Open Wiiiiiiiide

The other week I bit on something (alright, it was a wafer thin piece of dark chocolate) and half my upper wisdom tooth just broke in half. I was quite pragmatic about it at the time. It didn't hurt, wasn't sharp, and I wasn't too concerned. But in the back of my mind I knew it was going to lead to costly and painful things.

Well that painful thing was yesterday when I went to have the damned thing taken out. I was already anxious but had been trying not to think about it. But as the time drew near I started to feel quite scared. I tried to talk myself around - after all, I like to think of myself as quite a brave person - but it seems I'm only brave when it doesn't involve someone hurting me.

It didn't help that they kept me waiting terrified in the waiting room for 25 minutes... with a nun and a teenage lad drinking a bottle of coke. Both of them looked very unbothered and I suspected the kid wasn't there for something painful (yet) and imagined the nun was trained to look zen-like. I tried to emulate her calmness but it didn't work. I was petrified.

The dentist was very jovial and friendly which was good but I had to have THREE injections overall - one to numb my gum, one which he said "would sting quite a bit" which we all know is code for "this is going to hurt you somewhat", then another one because my gum wasn't numb enough. By the time they came to wrestle my tooth out my heart was beating like the clappers - which they said was a good thing, adrenalin and all that I suppose.

It was awful.

I had talked myself into believing that it wasn't going to be as bad as I imagined because nothing really is - but it was worse!! It was very traumatic and I was actually shaking when I came out.

So I'm sitting up in bed on my laptop as I type this and I must say that I am feeling a little bit sorry for myself. it doesn't hurt very much but it bled all night and of course I keep poking it with my tongue which feels horrible. I'm not allowed to have any hot drinks for 24 hours and I want a coffee really badly. I'm not a caffeine fiend but it's the morning and I do like a nice hot sweet latte of a morning.

Sorry to share all the hideous details with you but it had to be done. I go to Italy on the 4th so hopefully it'll be healed up by then. And then I'm having four little fillings when I get back. My teeth aren't actually that bad overall (they're straight and even and I've never needed much done to them) but nobody's teeth get better with age I guess.

I'm so going shopping later...

Did You Miss Me?

Hello everyone again. I bet you thought you'd seen the back of me eh? I'm so sorry that I left you. I didn't mean to disappear but it just happened. Part of me thinks that it's only the non-busy that can blog y'know - I have 2 other blogs that I write as I have 2 businesses but I'm going to try and put a stop to that. I have an overwhelming desire to simplify everything. I desperately crave a more balanced life again.

So I'm starting that by making time to come on here and not to leave when I'm busy. So here's a massive brain-dump summary of what I've been doing to get you up to speed:

I'd been trying to sort out my work life for a while now. I have 2 businesses but I like doing one more than the other (which I'm more known for annoyingly) so I've decided to focus just on that and put all my marketing and mental efforts into just one instead of both so I can get my life back. Strangely, once I'd made that decision in my head (which was a coupla days ago) I felt so much lighter. The world seemed simpler and I even started to walk slower and take my surroundings in instead of hurrying around with my head in the future.

I also had the Green Man Festival going on that long-term readers will know that I work at each August. So for 2 months before the event I'd been doing pre-event work plus some extra work the organisers asked me to sort out this year, plus running both my other businesses, plus having a personal life. So there was just no room for writing this blog. Or maybe I just didn't have enough to say to make the room I'm not sure.

Things are still up and down with my boyfriend. Sometimes things are great and some days I want to throttle him. I'm not sure I work well in a relationship. I'm not good with putting up with someone else's shit, and I like living alone with everything how I like it. Here I live in a small, dark one-bed basement flat with someone who also works from home. The flat gets dirty really quickly and is a haven for spiders which, as you know, I'm terrified of. I can't afford to move out, although that's not the reason I stay. 

I think relationships are hard work in general. When you're used to having your own way all the time and not having to take into consideration... well, anyone, it can be hard to suddenly have to do that. I know the things he liked about me at first also drive him mad (my independence, and endearing selfishness to name but 2 things.) He in turn goes in and out of depression (not because of me) which as you can imagine is a right barrel of laughs. 

You can't fix a depressed person it turns out. And I'm not the most sympathetic of people either "cheer the fuck up and sort yourself out" isn't the thing to say apparently. We'll get there I guess - either that or I'll smother him in his sleep. I do love him so we're trying to work it all out - living on top of each other like this isn't helping that's for sure.

