September 30, 2005
But sometimes someone can say one thing that makes you stop in your tracks an re-evaluate how your little corner of the world really is. It can be anything, it can be nothing, it can be the most important thing ever. All it takes is one thing that someone says to you that catches a little hook in the tender ribbons of your brain, and when it sets in, it's in.
I've had a few of these.
In the midst of a complete and utter loss of my temper 11 years ago, I flung a box of pencils across a room. My then boyfriend looked at me and smiled gently and said:
Throwing things in anger is a big waste of energy, you know.
And I stopped and considered what he'd said. All of the anger drained right out of me as I thought: Fuck me, he's right. I never threw anything in anger again (until last week when I threw my phone, but I wasn't angry, I was just full up from the all-you-can-eat stress buffet).
Other sayings have stuck with me, some little, some big.
Bright blue eyes looking into mine with my back to a Bangkok hotel room as he whispered I would never hurt you.
A cheeky grin as he smiled the eyes-disappearing smile and said: Well, cheese goes on everything, doesn't it?
He was looking away from me, not meeting my eyes, one hand under his chin. Your looks are going to grow more ethereal with time. A casual comment that meant the path to growing older was paved with smoother stones, as long as someone once believed that about me.
Stupid things, big things, things that were recorded in my head, digital images of analog moments, and things that became little pieces of me.
And then another one of them snuck into my head on Tuesday at the therapists (It's the Crazy Clearing House! Everything MUST GO!). Tuesday, stuffed onto a cracking leather couch with my feet tucked under me and throw pillows covering me (this is what I do, this is how I sit, I use a barrier of throw pillows to protect myself behind. Some shields can be made of feathers instead of metal and be just as effective against the most deadly of arrows.) Tuesday I was sitting across from my therapist and at the end, something he said struck home and has become something I have bubble-wrapped inside of myself, to protect it from my bouncing ribcage.
We were talking about how often I moved as a child. As we were military it meant every 2-4 years, but pockmarked in some of those years were the challenges and disturbances of domestic turmoil. Yo-yo times of being uprooted when the family nuclear unit light switch was in on-again or off-again (otherwise known as the epochs called I'm Not Supposed To Talk About It, only in therapy I'm going to talk about them.)
When I became an adult, I continued the nomadic way of life. In university I moved constantly, so much so that the apartments all became a blur, I couldn't trace the residences of the last ten years of my life if I tried. Kitchen counter tops that all look the same and bathrooms that were remarkable in their unremarkableness. Part of the moving was needed-my ex-husband didn't really want to let me go (it was the usual case of just because he didn't want me didn't mean he wanted anyone else to have me) and as such we played Stalking for Dummies.
But the other part of it was because I had to move. I had to. My skin itched and crawled too long in one space, if my neighbors knew me it was time to move. I couldn't bear to be in one place as it was time to move, time to go, had to move had to go. And in all of these places, brought home by my ex-husband stalker and turbulence in my past, were many, many locked doors. Several locks on all the doors, home alarms, dogs, a gun. Behind my front door was an apartment of fear.
Looking back, I don't know what I was afraid of.
Sometimes, the thing to be most afraid of is the person that you have locked inside the house.
I told my therapist about this.
He asked me about where I lived now.
Looking out the window in his office I recounted the little cricket village I live in. The cats that I love, one sleeping in the bathtub and one bringing me live victims. The fact that sometimes I walk to the village High Street just to buy a coke, just to be there. That during the day the front door just stands open so my cats can come and go.
He asked me how I would feel if I had to leave, and I felt a painful squeeze and constrict in my chest, the beginning of a sob, a wave of fear. I looked up at him incredulously. "I would beat to death someone that tried to take me away from here. I love it here. I can't leave."
He smiled.
"Well, I wouldn't beat someone to death." I hasten to add. I am actually a pacifist, and one that worries about being committed at that. You know. As pacifists do. My 24 hours in a mental hospital proved that there truly is no place like home, especially if it is a Thorazine-free zone. "But I would put up a hell of a fight."
"Have you ever felt this way about a place before?" he asks.
I look out the window again as I think. "No," I reply, surprised. "I've always been ready to move, always ready to go. I used to keep my important things in one location, in case it was time to flee. I've always been thinking about the next place to go. The truth is, I still am-we're buying a house 5 miles away, and I can't wait to move into it. But the vision ends there-I don't see anything after that, I don't feel any panic."
He looks at me and smiles even more kindly. I am not used to kindness like that when it comes to the inky blackness inside of me, he is kinder than Baba Papa, my very own blue plasticene helper. "Helen, I think you've spent your life perpetrating the turbulence you knew as a child. We try to surround ourselves with that which we know, whether it is comfortable or not. You've spent your life filling your environment with turbulence. And when you talk about where you live now, your face lights up and your entire air changes. What do you think of when you think of where you live now?"
I gulp some air. "Peace," I choke out. "I think of peace. It's a stupid little corner of England in a country I'm not even a native in, but I have never in my life felt like I have been home ever before, and I never want to leave that feeling."
And I step out of myself in that room and see a tall woman made small by the first moment of internal truth I had seen in many years. She's holding on to throw pillows as though she may drown and every inch of her is marked by the one emotion she never tries to let herself be-she's vulnerable.
"Helen, this is the first step to trying to get better. It may seem like something small, but you are beginning to belong to something, Helen, and belonging is a part of letting go of the turbulence."
He says all of this and a bit more, and I know it will stay with me.
And I step back inside of me and for the first time with my new therapist, I cry.
-H.
PS-Jim, I just love you. Thank you for my lovely yoga present. Hand over heart, I promise I will never fart on it. Now you just need to come to England and go to a class with me. You could be Gumby. Totally.
PPS-Who says the English are sexually repressed?
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
07:56 AM
| Comments (12)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1400 words, total size 8 kb.
September 29, 2005
The stress is making itself known.
The ulcer is in bad shape. Underneath my left eye I have that twitch which is called myomia, mykosia, or some other name that sounds like a Greek Island. This twitch is apparently caused by lack of sleep and too much caffeine, but the person that tries to take away my sixth cup of coffee better stand out of briefcase swinging range 'cause I'm not going down without a fight. Take my coffee. Geez, that's a killing offense.
I woke up yesterday and saw my right eyelid was swollen and bright red. I called my doctor's office (called a surgery here in England).
"Hi, I'd like to see Dr. Henry." I say, twirling around the kitchen in my pajamas. I have decided I should switch doctors to Dr. Henry. Dr. Henry is the new black.
"Oh, sorry. Dr. Henry doesn't do surgery on Wednesdays." the receptionist replies.
"Good thing I don't need surgery!" I joke back. There is silence on the line.
Clearly my American humor is underappreciated here.
So I get booked in to see a new doctor, a woman. This is contrary to my normal practice-I don't really like women doctors, I like man doctors. This isn't because I don't think a woman can do it, as I absolutely believe they can. It's because I am so self-conscious I worry once I leave the office the woman doctor would think Thank God I've never had a case of her hand herpes/eye infection/infertility/bacterical vaginosis/hideous freckled complexion!
But I go see her, she looks into my eye, and nods. "You have an eyelid infection." she pronounces.
"A what?" I ask, my hideous eye red and swollen.
"An eyelid infection. No contacts for one week and here's a prescription for some ointment to use four times a day." she says, and with that our three-minute appointment is over.
Typical. I start referring to my eyelid infection as Weepy Eye. This is something I do, I turn everything into a two name description-Ass Bleed. Hand Herpes.
It all started when I was living alone with my lovely dog Boscoe. One evening I tried to home dye my hair with a new color, and it wound up being so far from the red color on the top of the box it was amazing. It was magenta. I looked like someone had stuck a passion fruit on my head. I caught my dog looking at me in amazement, even my color-blind little guy couldn't believe it. Looking at him, I realized then that something was wrong with his face-his nose was about 5 times its normal size. We rushed to the vet.
The vet's office all stared at us as we walked in, a hush reserved only for the Queen or for the criminally insane. When I looked into a mirror, I saw why. I had bright, pingingly awful purple hair with purple streaks down my shoulders from the hair dye. Boscoe's face was grotesquely swollen. We looked like we'd walked in from the local carnival, and so I introduced us as Captain Swollen and Magenta Head. It was revealed a brown recluse spider had bitten him, so he was then put on antibiotics, but between the two of us we looked abnormal for days.
So I fill the prescription for my Weepy Eye. It turns out it is caused by stress, and while on the phone with one of my team it turns out he has exactly the same thing (and no, our eyes have not been making out in the back of a car and spreading the infection). I text Angus and let him know about it, and also inform him I will be stuck in my dreaded three year old glasses (I am a contacts girl, and as such, never bother updating my glasses every year). He suggests we book an appointment at the optician to get me new ones, and I agree.
So we both go to get an eye exam, and I go around picking out glasses. I pick out two new pairs (they're two for the price of one) and then we look at glasses for Angus.
That's right.
My dear boy has been put on eyeglasses duty.
It happens to the best of us, really.
We get our glasses on Saturday, so unfortunately it's a trek into London today with my old awful glasses. The ointment I have to put on my eye makes the whole thing glisten and fucks up my vision. So not only am I wearing my awful glasses but I have a glistening red eyelid that looks like it is covered in a layer of pus.
"Unattractive" isn't the term I'd choose. I'd go for "people running in fear out of worry for possible health scare of ocular avian flu."
Weepy Eye.
Life is going well.
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
07:38 AM
| Comments (13)
| Add Comment
Post contains 890 words, total size 5 kb.
September 28, 2005
The stereotype is that men forget the romance and get lazy in the routine.
The truth is women do, too.
I've been striding along in my lane, keeping the movement soft and strong, and realized that although life is stressful, it doesn't mean I should ignore my surroundings just because I am trying to run so fast. Passing out in bed from exhaustion every night does not a relationship make. Holding hands over a dinner table won't matter if the dinner table is littered with work documents. So last weekend was a weekend where my mobile phone was on mute. I stayed out of my work emails. I ignored the world.
