Welcome to our new diarist!

Welcome to the PHCentral diaries, Arabella!

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First entry

Well, of course now that I have this text box in front of me to write in, I don't know quite how to start. Maybe I'll start with something about possible problems with writing something from a first-person perspective. That all sounds a bit academic, which is no surprise as I'm currently at uni about to start writing an essay for English... Well, putting off writing it, actually! Maybe this will help me get into the right mind-set.

First person point of view- problems with. This is the reason I have hesitated in the past to begin diaries, or even stopped them half-way through. Its' the reason I've never gone to see a counsellor or shrink and the reason I always hesitate before telling people my problems. It's all about the way we see our own lives, and how our view is not something stagnant, not something crystallised... Rather, it fluctuates and changes and grows into different forms and takes on different names. A diary is meant to be something sacred and inherently truthful; a kind of deposit bank for the soul. I don't quite see how that is possible, and maybe a good way to start this diary then, is with an acknowledgement of that. I have an illness. I have a disease. I have a condition. Three different words that carry a million connotations. Anyone reading this will have different sets of images flashings through their brains, different experiences. How can I control what people bring to this? How can I control how people see me? Should I try to control it? How can I adequately and honestly pin down my own experience when most of the time I can barely organise my rambling thoughts into some kind of coherence that makes sense even to me?

 An acknowledgement then. I am sitting here. I am typing. I am putting down my thoughts and feelings as if through clear, shiny glass, but sadly, that can't be true. The glass is distorted, crowded with a thousand different images and ideas that have snaked their way out of my subconscious to slide over its' surface in oily, distorting patterns. But I'll keep typing anyway.

Right now I'm tired.  My stomach is bloated, I feel ugly, fat, old. I can't eat, can't sleep, can't breath. This morning I woke with that familiar, oxygen deprived feeling, like my brain had been sucked dry, like my lungs had somehow turned over-night into small, flimsy, paper bags. I slid out of bed into the freezing Hobart air, trying not to look in the mirror at my puffy face. In the shower I sang a tune to comfort myself, to get some air into my lungs again, but feeling silly and pathetic, like some clichéd parody of self-pity.Things aren't that bad, not really. A few years down the track, if this disease ever gets worse; that's when I'll know true suffering.

This-morning it took me a long time to get dressed. I'm not always like this; usually I have a much easier time of things, so I stood in front of the mirror and said, "next week you'll feel much better. Or maybe even in a few days. Maybe you'll even look skinny again." I joked. (Here I should add, that I'm probably what you would classify as a lonely person; I have lots of friends and see them quite often, but by and large my existence is played out with me (and sometimes my cat!) as the only witness. So I tend to talk to myself a bit, which sometimes I worry about, but not really that much as I have lots of other things to worry about as well!) I told myself I would get a taxi, but then when I went out into the street the taxi rank was empty, so I walked on down the street in my four layers and coat, puffing foggy air in front of me and rubbing my hands together. My books in their thick plastic bag were heavy, but in a reassuring way, telling me, as they banged against my thigh, of today's purpose, today's potential for accomplishment. Slowly, I told myself, go slowly. If I go too fast I'll be too tired to do anything at uni.

And now I'm here, on the lovely quite top floor of the uni library, typing away, my books next to me. I feel tired, dehydrated. Sad. But the elevator is working again today. That is nice. I have a lecture today about a Virginia Woolf novel. That will be enjoyable. I dropped in to say hello to a friend who is writing her PHD in the philosophy department before I came here, also enjoyable. I'll probably have a coffee with another friend, Katriona, before the day is out... Above all, I want life to be pleasant and enjoyable, something which is probably a very silly and untenable ambition in the end.

Well, I think that should finish off this first entry! I didn't mean it to be this long or this wordy! I really will go write this English essay now. It's a great topic really, I shouldn't be putting it off like this. And not too hard. 1000 words on the  representations of Bluebeard's wife in two separate tellings of the fairy-tale... Lots to work with. As always though, the main job is organising all of my rambling, nonsensical thoughts into something that a lecturer wouldn't laugh at. That's why I liked Mrs Dalloway... Reminds me of the inside of my own head...

