3 things that have been helping me process
- Copious amounts of wine. Lovely, delicious, soul-numbing wine. I'm pretty sure I'm not an alcoholic but I'm sure as hell using wine as a crutch.
- I bought my Mum a puppy. Best baby I ever spent money obtaining. The day we got money back from the last failed cycle, I went shopping with her. She'd been depressed, suicidal, feeling alone and terribly affected by the Cham.pix she took to help her give up smoking. So while she was taking to steps to ensure she would have less chance of dying from a smoking-related illness she jumped into psychotic death risk with the Cham.pix. She lives alone and since my Grandfather died she'd been travelling up to Sydney every weekend or so, and spending all the holidays there, with her mother. (Who is a cold, crotchety, emotion-sucking grump. Kind of. Mostly she's that way to my Mum and I. Old history. Anyway, is this the longest telling of "why we got a dog" you've ever read or what?) Shortly before my Grandfather died her dog died too. So, no dog at home, no loving father to love and be loved by, spending far too much time away from us and her friends to look after Granny + Cham.pix = head in the gas oven feelings. And she didn't want a new dog. She said she couldn't bear it. But this one night, this one night we went to the store where she bought her last dog (I hate pet-stores and would never purchase an animal myself from one, but this was her thing and we were only looking anyway) and there was this scruffy little puppy leading her brothers around their big cage in a merry dance. She had a long strip of paper in her mouth and she was running around madly with 3 or 4 brothers chasing her. Every once in a while she'd look over her shoulder to ensure her pursuers were still on track and then she tossed her tiny head and sped forward. Clever. And so for the next hour I worked at my Mum and convinced her that the dog was perfect and that I would pay and that the dog would make all the difference. And she has. For both of us. Who knew I needed puppy-love too?
- Super Mario Galaxy 2. I love this game. I've never really gotten into computer gaming. In fact after the highs of Pac-Man, Elite star force and some text-based game I used to play back in 1985 I steered clear. But 3 years ago we got Super Mario Galaxy 1 for Christmas and I was hooked. I played it nightly with my darling - swapping turns star-catching for each other until we'd defeated the evil Bowser and rescued Princess Peach. And last month I bought number 2 and we're getting to do it all over again. I love the Mario fantasy worlds, I love the escapism and I love the feeling of reward I get after I get a star. I love the sparkly twinkles everywhere you look, I love the innocuous non-evilness of the bad guys, I love the little twists and turns and changes in direction and perspective. The game is controllable, achievable and distracting. Perfect.
Cheers!