And it was great.
We spent ages in bed. I went to yoga class wondering if anyone could see my enormous hickey gracing the connection of my neck and my shoulder, revealed by my sports bra. We found our way back to spending ages just kissing, and in kissing, I found out that I had missed it terribly.
We went on a date. We took showers and got nicely dressed and went to a restaurant nearby called the County Arms. The matron was bright and friendly and the little pub was packed with folk easing off the stress of their weeks. We drank red wine and laughed and talked about our days, straying from ideas of work or stress. We shared a dessert tray of ice cream and berries. Our eyes twinkled as we looked at each other again, and I fell back in love with that twinkling feeling.
We had a lovely evening.
And it came to pass that I realized: Dates aren't just for 16 year olds. You can grow old gracefully, but you can do it going out and spending time together. Something about going out and enjoying the presence of your loved one in the company of others is so gratifying it's like a drug. Hey, see this person I am laughing a lot with? Yeah. He's mine and he's great.
And on Sunday we spent the afternoon together. It was time for a hedge trimming, so my personal Picasso got out his barber kit and did some pelvic gardening (and here's something we found-this site is the number one hit on Google for "shave beaver shape". Truly, I've found fame.) We then drank champagne in bed and I read him a quote from Louis de Bernieres who says it better than I ever could:
Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion...That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. [We] had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.
Looking forward to another date this weekend, babe.
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
08:38 AM
| Comments (18)
| Add Comment
Post contains 638 words, total size 3 kb.
September 27, 2005
Mornings spent on a slow-moving train with your feet pulled out of their pinching high heels. Drops of coffee stained down the side of a cardboard cup of coffee that is slowly losing its structural integrity. The baggy under eyes of commuters who would much rather be in their beds, only they long ago forgot the reason they got up in the morning.
These are the mornings I wish I didn't have.
But if I didn't have them, I bet I would miss them.
When you look at your schedule for the day ahead and see that it holds no less than 5 meetings and a trip to the therapist, you wonder at what point you veered off the anthropology boho and onto the sidewalk of the bourgeois. Or maybe the anthropology boho was really a stone's throw away from the shrink anyway. Regardless, when you spent your college years romancing with quirky chaps and showing up to class in a pair of men's boxers, you probably never saw that you would be dressed up in a wool skirt that itches your ass, exposed as it is in the new black lace knickers that make you look fantastic (but which you will never reveal is part of the Sainsbury's Tu range and, far from the Agent Provacateur range, cost you £5 for 3 and you love them so much you're going to go back and buy more).
You also never knew the run-on sentence would become an art form you'd worship, but then life is full of surprises.
When the better part of your daytime is shaping up to be fresh squeezed orange juice and listening to Tegan and Sara's Where Does the Good Go over and over again, you may have reached a new level you never thought you'd reach. It's either a level where you can try to get to love the little things for the tiny enhancements that they are, or else it's perhaps a little game I like to think of as Lowering the Bar. You're not going to save the world delivering babies or write the next bestseller, but goddammit at least you're going to live your life pumped full of vitamin C.
I am not an author who has a home by the water and spends the mornings walking our dog before settling in front of my blinking PC and churning forth literature from my head while Angus builds a loft extension on our luxurious period property home. As much as I'd like to write the bestseller, it's never going to happen if A) I don't sit my ass down in front of a PC and write it, B) Have folks who will buy it and C) Get over my fear of rejection to try to do it. So my mornings of wilting coffee cups and shouting phone conferences are going to continue to reign supreme.
I am not a doctor decked in my scrubs, looking at a patient's chart and telling them that their outlook is good. I will not tread in sneakers that squeak down the hallway as I run through my morning's procedures in my head. I will not wear a pager that tugs down the top of my scrub pants and I will not have a wild flirtatious relationship with a doctor like Patrick Dempsey's on Grey's Anatomy, one remarkably without an ego problem and with a shock of hair I'd love to sink my fingers in while biting his earlobes.
I guess it comes down to a robust acceptance that what you do is not going to change. I am a project manager. I will project manage. Much as I hope and dream, I will not have the luxury of telling my boss to fuck off and quit my job, not just burning bridges but urinating on the smoking ashes of my burnt bridges. My ideal life is somewhere in between wandering the world as a nomad and the idea of getting paid to doing what I love. If I look around, not a lot of people have their ideal life-who dreamt as a child of being a project manager, receptionist, dog groomer or high school principle?
So here I am. Putting my feet back in my heels, reluctantly accepting the 5 meetings ahead, and looking forward to the next cup of mediocre coffee. While I am not in my ideal world I am far from hurting, and maybe the good news is Tegan and Sara will see me through the rest of my day and in the end, accepting my reality means I am free to fret about other things in my life.
No best selling novel.
No Patrick Dempsey-like doctor to romance.
But my mood's pretty good today, and it must be because I got my vitamin C, and damn if that doesn't make me lucky.
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
09:50 AM
| Comments (17)
| Add Comment
Post contains 842 words, total size 4 kb.
September 26, 2005
Even if its scenery you never expected to see again.
I had a dream the other night about high school. Now, high school was not a fun time for me. I was the "other side of the tracks" chiquita that dwelt in the land of "dear God let me blend in to the walls so the beautiful people will leave me alone". I have no fond memories of high school, and when I graduated early it was with a sigh of relief and an enormous "Fuck You, Sweet Valley High!"
OK, it wasn't called Sweet Valley High. It was a high school in Texas that saw the heat rising off the tarmac, that saw football players get seperate tests and cheerleaders were the Queens of the World. It was a posh area filled with kids that had Porsches and pool parties, and if you were a kid like me, you just wanted to get through the day unnoticed. Unnoticed meant untroubled. Untroubled meant free to be a dork and no one called you on it.
And isn't being a teenager the very essence of being a dork?
When I registered at Classmates.com it was with a sense of duty, and when I look at it now, I don't even recognize most of the names. I was in a massive class of graduating seniors, and not a single one of them is a person that I kept up with. Only a few of them ring familiar as friends or potential friends. High school is a big black pit in my head, a place I don't need to revisit ever again.
So in my dream, I wondered what the hell happened to some of those people. Since I was an actress for many years, the crowd I hung with tended to be of the fucked up artsy crowd, all angst and issues and composed Oscar acceptance speeches delivered in front of a foggy bathroom mirror. We all lived in the land of our flamboyantly gay high school drama teacher, with a dash of regional theatre thrown in on the side and children's theatre to, you know, fill in our time. Since Google is the best thing since the black strappy shoe, I reached out and tried to see what had become of many of them.
Some of them had bit parts in films I have never heard of, and then disappeared around the late 90's. A few of them seem to have vanished off the face of the earth, but then if they looked for me or the children's TV series I was on, they wouldn't find me, either (thank you, peace and quiet of name change.)
And then there was one of them coming through the Google. She had done anime. Anime...and porn.
I clicked on one of the links and saw her in a Texas lake with two perky nipples breaking the surface of the water and I thought Dear God, I'm blind. The First Commandment is Thou Shalt Not Wear Leg Warmers, followed by the Second one Thou Shalt Not See Thy Fellow School Comrades Half Naked.
This was followed by the thought-if one was going to do porn, wouldn't you do it under a false name? Isn't that the point? I mean, if your last name is Jones, isn't part of the fun to then rename yourself to something like Raveena Le Tatas? Beaver von Muff? Candy Mc Hooch? That kind of thing?
Just a thought.
And then I found out she lives about 3 hours north of me in England. She's married and has a daughter. It appears that porn and Japanese cartoons are in her past. I've sent an email into the darkness to see how she's doing. We'll see if I hear back.
I figure that just because high school sucked doesn't mean I have to keep letting it suck.
So it is that I jogged back to the starting point of high school, only I no longer need to have it keep me in my place.
-H.
AFTERNOON UPDATE-just found out she and her English hubby have moved back to Texas.
I mean, come on people...if you had to choose between living in England or freaking the shit out of nosy high school alumni Googlers with your floating nipples in a porn movie, wouldn't that be an easy choice?
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
08:11 AM
| Comments (13)
| Add Comment
Post contains 790 words, total size 4 kb.
September 23, 2005
High school seniors beware.
Welcome to our house, built in the late 1800's. I planted the flowers myself-this picture is a few weeks old, as they haven't done so well since we bunked off to Egypt for a week and they didn't get watered.
Kokopelli, whom I bought in Mexico, greets you on the inside front door. I figure if the God of Mischief can't be the welcome wagon, who can be?
Our coffee table is an antique Victorian pine box, which we use to keep blankets in. Or at least we do when it's not otherwise occupied.
Our house has antiques here and there, actually. In our kitchen window are two of my orchids (I love orchids, I just love them). In the middle is a vintage French milk jug, a find that I am absolutely in love with. On one of the window panes is a pale frame with purple flowers. A gift from Melissa to Angus it was the former middle window-pane of a Victorian front door.
Er....please ignore the laundry hanging out back to dry.
In the kitchen on top of one of the doorways is something that's very important to me-a street sign I picked up in Sweden. I literally picked it up-the flat I was living in with my Ex was being renovated, and I went into the cellar one day and saw this old street sign from our neighborhood laying in a pile of rubbish. I had to have it, so I nicked it and have kept it. I will never let it go as something about it is so beautiful.
I have a vintage American street sign arriving soon, a little 1950's gem that simply says: "Main Street". I can't wait. And we both agree we'll get a street sign from England, as it's nice to have constant reminders of where we've been and how it'affected who we are today. I guess it's weird (read: nerdy) that street signs are something that I like, but in some ways they're things I know, things I recognize. And something about having a Main Street in my house makes me feel like I'm never that far away after all.
Maybe I'm not that far from it anyway-in our living room I've mounted three old photos of our families. In the large picture are my grandparents on their wedding day, her looking resplendent and him so chipper in his Army uniform, and in the upper right corner are my great-grandparents, whom I remember fondly. The bottom picture is Angus' grandfather and his workmate-Angus' grandfather drove double-decker buses, and I love their cheeky positions leaning against the hood of the bus.
