Google me, I draw penises.

This week I got on the sub list for an Anglican Private School.  While we can all agree this means I can pretty much not ever speak in the staff room, the other base I needed to cover was googling myself. 

At one time googling myself meant photos of me drinking out of a rugby trophy (sometimes you just need a bigger goblet), and this might not go over with the religious community.  Fortunately (sadly?), pictures posted from 10 years ago are roughly 3 million results from the front.  My name does produce some pretty interesting other results though.  For starters, I am the daughter of a baptist preacher who wrote some religious books to help you pray.  So that's good.  Unless Anglicans and Baptists actually hate each other, as in sworn enemies like the Sharks and the Jets (I hope right now you are picturing religious dance-fight sequences...). 

I am also an artist that draws ejaculating people-penises.  These penises all have arms, legs and faces and it is worth noting that one of the penises is actually named Ben Dover.  They are somewhat alarming, but the fact that these penises are on the first page of the google results must mean that I'm pretty good.  

I am also on witchapedia.com which for reasons we've already discussed, will probably give me nightmares.  I didn't even bother to link to the actual reference, but there was a photo of an art installation of a tv painted white and covered in blood entitled "Nora King is my Queen".  OMFG.  I don't even understand the art piece and I'm creeped out entirely.

No drunken rugby photos though, so that's something.

* I wanted to show you pictures to go along with these references, but I am afraid of getting in trouble.  If you happen to google the images, the baptist is the one who looks really stern.  I'm pretty sure this is intentional, I think she drew on her eyebrows that way on purpose.

I Have a Problem.

What I am about to discuss is almost embarrassing for a 30 year old woman to disclose.  I have an unreasonably overactive imagination.  While we can all agree this gives me an interesting and scintillating personality, it wreaks havoc on my sleep.  As soon as it gets dark my mind starts working and my anxiety starts to rise. I obsessively check windows and doors and refuse to go into the basement.  Normally it only makes me crazy when I sleep alone, but recently it is ALL THE TIME.  Something about our recent situation is exacerbating it.  It could be:

1. I am unable to discuss reason number 1.  For information, see here.  But read it fast, and don't say anything out loud.
2. Season 7 of Supernatural, which we just finished.  It focused on opening a door to purgatory.  If you are uncertain about how this relates to reason number 1, you clearly didn't read the supplementary material provided.
3. True Blood Season 4, which focuses on witchcraft and just ended.  Because of reason number 1, we have an unprecedented amount of witchcraft that gets practiced in Victoria.
4. A rash of recent movies that focus on small children being terrorized by haunted houses etc.  I read about one in which a family moves to a new home and creatures are stealing the teeth from a small child's head in the night.  What is WRONG with you Katie Holmes?  How will you sleep at night?  And how do your two sentences of description in People magazine terrorize me so?

Add to these somewhat outlandish concerns some more realistic ones:
1. Every cop show on TV.  Specifically Law and Order SVU which- if I may get up on my soapbox momentarily- serves as a manual to educate every deviant without an imagination on all the possible ways in which to abuse women.
2. The news.  Which is normally bad enough, but as of late has allowed me new neuroses to add to my repertoire.  Now I can obsess about my child being stolen in the middle of the night.  At least this provides some variation from my usual home invasion nightmares.

What is really time-consuming is that I like to be prepared.  If I hear a strange noise, I like to review my escape plans.  What route would I take to escape?  What objects could I use as weapons?  Should I leave the window ajar so that someone could hear me yell?  If I practice in my head enough times, it will be like instinct when a home invasion wakes me in the middle of the night.  For the record, now that I have to divert to get my kid from the back of the house, it seems less and less likely all the time that these routes will actually be successful.  And who puts a room at the back of the house anyways?  It's impossible to guard.  You might as well let your exposed leg dangle over the side of the bed while you're at it.

