February 27, 2005
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February 26, 2005
I tried to make some friends.
I am utter rubbish at making friends, and I am even worse at keeping them. Anyone who wants to be my friend knows that I am flaky at best but that I always come back around. Often, I just plain forget to call people or write people or generally keep in touch, but I always remember the holidays and if a friend ever needed me I would be there like the peanut in the yellow M&M. I can count the number of friends I have on one hand-these are people that I love and that love me. And every single one of them lives in another country, too far away to ever ask, my toes pointing inward and my heart pointing down, if maybe they could come with me and have a drink, maybe we can talk?
So I invited 3 of my former neighbors (from across the street) to my house last night for dinner and for a book club.
That's right.
I've joined the masses.
My three neighbors brought along another nice woman from Belgium whom I've met before and whom I think is a riot. Three of us had read the book, two of us didn't, but it didn't matter-I thought we should take a chance to have a chick evening and run with it. It was a meal and a book-I made bruschetta and pesto-spinach lasagne. The Belgian brought a homemade chocolate mousse and another woman Billie brought a creamy strawberry pie. I lit a fire in the fireplace, lit the candles around the kitchen and living room, and uncorked the wine.
And we talked.
And we laughed.
And we did discuss the book, The Time Traveller's Wife, and I was amazed to see the different interpretation of the book that we all had. Astonishingly, I had the most cynical and pessimistic interpretation of the ending. We discussed parts we liked and parts we didn't, and unbelievably, it was really interesting to talk to the women about these things.
As we opened bottle after bottle we also talked about our lives. Of the 5 women at my dining room table I found out that every single one of us feels responsible or is responsible for breaking up the previous marriage of the man that is now our partner. Every last one of us is on a second or third marriage, and only two of the women have had children, all of whom are fully grown.
And it was so easy. We all talked and laughed and shared things about our life. We never stopped for want of conversation, and we covered it all-politics, money (and good God did I feel horribly guilty when I realized I make almost 3 times what they make), work, cooking, our favorite books. It was so easy to talk to them, and I didn't lie or make myself anything or anyone different, I didn't play any parts-I just tried to tell them the truth. I had been so nervous and apprehensive before they came, I am so terrible at trying to connect with people.
The talk kept going and at one point the two women who did read the book, Lila and Billie, turned to me, as the other two talked about their adult children.
"Helen." Billie said in a low voice. "How did you feel about the whole child issue in the book?"
I took a sip of wine and tucked my knee up against the tablecloth strewn with the detritus of the meal. "I understood it. I completely related to her desperate need to have a child, to keep trying no matter what the personal cost to herself. I know what that's like."
Lila leaned forward. "Me too." she whispered, looking at me and hoping the other two wouldn't hear.
Billie nodded too, and looked at me, a tiny smile on her face. I looked back at the two of them and decided that I no longer needed the parachute I had strapped to my back. I didn't need it, as I wasn't going to fall.
"I've had two rounds of IVF before." I said quietly. "I know."
"I've had five." Billie whispered. "I know as well."
"I've had a few, too." Lila said with a rueful smile.
We looked at each other with a sad understanding smile, women from different backgrounds and with different lives, and we found out that when you get a group of women together, there are always ones who just can't get that blue line on a pregnancy test, there are ones whose arms ache for a baby and who have to avoid the Living Channel during the entire daytime running hours, until the back to back Baby Miracle shows conclude. Sitting across the table, suddenly three of us knew what it was like to be in the others' shoes, and suddenly we knew we had someone we could talk about it with.
And just like that, we all held hands and jumped off the cliff.
"We're thinking we're going to try again in late spring." I said, laying all my cards face-up on the table.
"Lila and I are both maybe too old to try anymore." Billie said sadly. "So you...you'll be our hope, ok?"
And when the women left, they left as my friends, with a new book date set and drunken smiles all around.
-H.
PS-we leave tomorrow! Melissa and Jeff arrive this afternoon and then we are off until March 11. We are taking two new airlines that none of us have ever been on before. We are taking this airline to Los Angeles, where we will spend two days in Southern California. Then we get on this airline, as we fly to Oahu for 8 days and will stay in my father's condo in Hawaii.
I can hardly wait.
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You're getting here just in time, I'll tell you that. You just missed the masses of rain storms that blew in - and now we are expecting lots of SUN!!
Have a great vacation!!February 25, 2005
I never really thought about death before and I certainly never feared it-it's one of the advantages of having little self-value and a whole lotta' issues, as adventures just mean you are that much closer to living. I'll be the first to strap that bungee cord on. I'll be the first to jump the high dive.
If I'm too busy worrying about dying, I may never get on with the living.
Even though I am no longer suicidal, I still don't really fear dying. It's not like I want to party with the Grim Reaper or anything, but I am ready to punch out on the time clock when the time comes-I won't fuss, I won't ask my closest love one to beg the man with the scythe. I don't think about consequences for myself (although I do for others), but I like to think that death will come for me once I have learned everything that I am supposed to learn. I am not coming back again to live life among the living once I have kicked the irreverent bucket-I may not believe in myself, but I think I have earned myself a deck chair in the sun, supplied with margaritas and interesting books for the rest of eternity.
Wednesday and Thursday I had masses of meetings and a horrible migraine. I have a boss on the wrong side of crazy, and PMS so bad that I could rip doors off their hinges with my teeth and suck the iron out of the hardware. I went to order some coffee and saw that the coffee shop had a huge, delectable chocolate shake-number that made my brain scream: Buy me that and I'll be your bitch! Please! On behalf of your ovaries, for the love of God, buy the chocolate shake! But remembering that I am bikini-bound in less than a week, I bought coffee with skim milk instead.
On the train I thought about my life (as I tend to do when I've finished my book and have time on my hands). I thought what it meant to be someone who has survived. I thought about what it means when I finally decide to become organic landfill.
And I wrote my own eulogy.
You know, as one does.
I wrote it in my head, from my own perspective. I stepped out of myself and took a critical look at myself and who I am. It's not in any way morbid or any kind of longing for death and also not planned as any kind of self-indulgence or self-promotion, just what I would say about myself if I ever let me get close enough to say something. So here goes.
***********************************
Hi. Welcome to my funeral. God, that sounds so weird, huh? Welcome to my funeral. It's like I should be a hostess offering up a martini cocktail and a key bowl. I hope you grabbed a complimentary lei by the door, and please don't sit near the back as there will be a karaoke session later that will require each and every one of you to shtup up to the mike.
Just because I'm dead doesn't mean I've lost my sense of humor, you know.
Sorry I couldn't be here, but I have a deck chair with my name written all over it. And even if I was around, I wouldn't have wanted to come-I never liked get-togethers very much, and I certainly would've felt weird about people standing around and talking about me (I'm already paranoid), all the while wondering what kind of nosh is going to be served at the wake (psst-you like BBQ ribs? You do? Really? Well too bad. I'm serving falafels).
I want to tell you about the real me, the one that people maybe don't know about, things that are going to get forgotten about in the dust and importance of time. Things like...did you know that I prefer my Cap'n Crunch when it gets to the just-soggy stage? Not too crunchy, not to soft? Did you know that I hated fingernail polish, I feel that it suffocated my fingernails? Did you know that I never forgave people who hung up the phone on me? Did you know that my favorite flower was the lily and that I hated bananas? Did you know that my feet were enormous and that I had a birthmark on my left hip that looks like a perfect thumbprint put in under the flesh? That when people prefaced a sentence with "To tell you the truth", or "I gotta' be honest with you" I automatically suspected them of lying to me?
I know that's all boring stuff (yeah, I'm speaking to you. The one in the back pew, the one knitting. Try not to look so bored, and I will not need that sweater where I am gong, m'kay?). I know it doesn't really matter. But I did some things that did matter, too. I had many lives in many places. I never took a trip somewhere and regretted it, I never saw a different country and wished I hadn't gone there. I have photographs in my mind of things I have seen that have kept me alive and kept me hoping. I took chances, I jumped off the train platform onto the moving train more times than I can count. I jumped out of an airplane and I've been down the Blue Hole. I took every chance to fall in love and I never regretted a single one of them.
And when I loved someone I loved them more than I ever knew I could.
As I got older, I found that stupidly the simplest things made my happy. It wasn't about the right coffee table or the designer clothes. It was walking across a bridge on a sunny day. A rubber duck. The light coming through a suncatcher. Wind chimes. A Magic 8 Ball. Something happened inside of me when I was as a child, and those of you who know me know that my house was filled with toys that I laughed at as I struggled to set that trapped child inside of me free.
I was a pain in the ass. I was insanely insecure and filled with self-doubt. When I had PMS I was so difficult that you could have killed me and been excused by the jury with a sympathetic nod of the head and a Geez, man, she was nuts! She so deserved having her head stuffed into the garbage disposal! Hey-you don't have to nod so vigorously there, ok? I totally know I sucked when I had PMS, I don't need any comments from the peanut gallery on that one. I struggled with low self-esteem and low confidence. I often felt inadequate, a fraudster pretending to be normal around the rest of the human race. I was petrified of having my writing rejected and so it sits gathering digital cobwebs in my hard drive. The grief I felt at hurting anyone cut me far longer than it cut them.
After crashing and burning I never again understood the corporate blood drive that was my daily existence. I was constantly amazed by people and the things they did, I simply never understood how people worked and looked on them in wonder. And that's the thing-maybe we should all walk around without blinders on. Maybe we should all regard the baby on the train or the loving couple under the bridge. Maybe we're missing something by not catching the details.
