Crushed Beneath My Mental Block

Ack. It's a new month and so many many days since i last posted. I have no actual excuse except I am so blocked up at the moment. It's the mental equivalent of that hideous two week period after Tricky was born when i became the constipation queen and found myself crying to my father-in-law for his stash of laxatives. 

I'm hoping there's some new significant work on its way because I have been huffing and straining over my laptop for the past few weeks and it's not a pretty sight. I keep pathetically googling such things as "How to write my book" and "great new play idea". 

And it's not even like I've got bulk eons of time to do stupid googling and idle research. I have three days of childcare a week and when C is away working like he has been on and off over the past few weeks, those three days are it. 

Except of course as soon as Tricky is whisked away (either by myself or his live in uncle or aunt) then I start to do laundry, or perhaps clean the bathroom which is so festy a colony of sea monkeys has taken up residency. Then I must have a coffee, do some stupid googling, phone another writer friend about procrastinating and mental blockage, make lunch... ok, I do actually manage to scratch a few feeble words onto a slate each day but basically I am an idiot and I should have got a proper job all those years ago when my father told me to.

Also i have just this minute given up wine and sugar. This is based on me reading a newspaper article that said two glasses of wine a night were enough to increase a woman's chances of contracting breast cancer. Nice one, science heads. Those two glasses got me through the day. I'm sure you're right but God, is there no fucking fun to be had?

The sugar thing was even more indisputable. I overheard a shelf packer at Coles supermarket talking to another shelf packer and saying that the weight just fell off her when she stopped eating sugar. I couldn't see these people, i just heard their voices floating vaguely from the next aisle while I was perusing tins of baked beans. 

Unfortunately it took about five minutes of anecdotal evidence about Shelfpacker One's horrid blimpishness and her nasty unsympathetic relatives who had been trying to tell her for months that she had to give it up (what? what? Just say it you cow). 

But then, miracle, the new fabulous svelteness, the putting on of clothes that previously no longer fitted (here I nearly fell face first into the tinned Heinz spaghetti shapes, so sharp was the prick of recognition that accompanied these words) and so i was forced to examine in minute detail those baked beans; the ham flavour, the reduced salt, the generic brands, before I finally heard the culprit named...evil evil fat-inducing sugar.

Two and a half years ago, it took me half a box of medically prescribed laxatives, gallons of water, a coffee meringue and a brisk promenade along Bondi Beach before I could get any kind of movement at the station. I'm not in need of the first (yet), I've just ruled out the second and I don't have the time to do the third. Interestingly, and quite unconsciously, the last few mornings i have found myself drinking loads of water and dosing my breakfast cereal with extra fibre. Almost as if, instinctively, I'm making the connection between brain and bum (most of my friends would of course point out that in my case this was patently obvious).