To think, when the building was sold, I was hoping that would be the end of the ridiculous landlord dramas we've been having for years now. I started realizing that was not going to be the case when I started making quiet notes to myself along the lines of "Ok, remember that spot. If it's still there when we get back from Alberta... I'll do something... maybe". And then on the return from Alberta noting the same spot and making a mental note to see if it was still there when we returned from Nova Scotia.

The spot finally went away last Saturday morning. In my fairly experienced opinion in both the making of considerable messes and cleaning them up, this building hasn't been cleaned since our new landlords took over in July. And honestly, the "cleaning" the building received this past weekend is pretty fucking pathetic. There's still crap all over the carpets.

Anyways, the drama was all in email. Mike covered it better, so I'll direct your attention to his journal entry about it. Boiling it down to the basics, Mike (the diplomat of our relationship) emailed our new Property Manager about the mess in the building, got brushed off, the Linda (the hard hitter) stepped in and asked straight out when we could expect the building to be cleaned as the level of filth was unacceptable.

In return I got this gem of an email:

Not true. I am one week behind and already have made arrangements to catch up tomorrow. If you were at all concerned about the cleanliness of your home you would not let your cat run unleashed throughout the building or place its food in the hallway. I have had to clean up cat feces in the halls. These acts that you are committing are contributing to the filth and at times stench in the halls. Today when I met some of the new tenants moving in several of them expressed concern about this as they have allergies as I do myself. The building will be thoroughly cleaned tomorrow and from this point on I expect your cat(s) to be contained to your apartment at all times. I will do my part but you have to do yours as well. Please be considerate and respectful of your neighbors and fellow tenants.

Oh. My. Fucking. God. Please note that I received this at 4am Saturday morning, because I was awake with my stupid-ass-pain-filled back. I sat there for a good 40 minutes just gap jawed in disbelief and shaking with fury. I finally gave up and asked Mike to get up and help me calm down. (I'm doing better with dealing with stress and my anger, but sometimes I just end up broadsided with it and have no idea how or where to direct it.)

Anyways, we sent a blunt yet polite email in response, copy at Mike's journal and I've spent the rest of the weekend just simmering over this entire bullshit. If I'm awake, I'm thinking about it. Thinking about what I can do about this. Thinking about how unjustified those accusations were. Thinking about how much I hate conflict. Thinking about where my lines are and when I'll stop bending and fight. When I wasn't thinking I was playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas obsessively. Mostly to stop the simmering processes a little.

I woke up on Sunday morning with a very clear fact in my head. As tenants, we are customers of the company that employs this charmer. From when they took control of our building to the point our lease comes up for renewal we will spend $9240 with their company in exchange for space rental and utilities. This is a business relationship, and Mr. Flynn has been utterly unprofessional both in his interactions with me and in his care of our building to this point.

So, the next mental step is "what do I do when faced with unprofessional behaviour?" and the answer is as it always has been, I can either ignore it or I can do something about it. Since his title is "Property Manager", that means he's someone's employee and I bet you they'd be mighty interested in how their employee is treating their customers. So... let's find that mailing address that he failed to provide us with in his introductory letter and have a conversation with the owner of our building.

That's the plan for today. I'm going information hunting. Once we have that, I'm going to start writing. See where these steps take me.

What's funny in all this is as an abuse survivor I hate conflict. It stresses me the fuck out. Makes me terrified as an automatic reaction and triggers my fight or flight mechanism. I fled on Saturday morning. Went out of breakfast, walked the campus of Laurier with Mike, visited my Mom for a little bit. Then I woke up on Sunday morning ready to fight. I warned him. His response was "blah, blah, blah..." more fool he.

And that's 30.

The spins are back this morning. Not bad enough to make me walk into walls, but enough that I don't think I should be driving at all today unless they calm down a lot. I guess it's going to take me a while to recover from this, woe to me. Ahh well. I needed to do some stuff around the apartment anyways. Like the fabulous laundry! Woo!

Today marks the end of my first week with my new routine. I think it's been a success so far. I get things done without feeling overwhelmed and tired. Now just to keep it up.

The way it's worked out is in these separate chunks.

Morning Routine:

Start the Coffee, feed the cats, and water my garden.
Have breakfast and yummy coffee, post to the photoblog, check in on my silly pirate game, read some forums, check email, take my meds.
Do the dishes of Evil.
(Day One) Brush teeth, shower, lotion feet with amazing shea butter lotion, get dressed, brush hair.
(Day Two) Brush Teeth, wash face, get dressed, brush hair.
Write and post journal entry.
30 minute tidy.