I was so far from perfect-I fucked up all the time. Seriously. I was constantly bungling something and having to get out of some kind of mischief. I made mistakes on a daily basis, I often found myself in some version of hell, but the one thing that I liked about myself was this-I didn't get smug or arrogant about "lessons learned" or "bravery". I just shrugged, chalked it up to just getting through life, and went about making more mistakes. 'It's just survival', I used to say. 'Bravery is for heroes, survival is for the rest of us.' The amazing thing is, often my fuck-ups led to the most remarkable fork in the road, a new way of thinking and a whole new set of adventures.
And if you want to take anything from the buffet table that is Helen, this is the one thing I want you to take from my life: I made mistakes-good Lord, I made mistakes-but I never let it stop me from living. So go about life, make mistakes, ask questions, screw up, and enjoy the mistakes you make. Laugh and learn and know that it makes you human and normal and just like everyone else. And the thing about mistakes is, if you make them and admit them and just keep swimming, you appear just that much more alive to everyone else around you.
So this is me saying goodbye. I'm going to play the song I always wanted at my funeral now and I'm going to sit back with my frozen margarita with salt. I won't be checking in on any of you so don't go getting all paranoid now-I'm not remotely interested in watching you on the toilet or taking a shower-I already have Kafka, I don't need the heebie-jeebies either, thanks. Thank you for letting me take up space with you in the short time we had. Thank you for accepting my faults and limitations, and know this-I loved each and every one of you very much (except you, Rooster. Fuck off and get out of my funeral as you are not welcome to my free booze) and I'll see you on the other side, ok? I'll be there with a margarita and a chair next to mine, and we can laugh and compare notes.
And for those I love, I say this: Save yourself. Look at the world and play with toys and count on who you are inside getting you through things. Strap on the bungee cord, bunk out of the meeting, buy toys, eat that slice of cheesecake, do something you never thought you were brave enough to do. Hug your child, eat a snowflake, and get a passport. Screw up and shrug and go about your daily living. Life is not ours to take but mistakes are ours to make, and for God's sake, fall in love every chance you get.
Turns on Green Day's "Good Riddance", puts on shades, and heads for the deck chair by the water.
***********************************
And if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go buy some fixings for a chocolate shake.
Life's too short, after all.
-H.
PS-Paul...please go have a shake, too. It may make you smile.
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February 23, 2005
I remember living in Dallas during the winter. If there was any hint of a remote possibility of snow schools would close, businesses would close, and everyone would rush to the grocery store to stock up on milk, bread and bottled water (surely the sign of an impending apocalypse, right?), since if you are snowed in for days at a time orange juice and Ritz crackers won't be enough. I laugh now, but I used to join in the supermarket dash. Looking back on it, I went about it all wrong-while mothers fought to the death over the last gallon of 2%, I should have been stocking up on what you really need if you're snowed in-beer and Oreos.
When I moved to Sweden I innocently asked if they ever had snow days. I got laughed at. Turns out only one person could ever even remember one snow day, and that was in another part of Sweden where the snow was so deep it went up to the top of the trains. That resulted in one day off, but it was snow shovels at the ready and back to work the next day. Kind of a whole 'work is life, comrade'Â type atmosphere.
It has been snowing here in England since Sunday, and people's reactions haven't changed since my childhood. Although we have had a light ground cover, some parts in northern England have had a few inches. It's supposed to snow through Thursday, and people are really milking it.
Since it's Wednesday, it's my usual London meeting. I have already been warned off by people's possible non-attendance and have been getting calls that most of my team will be dialing in on the call: I will try to come, Helen, but if it snows I just won't be able to make it in. Or: I plan on being there, but you never know what the snow will do to the transport system. And: I want to be there Helen, but I have to go and buy milk, bread and bottled water, so if I survive that I will endeavor to attend.
People. This is not Antarctica. We're talking a few measly inches, pick up the pieces of your shattered life and move on.
To be fair, the normally cantankerous train system gets even more so during the snow. It's like engineers walk outside and, prospecting the train lines, they see a snowflake fall. With a grim look on their faces, they watch the melting snowflake and look up at each other.
'Snow.'Â One says to the other.
'Aye. We'll need to cancel half the trains, make the remaining half run late, and let's cut the number of train cars on the trains from 8 to 4 and crank up the heat, so the poor buggers that are traveling will feel like they're in hell, instead of wintery Britian.'Â
I speak from experience on that one, seeing as each time I have traveled the 50 minutes into London the turkey thermometer has popped out of my butt, signaling I have cooked through.
I've been into London all week so far. You see people walking around the city in parkas worthy of a Nepalese mountain expedition, which (in my view) might be overkill. Yesterday I sat in a team meeting, listening to my manager's manager Dirk drone on about our work, our new titles (it looks as though I am about to be a Project Director. Sadly, this does not come with a beret and the right to a temperamental attitude). He is banging on and on about revenue and EBITDAR, and I look outside the window of our 7th floor conference room and see thick fluffy flakes whirling to the ground. It looks like a dance, a ballet, and I feel like just being quiet. I feel like I am back in the green chair in my study in snowy Sweden, and I want to tell everyone to shush and to just watch, to just enjoy.
I look at Dirk and think: We're talking about revenue and percentages. We're talking about all these things that make up this so-called daily living. But look outside the window. Look at the beautiful and haunting snow. We're wasting our lives in here, in this meeting. We could be out there living, instead of having our dreams sucked out by the fluorescent lights.
Not hearing me, Dirk looks at me and discusses the importance of our projects. My other team members nod their heads and agree that my project is the priority, a sentiment which makes my stomach burn. Jeff, having swallowed my project plan, eagerly recites it all to Dirk and I sit there quietly and instead of taking masses of notes like I usually do, I think: Why are we doing this? Shouldn't we be outside trying to catch snowflakes on our tongue?
We take a break as a coffee trolley is wheeled into the room. Dirk turns to me.
'So, Helen.'Â He says, pouring himself a cup of coffee. 'You're off on holiday next week, right?'Â
'ÂI am.'Â I reply. I actually like Dirk, I think he's an ok guy, if a little political.
'Where to?'Â he asks, sipping noisily.
I tell him and he smiles broadly. 'How fantastic! I am off to Florida next week with my family. I have five kids.'Â At this he chuckles and looks at his cup, and with a lurch of the stomach I know where this is going. 'Do you have any children of your own?'Â
Yup. He went there. I hate this question. 'No, no children of my own.'Â
'ÂAh, well, you can have one of mine!'Â he says jovially.
And Dirk has just committed one of my peeves.
I hate it when people say crap like that. It's ok to share, being a bit pink myself I support some ideas of socialism. But it's one thing to share my tax money, and it's quite another when you branch into the unrealistic.
I remember being a teenager with a 38DD bust. I looked like some bizarre red-headed Dolly Parton mock-up. My rack was so enormous that it proceeded me into a room by a few seconds. I once swung around and knocked my cat clear off the bed with those babies. They were so large they were completely insensitive and drove ridges into my back and shoulders from the enormous bras I had to wear.
And I remember, too, the one comment I would always get. It never failed that if I was standing by a little-busted woman in, say, the ladies restroom or at a party or in the reception line for the President of the United States, I would be asked about my breasts. It would be revealed that I hated my big boobage more than anything, and the unsatisfied Little Bust would lament she wished hers were bigger. So I would inevitably get this: 'Well, you can give me some of yours, that'd make me happy!'Â
Well! I say! Hey, Little Bust, I just happened to bring along my plastic surgery kit and my breast pump, let's hook you right up and pump my fatty tissue right into you! Problem solved! What a great fucking idea!
Oh yeah. Having that breast reduction was one of the best choices I've ever made.
I have heard it many, many times about children, too. With a sarcastic roll of the eyes, the person looks to the ceiling and says in a voice to be envied by Chevy Chase: "You can have my kids!"
I have developed a number of replies over the years:
OK. (said completely deadpan and serious). Where do you want me to pick them up?
Thanks, but I prefer my children to not resemble pug dogs.
Well, I guess you do have three. You know it's true-you really won't miss one of them.
That's great. I have so been planning on getting a maid, so this will solve the problem.
I will love him and squeeze him and I will call him George.
Of course, none of these replies would work for Dirk, so I simply smiled.
I had a very long day in London, and I rode the train home through the snow, sitting quietly and looking out the window. When I got home I made myself some homemade macaroni and cheese (Angus had a champagne reception for his customer at work, so was away). I didn't even feel like playing Sims, I just sat on the couch in my pajamas, a thick blue chenille blanket over my legs, and listened to the quiet. I pushed away my horrible job, I pushed out my stress and my horrible headache, and I just enjoyed the snowfall.
Little things.
My day took, and I gave my head back some quiet time.
-H.
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February 22, 2005
But injure or kill an animal in a movie and I'm out of there.
Kill all the people you want, since I have never in my life seen a human dead in front of me. But I have seen dead animals and it's something I never want to be confronted with and absolutely cannot stomach. I abhor violence to animals, and have always been a bleeding heart, even as a little girl.
Which is why this weekend I saw something that was utterly traumatic to me, and this is the other issue that has me deeply affected.
Fox hunting has been banned in this country which pleases me no end. I find the sport barbaric and repulsive to the very fabric of human nature. Although I am a vegetarian I can concede that man was built to hunt and to eat meat. But that's just it-while I can (only just) support hunting for human consumption and for wildlife cull in times of over-population, I utterly reject the notion of hunting just for the sport of it. In my world, if you hunt it, you must therefore eat it. If you do not, it is a waste of a life that was not yours to take.
Once upon a time fox hunting was useful to protect populations of chickens in flimsy cages. Foxes were possible rabies carriers and were to be shot if they started frequenting homes. There were periods of time when foxes were so overpopulated that the culling of them was a necessity.