Anway, today, clearly, we've heard from my construction of myself as a student! Next time, what other incarnation will appear?

Signing off now, and kind regards to anyone who might be reading this, if anyone has stuck it out this far through my nonsense...

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Hobart, elevators, and sunlight...

People have asked about where I live so I am going to write about Hobart, which is a small city in Tasmania, Australia.

I don't know exactly how I ended up here. Hobart is very hilly, cold, and there aren't a lot of jobs or opportunities here so it’s not really the most practical place for me to live. My family mostly live in Sydney and for the last couple years have been engaged in a rather insistent campaign to get me to move closer to them.

I'm pretty stubborn though and have resisted what is really an enormous amount of pressure from both relatives and doctors. I'm not even really sure why; just that I really like it here and have good friends. What is it about Hobart that I like so much? It's small, easy to find my way around. I know where all the good coffee shops and second-hand shops are. I have almost five years now of life-history woven into these streets and hills and houses; something rare for me in my usually more displaced, nomadic kind of life. I love Mt Wellington which seems to loom over Hobart like some kind of benign, rather corpulent, earth goddess. Most of all though, I love the colour of the light here, that strange, indescribable yellow light; afternoons in north Hobart with gentle fingers of that yellow stuff stretching out over the gently rumbling traffic and the people in their thick coats hurrying across the street or stopping to talk to each other. Dogs blinking in it as they stand tied to street posts barking at traffic. Sidewalks, park benches and tree-trunks sliding with simple patterns of sun and shade. Winter in Hobart often feels like being at the bottom of the ocean where all is quiet, dark, and cold, and the sun, when it reaches, is tentative and weak-willed, but somehow seems as tangible as yellow straw, or you could eat it like warm butter.

Quality of the light might seem like strange reason to live somewhere, and of course it’s not the only single unique thing about Hobart that compels me to stay. When I lived in Melbourne life was easier; I was probably a bit healthier, things were easier anyway. But my suburb was incredibly flat. There were trams and trains everywhere I wanted to go. Here, life is more difficult to organise around this disease I have. I have to plan things more. It's more difficult to go to people's houses or parties. Sometimes I do think I should move. I would make new friends, I suppose, and new emotional connections to some other landscape.

Maybe. Or maybe not. Big cities are isolating places. Hobart's smallness is very attractive.

Well, I've written for too long again and have a sociology lecture to go to! Starts in one minute and I have to take the long way around so i can go up in the silly elevator! I wish the building had its own elevator, it would be much easier. Now, that really should be a good reason to move interstate: if I went to Melbourne uni or Sydney uni they probably have elevators all over the place. Who cares about beautiful scenery when you can jump in a lift any time you want? Right?

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Camping, optimism, and my stupid life last year

Ah... Another day, another morning. Kind of cloudy and bleak outside, not anything that particularly inspires me. It's funny how I used prefer cloudy, overcast, weather much more to sunny weather. Like that stupid song, "I'm only happy when it rains..." Well, I still love the rain. But now I'm deeply attached to any form of sunlight- maybe living in Hobart makes you appreciate warmth and light a bit more! Not only that but some insidious optimism has somehow wormed its way into my mind over the last few years. I used to take such delight in being a pessimist! Now I'm one of those irritating people who always look on the positive side. How the hell did that happen?!

I've decided to work at home for at least part of the day- there's only so much of staring at those walls at uni that I can take! Have to stare at some different walls for a while then maybe I can go back there...