I have gone out between the grooming stage and journal stage a few times this week, but it seems to get done all the same. I used to scatter all the various things throughout my day, for example I'd have my shower before I had to go out somewhere. Now having it done in the morning means I'm ready to go at any point and my hair's not wet either. *laughs* Plus having each stage flow into the next means I'll become used to it.

I'm a hell of a lot more accepting of doing things I don't like doing when it's simply something I do. Like the dishes, I hate doing the dishes. I'm very good at it, stuff comes out fabulously clean and shit, but god, I hate it so. But I hate doing the litter boxes more, so the deal I made with Mike and Sara is that the two of them do the litter, I do the evil dishes. *sighs*

I hope I find it as easy to do it in the morning when I actually start cooking again and there's more there to be done. The solution is not to cook! Hee. If it weren't for Miss Sara I'd probably do just that, cook easy crap and be done with it. Alas, the kidlet needs food to continue growing like a weed, so that's not an option.

Continuing with my routine layout, my evenings look like:

Floss and brush teeth.
Wash face.
Get changed, apply Vitamin A crème to face, lotion feet.

It's a bit weird to do things before bed like that, but my teeth definitely feel better, and if flossing daily will ward off another root canal, I'm all for it, baby! Not sure about my face yet, I think it'll take a few more weeks before I see any results. My feet are doing fabulously with the lotion routine though. The cracks on my heels are healing up and most of the calluses are softening. Shea butter is amazing; it has this nifty effect on skin, making it supple and younger feeling and looking. Since I don't need to save my shea stockpile for SkyWorks anymore, I can make as much lotion as I want. Woo!

That's something I should work on today, perhaps. Cleaning out my SkyWorks supplies and sorting what I could possibly sell to other soapmakers, and what I want to keep for my own use. Recouping some of my expenses would be very nice. Plus there's no need for the shelving in the kitchen to be filled with supplies for a dead and gone business, not when I can use the space for a pantry.

It's amazing how much space SkyWorks took up in here now that I stop to think about it -- the shelving in the kitchen, the cupboard in our bedroom. I clean out both and I'll suddenly have somewhere to store my supplies for my various interests. My word, what will I do without my painting boards sitting on top of the radiator behind my desk?

We'll have to see how ambitious I actually am today once I get finished with my 30 minute tidy. Plus I wonder if I'm feeling spinny today because I pushed it too hard yesterday. I certainly didn't feel well by the time I finished walking through the Farmer's Market. If so, it's a bad idea to push it again today. I just hate not being able to do things. I want to *choose* when I slow down, not have it forced upon me by illness.

Again, I'm not a good or patient sick person. :) Enh. I have writing and phone calls to be done on my list, so I can still take it slow and get stuff done. I need to find out pricing for enlargements of some of the photographs I took on our travels. Then I need to write a letter to the newlyweds with the 4x6 prints I had made for them of their wedding, and let them know how much it'll be to get any of those shots enlarged.

I'm no wedding photographer, but I did some good work there, I think. I find it hard to work with people though. I prefer things. I can circle things to find the perfect angle without feeling self-conscious. Hee. I'll put scanning my negatives on my to do list, so eventually all my good shots from the 9 films I shot on our trips will end up on the photoblog. Hopefully cropped to the right size this time! (My latest batch of processed images I mistakenly sized to my old size.)

And that is 30 minutes. See you all on Monday. :)

So I get up early today for god knows what reason, but I decide to turn it into a bonus and take the opportunity to visit the Farmer's Market. On the drive over, I'm flipping through the radio stations looking for something that doesn't suck when I hear "obese". Now considering that medically speaking I'm an obese woman, I'm always curious about what people are saying about it. So I flipped back to the station and listened.

First Man: "... now if my doctor told me I was obese and needed to lose some weight, I'd be grateful that he dealt with me straight."
Woman: "Well some people like it differently..."
Second Man: "No, here it is, you're FAT! You're unhealthy, you have to get off your ass and lose weight now. Don't complain that your doctor is telling you that you're obese, you are! Do something about it."
Woman & First Man: *laughs*
Music: "You're a pig..."

At which point I flipped elsewhere.

Now let's try something, ok? Let's play swap in the words.