And now? Chicken farms are often enormous concrete buildings-a fox couldn't get in if he tried. Rabies doesn't exist in the United Kingdom and Ireland (thanks to quarantine throughout this country) and that's not an issue either. And foxes are not only not overpopulated, but in some areas they are being bred for the express purpose of being set free and hunted down.
Fox hunting, which is practiced by only a very small percentage of the population in this country, has been banned'¦but this past weekend they did it anyway using sneaky methods to get past the laws. They didn't even follow the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. The truth of the matter is, the people that support dressing up in their red jacket and riding their horses to a froth while following a braying pack of hounds and then finding a fox and killing it hasn't changed. They only kill the fox with a shot to the head first.
I didn't know they didn't shoot the fox before, I thought that was always part of the process.
I was wrong.
I found out this weekend what really happens in a fox hunt. That previous to this law, the hounds chased the scent and the horsemen chased the hounds. When a fox went into a burrow, a terrier man then digs out the frightened animal'¦and the dogs then rip the animal limb from limb while it's still alive.
This weekend they showed it on TV that they shot the fox and then threw the beautiful red body to the pack of hounds which set upon it in a sea of teeth and gore. The fur flew and although I grabbed the remote, my procrastination in replacing the dead batteries meant I was confronted with 30 seconds of it while I screamed at the remote and hoped to God I could just change the fucking channel.
And I cried like a baby.
To make a point, this weekend 91 foxes were hunted down and killed. They were chased across open fields into their burrows, where they were dug out by terrier men and shot, then thrown to the dogs. The so-called gentrified felt they needed to make a point to Tony Blair and massacre foxes across the country. Is this law more humane to the fox? In a cold analysis, I suppose shooting the fox first so that it doesn't experience the actual sensation of being disemboweled is a perk, but is that really the point?
This shouldn't be happening at all. I find anyone that can partake in the celebration of the destruction of such an animal to be so completely depraved and masochistic that I have trouble accepting that this beautiful country I love so much supports this. The hunters held protest hunts in secret locations to avoid being prosecuted, often feeding wrong reports and location info to the police.
If I ever see the flash of a red coat of a fox hunter on fields around my house, I will be on the phone in a heartbeat and I will turn every last mother fucking one of them in.
I dreamt all weekend (and still do) about that picture of the fox getting ripped apart. It haunts my thoughts and riddles my Kafka dreams with the dreams of me trying to save foxes. I can't explain why this has affected me so much, Angus doesn't understand it, and I can't explain why. All I know is I am fully shaken to the nerve-endings with repulsion for people that do this 'sport'Â. I ripped the picture off of the front of the newspaper we bought on Sunday since I couldn't bear to see a picture of a dangling dead fox from the hand of a jubilant hunter, hounds right behind licking their chops (the linked article gives more info). This topic makes me cry and scream and I simply can't get my head around it.
The hunters say they're protecting English heritage. Are you really? There are a lot of things that I think are fabulously worthwhile to protect- Stratford-upon-Avon. Tea with scones. The English seaside. The V&A Museum. The Downs.
And there are a lot of things that the English did have as heritage that had to be given up. How about Prima Nocte? The right of the English to rape virgin Scottish brides on their wedding day. Is that a keeper? Or what about cutting off the index and middle finger of your enemies the French when you caught them in battle, so they could no longer pull back the bow and let loose an arrow (this has led to the British two-fingered salute they have in answer to the American middle finger.) Is that one that should be preserved?
England is a glorious and gorgeous country with many things that are good. It has such a rich history and so much to be proud of. The landscape is fantastic and the accents across the country are incredible.
But foxhunting is archaic, pathetic, and horrific. I don't understand people that not only do this sport, but bring their whole family into this. If you were a child perpetrating an act of animal cruelty it would put you in a high risk category, as abuse to animals is generally a symptom that you are or will be a psychotic.
Some symptoms hold true for adults and children, I think. One fox hunting chap, quoted in another Times article, said: It's not foxes they love, it's people like me they hate. Well, you're half right there. But I do love foxes, so if you corrected that it'd make your statement then 100% clear.
Fox hunters? You make me physically sick. Someday I hope the powers that be decide that your afterlife will be spent running for your life, before you get torn limb from limb. And I'll be there watching and cheering with the foxes as the trumpet sounds the call to the hunt.
-H.
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but... hey, how did it go yesterday? you're leaving me hangin!February 21, 2005
And through it all, I didn't really want to talk.
When I got to Waterloo it was a disaster area- masses of black overcoats and briefcase waiting quietly with their owners for the next tube. The sea of people made me constrict and release in exhaustion, and the thought that maybe I am not enjoying this crossed my mind yet again. The mass turns and faces me at once with the announcement that our beloved Waterloo and City line is broken (again) and so with a sigh I hiked my bag over my shoulder and turned to the long queue waiting for taxis.
My breath puffed out in front of me in the line and I wondered if this, at least, was a sign that I was here, that I was real. I didn't speak and didn't want to speak. People were plugged in, switched on, chatting to each other like the automatons we have become.
The cab pulled up and I opened the door, swinging into the seat and dropping my briefcase next to me in one motion.
'Where to, luv?'Â he asks, thick London accent waving at me from the front seat.
I gave him the address and sat back. I watched small rivulets of water drip their way down the window next to me. From time to time tiny snowflakes came and settled on the window before sacrificing themselves before my eyes. Notice me! See me! they scream, and I want to tell them: I do see you. It's not all for nothing.
I caught my reflection in the window and wondered how it was that I looked so young. A curl at the back of my head bobbed in the reflection of the window, and when I looked my eyes were two dark burning spots in the window. I turn 31 in 5 weeks, and yet I looked so young and so frail.
And lost. And guarded. And lost.
I'm like vanilla ice cream on the dessert menu. The disappointing default you get to fall back on should your premier choices run out. Getting laughed at on the phone last night helped drive it home that I'm the melting choice on the dessert cart. I'm not so crazy, I just know it.
The cabbie looks at me in the rearview mirror. 'Where you from, luv?'Â he asks.
I'm used to this one. I don't mind it. 'The States.'Â I reply.
'Oh yeah?'Â comes the somewhat interested reply. 'Whereabouts? I went to Florida with the Missus last year.'Â
'ÂI'm from Texas.'Â I reply. And my mother's admonishment came into my ears: Sooner or later, you're going to have to return home, even if this isn't home for you anymore.
'Texas, eh? Like Houston?'Â he asks, shuttling his head to the left and looking at me in the mirror.
'Dallas.'Â I reply. 'I'm from Dallas.'Â Only I'm not, not really. Dallas has grown up without me and I have grown up from it. It signed my yearbook "2 Cool 2 Stay 4ever!" and it meant it.
I turn my head to the window and hope he understands that I don't want to talk. I watch the water on the window and try to see through the water, condensation, I think. It warps and warbles the world and looking through the water gives everything a slightly smudged and blurred look, as though I have fingerprints on glasses or as though I am going through an eye test, telling them which looks clearer, number 1 or number 2. The world gets a rounded view that it doesn't usually have, and I wonder if I would rather see it round or see it clearly.
'Do you go home much?'Â the cabbie asks, distracting me from my own kaleidoscope.
'No.'Â I say quietly. 'I don't.'Â
'ÂIt's a shame.'Â He says. 'I've never been to Dallas but I guess it would be nice, eh?'Â
Oh sure, it's ok. If you like ghosts. If you like reminders that you are not a part of daily living.
I look out the window and think of the rough discussions that I had last night across the Atlantic. I think of the way I feel pretty punctured today, and I think those holes are where the words are seeping out. Things in my life are punctuated and obvious like veins of a leaf, and many of those veins are so stressful that I want to crumple the leaf in my hand and watch the fabric of the leaf fall, stripping it to the tendons.
We get to the building, and I badge my heart at the door and check my soul into the cloakroom, stuffing the receipt into the corner of my briefcase. I seat myself at an empty spot to log on, check that I have everything. I have to present soon. My presentation consists of two slides I did last week. I am glad of the brevity of my slides-it will allow me a frugality of words that I would otherwise appear rude over.
I just don't want to talk. I pace the corners of my mind and come up with Rilke's Panther, because all roads lead back to German poets.
His gaze has grown so tired from the bars
passing, it can't hold anything anymore.
It is as if there were a thousand bars
and behind a thousand bars nothing.
I crush the leaf of my life beneath my heel and wish I hadn't reached out and touched someone last night. I wish I had gone back to bed when I woke up yesterday morning. I wished I hadn't seen the news and bought the paper yesterday which both contained a subject for tomorrow, a new version of Kafka scratching the sticky surface of my brain. I wish I could've stayed home today and had a bowl of soup and watched 24.
I wish I could see the bars, and in seeing them, see how to break out of them.
-H.
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February 18, 2005
When I was younger I was so enamoured with the corporate ladder. I couldn't wait to climb it and kick some ass, I saw the glass ceiling as a personal challenge that needed my fingerprints smeared all over it. I wanted nothing more to wear pinstriped suits and high heels and to tell people what to do, to be the one working late nights and speaking in large auditoriums. I wanted to be the one who made decisions, the one with the sparkly word "manager" on her business card.
And when I did eventually get to the top, I found that the ladder I had been climbing didn't actually have a view at all. I realized the cliff I was on had another ladder up from it, and with reluctance I am being pushed up it by the hordes below, getting my fingers mashed and my face kicked as I simply hold onto the rungs. The corporate ladder is real and it is not at all the brass ring I thought it would be. In fact I would be perfectly happy to take a chainsaw to it and use a few rungs as the sticks I throw for my future dog as I take long walks in the woods wearing old sweatshirts and Wellington boots.