Once I get this done I have to see if I can go away for the weekend! A friend’s birthday thing in some little hut at Coles Bay. I've never been there. I said yes right away but then thinking about it later, I wondered if I really should go. It will be bloody cold. Only crazy people would go stay in a hut in the bush at this time of year. I know KM is prone to crazy stuff like that. I lived with her for almost a year and she is lovely but she doesn't seem to have a concept of 'inside' and 'outside'. In one way I liked it; this mingling of spaces. The house was amazing; this big old late 19th century crumbling mansion covered in creepers and with sad old concrete flats sagging off the back, a bit of veggie garden, washing lines. The inside is old carpet, 1970's plastic chandeliers and tip-shop furniture, bits and pieces of artwork on the walls, post-cards, shells... All very fabulously cool really, if you like that sort of thing! But anyway, I loved the house, but it was an incredibly cold place to live! My room was this huge thing with big bay windows and most nights I felt like i might as well have been camping outdoors it was so cold. The couple living in the flat above it played bad pop music at the three in the morning and had horrible fights. Sometimes I'd be lying awake late at night, unable to breath or whatever, and I'd hear the girl crying in this really awful, heart wrenching way. I'd think, "well, I hear ya sister." But then I'd see her the next day getting into her little grey car, all buttoned up with sunglasses on and just nod hello and look away. Terrible thing to do, really. Neighbors should try to talk to each other more.

 Living in that house was hard because it was so cold and also difficult to get to shops and things. I was skinnier there than I ever have been before and mostly because often I just didn't have any food in my cupboard and lacked the strength to drag my tired self to the shop. I hate asking people for help. I always feel like I lose something when I do and, weighing it up, that loss makes it not worthwhile. But at that time maybe I should have asked for help. For a while I had this paranoid idea that I was slowly dying because my body was consuming more nutrition than it could absorb, or something. I get a bit over the top sometimes! I think it keeps me entertained. Wow, it sounds like I had a horrible time there, but mostly it was a really lovely house and I had lots of fun hanging out with people, cooking with them and throwing strange dress-up parties... It was a fun place to live, just not for a sick person I guess. I still have trouble accepting that I can't do stuff that my peers do, like go live in crazy student share houses.  

Anyway, same thing here. With this weekend away. I want to go but maybe I shouldn't. There will be people there who i don’t' know, who don't know that I have this stupid disease that stops me from walking up hills or lifting heavy stuff and going on hikes or firewood expeditions or anything like that. God I hate that part. That part when someone's staring at you because you're lagging behind or not helping with stuff, and they say something silly, jokey, like, "come on lazy" and then you have to tell them and of course they feel bad, but you feel stupid and crippled and embarrassed and like you're asking them to feel sorry for you or something, which is way worse. I have discovered there is no good way to tell people that I have this. It's not something that can ever be pleasant.

Sometimes I wish I looked more disabled so that people would know about it, but then I don't really want that. Sometimes I don't tell people about it for ages, and then there's something nice about that, about being able to dwell in the fantasyland of their idea of you. Someone who's fit and strong and able to do anything she bloody well wants.

Ah, off the track again. this weekend. Will I go or won't I? Not sure yet. In a silly added complication I completely forgot to call the Royal to get my Bosentan prescription. I had to call up and be all apologetic and ask if they could do it for me by Friday. Normally it would be ready Monday or Tuesday but I've only got today's dose left and one pill tomorrow. So have to get it Friday but it won't be ready until 4.pm, by which time everyone may have gone anyway! Probably not, people don't usually leave for these things actually on time. (see, there I go being optimistic!) But anyway, is a silly complication to sort out on top of clothes, grog, food, blankets etc. Oh well, we shall see...

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Back to city, back to work...

A quick entry today as I have lots of uni work as usual... The reading and essay writing seems endless, but I always think, well, I'm only part time; imagine doing four subjects instead of two! And some people work as well, and have kids...

The weekend away was good beyond words. I'm so glad that I went, and I very nearly didn't go. A cabin right near the ocean, lovely people, interesting conversation, great music both live and from the amazingly diverse cd collection... Yummy organic food- I haven't eaten so healthily for ages... Possums, wallabies, dolphins. The white sand skirted by blue-green trees, pink granite rocks, and the sea hissing and curling around it all; and so close, just two seconds walk down an (unfortunately) steep hill, but there it was, nonetheless. 

