Blog3 couch collective

 

 

The Couch Collective

A DARK JOURNEY INTO HOME DECOR DEPENDANCY

There is a seedy underbelly belying the manicured lawns and cookie cutter facades of our suburban neighbourhoods. It’s a silent killer of long held relationships and bank accounts alike. Though not often mentioned its impact is far reaching and ever present. The form is of an unhealthy preoccupation with home design. Hi...I'm Helene and I have a couch addiction. This was not immediately apparent to me, it was a slow realization brought forth by the concern of friends.

Like most addictions it began innocently enough. The first couch. Fresh out of university, a couple of pays in the bank I decided it was now time for an adult worthy home. It was perfect, mocha brown, brushed cotton, deep and comfy cushions. I had many good years enjoying the security and warmth it provided...but then my feelings began to change. It's rolled arms and dust skirt no longer satisfied my evolving taste. Surely as a lover infected with herpes, the affair ended. Hours then days become stolen ceaselessly searching pinterest and houzz for design inspiration. Isolation takes hold as conversations are ignored, outings delayed, complete preoccupation leaves you slack jawed drooling on your tablet screen. So on to the next...clean lined, smart and modern, pleasing to the eye but hard on the ass. Now a veritable battle ensues. Style versus comfort, form versus fit. Couch after couch always searching your next fix. Seven sofa sets in twelve years, never satisfying the monstrous want. Until the ceiling is reached.

You’ve focused your obsession on the unattainable. Reason interfering exclaiming the price is to high! Both in the figurative and literal sense, think about the family the impracticality of its luxuriant down fill and cream coloured linen. What is a junkie to do? How can the need be tamed? Visits. Not entirely different from the anticipation of a congical enjoyed by inmates. A sure sign rock bottom has been reached. Any boring Sunday can become a catalyst to this new low. The craving gently rolls to a boiling point leaving you begging your partner to come, to allow you to see it just one more time! Maybe this time you can convince him, this time he’ll brake. The look of disappointment on the salesmans face only serves as reminder you've been here before but hope springs eternal that today he will receive his commission. You approach your quarry, buzzing with delight, longing to lounge and take in it's new fabric scent. Quickly the heady euphoria is brought to an end. The visit has only served to strengthen your husbands resolve, reminding him of the sacrifices needed to satisfy this crutch. Your told of trips unable to be taken, fine dining never to pass your lips, and in defeat a final goodbye is had.

This problem is catching. Innocently you sell your unwanted furniture to friends, it seems harmless, until they come back for more. Two separate friends, four sets of couches!! What have you done! They are being dragged into your madness! Spiralling out of control. But it doesn't end there. The sofa is just the gateway drug leading to an even more depraved addiction to accessories. With each new polyester purchase comes area rugs and throw pillows. They accumulate at astonishing speed, a constant shuffle from upstairs to down, bed to basement trying to make room for the new! Suddenly in a zombie like state you find yourself at homesense mercilessly stalking a young woman who dare pick up the cushions you came for. Itching and ticking you peek around shelves desperate for her to release your precious! Store staff and clients are baffled as you frantically try and recreate your living space with their available product, you must visualize how this bounty of pattern and texture will look, you cannot and will not return your kill. Armfuls of Aztec and ikat are now delivered to your nest. The need finally abated you rest,….until the next ikea catalog.

 

 

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Blog2 new mom

So after shamelessly eliciting artistic inspiration in my previous blog, I've decided to make some random posts of observations and experiences that interest me. Writing also provides me a creative outlet, and I just find it fun. I have also noticed I'm drawn to posts in list form so I've made a list of my own. A list about what im experiencing right now in my life, maybe you've experienced it in yours?

Four Revelations of a New Mom

Babies are great exfoliaters- Yes, indeed. I bet you feel when you nestle your beautiful child to your breast to provide her with nutrient rich momma milk, that you are the only one providing a service. Not true. Your child also is obliged to provide you with a service. Exfoliation.

Yes that darling will scratch, pinch, twist, rub and claw all exposed areas of your skin with a ferocity unmatched by any commercial product. No amount of screams, No's, or limb removal will deter this overachiever. When she is finished you will be left with a fresh layer of rosy blood flushed flesh from naval to chin. No longer will those pesky epitheliums lay claim to your body, they are firmly entrenched under her fingernails. She will also make sure to twist your other nipple so you may never feel it has been forgotten and is foremost in her mind. Do you have a special event that you would like to wear a sexy low cut dress too? Well mama you better figure out how to pair a turtleneck with a mini skirt unless you enjoy questioning and pitiful stares. So why not just cut those little razor talons. I do. However they regrow with such enthusiasm it must have been essential to our survival at some part of our evolutionary journey. They could not sprout faster if I smeared them with the peanut butter solution! So you may be tempted in this dry winter weather to continue with your grooming routine and slough of the rough areas your child has left behind. Dont, just dont. You may find it more comforting to inflict a thousand paper cuts and take a lemon bath.