I never wanted to be the Killer Queen when I was a child, it's not like my list to Santa at Christmas included things like: Palm Pilot, mobile phone, Zantac, PowerPoint for Dummies, the CEO Skipper doll with black attache case (not the brown one, my God, how gauche!) and a Cat-o-nine-tails. I never looked up from my evening prayers and said: God, when I grow up, can you make me a corporate icon? Or, at the very least, instead of that whole I-want-a-pony business, can you please, please, please give me project manager skills?
I mean, I'm the one with the anthropology degree. I switched from pre-med to anthropology after learning that anthro was both easy and a breeze, that I could show up to class in a tank-top and boxer shorts and be considered both overdressed and a symbol of non-conformist retro ideals. I studied a crunchy-group hug subject and it wasn't until I had to get a job in corporate America (it's that whole "eating" thing. As in: I like to do it.) that I realized that corporations are like the game Doom-it's more interesting if you go up to the next levels, and you get much bigger weapons, too.
I have a headache and a backache. My back hurts from the constant and sudden jarring it gets as I freeze in my tracks when I realize they're about to get angry. I hold absolutely still and try not to attract attention, to try to be as subtly soothing as possible. Once upon a time I used to speak up if I was angry or annoyed-I have acres of sarcasm but I run a mile if people get angry. I don't know if I simply lost my argumentative nature or if it's just obscured. I don't know if I just don't have opinoins anymore or if they're hidden too far in a force-field for me to reach, I can only reach in up to my elbow and they're buried shoulder-deep.
I don't know what happened to that girl, but I could use some of her spunk back.
I wonder if one day my voice will just come back. If my opinions and cheekiness will burst out through the cracks, like that hard shell chocolate ice cream topping. Maybe my opinions are frozen in the creamy ice cream layers, but sooner or later they'll pop out of the sweating chocolate surface and then I'll just have to deal with them, I'll just have to swallow them whole and feel it all the way to my stomach.
Said stomach hurts from the constant churning of stomach acid. I have a cold and made my way through half a box of kleenex yesterday as I talked my way through 4 hours of conference calls. I will shortly go and take a bath to try to ease the kinks and pains from my body, but until then the chair hurts too much and I feel the knobs of my spine whimper solicitously.
I spent the entire day yesterday working hard with a sigh of relief I turned on Sims at 6 pm to play for an hour and try to lighten up.
And with a sigh of disappointment I wonder if this is as good as it gets.
I try to make things easier for some. I try to be proactive in helping Angus deal with the stress he has right now. I try to encourage and help my team and to settle arguments without taking sides. Angus has a colleague that sends out minutes each week and adds tidbits to make it interesting, so I have decided to do the same.
One week until we go on holiday, and I'm going to need it.
-H.
UPDATE-the noble Jim helped me figure out my problem with my pic, and my St. Trinian's moment is posted below. more...
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February 17, 2005
I hated that car.
The first moment it was feasible, I swapped it for a 1982 Honda Accord, whose seats had stuffing falling out of it. The window brace in the driver's side cracked and the window fell to the bottom of the door, so I had to superglue the window up (which made going through Drive Thrus an interesting experience). Living on the edge of a poshy school district (in the non-posh part) meant that my car would regularly get urinated on my football players anxious to whip their dicks out in the Texas sun and deface the car that dared to hover in the same parking lot as their Beemers and Porsches.
When my Honda was finally traded in for a 3-door Honda Civic the dealer told me the car would be junked, and I cried thinking how lonely that little car would feel in a scrapyard of other unloved cars.
I've had a number of cars in my life, and often the cars are related to the revolving door of men that I used to have enter and leave Cafe Helen (Thank you! Come again!). I now associate cars with exes. The VW Rabbit is for the Anton LeVey lookalike with the big horse teeth. The Toyota Tercel was the vehicle that took me to and from Kim, complete with the Darwin fish and the pro-choice sticker on the back bumper, Mardi Gras beads wrapped around the emergency brake. The Honda Civic is my ex-husband, and the memory of both the man and the car leaves me unfazed. The Volvo V40 saw out winter days with my X Partner Unit always driving the car, so repugnant was my driving to him.
And the truth is I'm not much of a car person. I don't actually care that much about a car, as long as it gets me from Point A to Point B and has a CD player I'm happy. My dream car is a VW Thing, or a Morris Minor, an old Mini, a VW Karman Ghia or a very used Land Rover.
I like old cars that are not posh, that live in quiet humility on edges of parking lots, that don't apologize for their quirkyness and that are driven by Bohemians that don't have Kafka dreams. Most people have cars that mean a lot to them-Angus had a series of Triumphs that he loved, my friend Jim is a big Nissan lover, some neighbors of ours seem to buy and love their Mercedes until they are so old and broken down that all you can do is remove the license plate and walk away.
I have only ever had one car whose memory stays with me. I bought this car when I was newly single from Kim and had just become employed in telecom, with a larger salary, a larger responsibility, and a large cube in an office in Dallas. I bought this car as a sign that I survived breaking it off with Kim, that I survived quitting the stockbroking business, and that I celebrated joining telecom as an instructor for Company X, the company that would later break my heart.
I bought a 1997 Volkwagen Cabrio. It was gently used-a woman had owned it for 6 months before falling pregnant and trading it in for a practical car. It was dark green with a black top and soft tan leather seats. It had a 6-CD changer snuggled in the trunk and one in the car. It was a beautiful sensuous car and I bought it without haggling, since I hate haggling, since I know what I want.
They must've seen me coming.
And that car fills me with a smile when I think about it. It was all my car, just my car. I would throw the top down and load the backseat with my enormous bag of hockey goaltending kit and head off for hockey practice. I had a Dallas Stars sticker on the back window and a wilted balloon from Quidam in the divider between the two front seats.
And I loved that car.
I would drive with the top down whenever possible. I remember the hot Texas sun on my neck and on my arms, I remember the wind whipping my hair around the hairband I would wear to keep it out of my eyes. I remember long hot stretches of baked sun-filled road as I would hurl down LBJ or hustle down Hwy 114. I remember playing the radio as loud as I could stand when the wind would rush past me, and to this day the song Run by Collective Soul makes me think of my wet thighs on the hot leather seat and the sun in my eyes.
That car was my independence. I bought it myself and I did it alone. I paid for it myself and I decided where to stop to fill it with gas. It was the first (and, perhaps, the last) time in my life where I did what I wanted, where I went where I chose, and I had no one else I had to think about in those equations.
I loved every single stitch and bolt of that car. In it, I listened to my own music as opposed to the music of the other in my life. That car drove me to my hockey practices. It saw me decide to go to Taco Bueno at 2 am for some homemade tortillas and a margarita if I so desired. It drove me to the ASPCA to get my puppy. It sheltered with me in the new house I bought in a shady part of Dallas called Oak Cliff, and it loved the house as much as I did.
It drove me to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup playoffs and a stunning Dallas overtime win that sent the stadium into screams of joy and saw us banging the seats and floorboards so hard that the lights were coming down. It drove me to the lonely and anguish-ridden hospital to watch my beloved Grandfather die. It drove me to the sandy soil of North Carolina when I relocated for Company X. It saw me single or dating, happy or miserable.
When I moved to Sweden I sold that car, seeing as a convertible in Sweden would be really impractical.
I still miss that car terribly, and when I think of it, I think of the vapor shimmering off the road in front of me. I think of freckles on my upper arm as rays of sun settled in under my skin. I remember brown grass wilting under the Dallas heat and the smell of oil in the air. I think of wisps of hair settling across my face and the feeling like I had just run a marathon when I got to my destination at the end of the Interstate. I think of Collective Soul, of Boscoe, of a sticky mouth of cherry Clearly Canadian, of the copper blood scent of melting ice on metal ice skate blades in the backseat and the feel of that leather against the back of my legs.
That car became the symbol of my independence and was the starting point of my education that I was stronger than I thought I was.
And as I think back on how that car made me feel, how that car saw me through extraordinary times, I realize that more than a Morris Minor, I would do anything to own one of those again, to feel the sun on my arms and Collective Soul on the radio, to be free to make a decision without worrying there might be consequences. But maybe it wouldn't be the same, maybe we all only have one car that affects us in that way, maybe that one car gives us something that no other cars do.
-H.
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February 16, 2005
I am in the bathtub after a very long day, looking at my breasts. I have spent over 6 hours on conference calls in London, and my right ear (my good listening ear) is bright red and sore. And I'm not saying it's red and sore in any kind of metaphor-my ear actually was red and sore. I got home late from London after having my pocket picked (and me being relieved of a few Kleenex and the train ticket I needed to get home. I was pissed off that my train ticket was taken but comforted in the fact that at least the thief also had to contend with a handful of snotty Kleenex.) and after dealing with The Rooster all afternoon.
When I finally got home on a late train, Angus was in the kitchen cooking up a fantastic Thai dinner. He hugged me, kissed me, and told me he would've drawn the bath for me but wasn't sure what time I'd be home and wasn't sure which of my huge jar of Lush products I'd want to use. So I dragged my ass upstairs and ran a bath, popping in a Lush bubble bar that was bright pink and smelled of candy, and I leaned back in the hot water, one of my Valentine's Day presents tooling around the bathtub around me. Angus came in and provided me with a glass of champagne and then went into the computer room.
'Really?'Â replies Angus from the other room, half-paying attention.
'Yup. They're ugly. Then again, maybe all nipples are ugly.'Â I say.
Clearly, I am a deep existentialist. I sip my champagne and reach for a peanut butter cracker off a plate nearby, a snack that I had brought up with me.