Last night a really horrific thing happened. To be fair, it wasn't as horrific as when I opened the back door a few weeks ago on my way to peg the white wash out and a medium-sized garden spider fell straight down my top. That was pretty bad. I let out a rather piercing shriek and hurled the washing to the floor as I panicked and jumped up and down hysterically. No it wasn't as horrific as that, but it did come close.

I was in the kitchen making some toast. I made the snack and went back into the living room. A while later I wandered back with my plate to see one of the biggest effing spiders I have ever seen crumpled up on the floor half squashed but very dead. I realised that I must have accidentally stepped on it while making the toast... in my bare feet.... IN MY BARE FUCKING FEET!!!!

Moving on from that harrowing story (you need to know these things and I need to get it out of my soul), I'm currently watching the closing ceremony of the Paralympics which is amusing really as I believe I was the only person in the UK not to watch any of the Olympics or Paralympics - I do like a good show though and there's nothing us Brits do better than put on a really weird, surreal show for the rest of the planet to puzzle over. My hairdresser said I was the only person she's asked who didn't watch any. I feel a little proud of that for some reason.

So I think that's it for now. I don't want to overwhelm you with so much riveting information that you can't sleep tonight from too much excitement. I intend to come back shortly and tell you more about the festival and other things that I've been doing. This is what I intend on doing anyway... 

My Phobia is Out of Control!

Last night it was late and I was sitting on the sofa pootling around on my laptop when something caught my eye. To my horror I saw a huge black spider scuttling under the dining room table. It stopped when I turned the main light on and my horror turned to absolute fear as I approached said spider to ascertain the situation. 

I am absolutely terrified of spiders. I'm not scared of anything else - heights pose no problems neither do bees, moths, enclosed spaces, speaking in public or even Daddy Long Legs (Crane Flies) It's just spiders. I can barely even say or write the word I'm so scared of them.

Now I know that this is an irrational fear and they won't hurt me and are 'probably more scared of me than I am of them' blah blah, but a phobia by definition is an irrational fear of something  so it doesn't make any difference. I was literally shaking inside as I sat back down and tried to ignore it. There was no way I could have even gotten close enough to kill it and even the suggestion of trapping it under a glass filled me with fear. I simply cannot get close enough to do this and I can feel a rising terror inside me now just thinking about attempting it. As soon as it moved I would run off 

I couldn't stop thinking about it and I know that at this very minute it could be under the table I'm sitting typing at. Again, I am filled with dread even contemplating this and cannot even get the full thought formed in my head before the fear makes me stop thinking about it. So I'm just going to type and not think about it.

I crept off to bed and simply couldn't stop thinking about what was lurking in the living room.  In the night I actually threw my covers off and jumped out of bed thinking it was on me. This is not an unusual occurrence for me- I have done this many, many times over the years and it was some time before I realised I was seeing it in my head and that it wasn't really in the bed.
When I go around the flat cleaning I often find them. I usually suck them up the hoover but I believe they can climb out again. When I go into the en-suite I imagine a big one in the sink even though I've never seen one there. It's the sort of sink they like and I am confident that one day I will see a big menacing one there.

My first memory of them was sitting on the carpet as a very small child and seeing my Mum and Great Grandmother (my 2 main care-givers) scream then kill a huge spider that had just run past me. I wasn't scared but it's probably how it all started. My Mum is very scared of them as well and makes a loud scene when she sees one.  But this is not the only run-in I've had:

• I came home from school once (I was a teenager) and turned on the TV. What I thought was static running up my arm was in fact a huge house spider that then ran across my face into my hair.
• When I woke up one morning (I was a about 9) I saw a big spider on the ceiling over my bed. As I stared in horror it fell on to me...
• As a child I took a shortcut through a hole in a hedge, broke an egg sac in a web and hundreds of baby spiders emerged and ran all over my face.
• A few weeks ago a huge one was on the dishes in the sink and ran at me when I unknowingly turned the tap on.

I can think of many more horror stories but I can't actually go on. I'm feeling very stressed now. I would really like to not be scared of them and even tried calling them 'Bernards' for a while in case I'd associated the word with terror. But to no avail. I don't even want to go on a therapy course because I know it would mean being near one.

You will notice there isn't a photo of a spider to accompany this post. This is because I'd never be able to look at my blog again!