Kiddo is away with his Dad for a whole two weeks.

I’ve just realised this has never happened in his whole eight years.

Everyone keeps telling me “cool put your feet up and relax”.

Heh. Fuck that I have stuff to do.

Washing walls, masking, painting. Repeat.

I managed to storm through a child’s bedroom, a hallway & laundry yesterday. Then it was a back crack & out for dinner.

This morning I feel like I have done a marathon effort at the gym.

Today? Coding and designing. Out for a walk to the library.

Tonight?

Crackers, cheese and wine and books. Lots of books to sink my teeth into.

Tomorrow?

More marathon painting.

Painting, artwork, geekery galore. Perhaps some well placed smut writing.

I have 14 days worth.

Busy busy impy.

I am needing to purge so purge I will …. ( I don’t need sympathy or anything else this is simply a place for me to write)

As a child Christmas was never a good time. And for a long while after I left home Christmas wasn’t something I really celebrated.

Basically because you always managed to fuck it up with your drunkeness or your dark moods that lashed out and slapped us all sideways. Normally it would be  a great morning of unwrapping presents and having a rare moment of all being happy together. Then we would get ready to go to a relatives house where all the extended family would gather for more presents and feasting and grandchildren and cousins running amok and the adults being jovial and joking and sharing funtimes. My blood family. It wasn’t yours though was it? And you always made it clear that you didn’t like being around them. Even after you treated my mother like shit they still accepted you. They gave all of us, the siblings, equal love. They didn’t care. My god they tried, every damn year.

Instead of arriving and enjoying the rest of the day you would get halfway there and decide that we weren’t going anywhere and turn back home. I remember the tears and consoling two little children who were alot younger than me who had no understanding of what was happening except we had no choice in the matter and a mother who didn’t drive. At the mercy of your mood swings as always.

But today? Christmas Day? Was this a cruel joke? Were you really that self absorbed in your own pile of shit that you didn’t see what you were doing?

Year after year, aprehension, worry that if we said or did the wrong thing we would cause you to get angry. You’d either turn into Dr.Jekyll and we’d all cringe and the day would be over and covered in that poisonous dark cloud or we’d go to family gatherings and you’d get blind drunk and be a total and utter embarrassment.

Then mum got wise to your shit. She learnt to drive, she left you at home to wallow in your own dark murk. We went and spent time in good company with family but all the while that darkness followed us wherever we went. It didn’t matter that we were away from it, but that knawing knowing that we would eventually have to come back home to that darkness. Usually it was you lying in a pool of your own piss, passed out, drunk.

By the time I left home I had no idea what real families did at Christmas time. All I knew is they were a time when it was best to not get my hopes up.

For a few years I spent Christmas with other friends who had nowhere to go or families were too far away. Personally I liked being far, far away. I missed my siblings and my mother but I sure as hell didn’t miss your abuse and the misery that sits around you like a diseased dark cloud. Then I decided that Christmas wasn’t my thing and that I would follow what felt right and do the Yule thing. Ancestral stuff, something that runs in my veins.

Then along came kiddo and I discovered the real joy of Christmas again, his joy. He is my gift in so many ways, year after year he teaches me things. And in turn he helps mummy light candles for Yule and do the baking. I made my own space with my own little family.

I spent a couple days with my brother & sister just before Christmas, we had the nieces and nephews and mum there. It was awesome. The only thing that irks me and it always does that no matter what we do there is always that dark cloud sitting in the background. And yet again you rose your ugly head in our thoughts.

We mumbled various bits and bobs about the fact that yet again you chose to not participate, not to see your grandchildren but instead choose a bottle over family. It does irk me. Not personally as my relationship with you died a long time ago. But to see the hurt in my brothers and sisters faces.

My sister is watching her father in law die from cancer, the last Christmas with his grandchildren and family. Have you hugged her and told her how wonderfully strong she is? No.