Last night, as I was laying awake listening for anything untoward, I noticed that I couldn't hear Adrian's breathing.  His sleep breathing is such that it is usually very easy to hear.  OMG.  What if he had a heart attack or something?  A very quiet heart attack?  I instantly started reviewing my safety information.  First things first- which side was the heart on?  After a couple minutes of trying to locate my own heart I was fairly certain it was on the left (is it more alarming that I am a science teacher, or that I've had first aid training?).  Then I tried to remember what to do.  It had recently been changed in order to simplify.  But were you now supposed to do chest compressions and not breathing?  Breathing and not chest compressions?  I was pretty sure it was the compressions.  And I triumphantly remembered you were supposed to do them to the rhythm of 'Saturday Night Fever'.  But how did that song go again?!  Blast!  Adrian would be as good as dead!

I ended up giving him a small kick.  You'll be happy to hear that he was just fine and was sleeping so deeply he was just breathing quietly.  When he woke up this morning I almost wanted to say 'you're alive!  You're welcome.'  Unfortunately he was up at four because Ann has been having nightmares lately, so I kept it to myself.

Which brings me to my next point: Ann has been having nightmares lately.  Hers usually centre around Swiper, the sneaky fox that is aaaaalways swiping Dora's stuff.  Ann does things like wake up kicking away her covers to see her bare feet, screaming about her lost shark shoes (which, as you may remember, are awesome).  Obviously my immediate concern is that she's been possessed by some demon escaped from purgatory.  Or that her room is haunted and giving her nightmares.  In which case we need to move.  But clearly the poor thing has gotten my imagination genetics and is doomed to a lifetime of amazing conversation and plagues of nightmares.  Poor thing.

What is truly remarkable is that we watched Jurassic Park III together a couple of weeks ago and she chooses to have nightmares about an easily-foiled orange fox in a jaunty blue eye mask.  Go figure.

I suppose the obvious answer to both our problems is less TV.  Sigh.

Just What You Needed for Your Wednesday, an Entire Post on Hair.

As most of you might be aware, I am really only capable of 2 hairstyles: down and straight, or down and not straight.  I am not stylistically skilled enough to master more than that.  And obviously I am using 'master' loosely.  This applies to Ann as well.  She has 'out of her eyes' and 'out of her food' as her two styles (she is like a basset hound.  Their ears are always getting in their food and it gets quite sticky and smelly).  I am in need of a third style as the heat and her sweaty little head have been creating this post-nap look lately:

Which leaves it as a rat's nest.  Made of straw.  And full of rat droppings.  So I went back to practicing my french braiding.  A regular braid won't work because she has so many face framing layers.  She's very stylish that way.  Sometimes people compliment her cut and ask if I did it.  It just randomly grew that way but sometimes I say yes anyways.  Her (alliteration alert!) Farrah Fawcett feathers fall out in a regular braid, but french braids require a finger dexterity I don't possess.  A teacher friend (see insert: while I don't have any good photos, I do have a strange text/photo messaging exchange) recently put on a french braid clinic for me. 

We were at a science department meeting off campus.  She wanted us to bring her back Dairy Queen.

We were ignoring her.

I was very busy.

She bought her own.  And as a disclaimer, even though it looks like we aren't working very hard during school hours, we do deserve all of your tax money that we are asking for in our union negotiations.  Try not to dwell on the fact that sports was playing in the background of my meeting either.

Though she looks demanding and Dairy Queen focused, she's actually quite good at hair.  We had a model and I even made that model jerk randomly to simulate toddler squirming (disclaimer 2: this hair clinic was on our lunch hour, and not your tax dollars at work).  Unfortunately I still couldn't replicate the look. 

I recently discovered that it helps if hair is dirty, and it has rocked my world.  This was one of my first attempts back in July.  It was pre-dirty-hair game-changer and so it took me half an hour to do the one side:

Nailed it!

So I ran out of steam for the other:

FAIL.

She looked strange but I had put in so much effort I refused to take it out.  Maybe this is why we weren't a hit at kindergym?  Poor girl, will this be typical of her whole life?  Will she be the kid with one arm missing off a cable-knit sweater?  Probably.  Perhaps one day she'll only get highlights on half her head.  Anyways, since I now have to braid it before bed and nap, I am getting much better, and I can add some flair to it:

In case you can't see it, I added an extra elastic and made it half ponytail.  I'm very talented.