First Man: "... now if my doctor told me I was black and needed to become white, I'd be grateful that he dealt with me straight."
Woman: "Well some people like it differently..."
Second Man: "No, here it is, you're BLACK! You're different; you have to get off your ass and change. Don't complain that your doctor is telling you that you're Black, you are! Do something about it."
Woman & First Man: *laughs*
Music: "You're a monkey..."

Not quite so funny anymore is it? How about another one?

First Man: "... now if my doctor told me I was female and needed to become male, I'd be grateful that he dealt with me straight."
Woman: "Well some people like it differently..."
Second Man: "No, here it is, you're FEMALE! You're different; you have to get off your ass and change. Don't complain that your doctor is telling you that you're Female, you are! Do something about it."
Woman & First Man: *laughs*
Music: "You're a pussy..."

Shit, suddenly it's racist and sexist and would probably get the broadcasters into a deep, deep ocean of trouble. The new acceptable bigotry is weight. Now I've seen this argument before, when compared to gender or skin colour the response is always "You can't change your gender or skin colour, you can always lose weight." I'm not even going to go there because of one simple little thing.

It's a mind-blowing concept. Brace yourself. Are you ready?

My body is none of your business. Her body is none of your business. His body is none of your business.

I don't need to justify why my ass is fat. I don't need to explain to anyone what I eat, how I eat, what I do for exercise. I certainly don't need to flip through radio stations and have obesity be the funny colour commentary for that morning's show. It's not fucking funny, people.

Calling a fat woman a pig is the exact same as calling a black man a monkey or a woman a pussy. They're all dehumanizing, degrading and vile. Dehumanizing a person is not humour; it's ignorance and hate. This bigotry keeps getting more and more accepted as reasonable. It sickens me.

Do we really need someone to consider inferior, to demonize, degrade, to mock? No? Then why do we keep doing it?

So, another day of feeling increasingly better. Which means the siren's song of consumerism has me in its hold. During this morning's routine I've already planned out my entire day and decided which stores I want to visit and where. It's like a litany of buy, buy, buy in my head. Mike needs new jeans, we need something in the shower to hold our various toiletries, I need decent shoes to walk in, and how about another pair of socks for when I lotion my feet?

Then there are the stores... Home Depot, Cotton Ginny, Old Navy, Wal-Mart, Zellers, Zehrs, Shoes 22, Best Buy, Dollarama, Sears, etc, etc. As they run through my mind I stop and think about the various things I either need or covet within their walls. Another bra that fits from Sears, electrical tape and maybe wire casing from Home Depot, Zellers carries Airwalk shoes, Cotton Ginny will be clearing out their summer stock, I won a gift certificate to best buy, what can I get there?

With the way I think about shopping it's a bloody miracle I don't spend like a fiend. Well, I do, but it never seems to be for anything un-needed. I'm not too big on the splurge on myself aspect of spending. I'd prefer to have a good reason to spend the money. Something airtight so that I don't get into trouble, not that Mike cares all that much.

I think in Mike's eyes as long as he gets his allowance to save up and horde, and I don't go all Amelia Marcos on him, it's all good. I do think sometimes he just shakes his head and sighs, but he also accepts that this is how I am. God, I love stuff. I love things. I love owning things, and even just going out and being around things.

I think that's the real benefit I got from being so poor for so long. I learned how to revel in beautiful things without owning them. I get great pleasure from just looking and touching and holding beauty. And I find beauty and interest in the weirdest places.

Anyways, next up is the 30-min tidy and then I'm done my "home routine" stuff for this morning. I can go out and revel in both my ability to walk and drive again and the sheer joy of things. We'll see what I arrive home with. *laughs* Hopefully nothing that makes Mike want to take the debit card away from me. ;)

Ahhh, the first day I actually felt capable of driving. I've driven a couple times to pick up Mike before today, but it always felt like I was taking my life in my hands doing so. Decided to drop Mike off at work and tie it into trying to pay my tuition with the backup Credit card. The due date on my invoice is August 30th, but the due date for the rest of the world is August 25th.

And really after my experiences so far with Laurier's bureaucratic troops, I'd like to give them as few chances to fuck up my life as I possibly can. Why yes, that does mean I think they'll slap me with a late charge if I pay by my invoice date. I can easily see myself dealing with them for months over something as simple as a due date.

But no love. The only way we could put it on the credit card is by doing a cash advance, and that's just stupid. So I guess we play the waiting game and hope the line of credit gets set up before the due date. Or I could take my Mom up on her offer to spot us the cash and get it done. Blah, I don't know.

