Starting out.

So, here I am. Unemployed, overweight and sad, possibly even depressed (because isn’t depression the new black?), and starting a blog. I’m not really sure what it’s about but given I am so full of joy and positivity (or is that sarcasm) I’m sure people will want to read it. Or not. But who cares, it’s something to do and it might keep me away from daytime TV and it might just help me work out what I really want to do with my life. Or it might confirm how crazy I actually am and end up in some sort of intervention.

So, who am I and how did I get to this place?

Only a year or so ago I was at the top of my game, award winning even. It was marketing I played and I loved it. Anyway there were some changes at the place of play and I left to take some time out for a while. I didn’t pick the market to turn to shit and for me to still be at home 10 months later, hating every second of it but I simply thought I’d have a few months off to enjoy the summer and pick and choose what I did next. Oops, got that a bit wrong.

I live in a cold house. So cold sometimes it’s warmer to sit outside with a beanie and coat on and chase the sun around the back lawn. I think being cold is one of the worst things you can experience. That and being so fat your jeans curl down over your stomach.

I think from now on I might call the house ‘the fridge’. That’s how cold it is.

You would have thought I could have used the time at home to get fit and lose some weight. I did for a while but that got too boring and so I got fat again. I’ve been fat for most of my life so maybe fat is what I want to be or else I would do something about it. That’s what my therapist would say anyway. Not that I have a therapist anymore – last year she said I wasn’t crazy enough to need her anymore. Hah! If she could see me now...

I live with my 9 year old son (R) and my boyfriend (S). I guess I should say partner because that’s what grown-ups who live together are, right? But I think it sounds stupid or gay even. Not that I have a problem with gays - although I would if S was a secret one – but he’s my boyfriend until he becomes my husband, which he might one day. R lives with us half the time and half with his dad, his dad’s partner (she can be a partner, that’s different) and her son who lives there half the time too. We’re complicated but we all like each other – Dr Phil would be proud.

We also have two dogs that drive me fucking insane. Actually I was probably insane long before the dogs came along but they certainly don’t help me on the sanity front. One is really old, smells a lot (I think his stomach is rotting) and is now deaf and half blind. To prove just how crazy I am, it was my idea to get the second dog. That’s when I thought puppies were cute. But there’s nothing cute about finding a dog turd beside your bed when you finally pull yourself out of it. Mind you, when you live in a fridge, sometimes it is nice for your feet to be warm.

I’ve not been shopping for 9 months. 9 months I tell you! I used to think nothing of dropping 5 or 6 hundred dollars on a piece of clothing. Looking for happiness in the bottom of a shopping bag and all that. It didn’t work, I just ended up with a huge credit card bill, huge tax bill because I spent what I should be saving for tax, and a huge belly from all the coffee and cake that was needed to refuel me on my splurges and also just cake that I ate because I wanted/needed/craved it. Sometimes I even bought things without trying them on, just because I wanted to experience the pleasure of buying that particular thing. I have a lot of those things hanging in my wardrobe, still with tags on, waiting for me to fit them. They could be waiting for some time. There’s no pleasure in that.

Today I ate 4 mint-slice biscuits for breakfast. Then I put my jeans on and my thighs felt like sausages bursting from their cases. Do you think there is a correlation?

So, here I am unemployed, overweight and sad, and although I’m not smart like brainy, I have a lot of common sense (most of the time, lets ignore the credit cards and tax bills for now) and can see through bullshit. So, not really intellectually smart but smart enough to have been to university and got a couple of degrees. (Although sometimes I dream that I haven’t really got them and wake up and think I am going to be found out any day now that I have been faking it for all these years). Smart but unemployed – there’s a recession going on and I chose that time to ‘take a break’? Not the smartest thing to do. Still, there are lots of people around who have jobs who are even less smart than me, stupid even and that annoys the shit out of me, especially when all they seem good at is talking themselves up and believing in themselves. That’s what I suck at. That and keeping my bikini area waxed but that’s probably TMI.

Right, so I need to get better at believing in myself apparently and if I do that then things will start happening for me. Putting it out there and all that stuff from the secret (which by the way, seems like the worst kept secret in the world to me). I’m really lucky that my boyfriend S is a secret kind of guy. He’s super positive and uber-happy and I need him and his happiness around me or else I would be completely loopy. As opposed to just a wee bit like I am now.

I just looked at my hands typing this and they are blue. That’s how cold the fridge is.

So, back to believing in myself. These are the things I think I am good at
• Eating
• Listening to my friends problems
• Buying presents
• Decorating or knowing what looks good in a house
• Cooking
• Being a mum - mostly I think R would agree except for when I am ‘the meanest mother in the world’ but that’s not too often, especially now I don’t work.

And these are the things I think I really suck at:
• Dieting
• Keeping the house clean & tidy
• Sex – terribly self conscious all the weigh (oops, spelt that wrong, shows you how much I think I about being fat) way through it so just want it over and done with
• Managing money
• Walking the dogs
• Weeding the garden
• Keeping in touch with old friends and family

I need to find something to do that will earn me money and that I am good at. Based on the list above I don’t think I should become a hooker.

Hmm. I also think I am really good at coming up with new ideas. Although, I am struggling to come up with what I can do so maybe I’m not so flash at that after all. Anyway I need to work it out quickly because I’m broke. Really broke. So broke in fact that I shouldn’t ever buy coffee again and certainly shouldn’t buy both coffee and sushi for lunch like I did today. It’s just that it’s cold and the coffee cup warmed my hands up.

Maybe I shouldn’t be working at all and should use this time to try and address my craziness issue. But am I REALLY crazy? Many of you reading this (assuming there’s more of you than just my boyfriend and my sister) probably think that I am but aren’t I just doing what most of you don’t do, that is, say or in this case, write, what I am thinking? Come on, are you telling me you’ve never had the urge to stab a colleague in a meeting with a pen? Or when you are at a work morning tea shout, never wanted to pick the cake knife up and throw it straight in the chest of the pain in the arse office administrator? It's not just me, I know of at least one other person who has. She’s my BFF (J) and she’s not mad. Much.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter whether I am crazy or not, I’m going to keep writing. I’m not sure what the purpose of this is or if it helps me in my “I’m not mad” case but it’s been fun and I didn’t even yell at the dogs once during writing it.

So, what do you think? Maybe not funny, but not crazy either, right?