There's always a moment of strangeness when you return to the city, after being in the bush. 'Cityness' seems everywhere, buildings, cars, roads. Your mobile phone suddenly goes off with missed calls and messages. And in your mind, too, you're returning to your 'city self', thinking of things you have to do, bills to pay, essays to write. Your heart starts to race a little, adrenalin is released. That space of sky and trees and ocean is suddenly gone, and now seems entirely superfluous and then even a little unbelievable. Did it ever exist? As you adjust back to the city, the weekend lets go its hold on your unconscious, and you forget. The city is normal again.  

This morning 'Air Liquid', as the oxygen supplier is called, paid me a visit to service my concentrator machine. I was half hoping they'd find a dead rat or something in there just to justify the horrible headaches that machine gives me every time I use it. Instead the bloody thing was perfectly clean, and the service guy had no idea what could be causing headaches. Apparently I might have been using it on too high a setting, but I don't think I've done that for more than half an hour at a time, and he said that was ok... So the whole thing remains unsolved. I guess I'll try it tonight and see. But I couldn't help being a bit upset at his cheerful evaluation of, 'it's in perfect working order'. What am I supposed to do now? I suppose talk to a doctor or something. But the last time I told the Ph research assistant that it gave me headaches she said, "take a panadol"... That does not sound very healthy to me! The air liquid guy said "Get a second opinion." But that sounds rather arduous. For some reason, I simply cannot go to a doctor about this condition without crying. Stupid, and probably due to repressed emotion I should really deal with, but there we have it. And I can't be bothered to deal with it at the moment, or cry in a doctor's office, or sit in a waiting room for two hours either, really. I've got too much to do. So I'll see how it goes and then... Well, I'll see how it goes... In any case, I'm supposedly a very busy woman with a ton of uni work to do, and this was meant to be a short entry! ( ;

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Quick entry

Just wanted to write a quick entry. This thing's getting a little addictive. ( ;

Sitting here listening to Nina Simone's cotton eye joe and drinking my morning cup of tea. My flatmate's whirling herself in and out of the kitchen with her little jack russel trotting behind her each time. Is kind of funny/endearing in one way, how shy she is, but sometimes I get annoyed about the fact that she can come into a room and hardly talk to me, avoid eye contact etc... I should understand I suppose. I'm a bit of a shy person myself. Yes, well, I'll be more understanding in future! But it is strange living with these people... Totally unlike lthe ast share house. Sometimes I really hate it. It's almost like being in a backpackers or something. So impersonal. I like the people you live with to feel more like family. Actually, I wish I had enough money not to have to live in share housing. I think I'm getting too old for it! Unfortunately, the way housing prices are now I don't see my student slum life-style ending any time soon... Hmmm... Maybe public housing though. But I do like this house, it's in such a good spot, right near all the good North Hobart stuff. And it has a nice little garden.

Ah. Garden. When all my essays are in and I have a day off, (friday!) I'm going to stay home all day and do stuff in the garden. The rose bushes need pruning, which in itself seems exciting; I've never had rose bushes that 'needed pruning' before! Well... I probably have, I've just never really thought about gardening much! I'm going to sort out seedlings, plant them maybe if they're big enough. Everything's growing so slowly at the moment. But I have swedes, carrots, and something else which I've entirely forgotten what it was! One of the hazzards of ph I think... Bad memory. I joked about that yesterday with the Oxygen guy...

Well, I should go catch my two buses. I'm getting so sick of those two buses. I wish I could get my licence. My driving instructor freind has somehow vanished from my life over the last few weeks making it seem even more unlikey... Oh well, I'm sure she'll come back, she's just busy, like I am supposed to be! Must go!

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Thursday

Another assignment due today. 500 words dissecting this poor woman’s life on the basis of gender. Terrible how bleak and depressing I’ve made it sound, when her autobiography actually expressed the absolute opposite. I think my life would probably come out the same though; I feel like I’ve done lots of interesting stuff, but in many ways its been rather limited! I guess it’s all a matter of comparison and what you want in the first place. Perhaps I should start wanting different things. Am I wasting my life out of pure laziness?