At least I now have all my textbooks in my happy little hands. Stopped into the bookstore today and picked up the book I needed for the Mediterranean Studies course. I didn't even wear my sunglasses, even though my eyes are still a bit bloody. I don't really care anymore. If someone is curious, they can ask me what happened, if not, whatever. I've spent way too much time holed up in this bloody apartment to continue my hermitage just because I don't want to risk freaking out random strangers.

It's amazing how used to having mobility I've become. This past week and some change I've been home bound for the most part because of my ear. I hate it. I was slowly going mad because my photos from the trips this summer were finally developed, but I couldn't get to Dollarama to buy the albums I use to archive my photos. Something so simple, but the lack was driving me utterly batshit.

I got Mike to take me to Dollarama last night and then had a fabulous time organizing my shots. Plus they're finally labelled on the spine. Woo! Internally organized and externally, finally. I need to price out some options for how to get my photos available to be added to the photoblog. Getting the negatives scanned is fairly easy, but costs $2 per strip. I'm at the point now that I have so many negatives that it may be a better choice to buy a scanner that can handle negatives instead.

It appeals because then I can get access to my black and white shots without having to either pay through the nose for developing or find a darkroom and fumble my way through re-learning how to use it. Just scan, tweak in Photoshop, and get prints made. Super easy.

Maybe I'll do that today, see what the prices are on scanners that can handle negatives.

I still have to do my 30 min tidy for today's morning routine. I'm trying to create morning and bedtime routines for myself so I don't feel so scattered and lost in the new stuff that's coming. Plus there have always been various things I've always meant to do but never have because of my bad habits.

Like, for example, I run myself to exhaustion at night then I basically toss myself at my bed. No time in there for applying the Vitamin A crème my Doctor prescribed to clean up my wee little acne. No time to brush my teeth. No time to read, even. And I regret that at odd times. So, a routine. An expectation that I'll head to bed around 10pm, brush my teeth, wash my face, put on the crème, lotion my feet and read until I fall asleep.

And on the other side of the day, a routine that allows me to get all my home stuff done right at the start, giving me the rest of the day to focus on school, etc. I'm still getting a feel for how long it's going to take me in the mornings to do my new routine. I get so easily sucked into my silly pirate game when I eat breakfast that it skews my timing.

Ok, that's a bit more than 20 minutes but I don't feel like writing anymore. :) Till tomorrow!

You know those little bobble head toys that people put in their windows? The ones that nod and jiggle as you drive? Yeah. That's me. I'm on day nine of an inner ear infection that has just been kicking my ass.

So not last weekend, but the weekend before, I'm up at the cottage with Mike and a bunch of my extended family. We're playing Euchre, I'm having a glass of nice white wine, it's all good. I get to feeling sleepy, so upstairs we go. I stagger a tiny bit when walking to the bathroom and Mike teases me about being drunk. Now I know I'm a cheap drunk now, but one glass of wine a stagger does not make.

Wake up the next morning with the spins, on the light cycle. Feeling a little queasy but whatever. So I stagger around, eat a bit of toast then promptly throw up the toast. Thus begins a day filled with increasing vertigo and vomiting that made me pray for my eyes to pop out, just so the incredible pressure in my head could be relieved somewhat.

In about 12 hours I went from being able to sit up and feeling mildly dizzy and pukey to needing something, anything over my eyes so that I wouldn't try to focus on anything and vomiting if I dared to sit up or open my eyes. Just nasty. I mean, I'd open my eyes and I couldn't track anything. But I'd try. It's amazing how automatic sight is. You look at something, it slips away, you go back, etc, until you puke. *sighs*

So finally I ask Mike to call the telehealth number because the vomiting was starting to scare me. The spins, enh, they sucked, but whatever. Not being able to keep anything down at all, scary. Plus I was damned hungry. The response of the nice lady on the phone was to tell Mike to get me to a hospital within the hour. Apparently the spins and vomiting is also a potential sign of a stroke.

We get to KW, er, Grand River Hospital and I get Mike to put me in a wheelchair because at this point I've learned that opening my eyes is an intensely bad idea and I have zero interest in stumbling around a strange ER. Go through the standard hoops of getting admitted to ER, and I ask the nurse if I can lie down (to keep the vomiting at bay, you see.) "Oh we don't put stretchers in the waiting room, you understand why of course." was the response, implying heavily that it would look bad or something.

So I took great joy in violently vomiting into my fabulous stainless steel bowl (they didn't think to provide me with something else to puke in, of course) in the middle of their very lovely waiting room... and then sobbing and crying because it hurt so badly. I hope she felt like a fucking bitch. I really do. At least once I made it into the inner sanctum everyone I dealt with was fabulous and gentle with me.