'Except for your nipples.'Â I say again to the echo of the bathroom. 'You have lovely nipples.'Â
'Why thank you.'Â He replies, attention elsewhere.
I look at my leg, which has an ingrown hair that looks like a tiny ant bite. I set my cracker on the bathtub edge and I dig at the hair for a minute.
'Do you think Playboy has a nipple inspector?'Â I wonder out loud.
'What?'Â he replies.
'Playboy. You know, the magazine? Do you think they have a nipple inspector? Someone whose job it is to ensure that they never have ugly nipples?'Â I eat the peanut butter cracker, chewing slowly and not minding that one corner of it got wet and is soggy. Peanut butter crackers, champagne, and pink candy-scented bubbles. This is clearly one of the best baths ever.
'Insufficient data to formulate an answer.'Â He replies.
Clearly he's impressed with how deep I am, too.
'Hey Ugly Nipples?'Â he calls.
I take no offense. After all, I think I do have ugly nipples. 'Yes?'Â
'ÂCome here and look at this website.'Â He replies. I drag myself out of the bath, smelling like a candy-scented French whorehouse, and leave wet prints on the floor as I walk into the study, munching on a cracker.
We surf the web for a while and then eat one of the best Thai meals that Angus has ever made us. I've never been a fan of Thai food but I can see that maybe, as time passes, I will be. We watch the last in the series of Auschwitz, finish off the drink, and then curl up in bed, falling asleep.
This morning I am train-bound again into London with my Big Fucking Projector, my briefcase, and a bit of a champagne headache. It's a full-day of meetings ahead and people are already stressed. I get up early and idle around. I make us coffee. I ask Angus if was can have ten-minute sex, since I have a train to catch and I am desperate to have a little bit of loving. He smilingly obliges me and we whisk ourselves off to bed for a quickie. Afterwards, I am getting dressed while he sits there and watches.
In an effort to feel confident and strong, it's matching underwear for me today, so I pull out a pink bra and a pink thong. I then reject the thong in favor of black satin boy shorts with pink bows.
'Why are you rejecting the pink thong?'Â Angus asks.
'Because when I go to the toilet I have to see my bikini hair around my thong, and it makes me feel like Marlon Fucking Perkins should be there managing the chimp ranch.'Â
'ÂWhat?'Â he asks.
'My bikini line needs addressing, and I hate being reminded of that.'Â I reply. And it does need addressing. I would do it now, only we're off on holiday next weekend and I actually will be in a bikini and will actually need to have it addressed just before then. To do it now would mean multiple waxings, something I can't face.
Sometimes it's hard to be a woman.
Giving all your love to just one man and all.
Besides, Angus promised to trim my hedges this weekend and has designs on giving me a Nike Swoosh, which makes me grin.
'Does it really matter?'Â he asks.
'Well yes. Say I get in an accident, and they cut off my tights to reveal pubes peeking up from the sides of my thong. That just wouldn't be on. Imagine the horror. People would run screaming from the theatre.'Â It creases me up that they call operating rooms 'theatres'Â here, as though there should be actors and a courteous intermission in which one can buy a glass of wine or a souvenir program.
'ÂShouldn't you be more concerned that medical treatment would be the priority?'Â he replies.
I love the way he talks. I look at him with a serious expression. 'One would think.'Â I intone solemnly. 'One would think.'Â
I continue to get dressed. I don a wraparound wool skirt and a white shirt, before heading into Angus' side of the closet and stealing one of his ties. 'Can you put this on me? I want to wear a tie today.'Â
'Why?'Â
'I'm dressing executive.'Â I reply.
'You'll look like a schoolgirl.'Â He says.
Oh yeah. I'd forgotten that they all wear ties here. I went to public school in the States, which meant the only thing we coordinated was the current 'in'Â lunchbox. Personally, I was hoping that I would come off corporate. That, and I have been thinking about Square Pegs recently and I really feel that one of Sarah Jessica Parker's genius strokes was introducing the tie in the 1980's. I'd like to think I am helping usher in the Square Pegs move of the new century, only I am not as thin and have straight hair.
Deep. I am very, very deep.
I wait at the freezing train station and text Angus that I love his penis more than any other penis in the world. This is true. I haven't seen them all, but I am partial.
I catch the train into London and meet Ron in Waterloo, where we usually catch each other up on the project on the way in to Dream Job offices. He looks at me and raises his eyebrows.
'What the hell are you wearing?'Â he asks.
I adjust the Big Fucking Projector and look him in the eyes. 'It's a tie. It's a form of elegant yet restraining men's wear. I can understand if you've never been exposed to it.'Â
He grins. I try to turn up my corporate notch inside myself, when the truth is I feel like a bundle of exposed wires in my stomach. He asks me about the new project plan we worked on yesterday.
'Are you ready? You're going to meet some resistance.'Â He warns.
'Hey man.'Â I reply, looking straight ahead. 'It'll be cool. Weebles wobble but they don't fall down.'Â
Although we do tend to get a bit motion sick.
-H.
PS-my other Valentine's Day present (along with a great cookbook) was this fab little gadget, which Angus personalized with a sweet message for me. more...
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February 15, 2005
I asked Angus what he would do if I was murdered but he couldn't answer. I thought about it, and although I am a pacifist and someone who upholds the need and nurture of the legal systems, I think I would make an exception in Angus' case. I thought about it and found a surprising little nugget in my soul, a revelation that I hadn't expected to be there.
If Angus were murdered I realized I would spend every waking minute of my life hunting down the bastards that took him from me. In a soul that already is marred by loss and drift, trying to get my eye for an eye is the most plausible route. I've already lost my sight once. I'm not going to do it again.
That said, when I imagine myself drinking coffee in the kitchen in that scenario, it doesn't involve camouflage face paint and deer hunting knives. Maybe it's just big talk from a little person that can't even imagine what it would feel like to lose the most important person in her heart. I just can't imagine losing someone so vital, and not just losing someone but losing someone again.
When you lose someone, is it important to forgive their killers, or forgive yourself?
It's not easy when you're with someone that had an ex die, I think. My ex had a terrible time dealing with the Kim-sized hole in my life, and I think he has caused Angus some occasional early consternation as well. Maybe it's hard knowing that the perfect pork roast with apple stuffing that I make was actually a dish I perfected under Kim's wishes. Perhaps it's difficult to accept that I am marked on my ankle with the black and broad strokes of a tattoo, that he's somehow under my skin in a tangible way. It's hard to compete with a phantom you never had the chance to stare down and assess.
And the bitter irony is that when we were together I was tormented by someone in his past. He had an ex that he loved more than life itself, a haunting and fleeting specter that lived in his heart and put up walls and barbed wire, marking her territory. The only remnants he had of her was a battered surfboard and an 8x10 photograph of her that was taken from the neck down, with little wisps of blond hair hitting her shoulders. She wore jeans and a rainbow belt, a shiny green jacket and an air of nonchalance. Her hands were tucked into the pockets casually, the palms of them hanging out to the camera, ribboned with soft while wrinkles of flesh.
Her name was Crystal, and she died when Kim was in his mid-20's.
He was mad about her, and his friends who knew her and had met her used to talk of how devoted he was to her, how absolutely obsessed. Kim and Crystal ran off to California together to live a Bohemian life, a life marked by learning to surf and sleeping on the beach, a life crashing at various friends' houses, a life that he swore on a daily basis would be spent better learning how to love her. Never one to be bound by social rigors, Kim lived the ultimate hippie lifestyle as they surfed their way through their early 20's, content and secure in his one responsibility of always looking after Crystal.
But then Crystal got sick.
Kim never told me the details of how she fell ill, or what she fell ill with, although it was intimated that she fell ill due to the life they led, and my mind always fell on the possibility of pneumonia, which somehow seems more romantic than anything the ordinary mortal can suffer. All he told me was that her family flew to California and protectively put her in the hospital. They tried to heal her and hold her, and they never told Kim what hospital she was in. They didn't tell him where she was. They didn't tell him how she was coping. They didn't tell him if she asked about him.
But they did tell him where they had buried her once the funeral was over.
Kim wasn't allowed to attend the funeral. He hadn't even known she was dead until they told him what plot she was entombed in, wearing a blanket of sanctimonious soil. He was never able to say goodbye, and he was never able to see her one last time before they took her away.
And Kim went mad from grief.
He became the epitome of self-destruction, falling into alcohol, drugs, hopelessness, and in the end, something much worse. He sold his soul to the devil and sold his heart to a cause. He went away for a little while and when he finally came back, he was a changed man-a new name, a hardened heart, a desire for an education. He had lost something pivotal in those missing years, some part of him got chopped off and left on a sideboard to rot in absentia. Emotionally he was a tabula rasa, and physically he was also a scarred man-he returned from Purgatory with a large rubbery scar down his back, complete with a thick tangled patch of black hair, a result of a skin graft.
He rarely talked about what happened in those years he recovered from her death. The little I know of it is so unimaginable I had a hard time believing it could be true, yet he never gave me reason to doubt him. The ensuing years after that were spent quietly rebuilding the shattered pieces of his life. When we met he was calm and collected and nearly finished with his degree.
He called me his redemption and his savior, and I never dug in to find out why he thought that way.
And he still had a surfboard and a picture. A picture that drove me to distraction, a picture I tried to understand. If only I could see her face! I used to think. If only I could see this face that he sees in his mind, I might understand more! Who was this woman, this person I could never meet and could never even see what her cheekbones, her eyes, the plane of her forehead looked like? Who was this woman that owned a part of his heart so completely, a part that I could never have? Would they still have been together, would he still value her love above all else, or would mediocrity have stepped in and robbed him of it, a denigration of time and familiarity?
And above all, how could I compete with a ghost?