Anyway, luckily for this woman, she’ll never read my silly essay so I'm sure she'll keep being perfectly happy with life. ( ;

I’m going to a lecture, then going to come back and fine tune this thing, then hand it in and go home and clean the house, catch up with Lucy for a coffee, hopefully, and maybe even do some grocery shopping. I hate grocery shopping. It’s difficult to get food when you don’t have a car. You can get groceries delivered from Coles but their vegies always wilt the first day practically, and the delivery guy irritates me by being patronising… Well, that’s a silly reason. He’s probably not that bad. I am hyper-sensitive to being patronised for some reason. 

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more silly ramblings sorry

this morning I woke in bits and pieces, hungover, a late night, didn't get in until two am; it seems ridiculous at my age, with the disease I have. surely I don't still want this, why would I do such a thing, stay out until two in the morning? Ridiculous! And dancing. Also stupid.

Last night I thought I would feel terrible this morning. Feel every breath of over-exertion from the night, like some karmic punishment or something.  I used to, even when I was younger. Dance all night and then the next day breathing would be an extra effort, a reminder of my stupidity every time I inhaled and felt the almost sharp pain in my lungs. A weariness in breathing; its a chore, just to go on inhaling and exhaling, to keep living. But this morning I don't feel like that. I've learned to take it easy perhaps, to not 'overdo it'.... Maybe the drugs help. Maybe they do.

Drugs. I woke up thinking about them because it was eleven o clock and I still hadn't taken them. They bracket every one of my days; I always get out the bosentan first, the little pinkish pill, so innocuous looking, but I remember how reluctant I was to start taking it. Its dire label warnings of deformed fetuses. Jan Walsh when she sat me down and said, "You know you can never have children anyway." The statistics I looked up on the internet for liver damage, kidney failure. A headache every day of my life, I thought.

Next pill, the two more definitively pink spirolactin. The white circle of uremide. These ones are less scary. Diuretics that keep me walking around and functioning. Every time I take them there's an unwanted remembrance of what life was like without them. Feeling sick and full and bloated with this illness and every step, every action was impossible and undoable but also agonizingly do-able; you just keep going anyway. Working. Walking to the shop. Then you sink down on your sofa and lose your life to bad television. Feel your mind becoming as lethargic as your body. So I like these pills. Take them gratefully, imagine I can feel entering my system in a bubbling stream of fizzing and dissolving, like aspirin in a glass of water; becoming invisible and therefore useful in minute and endless ways.

Next pill, the last one I take because it sometimes requires slitting it out of its foil packet, pressing it out of its plastic bubble. Making sure its powder doesn't scatter on my desk. The diamond-shape of Viagra, opaque and blue, like a clacky, plastic, bead on a child's necklace.  Or I could also see it being in a bead shop, ceramic and expensive amongst the fake pearls, glass beads, metal hooks and clasps. I've become attached to the Viagra's bitter taste, mostly through the habit of it. Three times a day, although sometimes I forget the midday dose. Something I'll regret no doubt, in the future, when it stops working, as I've heard that sometimes, it suddenly does.

Where will I be then? Back on the couch? These pills, the chemical compounds they contain, encircle my day. I feel strange and wrong if I forget to take them, or if I can't somehow. Every day for the rest of my life I will wake up and feel wrong until i take these five pills. Until I don’t. Or until they are replaced by other pills, more bright and lurid. Yellows and reds. Antivirals. Anti rejection. Sonja who works with me at the market stall has had a lung transplant and she showed me her pills once. Large and solemn in their thick plastic box. I can’t remember the colours actually. I’m probably imagining the yellows and reds, the frightening chemical intensity of them. Sonja often feels sick in the middle of the day. She has to rush off suddenly to the toilet block, to vomit. She returns looking shaky. Worried. People who have had transplants are supposed to be happy, that is what I always used to think. On bicycles, or smiling up gratefully at pleased-looking doctors. Minne Driver in that movie, Return To Me rode her bike gracefully beneath arching green trees, smiling at how the sunshine flickered over her wide, calm, face. She didn’t have to drag herself away from pressing circles of grubby kids clamoring to buy cap guns and laser lights to vomit over the cold metal rim of a public toilet bowl. She got David Duchovney. Bunches of flowers and a sweetly anxious Italian father. Ha. Movies.