Insert sleeping poorly on a stretcher, cracking jokes with the nurse that put the IV into me, having Mike read and stroke my hair, a doctor surprised at how bad the eye jumping (hell if I remember the name of it) was, and finally getting up and walking out. None too steady, but walking out, with my eyes open (a tiny bit). Thank you Gravol!

That was Sunday. *sighs*

Monday I discovered that all that violent vomiting had created haemorrhaging in my eyes. I looked like a zombie. I couldn't walk without whamming into the walls.

It's been getting better slowly, but I'm going mad. I can't drive; it's not safe. I'm basically wandering around like a drunk, and my reaction times are about the same. I keep thinking I'm getting better, and then I stand up for too long and want to keel over again. Dr. McKeown has told me that it's just going to take time to heal -- both the infection and the haemorrhages.

It's maddening to me when I'm not capable of doing what needs to be done. When I can't just take out the recycling that's piling up. Or do a quick jaunt over to Dollarama to get more photo albums so I can archive my pictures from the trips this summer. When I just feel like shit and there's nothing I can do about it to make it better at all except wait.

At least now I can read. The first part of last week, I couldn't focus on anything at all, it was all blurry and kept spinning by me. Today my left eye is blurry and annoying, but I can sit and read my forums, I can stand around and be super-greeter and chat in my silly pirate game. Thank god.

Plus I managed to clean my desk and file some crap. So, little silver linings, I guess.

So there’s this pile of things going on and I haven’t been writing about it at all, in any journal form, hand written or typed. We’ve been traveling a lot of this summer, and mid-trip out to the east coast I got the email saying I had been accepted as a conditional adult student, part-time at Wilfred Laurier University.

Earlier in the spring, when I was still a bit more stubborn and hopeful about my chances of becoming a full time university student, I didn’t think the conditions Laurier places on their adult student admissions were reasonable for me. I had some idea that I would have student loans at that point as well. Then came the letter from OSAP telling me that Mike makes too much for me to qualify for anything in the student loan arena. Followed with the essentially “fuck you and please, go away” letter from UW making clear my grades from 10 years ago still had far too much bearing on my life now.

So, I gave up. I figured it was too late to do anything for this coming year, and I’d try again next spring. In comes Julie. When my response to her asking me if I could complete my admission to Laurier was “It's too late anyways.” her response was to take over. She found out that it wasn’t too late, exactly what I needed to complete my application, redrafted my essay answers to UW into the format WLU wanted and then delivered it all. I was packing for our 3-week trip, and basically distancing myself from the whole process at the same time.

I think I was willing to let her do it because I really didn’t think it was going to matter. I was going to receive another “Go away” letter and that would be that. What does it matter if someone else is willing to expend her energy towards a fruitless goal? Right?

Then once we hit Truro and had Internet access once again, there was an email there from the admissions office at WLU asking to confirm that I really did want to continue my application, even though I had emailed in the spring stating I wanted to stop. You would think my completing the requirements for my application to be processed 5 months after that email would be a hint, but… no. Anyways, I confirmed my desire to apply and they responded a few days later that I was being extended an offer of admission.

There's something interesting in having such a major life changing event hit your lap when you’re 2000 km away from home and the ability to do anything about it. I emailed back asking if there was anything that required my attention before we were scheduled to return home on he 10 to no response.

(The Admissions office certainly seems to be allergic to responding t any questions. Twice have two fairly major questions been completely ignored by them. The level of unprofessional behaviour has been utterly mind-blowing.)

So we got home on Monday, cutting short our Vacation as it was planned. Mainly because we just wanted to get home to our cats, our lives, and in Sara’s case, her father. Since we got home, I’ve picked up my letter containing my offer of Admission, registered for my allowed 2 classes this term, bought my books, got my student card, activated my student card with the library, attempted to get my WLU email set up, booked an appointment for therapy, and spent far too much money on school supplies for myself and Sarabeth. Oh and also had a mild panic flurry because I don’t have the faintest idea how to do a bibliography or footnotes and my grammar is disgusting.

So my Mom’s going to help me with some of the issues I’m concerned about. This weekend I have homework in the form of 2 chapters in the “easy” grammar workbook. Then I’m to move onto the not so easy workbook.

Plus, I thought about it, and if I’m going to need to write a lot I need to practice writing, so here I am. :)