I have a new roommate. My girlfriend has some new duties at work, which means extra late nights, so my (our) son is now with me three to five nights a week in addition to the five days he has already been spending here.
My girlfriend and I still don’t live together, so up until now she’s been dropping him off at my place at 5am, then she drives to work. He has been staying with me for two nights a week for a few months now, we kind of started that to give my girlfriend a break — she has a newly six-year old son as well as a full time job lifting stuff.
But mostly I started the two-night-a-week thing so I could ease my way into full time parenting because, at some point, my girlfriend and I will be living together — either I’ll be well enough to get off disability, or the disability people will change the rules so the disabled can finally live with their families without having their income cut in half.
Even though it might be another few years yet, I’m betting it’ll be the former.
My fifth column will be published next week. The editors of the paper — it’s a 40-50 page weekly, tabloid style owned by MetroLand Media — have been tinkled pink about them all so far. I’ve spent some time reading the other papers in the city, and most of the other columnists are writing about their personal aggravations.
“Today I woke up, had a coffee and hit the same pothole on the way to work, I hate my husband’s cooking.” I’m paraphrasing all of them. So far mine have been very different. I’ve written about bullying; the relationship between me, my grandfather, and hockey; the stupidity of Steve Jobs and pseudo-science; something else and the latest one.
I’m not bragging… much, it’s just that mine are different.
Despite it being 2am and my son is crying because his bottle is warming up, and not in his hand, it has been a very peaceful couple of weeks*.
Which is a nice change from the bizarre chaos I’ve been living in since last February. I suddenly have a job I very much enjoy, albeit one that takes up about eight hours of my week and pays me not very much at all, and I have my son with me pretty much 24-hours a day, almost seven days a week.
My burn has turned into a scar, my bills are mostly paid, I’m pretty confident I’ll have enough money to last until my next cheque arrives, and my blood sugar numbers are awesome. And I get new glasses this week. It’ll be nice to see stuff again.
*…of course I could be delusional from lack of sleep, but as long as I don’t get a full nights sleep ever again I’ll never know the difference.
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...salted lithium. 
I’m glad you are doing so much better…I was worried about you for awhile, there. It must be really difficult sometimes to handle your little guy on diminished sleep, and you are doing an amazing job. Also, I wanted to jump on the opportunity to say “Hey! I hate the fucking government, TOO!”. I have been fighting with them for awhile regarding E.I. and they make no sense with some of their policies, rules and regulations. Its stunning how ineffective, wasteful, and useless our government truly is. I hope something will change regarding the ridiculousness of your situation caused by their incompetence.
Hi D99… I was worried about me for a while too. I also was worried about you for a while as well. Thankfully Victor only screams when he’s really tired, which works as a great reminder that I’m supposed to put him in his crib. His afternoon naps can go on for 2.5 hours, which is awesome, because that’s pretty much how long my afternoon naps are.
The part of the Ontario government that hates disabled people (ODSP) did make a concession to sanity last year when they starting allowing two people with a disability live with each other without taking money off their cheques. So my littlest sister and her boyfriend are legal now. And they can afford bread now.
So now I wait.
Thanks for commenting D99.
so. is there an online link to the columns? 🙂 and yay! More son! 😀
Well, yes there are, thank you for asking. I’ll send them in a few minutes. Yay, more son indeed. To be honest my sanity is holding at the moment only because I assume in two years, when he’s four, he’ll have his own apartment and a job in a British coal mine. C’mon 2014.
nice to hear you’re enjoying the new roomie
Funny weird, this morning he was a bit (re: almost completely) out of control… he woke up at 3am and wouldn’t go back to sleep until 3:30-ish. He just kept standing up in the dark and making raspberry noises, like “thrrrrpt” over and over again. So he was super cranky all day, and I had a ton of appointments so he only had an hour nap in the afternoon. The kid must be practicing, because his tones and lung power are almost biblical.
Thanks for coming over Jill.
I am so glad to hear how much better you’re doing and I wanted to express again how important your blog has been to me and my mental health recovery. I never comment much on any of the blogs I read so I thought I should re-iterate my enjoyment. Also if there’s any way to access your articles out here in MB I would love to know how.
Hi Rhiannon, I have a lot of trouble commenting on other blogs as well… sometimes I even have trouble on this one. Mostly it’s because I get really anxious waiting for a reply. So thanks for taking the time, and I’m really touched that you think I’ve helped in any way.
The archives for my stuff is, at the moment, entirely digital. They’re building a proper archive, but right now they have this cool system where the paper is put online so that it looks just like the newspaper. You flip through it, and zoom in and out to read. But there are no individual URL’s for the articles or pages.
So I’ll send you an email with the site’s URL, and directions on how to get into the digital paper thing. After that, I’m in every second issue, and always on page seven.
Thanks Gabriel, I really appreciate it. I enjoy your writing quite a bit. I figured since you don’t like waiting for a reply I would reply as soon as I possibly could. For me it isn’t a reply thing but a worry about sounding asinine or not writing as well as I would like ^_^
Thanks again. Me too, about the commenting. Sometimes, in the past, I’ve commented a little too aggressively or, worse, disjointedly, on blogs that were new to me, and it just made things awkward and weird for everyone involved.
I think that’s the one thing I like about Blogger that we can’t get here… over there you can preview your comment before posting it. Which makes a weird difference than just reading it in the comment form. I think, on Gawker.com, you’re actually allowed to change the comment after you’ve published it. Some kind of twenty minute window between commenting and the comment becoming permanent would be awesome.
I would love to see the link to your columns too. And I am not at all surprised that your editor loves them.
It is lovely to read that things are going so well for you.
Thanks Finola… it’s generally about this time when I start to worry. I’ve been looking back over the year and it seems as though I’ve been cycling through disasters in six week intervals since February, when I broke my foot. The only thing outstanding at the moment is getting a cavity filled. But as disasters go, that’s pretty minor.
I’ll send you a link to the paper in a few minutes.
Please send me a link too! I’d love to read them.
Done and done. Sorry for the delay…
Hey. Good to hear you’re writing for a paper again. And managing to look after children and stuff. I know how hard that can be…
Hope all is above average!
Unfortunately “average” is par for the course. Heh. Congratulations on finding your keyboard. Chedder.