Never Trust The Stairs- Remember when you brought your little baby home and carried her upstairs to show her all the work you put into her room? Remember coming back down that first day? I stood at the precipice of the staircase holding my little bundle of rubber bones thinking oh fuck. With legs unsure as a new born doe I assessed my game plan for decent. Holding my babe with one arm and gripping the railing seemed to leave much room for error. This task required both arms. Grasping her tight around the middle I saddled myself securely against the opposing wall. A linebacker would be challenged to move my stance. Leaving a shoulder streak the length of the staircase I safely delivered my girl to the ground floor. As time passed hundreds of diaper changes and bedtimes slowly widdled away my initial trepidation. No longer did I suck myself to the wall but retained the double arm hold, until Wednedsay. Wednesday happened. Several events conspired to contribute to my ultimate demise. First, it was baby and books day at the library. I had missed last week due to a Doctors appointment and was determined to get there this week even though it was storming. Why? Well because I'm filled with mommy guilt that I'm not doing enough, that she may be under stimulated, and I enjoy leaving the house at least once a week. Second, I had socks on to match my going out Joggers (you know the ones that don't have the ass and knees stretched out yet from wearing them three days in a row). At home I'm usually barefoot or wear slippers with sticky padded bottoms. Only the most special of circumstances require socks. Anyway, I rushed around warming and brushing off the car, changing and dressing the babes, double checking the diaper bag stash.

Just like any other day I began for downstairs with Einstein in my arms and WHAM! Two treads in I hit the corner of those ugly builder grade wooden oak stairs with all my post baby weight. Bing Bang fucking boom I rocked every edge of every stair with my ass cheeks, thighs, ribs and pride. I hit every goddamn thing... except....the baby. Holy Fuck is all that entered my brain as I craddled and shushed the girl, not hurt but in shock from our spontaneous riotous slide. It seems those fancy socks slipped on the edge and unable to use my arms we rode the inertia all the way down. So please mamas never trust the stairs but if this should befall you trust in yourself that you will not let your baby go.

Bath Toys or Bush- Whats that you say? Bush, yes Bush. Now before you contort your face in judgement lets get something straight. It's winter. I know most of you moms are not sitting around with a perfectly manicured puss and a cassarole in the oven. We are tired, we are stressed, and four months out to bikini season. With parenthood you must embrace your bohemian side or be prepared for certain defeat. SO anyway, I bought the baby new bath toys for christmas and was excited to use them now that she can sit up on her own.

Always searching for the lazy solution and also believing it would be fun, I have done this a lot since she was born but this was the first this winter and with her being more sure on her bum. Happily i dumped all her new paraphernalia into the tub and jumped in to enjoy her play. It was fun, she did enjoy them...for a moment. Then it happened. I was spotted. Her cherub cheeks turned, eyes widened in delight and her chubby little hand grabbed hold of my pubes with the grip of an eagle. She was filled with such sensory joy, bubble wrap cloaked in alpaca fur would not have made her happier. No amount of plastic fish, boats or bubblebath could distract her from what she now knew lay just beneath the surface. Pulling and grabbing her determined digits destroyed my nethers as sure as a drugstore Nair kit. She explored those curly tendrils with an archeological ambition. Unable to stop the madness without risk of drowning her, I ended the bath. However looking at my patchy privates now groomed with the talent of a student aesthetician, I had to reflect. Combined with the afore mentioned exfoliating qualities, I done born myself a minispa!!!

Beware the Mommy Forum- Isn't it sweet, that time during pregnancy you have no fucking clue what's going on in the parenting community. You post your shower pics to facebook and suddenly your invited to join a mommy group. You join, fun right, why not. Maybe I will need the help. Well let me give you a heads up. You will first notice this NBP on most posts, this means no bashing please. Well ok buy why would you have to put that before a question about what is the best sippy cup? Because there is actually some uppity douchbag out there that will find issue with this. She will 1. Berate you for your use of a sippy cup as it will surely cause your child to never properly hold a glass or 2. Be aghast at your lack of prenatal preparedness and criticize your need to ask this question in the first place.

Yes you will be ripped from asshole to appetite as surely as a criminal encircled by lions in the roman coliseum. This forum is a machine. One that runs on the questionable esteem of sleepless suckers and caregiver confusion. Don't ever feel bad for having a question but please ask your mom, aunt, sister, even your fucking father. Make sure all possible google searches have been exausted before you consider this avenue. Protect your confidence, your instinct, do not feed the ravenous animal that is a mean spirited and disgruntled mama. Go get on your jammies, pop some corn, nestle down under a blanket and read the comments. But Heed my words. DO NOT POST!

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1st blog think initiative

THE THINK INITIATIVE

THE THINK INITIATIVE

Help foster creativity In a 30 something trying to maintain her brain!