My brother has just had a beautiful wee baby daughter grace this world and it’s her first Christmas. You live less than 1km away … yet you’ve seen her once, and you were drunk.

My brother and  I had a deep talk and amongst chatter about a few things, including me telling him about the guilt I felt when I left home, I apologised for being absent from his life for the next five years and explained why I did what I did. He already knew why and understood. I love his heart.

He spoke about our childhood and the fact that we never really had a normal family, we didn’t hug or tell each other we loved one another, you isolated us from so many things, but the biggest thing that hurt was when my brother said he realised he’s never had a real father. A father that never said “I’m proud of you son”, never congratulated him on his engagement, never went to his wedding, never congratulated him on the birth of his first born or supported him through the complications of IVF. And so many more things. YOU know this already.

You have lost not one but three children over the years. Your choice to choose depression and alcoholism is stronger than your need for family. You choose to hurt and lash out with words, to criticise and never praise, to look for faults and not encourage or support.

What you don’t realise is all that anger and hurt has taught all three of us is that in the face of hard times, we all are there for one another. That love and understanding DOES conquer and that your darkness can fuck off back to where it dwells.

That the words “I love you” are easy to say. And say them we do.

That we CAN have Christmas back.

Our way.

With all of our beautiful children.

And most of all we all tell them how proud we are of them.

And all the while you can choose to sit in your dark little cave drinking from that bottle and choosing to regret and dwell on things that don’t matter, on things that are your own demons.

Not ours anymore.

It’s too late for you and I’ve accepted that but it doesn’t stop the hurt I see in those two, and them hurting hurts me.

Then I get pissed.

So I write.

Sex, drug use, drug overdose, gambling, home done tattoos. Rihannas new video clip. Taio Cruz- I wanna drink till i throw up.

Lady Gaga- lesbian sex, domination, almost full blown nudity. LMFAO- a video clip of nothing but jiggling penises.

Welcome to the world ********, this is what music means nowadays. Poor kid.

I love my family but sometimes they irk me. This is the same family member that whispers behind my back about my choice in sexuality namely kink. I don’t give a rats arse what they think. Seriously they have never had the balls to ask me upfront about it. Not once but instead they run to a close family member who tells me everything. Apparently what I do is wrong. *laughs*

Hmmm lemme see …

sex – yep had that, did any of those bands or any music in my life cause me to think oo I must have the sexors now!

NO

drugs – yep I experimented not because of music. Although I must admit some music sounded better  at the time LOL. Did it make me want to do drugs?

NO

Gambling? WTF?!?!?!

Home done tattoos? Ummm talk to alot of tattooists and you’ll find that’s how they started their trade. And eeerr your husband is covered in them …. Are his tattoos the result of music?

NO

What really irked me was this bit “Lady Gaga- lesbian sex, domination, almost full blown nudity. ” We know Lady Gaga is a dork. But I gotta admit I like a couple of her videos. They are teh awesome. My son thinks shes a dick. The reference to domination, lesbian sex and nudity …. this irks me.

Acknowledging your sexuality is okay. It’s healthy. We are lucky to live in a world where these things can be expressed without prejudice and more acceptance. There is nothing wrong with lesbians or homosexuality. There is nothing wrong with kink. There is NOTHING wrong with nudity. Don’t be a judgemental arsehole.

Thankfully because I haven’t been a prude with my child, because I have honestly and openly discussed things with my son and talked about things with him he has a wider understanding and hopefully he’ll be comfortable in his own skin without feeling judged. I’m his mother not the decider of how he should choose to express himself. His best friend has two mummies. He thinks that’s cool. So do I. I draw tattoos for people. Does that make me a bad person in your eyes? Oh wait …. I do that weird sex stuff, that stuff you don’t want to talk to me about but you are happy to tell everyone else about.