 In fact, yesterday afternoon I was rushing and her braid started on the left side and snaked across her head to the right.  I can imagine this is actually a very trendy and sought-after style, so I am clearly getting better than I thought.

This project has come at a good time.  As I hurl myself into fall productivity, my plan is to master more aspects of homemakery (homemaking?).  This means perfecting new meals, de-cluttering my home into an efficient and organised space, and incorporating exciting toddler activities into our day.    It means a company-ready home MID-WEEK.  Family updates to our nearest and dearest in the mail.   With photos!  Seasonal decorating, perhaps!  Ooh- seasonal cookies!    I get excited about the possibilities.
 
I try to keep it in perspective though.  Remember that this was my plan for the past summer as well, so I've got to keep my (and Adrian's) expectations realistic.

And besides, the fall tv season starts soon.  That's always fun too.

Feel Bad for Me: Installment 1

Reasons to feel bad for me:

1. I went for a run in the Inner Harbour today.  This is the sister to the Sea Wall.  Dropped the tyke with her father at his work and ran from there.  It was 28 degrees and I nearly perished.  It was a close call y'all.  And there were herds of seniors milling about and grazing.  Apparently they come out in droves when the youth are busy being gainfully employed.  This is a shot of my view:

Look how dry that grass is.  Who wants to run near that?  Not me. Gross.  Makes me thirsty just looking at it.

2. My child refuses to sleep in her new bed.  We got her an amazing top-of-the-line mattress (for reasons I now forget, but ones that Ad sold very convincingly at the time) but she still wants to sleep in our bed.  Horizontally, like the cross-hatch to our H.  Her fidgety feet in Adrian's stomach.  Unlucky Adrian.  I did just have the most amazing lie-down in it though, trying to model what napping in it would look like.  No dice.  This is what no-nap looks like come bedtime:

Adrian was a little alarmed that I left her like this to go get my camera, but I was really confident she was too out-cold to roll.  Well, pretty confident.

 She let me dress her fully without opening an eyelid.  I even got her thumb stuck in the sleeve and accidentally wrenched it a little.   But of course, as soon as I leaned down to put her in her bed, she instantly awoke and got a second wind.  It was almost spooky, like a sixth sense that her sleeping self was approaching a big girl bed, and if she didn't wake up potties and a life without soothers would soon follow.

3. Embarrassingly, the next door neighbour popped by yesterday.  It was 11 and Ann and I were still in our pj's, finishing our mid-morning toast and watching Dora.  It was the first full day of school and I was in full mope.  He laughed at me and then told Ann 'tell your Mom to take you to the playground!'.  This is a dirty move for parents.  It's like dangling the leash in front of someone's dog and saying "Walk? Walk?" and then leaving.  And I was totally planning on going anyways.  Eventually.

4. So far, my best option for work appears to be at an Anglican school, depending on their policy on illegitimate children and living in sin of course.  And on that note, according to the government, teachers are still greedy babysitters.  This means that by the time my EI runs out it will be time for 25$/day strike pay.  If I'm lucky enough to get hired. 



And now I have to go prep the salmon for dinner.  Barf.  Woe is me.

OMG

Has it really been over two weeks since there's been a post?  Who is writing this thing?  That is hogwash.  Fortunately, nobody reads this except for my father, and he already knows what is going on in my life (namely, nothing).  I do have much to write about though, so I will try to get it out in a timely manner now that fall is here.  Though the fact that fall is here means absolutely nothing.  The changing of seasons and return to school alters my daily life in absolutely no way, except that when it gets rainy it will be more socially acceptable to sit inside moping and watching Dora.

Stay tuned for many installments of 'Back to school- What I did on my summer vacation'.  As soon as I can tackle the time-consuming and impossibly onerous hold-up of getting photos onto my computer from my phone.  Of which every single one is Ann, but with different backgrounds.