345 days; I have taken 4 steps backwards

How many days it is until I can no longer not call myself an adult

It’s now 345 days until I become officially too old to not be an adult, and I had a terrible week. Terrible. I think I panicked under the pressure of an adult that I went three steps back. Maybe four. I have done nothing productive: barely any exercise; it took me 5 days to post the previous blog entry (that was already written); I did eat pretty well; my room still looks like a teenage boys room (or a teenage Ingrid’s room); did no writing; did no homework; didn’t always brush my teeth before bed; didn’t wash my face before bed; I set soba noodles on fire; and oh, yes, got terribly drunk… a lot. 

On the Guilty Feminist podcast, someone (sorry wish I could remember whose words stuck in my head. This is now a much less insightful comment and I want to give them credit but I can't so just go and listen to every episode to catch that one sentence. It will be worth it. It's amazing.) said that when you’re a kid, remember then? Yes. You get drunk because you’re happy. And now, that’s not really the reason. While I don’t think that means anyone should stop drinking entirely, I need to become better at telling myself that a nice cup of tea and bed will solve this problem far more than tequila. It’s not that I am blocking this little voice out. I’m not. It’s just not there. I think that little voice gets drunk before me and then passes out. Poor sensible little voiced Ingrid.

I stayed out till past 4 in the morning 3 times since I last wrote that.  What was I doing? Having a great time. Or… Having a great time? Let’s say, there were good times and bad times. Started alright and then got embarrassing. Not gut wrenchingly embarrassing, more like cringe worthy. I ended up and a bar I frequent, basically getting asked to leave. Why behave badly in a bar I go to all the time? No idea. It’s stupid. It started when an older guy said that he didn’t like pinot noir. Obviously, my Colleague and I took massive offense, it is, after all, the most versatile grape. It goes from being thin and watery, or thick, dark and fruity—all of the best ones are in the middle of that. We then became best friends, and he offered to buy us a margarita. We had paid. Were about to leave. So close to being not dick. My Colleague and I can drink a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. But we have a switch. This switch says; ‘go home. You can’t handle this anymore. You’ve turned dark. Leave.’ Little voiced Ingrid wakes up and finally starts talking again. Unfortunately, free drink can trump that. Damn you Margarita.
 
My colleague and I then got into a fight. Not a reasonable argument. Not a healthy dialogue. A yelling match that scared people around us. It started with the fact that my Colleague said that #metoo was a frivolous campaign. I took justified offense. I said that while it is problematic that people feel they are changing the world through twitter without changing any other parts of their lives, twitter is reaching women globally and making them feel like they’re a part of a greater community that has a voice for once in their lives. Well, that’s wat I meant to say. I think I might have said, what? No! Of course you say that! You man! Shut up! To which he said, you’re being such a girl. To which I said, just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you aren’t misogynistic. And then we got off topic about who was arguing better. ‘No, I didn’t say that. You weren’t listening!’ ‘I was you weren’t saying anything!’ ‘What was I saying!’ ‘Nothing!’ ‘See! Not listening.’ Oh, I pity everyone that had to listen to us.
 
I then decided to drink some more with my older gentleman friend and rant about my Colleague and why I didn’t pursue being an actor. It’s kinda really comforting, when at a man’s house at 4am you have been ranting about women’s empowerment already. He didn’t dare make a move.
 
Little voiced Ingrid gets hers back the next day. It comes in the form of her replaying everything I did the night before. I started a story with, this is so amusing, to have someone at the end of the story say that it was false advertising that I said that. I wasn’t very amusing. Not even slightly amusing. I tripped. I yelled. I screamed. I might have fallen asleep in my uber. And then I had woken up to facebook msg saying answer your phome, all hells broken loose at work. I didn’t start for 3 hours. Keep it together until then. Please, I’m focused on trying to eat soup at the minute.
 
My sister got a message yesterday from our real estate agency saying that we were 8 days in arrears and pay immediately. The anxiety of renting is sometimes too much for me. Moving house was so intense. So, we really should pay; our $5! Five dollars. I don’t know how we still owe five dollars. They told me to pay an amount of money. I did. Done. No! Wait. It wasn’t including the transfer fee and now you need to incur another transfer fee to pay the outstanding transfer fee! Is this really a thing?  
 
But there was one shining moment this week where I felt like I was a grown up. One moment that I can look to for comfort. My dog killed a rat. So many parts of this story make me feel uncomfortable. As a vegetarian, the killing of anything makes me feel... not the best. When Pilot catches bird and they’re half alive… it is not pleasant. You need to put it out of its misery. It won’t survive, it’s too far gone, the shock has already sentenced it. Decapitation by a shovel is the only way to stop its pain. But I cannot tell you how awful it is holding the shovel above a little bird’s head.
 
Thankfully, the rat was dead. And I hate rats, hate them. It was a huge rat, as big as a cat. That was how I knew that the dog killed the rat and not the cat. If the cat and killed the rat, it would have been incredibly impressive. I pictured it for a while, Littlefoot is a badass. Maybe Littlefoot did kill the rat? We will never know. Maybe it was a united effort so neither could get the blame; murder on the orient express style.
 
So, they both were sitting there, proudly over the rat. Being like, look what I’ve done. My sister could do nothing to help. It was too much for her. She asked if she could do anything that didn’t involve getting anywhere near the rat. I commanded her to put the kettle on and make tea. I grabbed the dust pan and brush and scooped this oversized rat onto it. I then had to make my way through the house to get to the bin out the front. The rat took up all of the dust pan. Its thick tail limply hanging down the side.

The rat was just playing dead, or so I thought. It could pop up and mock me. It would be at eye level if it stood up. I stared at its open eyes and the two yellow teeth poking out of its mouth. It didn’t move. It wasn’t a trick. It just lay on the rubbish when I put it in the bin. I had to keep reminding my sister it was there when she took anything out to the bin that week.
 
This week has been full of anxieties, procrastination, and dead rats. I coped with this by attempting to drink my way through all of the alcohols in the world. This was not clever, not helpful, and not smart. This week will be better. Yes? Yes. Little voiced Ingrid, speak louder.