I kept Crystal in my back pocket and tried to never talk about her. I never asked him to move the picture he had of her, although I did manage to get the surfboard smuggled into the closet (mostly since I kept running into the damn thing in the middle of the night during one of my usual toilet runs). Between us was nothing but love, but in his heart I wondered how I stacked up, if I stacked up. I wondered about her, even as I loved a man who forgave her for dying, even if he didn't forgive himself.
Her headless picture doesn't haunt me-I have enough of my own pictures to haunt myself with.
And now the circle continues. Now it is Kim that died and I am the one that went a little bit mad. Now Kim is gone and I am the one who went hell-bent on destruction.
I wonder if this means I will die and leave someone in torment, if the cycle continues-should I pass away, years from now will Angus find a wonderful woman that feels she's in competition with my spirit? Will I be a photo that rips her heart up, a rock in which she can bash herself against? Will she see something of his that he shared with me and torment herself about it, even while she is saving him from the darkness of the shadows?
If Angus were to die he wouldn't leave an Angus-shaped hole in my life. He wouldn't have a discernible space where we was, the next man that came along wouldn't be able to tell where Angus once was. He wouldn't leave a mark simply because there wouldn't be a hole-I would become one enormous black hole, sucked dry of light, and everyone knows you need light to see a shadow. I may have had my heart broken by Kim, but I would be donating it to science if Angus died.
And, like Kim, I would never forgive myself for Angus dying while he was on my watch.
And if Angus were taken from me? I want to say that I would spend every waking moment of my life punishing those that took him from me. I want to say that I would make their misery more poignant and horrific that any second they inflicted on him. I want to say that I would rip them apart and stare in their eyes until the last drop of life ebbed from them. The truth is, I would likely just crawl into bed and never get back out again, as there simply wouldn't be a reason to.
To forgive and forget? On some things, like that guy on the train stepping on my toe this morning, or the horrible Christmas present I got from a relative ten years ago? Sure.
For losing someone that bubbles my world?
Never.
-H.
PS-The Rooster absolutely fucked my manager over on a conference call last night and luckily I had proof that I and my project were not implicit in this event.
Revenge is a dish best served...immediately.
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February 11, 2005
Seriously.
It was.
And I didn't touch the damn things.
Earlier this month we had Groundhog Day. Tomorrow is National Darwin Day, where we celebrate the birth of Charles Darwin. It's immediately followed by Valentine's Day, where the hopes and dreams of women the world over are crushed when they unwrap the Dustbuster their man gave them, as they try to feign happiness.
We know that February has Valentine's Day, Groundhog Day, and President's Day, but did you know that February also has National Battery Day (the 18th), International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day (the 23rd), and National Pistachio Day (the 26th?)
You didn't?
Come on, there's prep work to be done for dog biscuit day!
If you look at a calendar or read a version of Cosmo, it's everywhere. National Quit Smoking Day. National Eat Your Veggies Day. National Bring Your Child to Work Day, which is torment for those of us that are already aware that a child's interest in drawing on a whiteboard really only lasts about 5 minutes, and the other 7 hours and 55 minutes of the day is spent with a tight smile on your face while little Timmy runs up and down the hallway looking for anything
to do. It used to be even worse when little Timmy realized my office was filled with toys, and my Mr. Potato Head was traumatized every year (thank God for home working now).
The year is filled with little nuggets of insanity. I found a website that lists all the celebrations and even compared it with some other sites-it turns out it's authentic, which makes me weep for the future of humanity. I have been limiting myself to just the major holidays-New Year's, Valentine's Day, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but clearly I am missing out.
What a gay and jolly time is to be had, for example, on August 8-that's Sneak Some Zucchini on Your Neighbor's Porch Day. What kind of wacky zaniness have I been missing! I could be leaving a demonstrative courgette on the doorsteps of all of my unsuspecting neighors! May 4 is International Find Your Soul Mate Day, a day which I guess most couples will have to spend in misery, hoping to God their loved one doesn't bump into the soul mate when they pop out to the shop to buy a pint of milk. And October 4 is Ten-Four Day-what giggly humor I will have ending all of my conversations with 10-4! Think of the applications! "I'll send that email, 10-4." Or "I'll just call the hospital, see if we can't get that fingertip sewn back on, 10-4." And "Oh God, I'm going to come, 10-4!"
But these are just the day celebrations. Don't start sitting on your laurels yet-the National Month celebrations are coming, too. December is National Tie Month, which really explains the standby male Christmas gift of neckwear. March is National Frozen Food Month, so time to buy your Sara Lee and your Birds' Eye. I personally am looking to September, as it's Fall Hat Month. I am always on the lookout for decent headgear.
I bet you didn't know today has not only one celebration, but three (better buy some Red Bull). Today is Be Electrific Day (hopefully a limited number of people celebrate this one), National Shut-In Visitation Day (provided they'll open the door to let you in), and Satisfied Staying Single Day (which is a patronizing suggestion, in my view, as it implies that single people are regularly miserable). This week is also Get Paid to Shop Week and Just Say No to Powerpoint Week (now there's two celebrations I can get behind).
I hate all of this. It's so fucking confusing. What happens if I want to celebrate National Fig Week now, as opposed to the first week of November? And why is National Soft Pretzel Month limited to April, surely that's something we can celebrate the whole year round?
We don't celebrate any of these, but now that I know there's a whole list of them, I think I will check in on them from time to time, if only to explain why I have a zucchini on my front doorstep.
Today will be spent working from home with my nice Angus also working from home. Then we're off for a night in London, as he has his Valentine's Day gift from me-I bought him tickets to see Queen's "We Will Rock You" show, then promises of dancing, too much food, too much alcohol and too much sex in the nice hotel room I booked for us, all of which I will do wearing girl clothes that reveal a lot of skin. We will follow this up in the morning by a McDonald's Egg McMuffin and a day around London looking at some reclamation shops before heading down to Brighton.
For me, today is National Love Your Boyfriend Up Day, a Day I can celebrate.
And I will be staying home with my back to the wall if we ever get a National Take One Up the Ass Day.
I'm just saying.
-H.
PS-Due to a trigger happy Munuvian, it appears you cannot use the word "sex" in the comments. I am severely pissed off (even more so than when the word "socialist" got banned) and would like whichever Munuvian who banned this word to please un-ban it.
UPDATE: Fixed. Jim saved the day.
UPDATE: To Sara at IP address 162.83.94.6: I've banned you. Go vomit unhappiness on someone else's site. Move along now. You're not welcome on my site anymore. And just a hint: when someone closes comments, it means: don't comment. It's just a bit of blog etiquette.
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February 10, 2005
I will always, always want to have toys.
Today will be spent travelling for a grand total of four hours on the train, to Birmingham and back (that's pronounced "Birming-um") in order to attend a meeting that is only 5 hours long and which will suck the life out of me and crush my will to live. Today will be spent wishing to God I had a fun and interesting job, say being a marshmallow quality taste tester, for example.
I am lucky, though-with the exception of The Rooster, I get on really well with most of my team. They're good guys-a laugh, people that will try to tell you the truth, and people that know they can relax around me-I get my fair share of dirty jokes and innuendoes, and they know I won't be offended. I was sitting on the train thinking of how one of them recently told me that I am a laugh and they really like me, only they're scared to death of crossing me, since they know I will make them pay.
This amuses me, actually. First of all, I believe in karma and would therefore never make anyone pay. Secondly, I wouldn't even know how to make someone pay if I tried-glare at them a lot? Would that make them pay? Would it be better if I just got a straw voodoo doll and left it on their doorstep? Invoke the spirit guides to attack their pc (or, in lieu of that, just have me walk by them holding a up of steaming hot Starbucks coffee)?
So I was thinking about the things I say and do sometimes at work. It occurs to me that maybe I do come across as being tough, as being sarcastic. I am glad that people know I only laugh with those I like. I'm glad they don't take it personally.
Above all, I am glad the English are more reticent with their lawsuits.
********************************
I am sitting on the phone, dialed in to a conference call. The entire team has gathered on the phone and as the last member dials in, their talk turns to the one things that will divide the team, the one item that will cause a rift in our teamwork: football. They're battling over the last football match, arguing about plays, calls, and the hangovers they had afterwards. I rub my forehead. It just goes on, and on, and on...
Me: Guys, can we start now? There's just an awful lot of testosterone on this call, and I think I just grew a penis.
********************************
Greg and I are talking about the project since I took over in December.
Me: Did you mind me taking over from Barry, when he left?
Greg: Nope. I told management the new project manager is a lot cuter, but swears a lot more.
********************************
In a hurry, I dressed once again in an all-black ensemble after having a fashion emergency and rejecting every single item of clothing in my closet. Another project manager regards me as we punch the button for the elevator and head to the meeting room.
Him: Mourning the project already?
Me: No, I tried to dress in colors this morning, but I was so tired I wound up looking like Ronald McDonald on crack.
********************************
The men are talking about football again.
Me: Seriously, guys, can we stop talking about football?
Greg: God, Helen, we're talking abotu rugby. Get your games straight, for fuck's sake!
Me: What difference does it make what game you're talking about?
Greg: How can you say that?
Me: Football, rugby...it doesn't matter, you're wasting time talking about bruised-looking balls regardless.
********************************
The team has bought lunch, which will be eaten during a working meeting. The room is quiet as we eat as quickly as we can so we can get back to the project plan. Ron sits next to me and cracks open his plastic salad lid and I am hit with a strong smell.
Me: Ron, what the hell is that?
Him: It's a tuna salad.
Me: Jesus, it smells like a yeast infection.
********************************
I have booked a hot desk to use for the day. When I get to the desk, a squatter has already taken my space. I clear my throat.