I grew up listening to Ozzy, Black Sabbath, The Police, Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, Madonna, Prince, and a whole electic range of music. now I listen to classical music, blues, old stuff and the new, metal, rock. And guess what? I turned out okay. I grew up watching music videos, hell everyday I listened to music and not once was I told what I was listening to was bad. I hung out with musicians for years … they taught me so much more about music. Your child isn’t stupid they will discover music and one day they might listen to music that doesn’t fit your tastes but it doesn’t mean it’s bad for them.

There is still good stuff. They will learn this. If you want to help and not hinder give them choice, educate them, and enjoy music for what it is, not some preconceived notions. I grew up being told by a bunch’o'nutters that my music choices were going to send me to hell.

Yeah. Right.

Most of all trust your child to make the right choices. Give her a good bunch of role models. Let her trip and fall and be there to pick her up but never tell her she’s wrong for being herself.

Here’s a hint …

P.S. Merry Christmas you gorgeous bunch’o'freaks’ xxxx

Three weeks to go. Three long, horrendous stress filled weeks.

Then freeeeeeedom!

Anyhoo that’s why I haven’t been writing on here much, brain overload and basically by the time I have sat here and finished uni stuff my eyeballs are seriously falling out of their sockets. Well I made the prototype for the BDSM book project and did a presentation on Wednesday and it went spectacularly well. I had a class of a good 25 students wide eyed and very curious to see some of the content pages. A few asked questions and many were simply intrigued. Not one of them looked shocked or freaked out so I must have done a good job. Basically the aim of my book project is to portray something that is not seen in the general media, it’s not about the sexual aspect or the pornographic aspects so often seen but the emotional aspects, the love, the empowerment and the fun BDSM can be. The real people in the kink culture and not the posers and the bullshit. It wouldn’t be what it is if it wasn’t for all the wonderful souls who have contributed images and writing as well, those parts are what has made the book special. I am so damn grateful.

So anyhooo this is the prototype …

The final will be black, with silver eyelets for the corset lacing, the lacing will be red and the stitching/binding will be red instead of white, the front flaps will be a silver material with black  patterning with the black strips on the edges. Heh and the coptic binding (the stitching of the book) I learnt off youtube. ‘beams’

So yeah that’s one project.

I am doing six papers atm so this is one of them. Two others are drawing … LOTS. One is photography, 100 photos (NOT shitty ones) a week, plus finals. An A1 Information design poster from a whole pile of boring statistical crap that we have to make look awesome and interesting, and a interactive digital design in pdf format.

I love my mum, it’s school holidays right now and she took my little one for the week to give me some time and space to get through some work, I got the little guy back tonight and we were both busting at the seams to see each other. He was so excited to see me as his first baby tooth came out while he was at Nan’s and he was gloating about the Tooth Dragon giving him $5 for his first tooth.

I decided when he was a little wee dude that he’s a boy and as much as I love fairy’s a boy should have something fantastic to take his baby teeth away so we have the Tooth Dragon. Tooth Dragon’s love bones, and they love baby teeth the best! So if your tooth falls out you put it under your pillow and the Tooth Dragon visits while you are dreaming and leaves a shiny under your pillow to say thank you for the yummy treat. Apparently he reckons he saw the Tooth Dragon hovering above him and was quite happy about that. He’s also told me Tooth Dragons are weeny and not very scary. LOL !!

So there’s been cuddles and squishy hugs, stories, fantastical tales and sloppy cheek kisses and he’s now snoring happily in my bed while I type away on this thing. Tomorrow morning is a mad rush on the train back to uni to grab (hopefully) a pile of art gear I left behind today in a rush to get home and see the little dude.

I will be mighty pissed if someone has picked up my gear and walked off with it

Hmm what else? Oh!

Carrie Ann the wonderful woman is sending me a very funky toy that looks like a rocket! I’ll be reviewing it on the blog because it looks freekin awesome and I’ll also be trying something different and sussing out a costume, if it fits and it’s all good I’ll even wear it to an upcoming fetish event and you will get photos

Here’s a big FUCK YOU to the media who have sent the wrong message out to people for years all in the name of consumerism and disgusting marketing behaviour.