On my dresser I have a tiny dressmaker's dummy that I use to hold my necklaces (and my pink Lola wig usually goes on it, too). I also have a Barbola mirror from the 1930's, and a few Demeter perfume bottles. I just bought another Barbola mirror that needs some reconstruction love which I will study up on how to do. I've seen that they sell for about $650 in the States, but I bought this one for £8.
Yesterday Angus was reading his usual tittilating material on the bed and Maggie decided he needed some help. You know. As cats are so helpful in doing.
Yesterday flowers arrived at our front door. A florist presented flowers to the recipient with a smile and a will-you-sign-here...Angus. I have heard from the team (and seen in my own home) the effect that work is having on many of the partnerships. As such, I took my credit card and bought roses for all the wives (and for Angus and one other boyfriend) of the project managers who have been working long hours, as a thank you for their patience.
Just because he's a boy doesn't mean he shouldn't get flowers.
My world is full of words and images. My home has one thousand pictures that will slip by unnoticed in time, but which when I look at mean the world to me. My heart is in these walls and with this man and these felines. These images are priceless to me, and while they maybe mean very little to anyone else, the view from our study window, a cat in the box, a stuffed turtle on the printer...these things make this place my home.
I've been working since 6 am. I have over 20 voice mails and a few hundred emails, even after me deleting them all on Monday. I have conference calls and documents to write. But there is still sunshine, and there is still time to just sit and think. So I think instead of digging into work this morning, I will sit in the doorway with my guard dog and watch the world for a little while, lest I let a moment go by me.
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
08:45 AM
| Comments (22)
| Add Comment
Post contains 881 words, total size 6 kb.
)September 22, 2005
Maybe that's what I do anyway.
I sit in meetings where I get surrounded by my own words echoing off the walls. I write emails that cross an ocean, the content bubble wrapped back to me in packets of vitriol. Even with myself, words are beginning to fail me when I speak my thoughts. I can't find the right words, I can't express the right feeling. Language has always been everything to me, but as I stand in the line of sight of my own sound waves, I can't understand why it's starting to let me go. Sometimes trying to find the right words feels like bicycling in vanilla pudding-I spin and spin my wheels, and at the end, all that remains is one big mess.
I watch people a lot more now, afraid to speak. I watch the men in their wool suits and long dark blue ties running through train stations, sprinting to get to that meeting, hopefully a meeting that will make the sprint worth it. I watch women juggle a briefcase and a fake Prada bag, trying to be something that they're not. I watch teenagers look with already jaded eyes on the world, analyzing and quizzing, a little toy attached to their mobile phones, a plush toy that still binds them to the world of a child.
My meeting yesterday was so long and so fraught for me in the beginning. It was so bad I was perusing job posting boards, convinced I just couldn't do it any longer. Problem resolution the goal of the day, algorithms and code the flavor of the month. I left one of my project managers in charge and started off on my three hour journey home, and in the evening I received a text that something had been resolved, and at last I cried.
Yesterday didn't get any better, as a fraught meeting in London left me physically and emotionally drained, and once more perusing the job boards. I want to switch jobs, but I know I can't do that until the gerbils have launched. When that happens, I will get drunk. I will switch jobs. I will sleep.
And even in my dreams at night, I've lost my voice.
I get to work from home for the next few days, and it's something I'm going to guard jealously and religiously. Emails have been effectively dealt with, and I more or less just ignore the ringing phone if I don't recognize the caller. I'm cutting the amount of conference calls to a minimum-I need to protect my voice, I worry I am losing it.
Maybe I already have.
Voices must be like parts of the soul-they can be siphoned out through a colander, they can seep out the bottom and run into the sink, and once it starts running, you can never get them back.
I guess at the end of the day I am just exhausted. Last night was a great start-I slept soundly, I slept with my boy, and I slept feeling like we were both a part of something. But lately I've ben worn out and need to sleep for a few days. If I can sleep, then I can wake up with a full voice box. If I wake up with a full voice box, I can tell the people around me the things I need to in such a way that they have no doubts.
If I get my strength and fight back, my words can make it out of the bubble, and I will finally just break free.
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
08:37 AM
| Comments (6)
| Add Comment
Post contains 724 words, total size 4 kb.
September 20, 2005
Add on to the fact that it's three hours each way to get there on an amalgamation of tubes, trains, and automobiles (but not planes), and you can see the kind of day I've got in front of me.
Since my mind is so bouncy, my post is bouncy today, too.
******************************************************************
The weather is changing here-a cold chill is the undertone in the air, and the shorts are being put away for the year. Leaves are changing, plants are saying goodbye, and the dewy mornings hint that frost isn't too far away. Fall is finally in the air and I am delighted with it, I love Fall and the quiet melancholy of it. Above all, I have the deep and probing thoughts that mark Fall and tell me that it's time to kiss hello to the season.
Boots.
Oh my God, it's time for boots now.
Jeans tucked into boots, nice chunky riding boots, boho skirts with knee high boots, boots with heels, boots boots boots.
Boots'¦and shrugs.
Say it with me now: Welcome, Fall. I've fucking missed you.
******************************************************************
My team is used to me saying strange things. I have many expressions that get trotted out on a regular basis (one of them is 'Good job.'Â Did you know that's a very American thing to say? Turns out all of us Yanks run around shouting 'Good job'Â all the time, presumably while chugging Gatorade and wearing nylon jogging pants. I like to think it's indicative that we're all-supporting, a one-nation cheerleading crowd).
As I'm generally the only woman on a team full of testosterone, I often have to fend for myself. Sometimes we take breaks as the men need to 'go for a slash'Â, 'meet the urinal'Â (Note: in this country it's pronounced 'yer-EYE-null'Â. Sacrilege!) or have to 'dash to the loo'Â. I used to struggle with how I should phrase the same issue. In this country, you get the piss taken out of you if you call it a 'restroom'Â or a 'ladies' room'Â. But I despair of calling it the usual terms 'the toilet'Â or 'have to pee'Â in front of my team, so I reached into my years in the Deep South and came up with one that seems to be ok with my team.
When I have to go, I say I have to 'shake the dew off the lily'Â.
For some reason, this sends the men into fits of laughter every time.
******************************************************************
While on the tube yesterday I sat and watched people-I had dashed out of the house too quickly and had forgotten my book, so my iPod and the people around me kept me entertained.
There was a woman in a line green sweater and short blond hair. She had a choker of freshwater seed pearls around her neck, strung on a pale wire that disappeared against her skin. The tiny seed pearls looked like dancing shimmering points across the base of her throat, little iridescent jewels that seemed to hang transfixed to her skin, and I don't remember ever seeing a more beautiful necklace on anyone, ever.
******************************************************************
The Deep South has also contributed to my other new favorite expression. I'll use ones for a while before putting them in the freezer in my brain, to pull out and thaw and reuse at a later date. My current favorite is: 'Can I get an amen?'Â which is followed by me slapping the table.
Angus hates it.
I crack up every time I frog march that one out.
******************************************************************
Yesterday I went to lunch with my Australian friend. We try to meet up once a week, and when we do we gossip about work and try to blow off steam from the stress of deadlines. She's a riot, a very strong personality, and we get along great. Yesterday we nipped into Zara for a bit of browsing, and I wound up buying two shirts and a dress styled in a 1920's style (I call it my House of Eliot dress. I can't wait to wear T-bar strappy shoes with it and scary underpants beneath it. I just love that dress.)
My friend is great as she has a degree in fashion and fashion design. This means you can try anything on and she can see the flaws or advantages in it right away. It helps to have a Fashion Designer friend when you are self-conscious and shopping for clothes. We even often get adjoining dressing rooms and pass over the clothes to and fro, as we're basically the same size (albeit I am a few inches taller and have a shoulder width a Bolshevik would envy).
What I like most about shopping with her is we always use the pronoun 'we'Â while shopping. So if she sees a shirt she likes, she states: 'Ooh, we like that.'Â Or if she sees a skirt she likes, she'll finger the hem. 'I'm not sure if we like this,'Â she'll say. To which sometimes I reply: 'We like the fabric, but we don't like that bric-a-brac detail on the hem. That's pushing the boho envelope too far.'Â
It's nice to have a friend you can go shopping with and present a unified front with.
Fact of the matter is, it's nice to have a friend.
******************************************************************
I was standing in the queue for coffee and bought a bran muffin to eat for breakfast (this is unusual for me, I'm not that big on muffins). My mobile rings while I am standing there.
'Hello Helen,'Â the smooth voice of CEO's admin chimes. 'CEO would just like an update of where you are.'Â
'ÂRoger that.'Â I reply. 'Please tell CEO that I am in the queue and have just-I repeat, I have just-bought a muffin.'Â
'ÂEr'¦what?' comes the fuzzy reply.
'Standby'¦Ok,' I say, pretending the muffin counter is indeed part of a covert military operation. 'OK, muffin choice made. Bran instead of chocolate. Over.' I say tersely, ignoring the stares of the people around me.
'Um'¦Helen, I meant a project update of where you are.'Â
'OK. Why didn't you say so?'Â I say with a grin, and proceed to rattle it off.
At least I was amused anyway.
******************************************************************
Yesterday I walked back to the tube stop from my therapists'. As dusk huddled around and the streetlights came on, I pulled my Electric Bugaloo wrap tighter around me. Walking past some of the many Edwardian homes in that north London suburb, I passed a house with two box hedges in the front garden. There was a sizeable gap between the hedges and I stopped and watched a large spider that was working on its web that branched between the two hedges. The spider had a very round, apple-green body, and it tirelessly strung its web in that space, the perfect hiding place for unsuspecting insects.
I watched the spider for a bit, staring with amazement at the bright green of the spider's body.
I knew someone would come along and destroy the web, would freak out, or would kill the spider. I knew someone would, sometime.
I wish they wouldn't.
******************************************************************
Sarah McLachlan, I love you to bits and I'd do anything for you, but I just ran across your recording of 'Solsbury Hill'Â.
