Red tape and other joys...

So this week I have been dealing (with decreasing patience) with bureaucratic bullshit. Particularly annoying as dealing with this requires me to have no money and be running around talking to idiots and explaining to them how to do their job while struggling with feeling like shit myself. I think I'm doing pretty well, all things considered!

Things are looking up. My doctor is lovely and completely understood when I said I was struggling to find records of what I had been doing during the period in 2005 when I was severely depressed and not seeing anyone about it. Unlike others I've spoken to, she seemed to understand that that was part of the condition! All the paperwork I need to do has been deposited in the appropriate places and I am now waiting for Studylink to talk to University and then eventually to me. At which point they will tell me that they need proof that I haven't any income. So I have a month from today to live off my overdraft and hope that they get the paperwork done before I run out of pretend money.

Fortunately for me, I have an overdraft, a thorough grounding in navigating bureaucracies (thank you Father), parents who care about me and have the money to bail me out if things get too bad, and am a smart-little-middleclass-student. I'm also non-white and female... but hey, I reckon I still have a lot more privilege than most.

I received the most awesome package from Superhooker. I'd asked for a crocheted totoro for Teresa, so that is part of what I received. She also made me an additional extra little friend of totoro. What is his name? Here be their picture:


For myself, I asked for a knitted praying mantis. I'd seen one online that I really liked but hadn't a hope in hell of making for myself. So she did. It is green and pink and lives on top of my craft box praying for inspiration and follow-through.


I have done some work on the thesis. Which makes a pleasant change! And I am trying to make sure I see the people I want to see. Which shouldn't feel like work, but does on a bad day. Though to be fair, on the worst days seeing them usually makes me feel better in the end. And people are being nice to me. So life goes swimmingly. My head be just above the water and that be about as much as I ask for and a lot more than I expect.

Waking nightmares

Sleeping ones too. Needless to say, I am back in Wellington. Having had a good break while overseas. Now trying (and so far, failing) to find my life here.

On the upside, I have a lot of clothes and food. Mostly clothes that my parents bought for me while I was with them, and food I bought for myself once I got back here. In fact buying said food has been the only useful thing I have done over the past two weeks. And I seem incapable of doing anything without help. Which is beginning to piss me off more than a little.

Haven't done any work on this chapter of results I'm meant to be working on. Meeting Tony next week and so far have absolutely nothing to show him. It would be okay if it were just that. I'm not doing anything. Haven't done any crafting for the past fortnight either. Hmmm... this is the maudlin mood I'm in. So I'm going to use this space to talk about the things I have done from the list of things I was meant to do.

I did end up making the insulin bag for Nick (who, incidentally, is being lovely at the moment). It doesn't have a button to keep things together but is mostly functional. I am making a new friend. And she is awesome (love you Heather!). I did make soap cupcakes and have the photos to prove it. I did have a craft stall selling cloth pads. It was an abysmal failure, but I did do it. I'm working on hanging out with my brother. And I am scheduled to review a dance show early next month. So I know I'm not entirely useless. Just feeling like it right now.

on the impossible dream

I am annoyed at the amount of effort I'm going to have to put in to unwinding red-tape before I'm going to be allowed to have a daughter. And I'm annoyed at how people talk about it. And I'm annoyed about idiotic systems.

For those of your who don't already know this, I want to have a daughter. And unfortunately for me, I don't want to do this the socially sanctioned way (getting pregnant). Which for some reason means that I get asked the most stupid questions by people who really should know better. My current favourite is, "But don't you want one of your own?". Sigh. I do. Hence the adoption.

I'm scared of adopting. I'm terrified of the social system that means that my child will be able to hate me and have a 'real' mother to go to. I don't need my fears validated. I need to be reminded that any child biological or not can and will at some point during their life hate their mother/parent. This is the process of individuation! Any child of mine will be a person in their own right and they will live their life, not mine.

Anyhow, there are practical difficulties. Adoption costs a whole lot of money and up to two years of time. During which I have to convince the governments of two countries that I am a fit parent for the child I do not yet have. This seems to involve having a full-time job and a stable home enviroment so that any possible child of mine will have a secure and fulfilled life. Given that (in my experience) security has far more to do with emotional safety and love than monetary stability, this galls me not a little. Especially since I have every intention of loving my daughter to bits and none at all of turning into a stuffed shirt.

So even though there are millions of children alive now who I could easily learn to love and who hopefully would not hate me, the only practicable option left to me is to deliberately bring another child into this world. Gaaaah.

There is more to this rant, but it's making me too angry to type. Wish the idiots would just leave me alone and keep their stupid bloody laws off my body and my life.