Oh Iggy Iggy

student, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, lover, friend. All views are my own and in no way belong to anyone else because I only have one brain to think with.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Self-obessesion or Quarter-life crises? Or just bat-shit crazy?

Shit has been going down lately. Big shit. Shit so big I can't even mention it online. It's fucking scary. Besides the BIG SHIT there's been other stuff. Things are gnawing. Where am I going? What am I doing? Who am I? What should I do with my life? DO I buy a house? Quit my job? Quit uni? Quit drinking and Valium?? (Oh wait.. scratch that last one. NEVER!) I'm so self-absorbed I'm like a 15 year-old on acid obessed with the beauty of her own hand. But.. you know.. less acid. Definitly less beauty. It's ugly. It feels shameful. All this self-reflection and meditation. Oozing cliche I wonder if "getting away" will help me "think things through". It seems such fucking the bullshit. There's a voice in my head (no.. seriously, bare with me. Honestly. Not. Creepy.) and she's saying this "what a load of bullshit. How fucking vain are you, sister? You don't need to study Narcissus, you are him. But with a vagina. I'd say Aphrodite but with the love handles you gained from pregnancy.. well no. Uh-uh". Then I spend time staring at my child and my boyfriend wondering "who the fuck are these people?" and "Why are they here?" Not in a way that means I Want them to go away but wondering what part they're going to play n my life. How will my decisions effect them?

So. Many. Fucking. Questions.

Then she starts again "don't listen to those cunts. They're all wrong. You know best." Well... when she gets like this there's not stoppping her. Seriously. She's the one who picked bright red tights on a day she had lunch with her CEO. Obviously a winner.

I swing wildly from being incredibly conservative to wildly avant-garde (so I like to think, anyways. What with the bright red tights and all).

So, as you probably figured  400 rambling sentences ago, I'm searching for answers. Answers to the eternal questions, apparently. According to a friend of mine people have been asking them forever. Apparently the biggest mistake I could have made was bringing this rambling subject of my recent vainity and self-questioning to the attention of a friend who studied philosophy. Seriously. Obviously he left me with more questions. Philosophy was never my strong point. I know the Ancient Greeks loved it. No idea why.

Of course, after consulting someone fairly knowledgeable on the subject I decided to consult the collective mind. That's right. I decided to Google. And, boy, Google I did! I found some great stuff. This great post from a few years ago. (passion etc etc) and another perspective in this post. (growing pains, normal development, like toddlers. Should I just KEEP CALM and CARRY ON?). Also, is having this much access to this much information when I'm confused really helpful?  All of them of course mention decisions. I'm assuming the decisions will become clear and easy to make just as soon as I find the answers to all my questions? No? Oh... Incidentally I did find once great answers, which was Saturns Return. Pity I'm not a gullible ninny (uhh. no offense astrologers.. but.. well.. you know. Sorry.).

And so the search goes on. With more questions, less answers and my pathetic cliches, self-crticisms and general annoyingly gen-y traits.


Anything... just anything to stop me from thinking about the BIG SHIT.

Over and out

Iggy.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

The scary part...

"So, do you think you'll guys will stay together forever?" My best friend asked me this two days ago in the most earnest manner. She's recently married and is still enjoying saying "husband" instead of "boyfriend" and telling people she has a family.



"Ummm... well," I started to reply, biting my lip. "That's a big call.. you know forever is a pretty long time and my attention span is, umm... well, short."

"Well, don't you think you'd better decide?"


"Ummm... no, what if I decide and then he gets fat?" I replied and laughed, hoping if I just acted like it was a joke she'd drop the subject.


Do I have to decide something like this? Is commitment making a conscious decision that you're going to be with the same person? I just figured everyone bumped along and some people make it years, other only got through months before their biological urges (and their significant others' annoying habits) drove them back into the meat market.


Interestingly when I asked Twitter this question (I know, quality research, huh?) I got lots of complicated answers. I was sort of expecting a yes or no answer. Apparently the issue of conscious commitment is not that black and white. Dammit. The men (all two of them) seemed to think that it had to be talked about in a matter of fact way and the women (all three of them) said they thought it just happened.

I'm a commitment-phobe. I know I am, I've known for awhile. In fact it all came as a crushing realisation when I was about 19 and I self-sabotaged my NIDA audition. I hate the idea of committing to something, anything whether it's study, men, women, work, whatever. The big, looming question is always "What if I screw it up?". Better to do nothing at all, if you expect nothing you'll never be disappointed, right? Right.

So, basically, this is about my inner struggle over whether or not I have to consciously make a decision to commit to Ben for a long period of time. We've been together, on and off, for 3 years. The off being whilst I was pregnant and a complete psycho. It feels like the time has come for a conscious commitment. We've have a kid, we're saving for a house and I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff.