Seriously.
Even my most favorite singer in the whole world should know-you should never, ever take away from the Petey G.
I forgive you anyway. Just don't let it happen again.
******************************************************************
Yesterday I was home late-I had my therapy session and it was a long day, so my train pulled in to the station at around 9:00 at night. Angus had lined up a nice meal, candles lit all over the house, and drew me a bath and lit the bathroom with candlelight as well. He was incredibly kind and loving, and I really needed that.
And as I made my way on the walk bridge over the train tracks, having stepped off the train on my final leg to get home, I looked up and saw the big gold moon hanging behind a veil of haze. My breath was visible in the night air-the first time since summer ended-and I smiled, pleased to be home, pleased it was Fall, pleased to see Angus.
Just pleased.
******************************************************************
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
11:10 AM
| Comments (18)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1479 words, total size 9 kb.
September 19, 2005
And note to self: check ass before leaving home from now on, as it became patently clear when I caught a glimpse of myself in the tube window that the black lace of my boy shorts is showing underneath my pale orange skirt.
I will be in the Big City until late in the evening, as I have a late appointment with my nice new therapist, and I have a lot buzzing in my mind to talk to him about.
I am so tired I could die.
I am also taking the advice of those who suggested emails 'disappear'Â. My deleted items folder is about to be overwhelmed. I dialed in to my voicemail inbox and just deleted everything. It's an incredibly effective method for working, actually. Talk about catharsis.
So more from me tomorrow. In the meantime, I am sitting here bleeding fatigue out of my eyeballs. I am wearing a cute outfit, but I was freezing this morning and bought a cheap wrap which is the color of I Be Queen Sheba Purple. Together with the pale orange skirt, I am so working the Electric Bugaloo aspects today.
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
04:38 PM
| Comments (7)
| Add Comment
Post contains 280 words, total size 1 kb.
September 16, 2005
Wednesday we never got to finish at the IVF doctor's office as the IVF Doctor was running late, and we had an appointment to talk to a bank about a mortgage for the Blackberries. We had to rush off, not all issues done, and although I hoped we could get back to the hospital, it was not to be. Instead it was endless time spent filling in forms at the bank to get a mortgage.
We're in pretty good shape for that financially-we pay off our credit cards every month, we have a large and healthy savings account, we have no current debt other than Angus' current mortgage on Ovaltine and we have no red flags in our credit history.
The problems are that I basically have no credit in this country-as I have no loans out and have only been here for 18 months, I have no credit (and they don't count my monthly donations to the WSPA, Dogs' Trust, and the League Against Cruel Sports as credit. Some people have no heart) and that we have moved around a fair bit and both of us have foreign addresses in our home history within the past 5 years. Add on the fact that Angus has been in his new job for two weeks and we don't look like a good bet (however the bank doesn't seem to mind about our foreign addresses and they did note he'd been in his previous job for 20 years). Despite this, it all looks ok for a mortgage.
But Wednesday was rough for other reasons. The cat that Angus and his ex-wife had was put to sleep. They had to leave it with his Mum when they moved to Sweden, and they couldn't reclaim the cat after their son was born as he was wildly allergic to pet hair (and still is, but tends to be ok around my cats). We didn't take the cat back when we moved here as by then she'd spent most of her life with Angus' Mum, and so that was home. The cat was quite old-16-and when she was diagnosed with an inoperable malignant tumor she had to be put down.
And then Angus had word that a few things are not ok back in Sweden with his kids, and it's been many sleepless nights for him since then, as well as a great deal of depression. We are proceeding with caution, and trying to figure out what to do. Suffice to say, it's not a happy environment.
Work-wise, things are a whole new version of hell. Wednesday night the phone calls from work kept coming in-they continued in so late that it bothered Angus, and I felt like a deer in the headlights. The work is crippling lately-Tuesday I started work at 530 am and kept going until about 10:00 at night. On the train home from work and my therapist, I was hoping for a quiet moment, but last minute I was forced to join two conference calls-one on my mobile, one on my Blackberry, with my PC balanced on my knees.
I have over 300 unread emails-I had been trying to manage it-I'll keep it below 100 unread, I'll keep it below 200, I'll keep it...oh, fuck it. My voice mail count is now 28 waiting voice mails. People have taken to texting me as it's the best way to get an answer. Phone calls come in to late in the evening, and on average the seniors in the company are calling me around 10 times a day.
It got so bad on Wednesday that I had a minor breakdown. I was trying to manage a meeting in which my manager's manager started railroading some of my team and I kept trying to reel him in. My phone kept ringing on the side as we had people arriving for the meeting that I had to pick up from reception. Within 30 minutes I had 8 voice mails, my manager was shouting, people reached maximum stress, and I saw three 3MB mails marked "Immediate Attention-Urgent" come into my inbox one after another. It was all too much, and when James Brown's It's a Mans Mans Mans World ring tone on my phone rang again, I snapped.
Without thinking, I picked up my phone and threw it against the wall. With a blam! it hit the wall and I saw black plastic go flying.
Luckily, my beautiful phone survived, as I would have been gutted if it had broken (note to self: that's one durable little fucker). I also felt incredibly stupid for having snapped like that, as well as regretful that my team saw me break. The rest of the meeting went ok, I tried to lighten up and not show anyone that I was still stressed, but once I'd left, I got an awful lot of "Are you ok, can I do anything?" text messages.
No, you can't do anything but I wish to Christ you could. I have the CEO calling me. I have once again wound up in a position of being right in the line of fire for something the company's future "depends on" and I couldn't feel any less cool about it if I tried.
A small part of me wonders if I snapped because the bottle top had been opened by my therapist on Tuesday. He'd asked me what I thought my biggest issues were, and I told him that I'm an imposter amongst the living. That things hurt too much. That I can't figure out emotions. That I've spent years battling a river of rage.
And in talking to him, maybe I started opening the hatch to that rage, that rage which has boiled so deep and for so long.
So today I have conference calls throughout the day and ending in the evening. We need to see the solicitor about surveys for the new house. I have many mails of "urgent info" I have to put together, and my to-do list makes me break down and cry. I know I was busy before, but this? No one has the bandwidth for this. No one.
But what I'm going to do today is this-do most (but not all) of the calls. Write most (but not all) of the mails. Take a bath. Finish reading The Historian. See the solicitor. Spend time making sure Angus knows I love him and am grateful for his support. Buy the new Sims expansion pack.
And I'm going to try to just breathe and not drown in it all.
My week is over-high points include the house of our dreams, a great therapist, continuing the IVF path and a candle sputtering out in the memory of my babies.
Low points include interrupted IVF visit, Angus' troubles with his home, the death of his cat, the reminder of the loss of my babies and so much work I can't believe it.
At least I changed my ring tone, so I am much less likely to bung it against a wall. The American Beauty theme now pipes out of it, and it's much more relaxing. I have also given in to the lock-yourself-in-the-bathroom-for-crying-jag. After all, there is crying in baseball.
Thank God it's Friday has never had a truer meaning for me. It's T minus 8 hours to drinking. Anyone want to raise a glass with me?
-H.
PS-This and this made me further cry like a baby. Please, if you haven't, please donate to the ASPCA or HSUS. There's a link on my sidebar-time is running is running out.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
10:47 AM
| Comments (14)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1315 words, total size 7 kb.
September 15, 2005
Today is your third birthday. You're three today, isn't that amazing? I can't take it in that so much time has passed, and yet absolutely time has passed, and you always remain something I care so much about.
Coincidentally, today is also my father's birthday-he would be your grandpa. Your grandpa and I are closer now than we have ever been in my 31 years, and I have no doubt that he would be sending you loads of presents today and a card full of cash, because that's what he does. I would have liked to have pictures of you holding hands with your grandpa when we would have visited him, holding hands as you wobble your way down Pike's Market. He hasn't always been good with children, but he has changed a lot, and he would love you nearly as much as I do.
Angus' nieces are three, and when I watch them I at last know where you would be in life. You would wake up sleepy in the morning, and kick the day off with some milk. You're using a large, cartoonish knife and fork to eat your meals. You have a sippy cup instead of a bottle. You have your own style, and know what clothes you like and don't like. And oh my gosh, you're potty trained! But let's give me more than 60 seconds notice that you do actually have to go to the bathroom before going, ok? Oh don't worry-I'm not angry darlings.
I promise.
I see you both perfectly, as though you were here. You're a girl and a boy, and I am so sure of that I would bet my life on it. My sweet daughter, you have light brown hair that goes into ringlets and big brown eyes, the Japanese slant just tweaking the very corners of them. You have a kind smile but you are much too stubborn, and you run through tights so fast I'm tempted to keep you in bobby socks forever. You give love in giant fits and bursts and when you explode with kisses I always try to be right there.
My darling boy, you have ash blond hair like your biological father had. You have brown eyes with short lashes, and you are a rather serious little boy. You watch the world a lot and take things in, you ask questions and try to absorb. I love watching you and wondering what's going on in your mind, and if and when some of your questions will come back. Sometimes, I think you know so much more about everything than I do, and I learn from you everyday.
I see you both playing with Angus' nieces too. There are two of them that are 3, and I know they would love playing with you. I see you with them in Angus' Mum's tea house in the back garden, built especially for grandbabies that like to be in their own little tea house. I see you laughing and playing with them, and I see Angus' Mum fussing over you the same as she does over her biological grandbabies.
I miss you, Egg and Bacon. I miss you all the time. I can't believe you were once a part of me and then were gone, and even though you are gone I continue to love you and remember you. Angus and I are seeing a doctor again to try to have a baby, and when I go there and see the pictures of the newborns on the walls I think of you two, and wish you were here so badly it makes me ache. If you get a chance, maybe you can go visit the Baby Pool and try to decide who it is you want for a brother or sister, and maybe together we can make it happen. They will never, ever replace you-you two are in my heart until I die, and even then I won't let go of you.