Me: Sorry, I've booked this desk today.
Him: (looking up at me and frowning in annoyance) I just need this desk for thirty more minutes.
Me: Sorry, mate, but I booked the desk and have a conference call starting soon.
Him: (looking at me indignantly) Don't you understand? I have to write a summary for the CEO.
Me: (opening my eyes really wide) Oooooooooh! You must sleep so well at night, knowing that you are so busy and important!
Him: Don't you know who I am?
Me: No, but I'm looking forward to an introduction, since this has gone really well so far.
Him: I'm seventh in line to the Vice-President of the company!
Me: Really? I'm eighteenth in line to the Princess of Dallas, but you don't see me throwing my weight around.
Him: (huffily packing up his bag) I may mention to the Vice President that I was unable to get my report out in time due to you utilizing the desk space.
Me: Really? Ok. Tell him he owes me money.
********************************
Ron is droning on and on and on about the latest test results, talking in excruciatingly slow detail about the coding needed for the rocket. I feel my brain cells draining through my chipped red toenail polish.
Me: Ron, seriously, man. You make me hurt. More words, faster.
********************************
My manager has had a discussion with The Rooster, who has become strangely American during his short stay in the U.S. He has said that the recent delays by his company have resulted in him having a reduced sense of self-esteem. As such, my manager has now asked that we always communicate openly and honestly to help ensure mutual respect and appreciation, even though I have never denigrated The Rooster to his face, ever. He asked me to communicate this message.
What he forgot was how much I hate The Rooster and how the bastard has lied to me three times.
I sent out a memo announcing this new policy of mutual acceptance and respect. I hit the send button on the email, and an hour later my manager calls me.
Him: (laughing, choking down the line) God, Helen, you called it that?
Me: What? You asked for a new way of treating each other, I am only complying. I personally think The Rooster is a vat of ethic putrification, but you asked.
Him: It was very funny, thank you.
Me: That's what you get for having an American on your team.
Him: I get that. It's ok, your message was fine. But did you have to call it Group Hug Month?
I spared him from the knowledge that upon hearing it was Group Hug Month, the team requested we hire more females.
Preferably gymnasts.
********************************
-H.
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February 09, 2005
Many people would agree.
But I wouldn't-I am struck on a daily basis how unusual my life is.
Take this past Tuesday, for example.
In the morning I awoke and rolled out of bed. I've found that the older I get the harder it is to wake up. Coffee and a shower with pumpkin-pie scented soap helps wake me up, along with brushing my teeth, applying deodorant, and spritzing myself with crème brulee perfume (I am nothing if not a smorgasbord). A quick scan of emails, a kiss on the lips by a man who kisses me with his eyes open, and I am out the door.
I drive to the train station in the car with no radio, so I sing songs in my head. In my head, my voice sounds nicer, more mature, harder. The songs come out in ribbons of authority. Sometimes I nod my head to the rhythm or tap my fingers.
It helps when you often live in your own little world anyway.
When I pull up to the train station I spend about 5 minutes trying to park the car right. I used to just wing the car into a spot and walk away, but now I feel the need to get it just right. When I walk to the train platform I see a tall man with hair just a little too long at a white family car. He's talking through the rear doors to two little girls strapped into the seat. They are leaning towards the open door as though just leaning closer to the opening brings it closer to the man, as though their inclination can let him know what's inside their hearts. I assume he is the father.
'I'll see you soon, ok?'Â he says, and I hear the flattened vowels that mark him as someone like me, an American, a stranger in a strange land. 'I'll see you as soon as I can, and you be good and have fun, ok?'Â His voice is strained and I look at the driver. She's a striking woman, one hand propped on the steering wheel and the other leaning on the door, holding her forehead. She looks bored and pissed off, like she has an elsewhere she'd rather be.
Neither of them bears a ring.
He shuts the door and the woman takes an immediate cue to drive away, talking to the kids in the back seat as though she is now the sole proprietor, as though if she talks she'll take away the memory of the man. I wonder if he'll shout what so clearly etches the tautness in his lips: I miss you.
He doesn't.
I buy my ticket and stand on the platform. I plug my iPod into my ears and think about my day ahead. I stand there, oblivious, and then see the man is to my right, and looking at me. He looks terribly sad and yet his eyes scan the world, so he's not so hurt that he's become blind yet. I want to tell him that I know how he feels, even if I really don't. I want to tell him I know how he hurts, even if I have no idea. So I do the only thing I can do: I smile at him.
I just can't go talk to him and offer him comforting words, I am wearing the wrong shoes today.
He stares at me until the train pulls up and I don't kid myself that he finds me hot, that he finds me interesting. I was just the only other awake person waiting on the platform, and something American in me came out and wanted to smile at him. In a sea of trains and timetables and telephones, I was just one of any millions of commuters, one that he will forget as he swings into the saddle of his day.
I hope his day gets better.
I sit in my seat and shift all my bags to the rack above me. The projector is up there, tormenting me, and my back already aches from carrying it. I get out my laptop and write. Train time is writing time for me, and I try to allow myself those 55 minutes of just me and my thoughts and my iPod. I always look out the window as we get into London and we pass Parliament, MI6, and the London Eye. They still take my breath away and when they stop doing that, I'll know it's time to move.
London is always a rush. There is always a hurry, a need to walk down the escalators and to try to catch the ideal train. They call it the Big Smoke, and I think the name has less to do with the historical smog than with the cartoon-like steam I imagine winging from the limbs of people running around the platforms. Sometimes I meet Ron at Waterloo and we take the tube together and gossip about the people we like and the people we don't. His girlfriend is expecting and he often tells me the latest. I have no response to these stories, except to wish him luck.
Meetings are often fraught affairs with the same people. I have an excellent team that I generally really like (albeit with a few exceptions). I have to take notes and often have the projector hooked up to my laptop so I can never surf the web if I am bored.
Somehow I have become a grown-up, but I never got to have a party before getting here.
There are small things I always try to do. I try to have a fruit smoothie in order to get my vitamins. I try to eat soup at lunch, these days I am into soup. I keep my mobile phone in one pocket, my iPod in the other, and my train ticket in my back pocket (if it's not tucked into the book I read on my train ride home). I always look out the window at Clapham Junction to see if I can see the train spotters. Clapham Junction is England's busiest railway junction and as such you can usually see men standing outside with clipboards, backpacks and cameras, writing down train numbers. Spotting the spotters is something that makes me calm, makes me smile.
When I get home I have enough time to drop my bags and head upstairs to change into my pajamas and head to the study for more conference calls (Angus tells me I am the only person he knows that changes into pajamas when I get home, and that I am the only person he knows that, when I get out of bed on a Saturday morning, I don't put my clothes for the day on yet-I put on the pajamas I dropped on the floor the night before). During my conference calls I want to surf, I want to play Sims, but the meetings are so tedious that every drop of attention has to be paid. I have a cat on my lap sometimes, and it feels nice knowing this one act of corporate rebellion is occurring to the oblivion of everyone else on the call.
Angus comes home and makes us sweet corn chowder for dinner. I kiss him and tell him about my day and he tells me about his. I wonder what it feels like inside of the muscles of his heart. I take a bath while he works on the pc and when I get out Maggie jumps in the draining bathwater, soaking her paws up to her stomach. I call in Angus and we watch and laugh, watching as she later jumps out and shakes her paws as she walks on her chicken-leg like feet. She leaves tiny wet paw prints on the carpet in the hallway and I want to follow them to see how far they get to, to catch an angle of her feline world.
I brush my hair and put my pajamas and my pink wig on, becoming Lola for a little while. I sit in unaware positions on the couch next to the fire-filled coal stove, which I leave the door open to let the heat out. When our regular Tuesday TV program comes on, a documentary about Auschwitz, I take off Lola-Lola is too frivolous for this, she's too flippant. She can't see this.
I have to protect Lola.
We watch TV, punctuated by me talking to or commenting on things we're watching, until we're tired. When we're tired we go to bed, brushing our teeth and filling the routine-lock the door. Turn off the lights. A Kleenex under my pillow and on the nightstand beside me (the Kleenex disappear during the night. I used to think it was the Tooth Fairy getting confused, only one day I looked behind the bed and saw what looked like an entire Johnson & Johnson outlet there. It's clear they're just making a bid for freedom, not getting nicked by a chick with pink wigs and a tooth fetish).
We whisper and talk and sometimes wind up touching each other, leading to sex. Bedtime sex is usually lazy, not too much movement but lots of talk. When we're finished I often find my hip nestled in the wet spot but I don't mind it too much, I helped to put it there.
An ordinary day? Maybe.
Only once upon a time I never knew I could have such a day.
-H.
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February 07, 2005
So naturally it got broken into last week.
Nothing too serious happened-some yobbos threw around some paint in the yard, ripped up some garden fixtures, and broke a window in the door trying to get in. Luckily for all of us this house is equipped with teeny-tiny windows reminiscent of the time period it was built in, so it's almost impossible to break into. The glass was fixed but Angus and I decided to buy some cheap lights and timers and install them, so that from the road it would look occupied.
Thus a drive down to Brighton on Saturday.
As we drive, my mouth finds its way around thoughts that have been slinging inside of my brain for a little while.
My feet on the dashboard as we whiz down the M25, I tuck my skirt under my legs. "Can we, maybe, talk about babies later this week? We don't have to do it now. Just sometime soon."
The profile of Angus grins. I love to look at him. "I had a feeling this would come up today."
"We don't have to talk about it now." I say, my stomach in knots. Some issues can cause problems, and I dread problems. "Just sometime."