One day, maybe, I'll be okay with it. With growing up and being responsible. Today, though, I'm leaving the question open. The decision needs to be made, but it true commitment-phobe style, I might just close my eyes and hope it goes away.

Iggy. X

Monday, March 21, 2011

Too Young

I had my girl when I was 23, not too old, but also not too young (according to some arbitrary ideal of young and old), but you know what... it was too young. I'm not done yet, I wasn't ready for her and I'm still not. I don't have to wisdom or the experience to teach a little girl everything she needs to know to become a successful, strong and independent woman. I've not travelled or studied or gotten lost or fallen down.

I'm about to turn 25, my little girl is nearly two and we're starting to come to some pretty huge learning curves. Soon I'm going to have to teach her right from wrong, she'll want to know the answers to complex questions (Is there a God? Where do babies come from? Why do some people hurt each other?), how do I answer these questions? I don't even know the answers yet.

But I'm a grown-up, I have debt (yay) and rent to pay and electricity and phone bills and internet bills and groceries to buy and meals to plan and lunches to make and washing to fold. I'm too young for all this. I feel like I should be out getting drunk, wasting all my money and generally being a bit of a douchebag about things. I should be living, instead I'm in bed by 9pm and up at 6am (an hour before the kid so I can have a shower and a coffee in silence). A fun night means movies and pizza at home, not getting shit-faced and waking up in a strangers bed, God I miss that. I don't have chores, I have housework, and it never fucking ends.

i just want to run away. Seriously. I've thought about just packing my bags and leaving. I love The Boy and I love The Kid, but lately, it's all too much. they're just another two people in my life who ALWAYS WANT SOMETHING FROM ME.  Mix that in with my, now weekly, panic attacks and I'm a time bomb.

but really.. that's enough whinging for today. Sadly my writers block is still quite blocky.

'Til Later,

Iggy x

Writers Block & Budgets

I'm really struggling today...

So, I've started a new scripty thingy. They never end up staying scripts but I'm just much better at dialogue than anything else. I have got about 200 words down and then BAM. Nothing. I know exactly how I want it to end, I know what it supposed to happen but it's stuck. Incidentally, writing is nothing like giving birth and neither is getting over writers block, the next male writer that talks about the pangs of "birthing a novel" is going to be shot. Unless you're passing that novel out of your dick then it's nothing like labour. The other problem I'm having is my two main characters have bad names. One if named after me (I needed a name and mine was the first one I thought of) and the other name is taken from someone I know really well and my male character is slowly turning into him just because I used his name as a filler. It's crap. Anyway. My point is, I have writers block and I hate it, I can't get anything done.

Aaaand if I didn't have writers block I would be able to make a completely smoothe transisition to my next topic, but I can't. so, here it is, subtle as a sledge hammer.

Budgets and 5 Year plans

Lately I've been trying to be a grown-up. I honestly still think of myself as a young, irresponsible person, not an adult will a family to look after. However doing our budget last night gave me a big shock. We are living right on the edge, we're no longer over-spending every week but we're still just barely breaking even (we have the whopping sum of $30 a week left-over after bills etc). Something needs to happen. That something is that we need to move. We need to move somewhere that is cheaper to rent and easier to maintain. We have a big 3 bedroom house at the moment, with a large front yard and pissy, oddly-shaped backyard and I hate it. It's hard to clean and the yard is hard to maintain as they have been left to run wild for the last 10 years.

So, if Anyone knows anyone (or is someone) who has a rental in Kingston, Blackmans Bay type area I'd appreciate you letting me know.

Okay, I've done enough whinging.

Love

Iggy x

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Saving our way of life and our newspaper (or, I be pimpin')

I'm going to start this by saying I have friends who work for News Ltd. so I'm biased. So, that's out of the way. To put it bluntly, I'm pimpin' this cause because I've been asked AND because it's important to me. So, two-fold biased-ness.

Todays post is about our beloved (or loathed) Mercury newspaper. There is shit going down there and none of it is pretty. I have two things I want to draw your  attention to the first is a Tasmania Times Piece that ran a few days ago and the second is a blog that is part of the recently launched social media campaign.

Now, bloggers and journalists often don't see eye to eye but lets face it, we're all trying to achieve the same thing. We write down information for other people to access it, we hope the content, language and overall composition will attract a target audience and allow us to make some semblance of a difference. Journalists, however, work in a regulated industry and have time constraints, managers, supervisors, legislative regulations, as well as large HECS debts to pay and families to support. In other words, they stake their entire livelihood on writing. For bloggers, though, this is rarely the case. We often have other sources of income, we work outside the media industry and, as such, are in a much stronger poisition to  speak up without fear of losing our livelihoods. So, let's do this. Let's speak up on behalf of all who work at The Mercury.