My cat’s doing his ‘let me in, let me out’ routine which means he wants food. I suppose I’d better get going on this day, which is slipping away into the afternoon already. Must get dressed. Have a shower. As always, decide between warmth and not-too-scary electricity bill. Clean the bathroom, as designated in the very vague collective idea of our household roster. Will look up TV guide for Olympic event of rhythmic gymnastics, the only one I can stand. Will probably watch a movie. Do some uni stuff if my brain stops being less silly and scattered all over the place. Sunday… My clock is ticking on the mantle piece. My latest tip shop buy- four dollars, half price because they weren’t sure if it worked. It works all right. Ticking away those seconds so competently. I think I’d better go do something, stop this very silly train of endless thoughts…

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Just another entry...

It’s morning again. I'm up and dressed for uni. Black leggings, thermals, three layers. A purple dress that goes down to the tops of my flat-soled black boots, boots I once referred to as my 'standard Arts student edition boots'... A pale pink floaty scarf. The scarf is the most suspect part of my outfit. Apart from the dress, I suppose. Michael Cunningham's radical-feminist character of 'Mary Krull' in the Hours would not approve of this scarf. She has a shaved head, black army boots. Misshapen clothes. A deliberately ironic stereotype, I think… But still, I am pathetically and sadly attached to my token signifiers of femininity. Pink things. Pretty, floral, things. Can't get out of the house without glancing several times at the mirror to make sure my person is arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner. When I was younger, I was able to. In fact, I read Naomi Wolf's the Beauty Myth and wore awful clothes for almost a whole year. Had a terrible hair cut and told myself I didn't care. Unfortunately (with me, anyway) it all adds up to the same amount of excessive concern; either you're conforming to Society or rebelling. Either way you're a part of it, if only in a reactionary way. Maybe.

I was thinking about my earlier years this morning, lying in bed. I was healthier than now. I lived in Melbourne, a wonderfully, flat, city with trams everywhere. The current share-house was cosy and home-like, filled with comfortable opp-shop furniture, some old books, flatmate Sam's rather bizarre 'ye olde worlde looking' carpentry creations. Gas heating that was actually affordable. It had a little inner city-style concrete garden with pot-plants and a bath filled with earth that grew various things... Tomato plants at one time I think. I grew honey-suckle along the fence and something called 'boston ivy' that I thought died in winter but was really just deciduous, as, to my great joy, it came back the next spring.

One of those houses where people tend to hang out together. We'd ride our bikes (how I miss riding a bike!) down to the Vic markets and do the shopping. We'd watch telly together. Cook. Have house meetings that on one occasion left me traumatised as I was not a very responsible sort of flatmate back then! Sam was the best part of that house. Sam, who I'm sadly losing contact with now. He was almost a part of the house, had lived there the longest. His cat, Westgarth, was apparently born under the house and was officially 'the house's cat' and we all used to feed her. Westgarth died last year (or was it the year before?) and I wrote a horribly inadequate e-mail that I still feel terrible about. Sam lives in Carlton now, I believe, with his girlfriend. I’m pretty sure our old house has been demolished.