I know that you are somewhere beautiful and wonderful, maybe more fun than watching Tweenies on the TV while decked out in your pajamas with me, more lovely than the garden with the cats surrounded by my sweet peas growing riot. I hope that my grandfather (your great-grandpa) is there watching out for you. He doesn't say much, but his love is deep inside of him, part of his backbone and his strength. When you're older you'll meet a nice man named Kim-he's not good with children unless they're old enough for adventure, so you'll meet him when it's time to go white water rafting in heaven.
This morning I would have gone into your rooms and welcomed you from your tiny beds with kisses and cuddles. I would laugh and tickle you and tell you Happy Birthday, and we would talk about the birthday party you would have on Saturday. And even though Angus and I both despair of birthday parties, we'd have the video camera out and the digital camera would be whirring away. You'd have whatever dinner you wanted tonight, and I would spend my day thinking: My God, my babies are three. They're growing so fast I can't believe it.
Today I will go into work and work. I will do my usual household chores and I will have my conference calls. I will spend an ordinary day, and I will be missing you even more than I usually do, and I will try to see you laughing and giggling around me, trying to pick up Maggie or snuggling with a worn-out stuffed animal at nap time.
So happy third birthday, my beautiful babies. I love you so much. Mommy is being very silly and is sitting here typing and crying a river for you two, and I'm crying because I love you and I miss you and I hold you as deeply in my heart as anything ever could be.
I wish you were here so much. I wish my pregnancy had gone to term and I could have seen your faces, held you, and started our lives together. But I promise you I'm not angry, I could never be angry with you, and so on your birthday I will light candles for you both and tell you only this-
A mother's love can start from day one.
And for some it never goes away.
Happy birthday, and I love you.
Love,
Mommy
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
07:17 AM
| Comments (15)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1081 words, total size 6 kb.
September 14, 2005
'Helen?'Â he asks, smiling.
'Hi Colin.'Â I reply, smiling back.
I walk into a house smelling of cooking food in a kitchen to the side. Looking around, it's clear it's a house that is shared by many working-type folk, and we make our way up two flights of stairs to a lovely, bright loft extension of pale wood and pale brick and pale light. There are a number of thick black couches spread about, and all of the furniture is of the pale Scandinavian pine variety.
We sit down and talk about the usual things-my name, my age, what I do. What happened that broken January night, and the long dark winter of the unwashed and uncaring, where I met depression and shook its hand before allowing it to run me over like a snowplow. I tell him only bare fragments of me, the basic parts I remember. I tell him how I can step out of myself and watch myself when I am in times of stress or pain. I tell him I have done it often, and sometimes still do.
He tells me it's a basic defensive action, one of the most basic in fact, a defense action brought out of the need to survive.
I tell him its highly effective, but if he can help me get rid of it, it's something I won't miss.
He uses that word a lot. Survive. He tells me a survivor, which I heard in Sweden as well, but I don't think that survival is a choice. It's just what one does.
I tell him it's good he has so many clocks in the room. I have to know the time. Every room has to have a clock, and I have to always be conscious of the time. I check the clock constantly, and when he asks me why I tell him I don't like to overstay my welcome, I never like overstaying my welcome.
We sit there and talk about little pieces of me, and in the end we agree to meet up 6 more times, and after those 6 times we can see if I feel it's helping me or not. If it is, we will continue. Based on the discussion we had, I can't see that it won't be helping me.
I have found my therapist.
In continuing with the Remarkable Week for 2005, today is yet another big day. Just after lunch Angus and I are trekking to the hospital to meet our doctor, to meet the man that will manage my hormones, will watch my ovaries blossom and grow with eggs. This man will set up a schedule with us, he will start medical tests to make sure I am fit to donate eggs and to have IVF. This man is in the driver's seat for our baby's future.
And once again, I am nervous.
We've met him before-we didn't care too much for him personality-wise but he is damn clever, has been doing IVF since it's inception in 1980, and has fantastic statistics. Maybe bedside manners can be overlooked. Maybe it's not important that he's not the kind of guy you'd want to have a beer with, it's better that he's the kind of guy you want deciding if your meds should be upped or not.
Angus feels uncomfortable with the cold clinicalness of IVF, and I can understand that-it must be so much better heading to bed with your loved one and having a roll in the hay to get from Step 1 to Baby. It maybe is a little strange knowing the exact moment you conceived, as opposed to looking at each other across a table and exclaiming 'Oh my God, it was that night we were in Bristol, that one with the Mexican food and too much tequila!'Â But seeing it all on paper somehow eases my mind-if I can touch a paper schedule, it's as though we're one step closer somehow.
Today we are going back to that hospital, back to that quiet wing with the walls full of newborn baby pictures (taunt us or motivate us? Why have all these pictures, do they really think it will help?) I hope that this visit goes better than our last one, I think we see that we need to watch and support each other through this ultimately frightening process.
I have not filled out that sheet of paper that my donated eggs' recipient and baby will receive. I am still unsure of what to say, and something in me tells me this may be the most important thing I ever write ever. I want it to be right, I want it to be something that comforts the family and tells them that the woman behind the sheet of paper wishes them a long, happy, beautiful life.
Last night Angus woke me and we spent a while making love in the darkness of the night. As a result, today I feel stronger and better about staring down the dragons. Maybe it's knowing I have a therapist that I can talk to. Maybe it's knowing I'm one step closer to getting eggs donated and the family of my dreams with the one boy that I want to grow old with (you, and the house, and the duck. Oh yes, darling. I'm getting a duck.) Maybe it's jus the Baby Steps to the Remarkable Week have me on some kind of path that I stare at with Willy Wonka Wonder.
As I left my therapist's (it's nice to say that, actually. 'My therapist'Â. It feels pretty fucking good to say that.) yesterday he called after me. 'You'll have to let me manage the time from now on, Helen.'Â
I smile and look over my shoulder. 'One trust issue at a time, Doc. Ok?'Â
-H.
PS-Many thanks to my kind and sweet anonymous benefactor-this lovely book arrived in the post. It's taken me ages to read, simply because I stare at the pages in absolute awe. Thank you.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
10:05 AM
| Comments (12)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1132 words, total size 6 kb.
September 13, 2005
And some weeks are revolutionary. Some weeks stand out in the mind, and even get marked in the internal yearbook, where a picture perfect memory is logged next to a smiling photo, in between the words '2 Cool 2 Be 4-Gotten'Â and 'Friends Forever!'Â and a signature next to someone you don't even remember. Occasionally, the baby steps are interrupted by giant progress, which takes you from training wheels to High School graduation in the space of 7 days.
This week is shaping up to be one of those weeks.
It's a Big Step Day today, another move forward, and yet it also seems like a Baby Step. Since I had a pencil and took those tests on a cold February morning, it has been a part of me, as much a part of me as learning how to blow bubbles or finding out I am double-jointed. Sometimes it is never very far away from me the fact that inside my mind, I am not 100%, and other times I wear it like a quilt I have knit myself-I know every patch, and I remember every stitch.
Many years ago while living in Cary, NC, I tried to see a therapist. He was a short man with a wiry frame, and he sat in an armchair that had one top corner slightly threading. I was sent to see him as I was nearly committed, and in being nearly committed I freaked out. When I freaked out, they agreed I could be an outpatient, and on day one I had to attend a group therapy session.
Group therapy, for someone who has never, ever spoken of their problems ever, is a whole new version of hell.
I sobbed and sobbed, and a psychiatric nurse kindly took me to another room and talked to me. There, I told her that I had never in my life spoken to anyone about my problems, that one just didn't do that where I was from, where you sucked it up and took it and you never ever told anyone what was inside EVER. I remember her eyes-they were large and brown, and had kind lines to the side. She had too little mascara, and her hands were plump. I know this, as when she hugged me I felt like she could understand, that those plump hands might protect anyone she loved.
I was sent to the little man, but I was already warned off by my group therapy experience. I couldn't talk to him about anything more than the banal, and when I moved away from NC it was without leaving a single drop of my soul on that carpet. Can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man.
In Sweden, the very basic instinct to survive took over. I had an armchair psychiatrist named Dave, a nice man with a nice face who listened and, before I left, started to take my puzzle pieces and build a border. The whole middle was still missing, there were puzzle pieces scattered to every fucking corner of my mind, but he would work on it with me.
I believed him. I talked to him and I never lied to him, and even though I worried the gremlins from my past would come and shred me to bits for talking, I knew that the consequences of not talking were even more dire. I would rather be shredded than not be.
And I started writing my blog as a way of continuing to force myself to talk.
And I talked to Angus as a way of trying to reach out and let my fingers find another human being.
And I started to break, and in breaking, I would heal.
But then I lost my job, I lost my house, I lost my world, and I jumped and moved into my New Life. My New Life, while equipped with many fantastic sparklies and beautiful things that capture me completely, is lacking one thing-I am only a border of a puzzle. I need someone to help me on the other thousand pieces.
I received a card from a friend of Angus' last week. It was a business card, a dual-sided business card, with one side in English and one side in Swedish. I read both sides, and there it was-a psychotherapist who spends half his time in Stockholm, half his time in London.
A psychotherapist with access to my medical records in Sweden, who is also located here. A psychotherapist who wouldn't make me retake all those tests, and those tests can make even he sanest person feel crazy. A psychotherapist who will be in country part of the week, which is ok as my fucking schedule couldn't allow for meeting him more than that.
I called the psychotherapist.
'My name is Helen.'Â I tell him. 'I need someone to talk to.'Â
'How can I help, Helen?'Â He says kindly. He is much older from the sound of his voice, and has a cut-glass English accent.
'I was seeing a psychotherapist in Stockholm. The kommun paid for me to see him twice a week, I was very ill. I don't know that I am any better now, although daily living is much easier.'Â
He was quiet.
'I am not good at this, I am not good at talking to people, but I swear if you will take me on I will try to never lie to you. I am good at lying to people who may find out my secrets, but I need to let them all out.'Â
'ÂHow about we meet and see if I can help you?'Â he asks kindly.
My heart is beating fast. 'Can you help people with BPD?'Â I ask him softly.