As is outlined in the Tas Times piece and on the Save our Mercury blog they want to shift editing to Melbourne. This means that people who have little or no local knowledge of Tasmania will be editing the articles we read every day and while this might not seem like a big deal, it really can be. I was given an example by a friend of a headline that was once set back from Melbourne. The article was about a new part of UTAS, the headline made it read like we were getting a new university. Apparently staff in Melbourne didn't realise there was a university in Tasmania. This is just one example.

I could write more on this situation, but I'd really prefer if you read the Tas Times piece, read the blog and supported the cause on Twitter and/or Facebook 

The Mercury proclaims that it is "The Voice of Tasmania". Let's keep it that way.

Love,

Iggy x

Saturday, March 12, 2011

A weird sort of time (and treadmills)

I'm out of it lately, just completely zoned, no writing (except for some well written filth that has been spewing out of pen due to an enforced lack of sex), no cooking, no jokes just... blah. It's like I'm watching the events of my life through a thin layer of glass, I'm very much living in my own head at the moment. These interludes aren't uncommon for me, they happen a few times a year with me withdrawing for a few weeks and then coming out with renewed energy and going like crazy until the next one descends. My mother even had a name for the she called them, as suburban as it sounds, "episodes" and I've done it since I was a small child.

My Therapist is convinced they're my way of coping with the world and events happening in my life (but, what would she know, I ask myself? She only has a degree and 10 years experience. Pffft). Realistically, she's probably right and so I've started meditating again (I know, how new-agey of me) and you know what? It's a load of shit. I have no patience for this shit. I can't sit still for 1 minute without tapping my fingers or fiddling with my hair, I can't fucking meditate. It's like asking speedy gonzalez to just walk for a bit. Not happening.


SO I'm going to try something a friend suggested. I'm joining a gym (dun, dun dun). I hate gyms, I have a bad history with them. I joined an all-female gym when I was 17 and that was awful, full of blonde sticks in bike shorts and here's me in the baggiest clothes I can probably find struggling to move faster than tortoise pace on the treadmill. And treadmills! Oh. My. God. Fucking treadmills. Being on a treadmill is like being a guinea pig in one of those wheels. Not only are they pointless, they just reiterate the message that I'M GOING FUCKING NOWHERE. When I was 20 I joined a gym that was open for both sexes and WOW was that an eye opener. Gyms with boys helped me get a work-out, unfortunately not the type that helps me lose weight and after getting busted uhh... working out... in the shower I was politely asked to leave.

And now, here I am, about to join another gym at 24 and praying to god that I'm strong enough to deal with whatever penises.. I mean problems are thrown my way.

So, dear readers, please send a thought my way when you realise that I am probably slogging it away on a treadmill or in a stupid pilatyogi class with some ridiculous blonde instructors whose tits are so high she's almost smothering herself, please send me a good thought (AND CHOCOLATE)

Love

Iggy. x

P.S I know I'm not the only one feeling a bit crazy, my friend Veronica is having a bad week, so show her some love. She deserves it more than anyone I know :)

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Help, I'm so post-modern I'm not modern anymore... a.k.a my existential crisis

Things are really strange at the moment. I often have periods where solitude is a very important part of my daily routine. This was perfectly fine and manageable before having Isabella, but now, when the mood takes me, the time of solitude must be taken from my sleep time. I've tried convincing myself that sleeping is like solitude, but my dreams stop that from being so, with my fears and insecurity following me into sleep.

I think I'm entering one of those times at the moment, but I'm hoping that if I just let it run it course, stay up late one night (I've arranged with The Boy to sleep in the in morning, thankfully) and I'm watching politically incorrect cartoons, writing, drinking endless hot chocolates and munching on clix biscuits. It's very relaxing. If I could be bothered I'd paint my nails, but I have all day to myself tomorrow (again, thankfully) due to the switch in jobs and work days and daycare insisting on me giving two weeks notice. I have lots of "girly" type things to do (you know, scrub, wax, polish) because I'm catching up with some girlfriends from high school (including an ex-girlfriend and possibly a guy I had an *epic* crush on) and one must looks one's best when stepping into the past. I'm shitting myself. I loved these girls in school but I've changed, they've changed. Everyone has changed.

I can deal with change as long as I'm not forced to stare it in the face and I feel like everything is changing lately. I was driving through a familiar suburb and shops were gone, replace with crass franchise bottle shops, the carparks were packed and the pie from the bakery didn't taste as good as it did when I lived there. I think some brief brushed with my own mortality, combined with a large dose of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles have left me feeling quite like I'm having some type of existential crisis. But I feel like I'm watching it from the outside, like I'm one step removed from myself. God. I sound crazy, I can't even explain it.

Some days I wish my brain would just stop over-analyzing every single thing that happens in my life and let me relax.

Oh well, one day.

Hopefully the quarter-life crisis will hit me next and I'll rush out and buy a house or starting dating a 19 year old model.

Peace Out

Iggy x