To my 'other half'?

I had my hair coloured today - you were actually there in the building so you can't possibly claim that you didn't know. A 'your hair looks good' would have been nice. If you genuinely didn't notice or care then; well I'm not sure if that's better or worse. How difficult could it be to say it?

I am paranoid/sensitive/hard work I know. But honestly? If you find me as unattractive/tedious/worthless as I think you do, then really just let me know and get it over with quickly. Don't let it drag on for a while and then put me through some hideous break up which I could REALLY do without. Or perhaps if you do really love me and want to be with me then perhaps you could sometimes, oh, I don't know, SAY SO???!!!

I've got lots of friends who I would describe as 'high maintenance'. By which I mean they are, by my standards, unreasonably demanding of their boyfriends/husbands. I always prided myself on being the antithesis of this; easygoing, non demanding. Perhaps I am so low in self esteem that I thought that no-one would want me if I dared to actually 'demand' or 'require' something.

Well, I've finally decided that I'm not going to feel like this any more. So my question today is honestly, really, am I just being a cow? If you've been in a long term relationship with someone for 4 years during which you've bought a house and had a child with them, would it REALLY be too much to ask to be told that you are lovely once in a while? And if you aren't told that, would it be unreasonable to presume that you aren't, and that your 'other half' is taking you for granted?

Answers on a postcard.............

Names have been changed to protect the annoying.......

Well I've had one hell of an annoying evening. Although the chances of the person I'm talking about ever stumbling across this blog and reading it, I will make an effort not to be too specific.

I have just about had enough of a particular person who has a history of winding me up with the following traits:

Having a very specific idea of what they want to happen *in their head*
Not coherently sharing said ideas with the rest of us
Silently brooding in the background whilst we attempt to recreate the 'vision'
Eventually erupting in a petulant display of 'NO NO NO!! It's supposed to be like thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis'

This coupled with a sulky and childish habit of coming out with the classic 'well we'll just do it your way then, my way obviously isn't good enough' (or words to that effect).

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Oh, and in case I forget why I started this blog (or if anyone is still interested) I'm still sneezing regularly! And completed this online today:

http://www.synesthete.org/

which officially informs me that I am a Synaesthete. Which in a strange sort of way makes me proud :-)

Something has to change.....

and I think it's got to be me :-(

So this is my life at the moment. I've lost baby weight after LL was born, and I'm trying to keep it off. I'm also juggling a house and various work/hobbies. I love wine and I love food.



I love a glass of wine to relieve the stress, and then another, then another.......
I can either spend a week eating ultra healthily and not drinking, or a week eating and drinking what the hell I want, and never the twain shall meet.

WHY OH WHY can't I just eat and be average like a normal person??!!!!

So it was Monday morning which made me think of the title for this post. My weekends consist of getting to about 3pm and having a nice relaxing glass of wine. The problem is that I can't quite put my finger on the fine line between 'nice relaxing glass of wine at the weekends' and 'slightly too much and falling asleep on the sofa by the evening'. Don't get me wrong - I've got two young children and don't loll about the house hopelessly drunk and incapable; but by the time they've gone to bed I - how shall I put it? - well I wouldn't get behind the wheel of a car.

I like to think that, while it's not right, I'm not the only parent who does this, and would go so far as to say I'm probably not in the minority. But my general state of being at the moment is waking up in the morning in a bit of a panic, with a general aura of unease around me; "I didn't quite achieve what I should have yesterday because I was catching up on old episodes of Miss Marple with a cold glass of white" or "well there's no way I'm getting on the scales this morning after my roast dinner/chocolate/wine/crisps binge yesterday".

So I suppose the question is; do I just say 'sod it, life's too short' or do I say 'I feel so much better the morning after a day of eating healthily and having one small glass of wine (even though I find those sort of days interminably dull!!).

As I write, I'm already looking forward to my first crisp, cold glass of white straight out of the fridge which I will drink whilst listening to TS telling me about his day and to LL making car noises (his new favourite noise). And I really have no desire to be 'average', maybe just a little bit more sober........

A womb with a view?

So I have a theory that I remember some sort of horrendous sneezing happening whilst I was in the womb, which is why I have such an issue with it now. So that started me wondering if 'fetal memory' exists? It seems clear from just a quick search online that it does, in that a fetus can remember things whilst in the womb (best explained here):

The new study tested how fetuses in nearly 100 pregnant women responded to a specific stimulus, in this case, a "vibroacoustic stimulation," which is a very low sound that makes a vibration. The researchers observed the reaction using an ultrasound. When the fetus first receives the stimulation, it is startled. But after repeated trials of the same stimulation, 30 seconds apart, the fetus gets used to the sound and doesn't react.

"A normal fetus, of about 30 or 32 or 34 weeks, would stop responding after [about] 13 or 14 stimuli," said Nijhuis.

This lessened response to a repeated stimulus is called habituation, a process that both humans and animals are known to experience. For example, you might become habituated to the sound of your heater at nighttime, hearing it at first, but growing used to the noise after a while and falling asleep, Nijhuis explained.

But this doesn't really cover what I'm thinking - that something which happened outside of my mum whilst she was pregnant with me had a long lasting affect on me which is still occurring now (I'm 37 - eeeek!!). So far Scientology seems to offer the only reference I can find which relates to my theory; something called 'Dianetics': (following quotes from http://askthescientologist.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html)

Part of the Dianetic theory is that a person's mental or physical problems are caused by "chains" of related, harmful events. If a "preclear" (person getting Dianetic therapy) has, let's say, trouble hearing, it will be found, according to Hubbard, that there is a chain of harmful incidents related to his ears or hearing. As part of Hubbard's theory, this "chain" is held in place by one "basic" incident: the earliest incident related to ears/hearing. Once that basic incident was relieved, the person's hearing would be recovered.