'Some of my patients have BPD. It's not unknown to me. I help people that have had a major break.'Â
I nod, and look at the desk. 'I have tried to commit suicide. I have tried it 3 times. I think it's fair to say I have broken. Don't worry-I'm not going to try again. I'm interested in living, but that doesn't mean I am all better now.'Â
'ÂThank you for trusting me with that. I know it must be hard to talk about.'Â He replies gently.
And I am sold. We book an appointment, and so later on today after my morning meetings I am making my way to northwest London to talk to the nice, gentle man about my puzzle pieces. I know things don't happen overnight, I know the mending and sewing will take years.
But I am planning on living, and in living, I have the time it's going to take.
Baby steps to being healthy. Baby steps to talking. Baby steps to letting go.
I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared.
Hopeful.
And scared.
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
09:01 AM
| Comments (22)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1236 words, total size 7 kb.
September 12, 2005
You might miss something you were meant to find if you don't pay attention.
A sign can be in many forms, it can come in many ways. It can be a flurry of rose petals that dance down the face and light up the night. It can be a ticket mysteriously appearing in the mail. It can come from a broken down car in the right broken down place at the right broken down time. It can come from a man holding your hand as you cross a busy Bangkok street, it can be the arrival of two furry black cats that heal a hole in your heart.
I found a sign last week on the train. I was sitting in my seat doing some work and I kept seeing a reflection in the window. One row over, something was sitting abandoned, so I got up to see what it was. Sitting there on the row of seats was an enormous Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory posterboard, the one of his letter to the world (Dear People of the World...). It now resides in my kitchen. It was a sign.
Of course, it was a literal sign. There are other non-literal signs. In the early days of Angus, I phoned him one day. We were across oceans from each other, but at that exact moment we were both in book stores. And we had literally just bought each other something, which when we swapped presents we found we had both bought each other one of those cheap plastic snowglobes of the countries we were in at the time. Mine still resides on my windowsill, his had an accident and he has a replacement for it, as I went back to that country another time.
And then sometimes a sign can take a different form. Sometimes it can be something much more tangible, sometimes it can be something that takes you where you need to be, if only you can understand the sign.
Sometimes, it takes the form of a letter.
On Friday we were both working from home, as we can sometimes do now since Angus started his new job last Monday. It's awkward, as we only have one study, and we desperately need more room but can't move until the house in Ovaltine is sold. In the middle of conference calls, Angus sneaks upstairs with a cup of coffee to talk to me.
"The estate agent just rang." he says, running a hand through his hair. "We've had an offer on Ovaltine."
I feel my mouth dry up in excitement. "And?"
"Well, it's about 13k less than asking. I told him I'd think about it." he says, his brow furrowed.
I nod, my heart in my mouth. That house is a constant source of depression and worry, we both just want that to go away. I get back on more conference calls, and then I hear a satisfying thunk of the post arriving on the porch.
I hang up, finished with my call. "Anything interesting?" I call down.
Angus comes up the stairs, looking puzzled. "Potentially. It's the strangest thing..." he says, quietly. He holds up an enormous white envelope that he has torn into, which was sent through the post but is missing his address on it. Somehow, the mail made it to him with just his name only, the postman must've figured out where he lived. He looks at me.
"This post made it to me somehow, even though my address isn't on it." he says, smiling. "And look what it is."
And he pulls out a brochure of that house, that dream house that we bid on twice and lost twice. The last time it disappeared off the market it was mid-June, and my heart crashed and burned. I have thought of that house many, many times since, and so has Angus.
And on the day that we receive a bid on Ovaltine, somehow through the post a brochure comes through. That house is back on the market for sale.
It's a sign.
We called the estate agents and accepted the offer on Ovaltine. Don't get too excited just yet-there's much, much more to come. Contracts to sign, surveys to be done, finances to arrange. The whole deal could tumble at a moment's notice, but we have a deal, and now the house is listed as "Offer Agreed".
Then we called the estate agent for the new house. I blew off conference calls just to go see it with Angus, hanging up my mobile phone on them while driving, my heart beating and my lungs bursting. We pull up to it, and there it is.
The house I love. "It's a sign." I breathe.
"I don't believe in signs." Angus retorts. "But, it is strange how on the same day we finally get an offer on Ovaltine this comes in, and it is strange that the letter found our house somehow, even without the address on it...Look, let's not jinx it, ok? Don't start hoping too much!"
Built in 1914, on an enormous patch of land, it's one of those English specialties that doesn't even have a house number. It's called The Blackberries, and is located in a town 5 miles away from here, a town that sounds like a winding and beautiful ABC evening soap opera. We tour it, and as usual there are the owner's two loping golden retrievers, the fish pond, the greenhouse, the kitchen we could tear out and rebuild, the bedrooms that need updating, the space for the conservatory we will put in and the extensions we can build on, the gigantic sculpted gardens and the quiet of the blood coursing through our bodies, begging for the house.
It is just as wonderful and perfect as I remembered it.
I look at the house and see Maggie and Mumin in the back garden. I see a hammock under the arbor, by the ancient apple tree. I would have a duck for my fish pond, whom I will call Wilbur. There will be a dog loping through the trees, settling with a sigh at my feet. Angus will be nearby, a gin and tonic at hand. I don't have the heart yet to imagine a baby monitor next to me, that's one dream too far, but I can imagine up to it.
We put in an offer on it, contingent on the tricky details of Ovaltine being settled (which is very tricky indeed, as house sales fall apart all the time). We go home and have rampant sex in the kitchen and living room. We drink a bottle of champagne.
And Saturday morning, we found out that we have won The Blackberries.
-H.
PS-Angus has requested that we not jinx it if I do blog about it, so whatever you do, let's not jinx it. If you want to leave a comment, make sure it isn't about houses 
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
08:16 AM
| Comments (18)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1263 words, total size 7 kb.
September 09, 2005
As a child, I had to take those Iowa tests. I remember a few times that I took the tests they called my mother-I had apparently skipped the logic and math tests, could I retake them? The truth is, I hadn't skipped them at all-I had just managed to beat the odds of even getting some of the multiple-choice questions wrong, and I managed to severely fuck it all up.
This was repeated by my abyssmal Math SAT score.
Luckily, my English/Verbal SAT score was a perfect 800. At least I would get the chance for some higher learning, as long as it was of the language variety. The only equation I have needed in my life is Math=Bad.
I used to love those long essay questions on exams. I loved those hallowed words uttered by the teacher: "Class, get your pens out, get ready for a Compare and Contrast Essay." Give me a pen anyday, I can talk my way out of a paper bag. I used to delight on essay questions (opening paragraph to lay out the structure of the next three defense paragraphs. Fifth and final paragraph is the conclusion to tie the previous three together. Throw in a literary quote to get the teacher's panties wet. Smile and put the pen down.) I'm not good at much, but I was good at essay questions.
So yesterday, it occured to me that all the folk who say that these type of essay questions are irrelevant to real life should take it back. I present you with a new one-Compare and contrast, class-Agony or Ecstasy?
Yesterday I went to yoga class. I hadn't been to yoga since before going to Egypt, as last week Melissa and Jeff were over. I was looking forward to it and really pleased to be going.
Walking in to the room I saw with a groan that Reena is already there. The bad news is she was there and already acting like the High Preistess of Yoga. The good news is in the two weeks I was gone it appeared she'd put on about 10 pounds (don't lecture me about karma! I know, I know!) With a weary sigh, I set up my mat. The fabulous instructor comes in with a smile, and we get started.
Now, Reena goes to a yoga class every damn day in locations all over the county. She is part of the Secret Yoga Club, of folks that attend as many bendy classes as possible. As such, she's made a bet with someone that she will do the splits by Christmas. So naturally, she requests that we do them every fucking yoga class.
The first time she requested it, the instructor looked around. "Can anyone do the splits?"
I can do them with one leg out to either side of me-something that used to impress on date night-but I can't do them the way that yoga wants them, which is one leg straight out and one leg straight behind. The instructor looks at me. "Were you never a cheerleader?" she asks.
Oh sure. I mean, since I'm an American, I obviously must've been a cheerleader. I mean, I used to twirl flaming batons and wear sparklers in my hair while doing the splits as well. The truth is, I never have been a cheerleader, having failed the only tryout I attended (I'm not sure if it was my complete lack of grace that saw me not get accepted, or if it was the fact that I couldn't do the splits. Well that, or else it could have been the raging case of pink eye that I had when it was audition time.)
Now doing the splits has been making me angry. First we try it with the right leg forward, and then, just for the extra torture, we switch and have the left leg forward. It's agonizing and painful work, and I find that-not unlike smacking my head into something-trying to do these splits makes me angry. Really angry. Probably because they fucking hurt and because we're doing them because my karmic nemesis has requested it.
So we kick it off. Stretch and work for it, with the instructor and Reena talking constantly. Reena is pushing and pulling her muscles as hard as she can, the rest of the class gamely going along. I push my right leg as far forward as I can and I vow after today I will never, ever again try to do the splits.
And suddenly I look down, and I am doing them.
I am doing the splits.
"Well done, Helen!" crows the instructor. The class turns to look at me, and they smile widely. I am doing the splits. My right leg is straight out front, and my left leg is behind me. My crotch is squarely on the floor.
Reena shoots me a look of pure hatred.
I smile back. I am doing the splits, you bitch. I've met your Christmas deadline. Hah! And just for measure, I lean forward over my right leg and grab my flexed foot with my hand.
The instructor asks us to swap feet, and lo and behold, I can also do the splits with the left leg forward. Reena, red-faced and sweating, has her crotch quivering about one foot off the ground. I smile serenely at her.
I hate you, her expression rages.
My legs are more bendy than yours, my smile says sweetly. I can do the splits. I am bendy. Soon, I may be able to service my own beaver, and when I do that, nirvana is just a stone's throw away.
The teacher once again tells me that I am doing great, and adds in that she can't do the splits herself. I feel one with the Buddha, I am the Lotus. I can do the fucking splits. I am one with the feeling of Ecstasy.