He nods. We make small talk, passing cars full of people heading to places I don't know and don't care about. It's clear there's a metaphorical bassinette between us in the front seat, so Angus puts his hands around the handles and lifts it up. "We can talk about this, you just have to lead." he says, leaning one arm against the window.
I nod. I tell him what he already knows-that more than I care to admit I want to have a child. And even more than that, I want to have a child with him, a family with him. He's this jigsaw piece I never had, an element that I had missing from the periodic chart. I have a stomach full of butterflies as I ask him details about what we should do, what we can do.
And for the first time he tells me that he won't say no if we start IVF in the summer, although at the same time he won't be terribly pro-active, that if we do this I'll be the driver. IVF in this country is stunningly expensive, however there's an option in some hospitals where they will cut the price in half if you will donate half of your eggs. Seeing as this country also won't freeze unused eggs and that I could be helping other women just as desperate to have a child as I am, I have no problem with this whatsoever. I just need to do a bit of research to find said hospitals.
I ask him about adopting a baby as an option (and yes-for me it would have to be a baby). My X Partner Unit was 100% against adoption, it wasn't an option he would consider. Angus tells me he will consider it, but with a few caveats. I promise to do some research to see what our options are.
He also says that we can only do one or the other-either IVF or adoption, as to him it feels half-hearted otherwise.
To me? Well, to me it just feels like we would be doing everything we can. Adoption can take a long time and there are no guarantees. IVF is expensive and I know we can't go through it very many times, as it is just too hard on me (and on him). I feel a bit stressed to determine what is the right way of action, what we should do, what we can do. I look at my driving man and wish that at that moment I could curl up on a bed with him and have him hold me and talk to me, to trace circles on his arms and plant kisses on his neck.
The method of how we have a child is irrelevant to me. I am not driven by the need to get pregnant and give birth, I have never felt that I must go through that in order to feel like a mother. It's simple-I am driven by the desire to raise a child with the man I love more than anything in the world. I want to be a mother-birth mother or adopted mother, it doesn't matter. I would be absolutely thrilled to adopt a tiny Chinese baby, a little someone that would be raised and adored in this household. I would be absolutely thrilled to have my own child, to understand that moment that women say they have, where they lock eyes and fall in love for life.
We end the discussion and go to the house, setting up the lights. We laugh and talk, we buy a few things in town. We spend a long time in an Asian food shop, an unusual mix of Halal, Indian, West African. We buy incredible spices and some samosas cooked in a kitchen upstairs by someone's mum, and we eat them in our fingers while we walk up the street, licking the grease off our fingers as we go. I find the need to be close to him overwhelming, almost addictive. He takes me to dinner in one of my favorite restaurants, a vegetarian place called Food for Friends, and we sit at a tiny table for two and steal bites from each others' plates.
When I hear Angus on the phone to Melissa and Jeff I think that he's a wonderful father with such a huge heart. He cares so much about every detail of their lives, and it comforts me to know that this is the man I am going into this with. It's a roller coaster, but as I look at a picture of us smiling and happy on holiday in the Bahamas, I think I have found the ideal seat-mate to hold my hand and get through the ride with.
Will he love me just as much on the other side of this process, regardless of the outcome? Will he always love me this way? Does he know how much I care about him, does my blog make it clear or do my eyes tell him what's inside?
Today will be spent doing research, I think. I have a fair amount of work to do, but I also have a fair amount of questions within myself that will eat me if I ignore them. I am so pleased that we may get to be parents together, that we have reached a point where it looks like we have options.
I feel good about this relationship I have with a man I never knew I could have, I never thought I could ever deserve. The idea that I could be a mother with the one man who seems so calm, so in control of fatherhood is exciting and comforting. I am also terrified that I may choose the wrong option, that I may lead down the path that leads to no child, and what to do if I can only have one option, instead of both.
I have had Kafka dreams for a while now. On Friday night I dreamt I was going to hell. Literally. I had to find someone there, there was someone I had to bring back. In the middle of my dream, a rope tied around my waist as I was about to enter the land of monsters and demons, I found in my arms a baby clad only in a diaper. The baby smelt of light and neck wrinkles and baby powder and air. The baby wrapped its arms around my neck and looked into my eyes, saying only this:
"You have to be strong. I am going to be strong, and I'm not going to give up. You can't give up, either."
The words still ring through my head, even if I don't know what they mean.
-H.
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February 01, 2005
This week's afflictions were brought to you by the letter: B, and the number: £2.99. As I went to the shop to rent a DVD and buy a lottery ticket (it's kinda' the answer to my problems with work right now. Really. It can help me get to the lifestyle to which I need to become accustomed) I saw the "B" book in the series. "B" is for body. "B" is for botulism. "B" is for bacterial vaginosis, Behcet's Disease, Bilharzial dysentery, bipolar disorder, Bockhart's impetigo and Brill-Zinsser disease.
Some of these things I know of. Some I don't. But there, in the print on top the shiny hard top of the book just aching for a coffee cup to be set on it, was a B term that I did know, and I knew it better than the bastards that compiled such insightful B-word maladies.
"Biological clock".
There is was, written on the cover, ready to be explained to me, in case I had my ears stuffed with cotton and couldn't hear mine ticking away.
But I don't need a book to tell me about my biological clock. I am the perfect specimen to dissect in an anatomy lab full of nervous med students about to toss their cookies-put me on a table and slip a scalpel into the fine white flesh on my breastbone, split my ribs, and there it is, beating inside of me, ticking into the tiny threads and nerves that run throughout my body, making my eyes yearn, my fingers itch, and my uterus whimper. I know the biological clock, and I know it every single day.
Last Wednesday afternoon I took an earlier train home from work-gifted with a short and productive meeting and a lengthy bit of time before my woman doctor check-up, I was able to take a quieter train home from the city. I always relish the chance to ride on the quieter trains-I hate the hustle and bustle of people invading my personal space, reading over my shoulder, peeking into my mind. With relief, I took a train graced with weary business types and parents with very young children.
Of those two groups, it was clear which group I fit into.
I sat down, allowing myself the luxury of keeping my possessions on the seat next to me as opposed to lugging them onto the overhead bin (coat? Check. Briefcase? Check. Fuck-off large projector? Check.) and got out a new book to start reading. I ate a Cornish pasty, the businessperson's fast lunch of choice, and washed it down with a bottle of too-cold water. I felt a chill along my arms but relief in my brain at being done.
The beeping doors indicate a new arrival on the still-stationary train at Waterloo, and as I look up I see a grandmother matronly holding the hand of a small and perfectly-formed little girl, around 3 or so. The little girl was a caricature of children bedecked in winter clothes-big puffy jacket, scarf wound around her head so many times she could hold up a bank and not be identified. And she was wearing a multi-colored hat that tied at her chin, and was in the shape of a tear.
Dear God don't let them sit here, my mind screamed. Let them sit somewhere else. Don't put them by me.
And with characteristic karmic suck, they park themselves across from me. The grandmother goes about fussing with her belongings, adjusting things just so. And the little girl just looks up at me, with enormous and gorgeous eyes that were brown on the inside and green on the outside. She had rose petal lips and her upper lip was larger than her lower lip, which made her look serenely cute. Her lips twitched and I saw in her cheeks the beginnings of a smile, beaming in at 14,000 watts and with the capacity to fuel small towns, before her grandmother addressed her.
I got my book out and put my iPod headphones in. I didn't want to talk to them. I didn't want them sitting near me. I would've grabbed my things and left had I not already settled in and unpacked myself on my seats. I catch a sniff and realize it's the smell of child, the smell of patent leather and sunsilk hair shampoo, of feces and sunshine and crayons.
I love that smell.
The grandmother pulls off the teardrop hat and the little girl's perfect brunette bob has static fly-away arcing up in some kind of protest to now being hatless. The little girl talks to her grandmother incessantly, and the grandmother indulgently hangs on every word. She then gets out a chunky mobile phone and makes a few complicated mobile phone calls about times, dates, where to meet once off the train, and the best way to get boots resoled.
The little girl lays her head down on her grandmother's lap, on top of her chestnut leather purse, and looks out the window. Her cheek is smooth on the purse, and her still-gloved fingers trace little circles on her grandmother's knee as she simply melts into the time and space of the chair and her grandmother's lap, a puppy on linoleum, a kitten on a windowsill. She has the spineless quality that only young children can have, the spinelessness encouraged by the complete lack of self-consciousness that will rob them so cruelly later in life.
If I were the grandmother, I wouldn't be able to keep myself from smoothing her hair.
The grandmother is making an appointment with a speech therapist for the girl. The girl has a very poshy name. 'She has an S-T-U-T-T-E-R,'Â she whispers conspiratorily. 'Not when she's talking, but when she's between words.'Â
And as I listen to the little girl I hear a lot of hitches and catches as she talks, sounds which, to me, equate to the little-girl inability to get enough words out quickly enough, to try to battle through the log jam of thoughts that want to bubble up all at once.
They get off at the next stop, and the grandmother ties the tear-drop hat back on her head. She adjusts it, pulling it one way then another, as the little girl amiably allows her head to be tugged by knitwear in a way that only children allow. They get off the train and walk hand-in-hand on the platform, the little girl's shoes struggling to keep up.
And as they walk away I get my laptop out and wonder if I can put it into text just how badly I want one of those. I wonder if I can make it through the afternoon for want of crying for one. I wonder if I can keep going through birthdays of Angus' families' children unscathed, I wonder if I will ever be able to know what it is like to be loved like a mother, to be a mother.
People say: Of course, Helen, it has to happen! And: Absolutely, Helen! You will be a mother.
But that doesn't make it so.
And it doesn't make it all feel ok, either.
-H.
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