consistency will already know that I'm not good with risk and change. I prefer to play it safe and grumble occasionally. But when I do take a risk, it's a big one, bitches.

20 hours of sun

The one big risk of my life so far has been upping sticks and moving to the UK to start a family with someone I'd met on the internet.

Sounds daft, doesn't it? It was. Falling in love with someone I had never seen in the flesh, who was married to someone else at the time, no less, flying over for a first meeting (he told me later his biggest fear was that I wouldn't turn up; I wouldn't have dreamt of doing that, nor that he could have done the same, leaving me stranded in a foreign country – yes, I was naive and trusting), and proceeding to arrange a permanent move… I'd say the daftness of the particular idea covers quite a few years of lesser risks not taken.

Did it pay off? Well, I'm here, aren't I? We've been married for three and a half years and we have a wonderful little boy who is the light of my life. It has been anything but easy, I will admit that. I miss my Greek life something fierce – my family and friends, the language, the food, the shopping and drinking culture, some of the climate. We've been through rough patches in health and finances, and without any real-life support system, I've felt heartbreakingly lonely. The guilt of leaving my mother back alone is constant, occasionally crippling. And I still say the risk paid off.

If I had stayed back, I'd be exactly what my mother was accusing me, at 34, of becoming: a cranky spinster without prospects. I'd have put up with my soul-destroying job to pay the bills, and in the current financial collapse, I may not even have that. If I'm going to be lonely and miserable, I want something back for it, and my own family is that something.

As my husband is fond of saying, we are a miracle. A relationship like ours was not supposed to work, but it does. And if I hadn't taken a deep breath and jumped off the deep end, I'd never have found that out.

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Knowing Me, Knowing You

14 November 2011 at 11:49 pm (Family, Insight, People, Plinky Prompts, Relationships, Self, Sex)
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I bet that a lot of people would take it for granted that their mothers know them best. Well, no.

Masks 9

To be brutally honest, my mother stopped knowing me around the time I moved from my teens into full adulthood, and I'm not sure she was the one who knew me best even before that. I suspect my father understood me better, although he was a man of few (and to the point) words. He died when I was 17, and my mother was sucked into her own crumbling world and missed me actually growing up. I don't think she fully understands, even now, how the child she raised became the woman I am. It wasn't overnight, but one still needs to look.

No, the ones who really know me best are the men who have partnered me, for relatively short periods, considering, but got to depths of connection that my family never reached with adult me.

I have only been in two relationships in my life. The first lasted nearly five years, and even after calling the couple thing off, we remain best friends. We are in different countries now, so we don't have nearly as much contact as we would like to, but a lot of the old companionship remains. The second started as an internet friendship, grew into a long-distance affair and finally marriage and family. Seven years into it, neither of us is seeing the partnership ending any time soon.

I think the key is that I've been real friends with both my partners. We've connected beyond dating – with long walks and talks, gaming, sharing social and personal landmarks. They've both seen me at my most unglamorous – ill, distressed, angry, crying, dishevelled first thing in the morning, the lot. My ex supported me after a bout of mono, went along with me as I was tested for lymphatic malignancy, shouldered my fear, let me vent over being laid off, over making do with a crappy job and crappier people to make ends meet. My husband held my hand as I gave birth, took me to A&E writhing in agony, was by my side when I had surgery, held me at night when all my fears surfaced, during our long months of unemployment hell. It's not like my mother hasn't nursed or comforted me, but neither the worries nor the ailments of my childhood got anything on those I've been facing as an adult, away from family.

Yes, sex is a big part in getting to know someone, and the one thing one can't share with family, but you'd be surprised how minor it can be, compared to all the other ways two real partners can connect and understand each other.

Or perhaps you wouldn't.

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