Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Fun.

Hey ho, Bloggy-oh.
     It's been...ooh, five weeks now, what?
     How time flies when you are having fun.

To summarize:
     MJ is still here, for now at least. After agreeing that he qualified for housing, the council dragged their feet about giving him a reference number so that he could start bidding (he needs a band, apparently). But he has one now - 'Gold Plus'. Whee. - so things should start moving again now, which is good. Meantime, Mother and I are getting used to bed sharing, and apart from occasional flashes of irritation (on my part, not his), things have been progressing a lot more easily and smoothly than I think any of us expected.

On MJ's part, the swap from living in his own flat to a shared home has gone very well. Living with two slightly insufferable females was never going to be a completely bump free ride, but it seems that any annoyance we may cause him - and we do. We don't mean to. We just do - pales into insignificance beside the abuse and unpleasantness he suffered during his 7 year stay at the Lion Hotel. Here things are, by comparison, quiet, restful, comfortable. So for him, the transition has been relatively easy.

On Mother's part, she is relieved that he is not on the streets and that the son that she had felt lost forever in a swirl of twisted memories, drug abuse and mental illness, appears to still be there. That offsets any awkwardness the transition may have held for her.

On my part...
     Well...
     It will probably come as no surprise, given some posts in the past, that the one that has found the situation hardest is me. For me, the transition has been very difficult. Some of the reasons are obvious ones: going from two women living comfortably and harmoniously alone to two women and one man with a routine that is completely alien to our own, having to share my bed (I really do mind that, though it has improved with time), the added mess an extra person makes throughout the day...but, being totally honest, that hasn't been the main problem. The main problem has been created in my own mind, by me alone.
     So far as I can tell, it is a hangover from things in the past. Things that had happened, things that MJ had done; unpleasant things, distressing things. Things that made the idea of ever living under the same roof as my brother again intolerable.
     Given the past, of course, such feelings are understandable feelings to have. But once the decision had been made - by both of us. The responsibility for MJ coming to us is mine as much as Mother's. I was as against the idea of him ending up on the streets as she was, and I agreed that him moving in was the only alternative, and that it was the better of the two choices - and the supposedly intolerable had happened, and that it turned out to actually be not so intolerable after all; there, surely, the feelings should have ended?
     But they didn't. They stayed there, festering. In the first few days, I am ashamed to say, that my behaviour wasn't very commendable. Indeed, it wasn't merely not commendable; it was a step short of terrible. I didn't have a tantrum, exactly, but my actions were otherwise very much like that of a spoiled child not getting his or her own way. My attitude was furious and hysterical by turns, and my mood towards both Mother and MJ openly hostile. The results were nearly disastrous, but a bit of frank speaking from Aunt 2 and a realization of how terribly I was acting followed by fast, assertive and apologetic action saved all three of us from what could have been tragedy at the last moment.
     Since then I have endeavoured to modify my inner sentiment to match my actions, which are - perhaps hypocritically - ordinary, pleasant and civilized 99% of the time, and for the most part I have succeeded. MJ has made this incredibly easy by behaving in a much superior way to me. There have been no upsets, no tantrums, no screaming, no unreasonableness, no emotional abuse and manipulation or attempts to force us to modify our behaviour to suit himself...none of the vileness and the awfulness of the past have been repeated. His behaviour has been polite, pleasant, deferring, even. And grateful. From the time of first manifestation of schizophrenia at nine years old, to about a year or so ago, MJ has not seemed to be able to express, or indeed to feel, gratitude. Now, he feels it, genuinely. And expresses it. That, and other things, have marked significant strides in the direction he needed to be going in to function at a higher, happier level than he has been able to since the imbalances in his mind first began to overwhelm him.
     So, all well and good.
     But in-spite of this, I have found those sour, angry, bitter feelings surfacing and trying to reestablish themselves in my consciousness. I don't want them there. I had been trying to rid myself of them for years and apart from the odd relapse I really felt that I was managing it. But now...
     What makes it worse is that MJ hasn't done anything wrong, to me or to Mother or to anyone else. He didn't create the situation that led him having to leave the Lion Hotel; it just happened. Mother and I both agreed that rather than see him homeless, the only choice was for him to come and live with us, and his attitude and actions since then have been as described above: perfectly fine. He even helps around the house and with errands: he doesn't do things off his own bat, he has to be asked, but when he is asked he does it, whatever it is. So why do I still find myself feeling like this? What kind of person does that make me??

.....Anyway, that's the short version of what has happened since my last Blog post.
     And now here we are.

I find myself able to write again - at last - so posting shall commence again, too. Not regularly, perhaps, but slightly more frequently than not at all, which is better than nothing.

.....Oh, shut up, it is too.
     You missed me, and you know it.
     So there.

Alice x

P.S. hello Eli. =smiles=
     I lost you too, I'm glad we are together again (Bloggersphere speaking).
     .....I guess I have a lot of catching up to do, too.
     That'll be nice. x

Pray, Forgive This Break In Transmission:

My Brother has moved in with us (I am assured, temporarily). 

It may be a while before I feel like (or am able to) either write, or Blog again. 

That is all.

=bows, meanders away in a stupefied fashion=

Alice x

Two Questions That I Already Know The Answer To, But Keep Asking Myself Anyway.

~~~

1) How do you help someone when - for whatever crazy, twisted reason - they don't want to be helped?

2) How do you mend the broken heart of a mother when that self same person self destructs, piece by piece?