My experience of melbourne, of course, was not entirely positive. Some things were; the house was of course, and also the weak Melbourne sunshine, the autumn leaves and the possums in the park at night, and my two waitressing jobs. I enjoyed those jobs, liked working hard and feeling tired at the end of a shift. Liked my pay slips, my sense of independence. And tram rides, and the Chinese restaurant that my friend Grace and I would go to, pretending it was something out of a movie with Chinese Mafia and kung fu gangsters. Cafés, new clothes. I’d walk confidently down sunny, maple-lined streets. If it was cold and wintery, there was cheap, gas heating, and the rain pelting against a window pane, thumping on the corrugated iron roof. But also in Melbourne, I experienced various kinds of unhappiness. For one thing, I was always looking for something, something I could never have, because I didn’t even know what it was. And I felt this great emptiness to life. As if everything interesting and new had already been sucked out of the world. A sense of the world as fragmented, broken up, spilling away. And loneliness was there, despite the happy home-situation. Big cities are isolating experiences.

I like Hobart better for its smallness, the way you run into people everywhere. I’ve never been very good at social networking- remembering people’s names, having the courage to form new friendships, make the effort. My mum calls it ‘putting out’ and said once, back when I was in primary school, that I was too lazy to do it.

* * *

Just went to uni and watched the film of The Hours and then had a lecture, and now I’m in the library. I was reading what I wrote this morning, and now I wonder, what is the point of all of my going back over the past? My dad, a reader of Ekhart Tolle, would say that it’s the present moment that counts, the one that we have to live in. The past and the future are meaningless distractions that detract from being fully present and alive... Virginia Woolf, writing from the 1920’s seems to be saying something similar in Mrs Dalloway. I suppose any diary writing is some kind of avoidance of the present moment. On the other hand, its necessary to understand our past before we can live truthfully in the moment, surely?? Woolf wrote heaps in her journal, although I’m sure it was nothing like my self-obsessed meandering haze.

Once again, I’m being way too over the top, wordy, and I really should go out into the fresh air or something to ‘clear my head’. Ha. What that little phrase really means is to get more oxygen, which makes people think clearer. I wonder if people with normal oxygen intake have more coherent thoughts- do their minds skip and jump all over the place like mine

I never know how to finish these entries. I should be circular, I guess. Go back to something in the first paragraph. Michael Cunningham’s Mary Krull character. Well, she wasn’t even in the movie! I wonder why not? Probably too much to fit in. Who knows?Anyway, I’m going home now! Ooh, and I need to buy a friend a birthday present, if there’s still time today. Otherwise, tomorrow…

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tact and other things...

"I feel weird today, as if I have to gather all the disparate bits of my personality into some kind of vaguely recognisable... thing..."

That's what I said to my friend, M. We were having coffee at uni. She replied, "Yes, I know what you mean. I've been feeling rather disconnected from myself lately..."

Those kinds of conversations make me feel better about what seems to me, to be my inherent and unalterable oddness. I spend most of my life attempting what a lot of other people seem to do so effortlessly: to be a complete, confident identity; to be consistently themselves, all the time. How do they do it? Maybe it’s the type of childhood they had. Perhaps it's a kind of confidence you get from growing up knowing exactly who you are and what you mean in the world, something that may have been lacking from my, lets say, 'alternative' childhood. 

Hmmmm... I'm not really sure about that though.

For the last few days I've been editing my name out of these diary entries as I suddenly realised how easy it would be for someone I know to find these by googling my name. Pathetically self-centred of me, really. I mean, how likely is it that someone is going to google my name? I'd say extremely unlikely. But still, the threat is there. It sort of feels like a glass full of water sitting half-off the edge of a kitchen bench; bound to fall eventually. But maybe it won't make much of mess when it lands. Who would be bothered to read all of this, anyway?

I hope no-one does. I don't want my friendships with people to be about this illness. With some people its' too late. My friend N, for example, will sometimes when she sees me, say, "And how are you?", meaning, of-course, “you poor sick thing...” Always, always, I refuse to enter into her notion of my life, replying; "Fine. Wonderful. How are you?"

But N is actually a very good friend, I should really give her a break. And the reason she asks me about my health in such a way is because last year I was very unwell and it was N who drove me to the supermarket so that I could have some food to eat and who rented me some dvds, and was so worried about me that at one time she burst into tears. So that probably explains the way she asks about my health.