Next, she asks us to sit down with our left leg straight out. We bend our right knee and have to hold it up, and pull it over our head so that our leg is actually behind our head. Fucking Gumby can't even do this business, and here we are giving it a try.
I shake my head and laugh with the rest of the class as we listen incredulously to what we have to do. We sit down and give it a try. As I lift my right leg to put it over my head, I realize that I am feeling pretty flexible. I am feeling ok in my hips. I lift my leg higher...and higher...and it goes over my head and behind my neck!
"Congratulations, Helen!" shouts the teacher. "Well done!" Reena looks like she may be cutting my brake line sometime in the near future, the class looks amazed, and at that exact moment, one leg behind my head and my body exposed to the world, I break my one cardinal rule, my one barrier between my world and my phobias, the one thing I vowed I would never do...
...and I fart.
I become the temperature of the sun in Agony. I am utterly horrified and mortified, rivers of shame the color of my beet red face. No one seems to mind, but there's no way they missed it-it was of the high, squeaking, nature that one knows is either a tire deflating or rectal gas, and no great shakes which one this was. I whisper a horrified "Excuse me." and put my leg down. When we swap legs I am not as flexible, but then again every muscle is holding my sphincter in as tight as possible.
I have to face these guys again tomorrow, but I guarantee you it will be a legume-free diet beforehand.
Class, compare and contrast-Agony or Ecstasy?
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
10:48 AM
| Comments (25)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1393 words, total size 7 kb.
September 08, 2005
As we reach the train station, a man comes racing up to me. Dressed head to toe in black, and with a small cut on the side of his head, his piercing blue eyes look directly into mine. "I need your help, it's a matter of national security."
I grab my bag and as we jump off the trains silently swooshing doors, we land on the train platform. His long dark jacket flows behind him as we run down the concrete platform, one of his arms holding the top of my arm. I see on his waistband is a slick dark black gun. I hate guns, I really, really hate guns...but good lord does he look sexy with it. He sees me looking at his gun, and shaking his dark hair out of his eyes he takes his free hand and flashes an MI6 badge at me, the light glistening of the manly picture of him on it.
Oooooh. An authority figure. Authority figures make me wet.
As we run out of Waterloo Station (thank God I wore my cute strappy shoes that are also easy to run in), we head to a bridge bypass. Stepping out of the line of sight, he looks severely at me.
"I need your help. You'll just have to trust me." he rasps. He has a cut-glass English accent, and the bridge of his nose is slightly bent. "Rugby accident." he says.
"What?" I reply stupidly.
"My nose. I broke it in a rugby game." He says.
"How did you know I-"
"Women always ask." he replies gravely. "My God you have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Are those hazel, or more of a forest-green color?"
"Depends on what I am wearing," I reply, shifting from foot to foot. "I'd go with forest-green."
He pulls his right arm out of his jacket, and I see a gaping wound sliced through the thick throbbing bicep. "I need your help. I need to get this wound closed, or else the fate of the Western World will be impacted."
"Impacted by your wound? Are you infected with some kind of fucked-up designer virus or someting?" I ask, staring at the crusty blood on his shoulder and cringing.
"No, I need to get word to the Prime Minister that Russia has poisoned the country's yogurt supply with nitrous oxide."
"Nitrous oxide?" I ask, removing a Radisson sewing kit I keep in my bag. I search my brain for the chemisty class info I nearly failed. "Isn't that laughing gas?"
He looks at me, probing me with his ice blue eyes. "This is England. Our humor is composed of irony and self-deprecation. Do you realize how it will bring our culture down if we try to impose any other kind of humor?"
Fair point. That'll be as catastrophic as a Steve Coogan-Courtney Love illegitimate child. Oops.
I sew up his arm. "The Russians. How passé . The Cold War is so over. Usually it's the English that are the Hollywood stereotypical bad guys."
He regards me coolly, and I decide to shut my gob.
"How long have you been a spy?" I ask.
"Too long." he says bitterly, looking away. "I used to be a fireman, but I felt protecting Queen and Country was of higher importance than rescuing kittens from fire-licked buildings."
I feel my knees go out from under me.
"My name is Helen," I say. I lick my lips and hope my BeneFit lipgloss is still in place.
"My name is James Taylor." he says, grimacing as the thread flies through his flesh. "And if you mention the singer, I'm going to have to pull my gun on you. I hate his fucking music."
Touchy. I finish up, and the sleeve of my flouncy dress slides down my shoulder. I lick my lips as James' fingers take hold of the sleeve and glides it over my shoulder. His eyes focus on my lips. "Thank you," he whispers, and moves in for a kiss.
"Wait!" I whisper urgently. "I have a boyfriend."
"You could die laughing tomorrow." James says urgently. "He'd want you to destroy your relationship by kissing a dodgy spy under a bridge. Besides...you love authority figures."
"Especially firemen!" I breathe, as he sweeps me in for a deep kiss that rocks my tonsils (or at least where my tonsils used to be, as I had them removed when I was 20).
A screaming motorcycle comes around the corner, and a leather-clad man whips off his helmet and points a gun at us. He has a thick, Slavic-looking face. He shouts something in hostile-Russian. James looks desperately at me.
I reach down into my schooling and shout something back at the man in Russian. The Russian looks shocked, and he shakes his head and starts to get off his bike. As he swings his leg over, his leather catches and he diverts his attention long enough to see why he's caught. In that instant, I throw a small object at him, and he combusts instantly in a fireball as his highly-polished leather explodes with high flammibility.
"You shouldn't wear leather!" I shout at the burning figure. "It's morally wrong and socially irresponsible, asshole!"
James looks at me. "What was that?"
"It was a bomb." I say, breathily. "I happened to have an extra tube of Juicy lip gloss, a rubber band, a spare mobile phone battery and a paper clip. I made a homemade bomb out of it."
"You're like McGuyver." he says with admiration.
"You should see my origami, baby." I reply, looking at him through lowered lashes.
"How did you know Russian?" he asks as we start to walk back to Waterloo.
"I took it in university." I say, hoisting my bag back over my shoulder and pleased I am wearing my best knickers.
"What did you say to him?"
"I said 'Hello, my name is Helen. I studied Russian in university. Someone has stolen my umbrella!'"
James stares at me.
"Hey, Russian is hard!" I say irritably. "That's all I remember! You're a fucking spy, you learn the language!"
We reach Waterloo, and a fleet of police cars come screaming up to us. "James!" shouts one figure, a Scot with thick red bushy hair. "Thank God ye're alive! We didna' know if ye would make it in time!"
"I always come just in time." James said, looking at me, and I feel my knickers gush. "Thank you, Helen. You've saved English humor for all time."
"Hmm...Is that a good thing?" I wonder out loud.
James shoots a look at me. I grin weakly. "You're a fantastic woman, Helen." he says, rubbing one finger on my lip. "If only I weren't in Her Majesty's Service, I would...."
"Oh sure. If only I had a nickel for every time I've heard that one!" I retort, and tucking my bag higher on my shoulder, I walk away, and I know that as I walk, I am leaving a romantic and exciting relationship that would have taken me all over the world and put me in dangerous situations that would always require urgent but quiet multi-orgasmic sex.
I also know he's watching my ass as I leave.
Sighing, I look out the window as we pull into Waterloo. I throw away my crumpled cardboard cup that had the first of many cups of coffee I would go through that day. I grab my heavy briefcase and my projector, and I try to ignore my mobile phone, which has been ringing since aout 730 am, as I head into a Dream Job office for a full day of meetings.
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
09:04 AM
| Comments (11)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1387 words, total size 8 kb.
September 07, 2005
The kids have gone back to school as well. There are the usual throngs of kids holding their Mums' hands, dressed in a pleated gray skirt and short jaunty tie. I remember what it was like to go back to school, that smell of pencil erasers and sawdust, the sound of chairs scraping the floor and the hubbub of kids filing through the hallways. Autumn is a season I can get behind, to me it rings bells of learning something new, of being part of a larger group, of beginning.
Yesterday my manager called me. Helen, he told me, I am taking off on leave on Thursday, instead of two weeks from now. I'm going away and I won't be back until the first week of October. You won't be able to be interviewed for the senior position until I get back, so sorry about that. You're in charge of everything, not just your project, and oh by the way I've taken on a few more projects that you need to manage as well while I'm away.
Oh good. Because I'm not already working over 12 hours a day, or anything like that. I totally have time to take on any pet projects you may have, and I would just love to take on more dealing with my extra £8 a month I've been rewarded with! I can handle my own project (and I relish doing so while he's away), but taking on anything more is just impossible. I simply don't have the bandwidth.
As a cue, my senior manager has taken to calling me several times a day to check on things, to set up discussions. Sometimes he calls me just to tell me that he tried to get a hold of my manager, he couldn't reach him, do you know where he is, Helen? To which I usually tell him that I'm not his secretary, I have no idea where he is, why doesn't he leave him a message and maybe he'll hear back?
Helen, my manager said on the phone yesterday, Don't let them break you. They are going to try. Don't let them tear you down, girl.
I look out the window of the rocking train. They won't tear me down. I've passed that stage of my life, my job is not who I am, but it is something that I want to do, and I want to do it well. The mist on the fields is burning off in the morning sun, the sky tinged with jet streams from airliners flying overhead. I'm sat in First Class as my PC was dead (and First Class has power sockets, while cattle class get punished with dead PCs. At least they're not throwing us the hard tack and swill.) and I had minutes of meetings to address, slides to create, action points to close and mails to read. I have several hundred unread emails, and I seem to be making no progress on them whatsoever. I'm in a carriage loaded with businessmen, some of them in shiny suits that make me want to tell them that the shiny suit look is over, that naugahyde is out, too many naugas had to die.
I've only just come back from holiday and already I'm exhausted. My team are exhausted. We have shifts running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week just to get things going as fast as possible. Some of my team members have relationships falling apart. There has been more than one nervous breakdown. Things were supposed to get easier, only it seems like the workload has tripled from an already crippling pace. I think back to all of the hours we slept in Egypt and wish I could sleep all those hours all over again.