~~~

I know the answer.
     I do.
     But my mind can't accept it. Doesn't want to accept it.
     It keeps trying to find a new answer. A better one. One that can fix it.

I desperately want, need, to fix it.

But I can't.
     I can't fix it. I can't fix him. I can't fix her. I can't fix them.

...I am so bloody tired...

Alice x

Well, At Least He Thinks My Life Has More Excitement In It Than It Actually Has, I Guess...

{Disclaimer: As I am exhausted (and a little drunk) some parts of the following post have been copied'n'pasted for your enjoyment, so font may be a little wonky.}

{...Also, please ignore the switch(es) between past and present tense. I have no idea. That was simply how I apparently decided to write it.}

~~~

As I just explained to Best Friend 3 via Google Instant Message; I think I may have implied to the window cleaner that I have an active sex life.

He turned up to finish the windows he had apparently started earlier (they looked unusually clean on the outside. I thought it must have been the rain storm).
     Anyway, here I am in my makeshift pj's; no socks, no shoes, and more importantly, no bra - you remember my boobs? even as fat as the rest of me has gotten, when I go bra-less, it shows - and I sleepily open the door to the elements to give him his money, THEN remember that I am in my pj's and have no socks, shoes or bra.
     So! I do the first thing that I think of, which is clutch my arms over my scantily clad chest, apologize that I won't be offering him a beverage as I usually do because I am "indisposed"; and hand him his money.

     He in turn goes wide eyed, looks me up and down and stammers; ,,,oh! right! yeah! sorry! thanks! right!" before taking the money and concentrating hard on the window pane he is currently rubbing.

     I thank him, and shut the door.

     And that is that.

.....It took a full five minutes for me to realize what he may have thought I meant.

Oops.

The End.

~~~

Ah well.

     =shrugs=

Alice x

Today...

...as well as the usual round of work and dog walking, I also did the following:

* made a child cry by smiling at them
     ~ go me.

* fell over the dog
     ~ ouch.

* lied to a telemarketer
     ~  this is something I do regularly. I know it is mean. I know they have a job to do and that they are only doing it to pay the bills, just like everyone else (including me). I also knew that the man that rang today was asking for me - they always are. I really, really, really wish I hadn't been stupid enough to feel sorry for one of those phone survey people and then agreeing to answer a hellishly long list of seemingly innocuous questions... - but thankfully they always manage to butcher my name, so I simply smile into the phone and say "oh, nobody by that name here, sorry!" or something of that ilk.

* vacuumed
     ~ turns out that under all that dust, a house lives.

* wiped the bathroom
     ~ some parts of it are white. ...who knew?

* written half a sentence of The Story
     ~ but those 6 words are brilliantly clever and integral to the plot. Yup =nods=.

* recalled and typed up the cleaning rota that the two full time cleaners - are supposed to - follow ready for when Supervisor The Second* does her very first solo shift on Monday morning
     ~ go me again. I be stylin'.

* watched an episode of Q.I.
     ~ I am up to series 'J'.

* purchased a yellow carnation
     ~ ooh, mysterious! "Why, Alice?" I hear you cry; "What for...??"

*  trod on the dog
     ~ separate incident from the falling.

* scolded the cat.
     ~ she has a litter tray. She knows where it is, and uses it. It's cleaned regularly. Why does she choose to deposit little smelly landmines in our bathroom, for crying out loud? And why right next to her water bowl?

* rescued a tiny spider from an untimely bleachy death in the toilet bowl
     ~ go me a third time.

* checked to see if today's lottery prize draw has been taken yet so that The Grandmama could see if her birthday Lottery ticket had made her a millionaire
     ~ it hadn't, so we still have no clue.


.....and that was my day.

Exciting, no?

Alice x

* Supervisor The First has escaped, temporarily, to have a baby. She is due back April 2016.

You Know -

- that it has been a successful dog walk when you have extended no more effort than languidly meandering around for 45 minutes, but the dog has had so much exercise that his tongue appears twice its natural length and he is panting like an asthmatic Darth Vader on speed.

Yup.
     =nods=

You also know that when one opts to walk on fields overgrown with grasses and pretty weeds in flimsy cork bottomed sandals that the law of averages dictates that sooner or later one is going to step on a plant that has either spikes or stingers (or both), and that when this finally happens, it is going to hurt.

Yup.
     =nods=

.....or at least, you WOULD know that, if you had a fraction of an ounce of sense.
     Which, of course, I have.

Yup. I have lots of sense.
     Yup.

=.....nods, then hobbles off in search of some warm water to soak her foot in.....=

Alice x

Is It Terribly Obvious That I Am In A Very Bad Mood?

Dear Gruntnubbler*;

Thank you SO MUCH for putting the cherry on top of my already crappy day by casually and thoughtlessly throwing your lit cigarette behind you as you prepared to enter the shopping centre myself and my brother happened to be (quietly and innocently) walking past at the time.
     Really.
     It made my day fully complete to so narrowly avoid the possibility of being burned, along the certainty of getting ash all over me.

The reason, in case you were wondering, that I shrieked an enraged "HEY!?" in your wake, (causing you to turn around with a miffed/surprised look on your face and say "what?") is three fold:

1) I was already having a bad day (and thus my patience was worn very thin)
2) littering is both uncivilized and wrong
3) It was a bloody LIT CIGARETTE, you moron! LIT!

Yours,
     The girl who hours later is still mightily pissed off by your thoughtless behaviour.

* a supposedly Shakespearean insult (now disproved) that I (still) find utterly brilliant.