First of all please don't let the blog title fool you into believing this will be a platform for heady intellectual discussions on the state of the world. Nope not even close. Don't get me wrong, world issues concern me as much as the next guy but this is gonna be a little more light, humour friendly! So what the hell is it about then? It's about you helping me helping you, k. Basically I have been thinking a lot about thinking lately and I'm feeling quite dull, boring lacking some spark or spirit. I'm getting older and feeling stupider ( more stupid?) fuck, see! I can't be the only one with this dilemma, the realization that age doesn't bring wisdom but a gradual decline in mental acuity. You begin by forgetting how to spell words, you repeat the letters over and over until even the correct spelling now looks bizarre. Than you start forgetting the words themselves. Remember all that random shit you learned as a kid, the names of like twenty trees and plants, the different instrument families, how to play the ukulele. Where the hell does that knowledge dissipate to? I know your not likely to retain things you don't use in everyday life but Jesus I have lost a lot of basic shit. Google is my god.
Math, MATH is downright embarrassing. An example of this tragic conclusion came during a written interview for a job at the liquor store in my early twenties. Two questions. Multiplication and division...show your work. No problem I thought until I started to realize I have no fucking clue how to do long division and a foggy memory of carrying over and adding zeros somewhere for the multiplication. In a shame induced sweat fest I clumsily filled the paper with no less numbers, scribbles and symbols than the standard model.

All resulting in defeat and no call back obviously. That night I asked my partner to show how to do these problems, he did, it was easy. Easy if you can remember the formula! It wasn't a breakdown in my basic understanding of forth grade curriculum, it was my addle ass shit for brains. More mysterious was how I an A math student was being tutored by my ( I could give a shit about my marks) boyfriend. WTF.
So where am I going with this? Well in the last few weeks I have done a few very small creative projects and realized how much I enjoy these somewhat silly but thoughtful tasks. First I drew a picture for a friends kid of Darth Vader, then I wrote a song to a guitar melody my husband wrote and finally I made up chip flavours for the lays contest. Now I'm not saying I'm the next Picasso, Chris (my husband) and I are going to be youtube stars or Lays chips will even consider my flavour choices, but what I did notice was a change in myself. These small tasks made me incredibly happy. They allowed me to step outside of my predictable head and have a little fun. I felt completely reenergized and a little manic, which is great in small doses! When I was a teenager I was always writing, painting creating on some level or another. I was also severely depressed and probably described as weird by most of my friends. However although it was a very hard and trying time I certainly never felt boring, I was always occupied with the next idea or overwrought with pain from self created worries and issues. So what happened to that vivacious kid? Paxil, Paxil happened. A blessing and a curse.

It allowed me to find peace and calm within my thoughts but also stripped away my foolish spontaneity. No longer was painting the doghouse at three in the morning by candlelight a good idea. Playing solo basketball in the winter wearing my fathers overalls didn't make sense. Talking to my mothers house plants while rubbing their leaves with mayonnaise, in hindsight was a little strange. I just stopped doing things for the sake of doing them. This may make you less of an enigma to the neighbours but a little something does die inside, that spark I mentioned earlier.
So where do you come in? Well… I am hoping that maybe there is something I can help you with, a question, an idea, some brainstorming. Maybe you need a tie breaker a third opinion. Let me be your operator! Wtf does that mean, well when we were kids and needed to settle an argument we would call the operator (0) and what she/he said goes.

This was pre internet of course but it was a tried and true system. Perhaps your working on a product and need a catchy tag line or advert idea, who knows, anything at all really. So what would be the point of all this? Well I'm Hoping that I might be able to help you with a creative dilemma and in turn you can help me jog my noggin. So your probably thinking why don't I just go and paint a picture or write a poem or some such shit. Well a baby, a baby is why. Mother natures great excuse but it is true. When the babe goes to bed I'm to tired to start a big project and when she's awake it's pointless. Trying to be creative amongst constant stops and starts whilst trying to prevent paint poisoning and a wool area rug massacre isn't worth it. To mention my once studio space is now a nursary won't be surprising I'm sure. Also that would circumvent the whole point. I'm hoping to get a glimpse into someone else's kunundrums and mental blocks to maybe feel solidarity, inspiration and hopefully help! I live in my own head enough...now let me into yours!...umm...please. Of course there is no guarantees that I can solve your issue or that you would even like the solution if I did but what's the harm in trying. Now let's go over my vast array of qualifications that allows me to speak with authority on any manner of topics...a hem.

• Arts and crafts connoisseur - I like art. I've done crafts ( somewhat against my will) but crafts none the less. I cannot name 98 percent of artists or their paintings, however I enjoy looking at them and being jealous of their talent. I've painted a number of pictures and some people actually bought them or had them commissioned, that makes me a professional right?
• Relationship expert- I have been with my husband for twenty years. Since I was 13. That has got to count for something. As far as advice this may be a good or bad thing, depending on what your after.
• Dental Hygienist- this obviously gives me cart Blanche as far as medical insight. The hygienist is essentially the bartender of the health professions, we listen to everyone's problems most not being mouth related.
• Parent- With a ten month old baby girl under my belt I now know EVERYTHING you could ever want to know about how to parent.

So hopefully the sarcasm is translated into text, but I will put thought into your issues. Also comedy and an unladylike amount of vulgarity. That's what it's about. Let's give this a try, hit me up in the comments. Or you can email me if you want to discuss a hoo ha problem or your husbands penis size privately ;). Cheers!!

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