So here I am, armed with my briefcase and my projector. As an added bonus, I have yet another baby present for yet another baby that has been born to yet another project manager on my project. I'm old hat at this baby present business now, I have it down to an art form. It seems my project is good for many things-it's good for careers. It's good for stress. It's good for fucking everyone but me getting pregnant.
I watch the scenery out the window and think about Fall, and I think about the feel of iron-tasting monkey bars under my hands. I feel the light Lucite of lunch trays in my hands, holding food that I don't remember eating but maybe that's for the best anyway. I remember the saliva-gathering taste of biting a slender number 2 pencil between my teeth, and I recall the feel of opening that cardboard pencil box, whose flimsy cardboard hinge would inevitably break.
It's Fall and sooner or later we all go back to school, only sometimes we go back to school to learn just what it is we are made of.
As long as its not naughahyde, I'll be fine.
-H.
PS-On my sidebar I've got a link to donate to the ASPCA for Hurricane Katrina relief. I've donated people money, and animal money. The animal money? It continues to make me cry like a baby. Please consider donating to the ASPCA, or else to here: http://katrinafoundpets.com.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
08:47 AM
| Comments (6)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1042 words, total size 6 kb.
September 05, 2005
- Rugged, quiet durable man
- Woman in an unsatisfying relationship, whose attentions are devoted to something else to get through the days
- Unsatisfied Woman meets Rugged Man
- Rugged Man and Unsatisfied Woman hook up
- Unsatisfied Woman feels torn, but ultimately returns to unhappy relationship due to a sense of obligation, leaving Rugged Man to spend the rest of his life mending fences or whatever the fuck Rugged Men do.
This pattern is repeated in most sappy chick films. Bridges of Madison County is another good example. The people decide to continue their lives, lives in which the woman is ultimately responsible for something that means she has to live that life, and the man is a nomad, live-off-the-land kind of guy. I sit there on the couch, drinking a gin and tonic and nursing the beginnings of one hell of a cold, and I think: What a stupid movie. Why can't the woman be the live-off-the-land, wild exotic creature, for once, instead of the Unsatisfied Woman? Why is it always the man that gets to be the one with the luck of the nomad?
And then I thought about it, and wondered why I thought that.
In these films, why is it that the woman has to be the one to "sacrifice her heart", where the man is all calm and stoic, all I-love-you-but-life-as-a-National-Geographic-photographer-sure-is-nifty. Why is it that the woman's life pales in comparison to the delights that the man gets to lead? Why is it that the Unsatisfied Woman has to be the one who is unsatisfied?
I thought about it even more when they asked the Kristin Scott Thomas character, the one with the cut-glass English accent and the bad haircut, where she was from. Her response was vague-she was from everywhere and nowhere, really. The asker of the intrusive question then smiled and said maybe she's the kind of person that has a home on the inside, that a home on the outside isn't really the point.
And the stupid movie then made some stupid sense.
Is the Unsatisfied Woman in these films unsatisfied because there is a place where she stays, where she feels she belongs? Is she Unsatisfied because the confines of a home are such a deep and wonderful tie that she's willing to accept anything that comes her way-a perfunctory marriage with a perfunctory kitchen and perfunctory kids? Is she Unsatisfied because she has the home of her dreams, only the rest of the Willy Wonka package isn't quite up to par?
The "home on the inside" comment hit home a bit for me. Ask any kid who grew up in the military, and they'll tell you they're not really from anywhere. When you move every 2-4 years, it's hard to be a From. My great-grandparents were Froms-they lived in Des Moines all their live, and spent their entire married life in one house. Angus is a From, he lived in one house until he was an adult, and some of his friends he has known since he was in short pants, wandering into classrooms with mischief on their minds. He is a From. My great-grandparents were Froms.
Does that mean I am a Lost?
I am often asked if I plan on returning to the States, and if so, when. I was asked this on the dive boat in Egypt, by an American married to an Englishman. Her blond bangs bobbed as we bounced around on the waves, and she told me of her longing for Minnesota, and that they will someday go back. Do you miss anything? her make-up free faced asked me.
Sure, I miss things, I replied. Mexican food. Low-fat Jiffy peanut butter. The terrific thunderstorms. Hockey games.
And I thought about it. That was all I missed, really. Sure, sometimes I miss being able to talk and not feel self-conscious about my American accent, but in general, I have everything here that I want.
But these are all things that I want and need are portable. They're not transfixed in stone, they don't have a concrete foundation that ties them to this patch of land. The truth is, my home doesn't have to be in a specific place because they are mobile, as well (or at least ambulatory, in the case of my cats and Angus). I love England very much, but I am not opposed to living somewhere else, in fact we've discussed it and moving around is something we're both open to.
Does this mean I am the Rugged Man character? Is there a lifetime of hunting down covered bridges or wrangling calves (neither of which appeals, frankly, as bridges are a fucking bore and the vegetarian in me would be busy trying to set the calves free, thinking that if they came back to me then they would be mine, and if they didn't I'd feel utterly rejected and cry for days over a stupid cow.) Is it possible that there are situations where the Rugged one can be the woman, eschewing traditional roles of being the loving homemaker and instead being the one who wanders around in jeans and no bra, breaking hearts and being Rugged? Am I the mending fencer?
And why is it so repugnant to society that women have this roving kind of life, this disattachment to any personal responsibility? Why is it so far-fetched to imagine that some women can be the nomad, and in fact you can be the nomad and bring the house and kids along with you? In these Hollywood movies, why is it that the woman is that one who has to be the one who always wonders....What if? Doesn't our female period-having, menopause-dreading, bad-boyfriend history mean that our lives have sucked enough already, could you please cut us some slack, Warner Brothers/Paramount/Universal?
Is there something so unappealing about the woman being the Rugged Man, and the man as the Unsatisfied Chap? Is it so out of order to imagine oh, say...a Rugged Woman who spends her time taming mountain lions, who meets up with an Unsatisfied Chap who loves his little home in Tornado Alley, Kansas, as he raises their three children while his Mrs. is the breadwinner as the is Tornado Alley County Quilting Bee Champion? They hook up, Rugged Woman played by an woman with perky breasts and lines by the side of her eyes and says things only cryptically, to protect her Rugged Heart, and she romances Unsatisfied Chap who slowly becomes more fashion conscious and daring, bringing whipped cream into the bed for a playtime session with Rugged Woman while wife and kids are at a Quilting Bee in Wichita? When wife comes home, Unsatisfied Chap has to choose his quilt-loving wife and his home responsibilities as Rugged Woman goes off to tame lions in Nevada, and Unsatisfied Chap never looks at a whipped dairy product in the same way again.
Yeah.
I guess it wouldn't sell.
Too bad I'm sick and tired of the guy always getting the cool life in the films, and the woman getting the broken heart.
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
08:37 AM
| Comments (13)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1249 words, total size 7 kb.
September 01, 2005
From: Helen
Sent: 30 August 2005 16:54
To: Angus
Subject: That cat
Oh my God.
Did you know shrews make a high-pitched chittering sound when they are caught in a cats' mouth?
No, I didn't either.
Until now.
*********************************
So yeah. I know I have before mentioned the fact that me, a crunchy granola vegetarian has a killer for a pet. My Mumin, my not-so-bright lightbulb, has bloodlust.
And it took a real nose-dive just before we went to Egypt.
I was sitting on the floor in the living room, and Mumin ran in, meowing, and dropped a frog next to my knee.
It wasn't any old frog.
It was a frog with an apparently frothing stomach as it lay upside-down, as flat as a pancake.
Cue the screaming.
There was me, dancing around on the couch in no time, a real-life version of the woman in the Tom and Jerry cartoons that shrieks and screams when Jerry appears. Angus sighed, picked the frog up and threw it in the trash can with a gentle thud. Mumin looked affronted, Maggie looked bored, and I realized I should have pet and loved the Mumin cat in thanks.
I calmed down and we watched TV. After the program ended, I took the plates into the kitchen to put them in the dishwasher. As our home doesn't have a garbage disposal (Oh little garbage disposal...how I miss thee. I long to drop orange rinds in you and freshen the kitchen, I wish I could inadvertently leave a spoon in there and hear it grind), I walked towards the trash can. I briefly wondered if Angus had dropped the frog corpse in that trash can, or if he'd taken it outside to the bin, and how weird would it be if he was still alive?, when I pushed on the foot pedal, popping the lid open.
And there on the top of the trash bag sat the frog, blinking at me and wishing I was dead.
I stopped for a second in horror, and then 5...4...3...2....1.....
Scream. Scream, as in fucking scream. I screamed like I was being attacked by a John Tesh ambient concert CD. I hit pitches I hadn't seen since I went through puberty. It was the frog, and he was alive again, only he was Frankenfrog come back from the grave to suck my brains out and make me his giantess human minion.
With a scream, I jumped backwards, thereby releasing the foot pedal. A soft *thunk" sound ensued, telling me that the poor newly-revived frog had just been subject to aluminum closing on its head at very high speed, sending it to the bottom of the trash can all over again.
I did the only thing an independent, strong, self-assured modern career woman would do.
I opened my mouth and screamed. "ANGUS! AN-GUS! Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod, it's alive! AN-GUS!"
With a sigh, hunky boyfriend came into the kitchen and looked into the trash can. "Tenacious bastard, isn't he?" he asked, peering down. "He managed to crawl all the way to the top, that's really something." He pulled out the trash can and set the now very dazed frog free outside the side door. We watched him hop to freedom on the gravel path, and even though I was sure that Frankenfrog still wanted to make me his minion, I was pleased to see him alive and hopping. We shut the doors and I tried to get my vocal cords to climb down off the ceiling.
Of course, Mumin caught him the next day and foamed up his stomach all over again. The little fucker may have been alive when we released him, but the near-death experience apparently filled him with a false sense of security.
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
08:24 AM
| Comments (11)
| Add Comment
Post contains 643 words, total size 4 kb.
52 queries taking 0.081 seconds, 431 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
