March

I’ve been a bit slack with blogging because I’ve actually been out in the world doing things! YAY! So what follows are some vignettes about things I did in March.

Made A Ridiculous Banoffee Pie

Banoffee Pie has biscuit base, a dulce de leche (sweetened condensed milk turned into caramel) filling, banana pieces on top, and then (in this case) Nutella and peanut butter swirls on top of that. AND THEN, whipped cream for serving. I told you it was ridiculous. Why make such a thing? Well, it is delicious. Also, my housemate loves it, and she had gone away to Mardi Gras for the weekend, so I made it for a ‘Welcome home, feed your exhaustion and your hangover’ present.  Extra fun fact: sweetened condensed milk is like crack. Legal, cheap crack. I am very sad (but also very glad) that I had not been exposed to it earlier in life.

Went to WOMADelaide

WOMAD is a music festival held in various cities across the world- in Australia it is held in Adelaide across the Labour Day weekend. Adelaide is a pretty boring city but WOMAD is never ever boring! It is a weekend full of world music acts (and few well-known Australian bands), held in a beautiful park, and basically you just dance the whole time while marvelling at how much better your life is now that you have discovered this amazing new music.

This one was special for me because Mia Dyson was playing. She is an Australian folksy-bluesy-rock singer and I first saw her at WOMAD 2004 (i think?) when I was a little baby lesbian who had just come out (and shaved my head, obvs). And she performed a sit-down set on a small side stage and sang beautiful songs about being young and confused and in love and I was all, arghhh this is my life, I love you. Anyway, now she’s super-famous and I’m a bit more grown up (with better hair) and I got to see her again. Yay, life cycles! Below is a song of hers called ‘Jesse’, about forced adoptions (which were very common in Australia for single mothers up until the 70s), which is timely because there was a National Apology to all these separated mothers and children recently. It makes me cry every time I hear it.

 

 

Confronted my ‘Teeth Issues’

So, my teeth are pretty fucked because of my history of bulimia. I’ve written about this before, here. Bits of tooth crack off, fall out and crumble in my hand with alarming regularity. So, partly out of alarm and partly because of my recent promise to put on my Adult shoes, I arranged to go to the dentist and get things checked out. And lo, the dentist said yes, your teeth are unhappy. In fact, one tooth is so far gone we’re going to pull it out. Wahhhhh, said I. Let this be a lesson to you, dear readers- the after care period of having a tooth pulled is not a pleasant time. Get thee to your dental practitioner!

Turned 24

A couple of days post-dentist, I turned 24. Yay me for surviving another year, and a particularly hard one (mental health wise) at that!

True dat.

The day itself was a bit shit because of ALL THE TOOTH PAIN (see above). Turns out the extraction site got infected, so I had to go the dentist *on my birthday* (dramatic sigh) to get that sorted out. BUT, I got lots of loving from friends and local anaesthetic is a fine, fine thing.

Had a Birthday Party (yay!)

I have a friend M. with the same birthday as me so we had a joint ‘Nostelgia Party Extravaganza’ involving fairy bread, (Easter) egg and spoon races, honey joys and ‘Pin the Tail on Tony Abbott’. My friend J. even made us a pinata, thanks J! You could tell we were adults having a pretend kids party when the pinata finally broke and none of us scrambled to get the lollies.

I tried to make a novelty cake from the Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Cake Book, but it was an epic fail so we ate another cake instead. Better brush up on my skills before I have any kids!

Remember this?!

Screwed Up my Knee (boo!)

The party was going splendidly until I screwed my knee up. I don’t even know how I did it. I was sitting down and then I tried to get up and my leg was like, no way, Jose. My knee swelled up spectacularly. Luckily I have my stash of painkillers from all the tooth business. Almost a week later, I still can’t walk properly, so I don’t know WTF is going on. X-ray says nothing is broken or torn. I say booooo, why am I in so much pain? Well-timed birthday present of Morris the Moose says, ‘Cuddle me and all your worries will disappear!’.

Morris the Cuddly Moose from Canada

And there you have it, a summary of the significant events of March. I still battled with the Negative Voice. I still didn’t make it out of bed some days. Food is still an issue. But the point is I kept on going and good times were had in spite of all the crap that swirls below the surface. Life goes on.