I'm not saying this is true, just that's the theory. I bring up the theory because of this: As part of Dianetic therapy, the auditor keeps asking for an "earlier, similar incident" until they get to this basic incident.

With the idea that we only live once, the search for "earlier, similar" would often end up with "memories" from the womb. There is quite a bit from Hubbard about prenatal memories of harmful incidents.

And then a number of preclears, upon being asked for an "earlier, similar incident" started "recovering memories" from before this life.

After this it wanders into all sorts of stuff about implanting yourself in a new body:

Hubbard's explanation of the life-death-birth cycle goes roughly like this: Everyone is a thetan. Scientologist or wog, everyone is a thetan, inhabiting a body. As part of arriving on this planet, almost all the people here (the thetans), have been programmed to "report to the implant station" when they die.

When and where did this programming occur? Primarily, that was the OT III "Xenu" incident, 75 million years ago.

So, when anyone dies, they immediately "report to the implant station" for a refresh of their programming.

Hubbard claimed that there were implant stations on the far side of the moon and on Mars. I don't recall him ever saying Venus had an implant station (just trains, apparently).

The implant stations are all automatic, no people there. The thetans receive a refresh of their programming ("implanting") and then are given orders to "go pick up a new body on Earth".

So the thetan just goes to Earth and picks up a body.

Exactly when they inhabit the baby body is not set. They might inhabit the body before or after birth, but they will hover nearby in any case. Thetans will fight each other for a body, since there are more thetans than bodies.

Some thetans will take an adult body that is in a coma or has been seriously injured which, Hubbard said, explained amnesia and drastic personality changes at those times.

That's the dogma, according to Hubbard, as near as I can recall. I may have missed a few minor details.

But I'm not about to start discussing that!!! woooooooah there Nellie.........

So I haven't really answered my question. Is it possible that something happened to leave me with an irrational lifelong weirdness about sneezing whilst I was in the womb? Or I suppose at any time of my life? I did go to a hypnotist once to see if I could find out but that's another story for another post.........

In the words of Homer Simpson....

Can't talk, eating......



Which is pretty much what I've been doing for the past week or so. Eating and drinking like a crazed monster. It seems to have stopped now and I'm back to normal, but with tight trousers :-(

If anyone has followed this far and is interested, the sneezing continues apace, with about 6 or 7 a day. Yesterday was filled with what I like to call proper sneezing which possibly foretells a cold or some such annoyance. Blaaaah.

Life has been busy since I posted last:

A new bed
An unused voucher
Non-shopping for toiletries
A funeral
A funny story about a Stannah Stairlift (see funeral)
An email to an ex (no response - waiting patiently)
A Pirate Pantomime
2 delightful little boys
A decision about a friend (yet to be acted upon)

to name but a few of the things which have been filling up my time as well as the usual humdrummmmm of the week.

The New Bed is, and I'm not exaggerating, quite possibly the most exciting thing to happen to me since my youngest son was born. It's been an ongoing project born out of the arrival of the aforementioned son and the fact that all 4 of us (Boyfriend (BF) Top Son (TS) Youngest Son (LL) and Me) don't all fit into the previously fine double bed. In the mornings I like to lounge with my boys, and being pushed out by the youngest ones (not to mention BF in the middle of the night) just doesn't cut it.

I won't bore you with the long and tedious details but the long and short of it is that for the past 3 weeks we've been sleeping on a double mattress, placed like a foam island on a superking bed. A foot of space surrounded us, slats primed for getting little feet stuck and for books to fall through. On Sunday night I slipped into what I would describe as Bed Heaven. Plush superking mattress, clean cotton sheets, large plump pillows (and the obligatory glass of wine). In the morning my patience was finally rewarded when all 4 of us cosied up with tea, bottles of milk and a stuffed cat, and wallowed in the enormousness which is The New Bed. That's not me in the pic by the way :-)



Hasn't stopped me sneezing, so I guess I wasn't allergic to the old one.......

ha ha, I've just found this!!

http://www.sneezefetishforum.org/forums/index.php?act=idx

So it seems that quite a few people sneeze regularly on a daily basis; I'm not alone. So now I ought to go back to one of my original questions which is, why have I only recently started doing it?

That's for another day - sorry being lazy.

Proustian Moment!!

That's the term I was looking for!! A colleague of mine was more successful in her googling than I was, and finally found the word to describe what I've been experiencing.

Here's the lowdown:

Involuntary memory is a conception of human memory in which cues encountered in everyday life evoke recollections of the past without conscious effort. Its binary opposite, voluntary memory, is a deliberate effort to recall the past. The term was coined by French author Marcel Proust. From this philosophical root, involuntary memory has become a part of modern psychology.

Although it was great to finally remember the name of the phenomenon, I'm not sure it's strictly accurate to describe me, as in my extensive research (ok, just Wikipedia) I haven't seen any mention of a specific thing (sound, noise, smell) repeatedly causing the same involuntary recall. More research to do methinks....

But just for my own enjoyment, I've included an image of Marcel Proust; he's a dapper chappy isn't he?

Anxious not to veer too far away from the sneezing but not to become obsessed with trying to count, I've been making a mental note generally of the sneezing and can conclude that it's somewhere between 5 and 10 times a day. This morning when I woke up at 4am (with a very slight hangover after too much red wine last night) I had a little sneezing fit of about 5. Sometimes when I'm a bit hungover I get a blocked up/runny nose - connection?)

Here's the Synesthesia Research I am hoping to become involved in - maybe I'll ask them about Proustian Moments?

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sackler/research/synaesthesia