But another friend L, is nonetheless, somehow a lot more tactful. She never asks about my health, but if we arrange to have dinner somewhere, or watch a movie, she'll manage to work in driving us to shops if need be, or video store, even if its a short yet hilly distance away. And most importantly, she seems to be able to do it without making a big deal out of it. Wonderful.

In any case, considering the bizarre things I say to people when having a simple cup of coffee with them, I should be grateful if people talk to me at all, let alone in a tactful manner…

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temporarily missing father, louisa may alcott , and miracle flowers

I wrote this at various times last night:

Ah. A crisis now. I can barely believe it. Seems so outside the lines of my (mostly!) seamless, life. My father gone hiking and now missing. According to my sister he told her he was going somewhere a bit dangerous and to send a rescue party if he wasn’t back by early evening! It was 8:30pm when she remembered and called his mobile… Police are looking for him, this moment. Reflective orange vests, large torches breaking up the darkness. The dark. The cold. Its winter, not raining in NSW apparently. But cold. Fuck. Cops. I wonder if they have dogs. I hope so. Beagles nosing eagerly through the dark, wet scrub, pulling on their leashes. Mountains looming around them in the dark as they descend down, and down. Old rocks and caves. Trees shaking in the wind. The bush at night is a frightening place, totally different from in the day time. The landscape becomes somehow hostile, and unknown, unknowable. The cop said his van is there, large and white, parked as far up the trail as a van can go.  A change of clothes. Shoes. A backpack. Was strange hearing about these familiar objects from a complete stranger on the phone. My sister called me back, her voice getting a little frayed at the edges, thinking that he's out there in the dark getting scared. I would have liked to say, he's probably not scared. And I think that is probably true. My dad and I, we are very similar people. We think the same, talk the same. If I was in that situation, I was thinking, I wouldn't be scared. I wouldn't panic. I would be calm. I would stay in the same place and wait to be found. I would try to keep warm. I would distract myself with other thoughts, I would look at the irony of the situation. Yes. In between shivering from the onset of hypothermia I would have a wry chuckle. My dad and I, we tend to skim over the surface of life, not letting things impact us too much. If I was lost in the bush at night, I would probably sing to myself. Keep myself entertained. It would keep the darkness away, the bad thoughts. I might have a moment where I'd cry, feel afraid. Then I would take a deep breath and get over it. Go back to singing. Look at the strange patterns of moonlight over the trees and rocks.  Picture myself rescued, picture yellow torch lights and hot milo, blokes with thick aussie accents saying, “What the bloody hell were ya doing out here anyway?” And those gray woolen blankets you see in rescues on the news. Possibly. Or possibly not.

It seems silly to be sitting here, typing. But what else is there to do? I can't think of anything. No way that I'm going to bed. I don't even want to think about this situation, so I wont. I'll just distract myself with this diary that I seem to have become so addicted to in such a short time, and I'll wait for the phone. Picture my sister saying, "Yay, they found him! Completely stupid, he was at …??… forgot to call, said I can't believe you guys called the cops! Talk about overreacting!!.." etc... Positive thoughts help, my hippie-ish father would say. Arg. Hate that stuff. I don't believe in it. If anything I've found the complete opposite is true. Except with PH. It seems to help to be positive about that, as if pretending to have a normal life means you come close to actually having one...

What is this black and white movie on TV? Women, lots of women, running down stairs, preening in front of mirrors. Talking earnestly to each other. Maybe its an old version of 'Little Women'. One of my favorite books, for some reason. Even though it’s kind of awful in lots of ways. Jo giving up writing to play 'mother bear' to all those boys, Amy giving up art because she thinks she is not a true genius. But I loved the character of Jo. Her differentness. Her tomboyishness, her eccentric, obsessive 'scribbling' in her lonely attic. In the sequel (the one with the sickening title of 'Good Wives', tee hee) adventurous Jo goes to New York and works as a governess in a boarding house purely to gain 'experience'... Wonderful stuff. Alcott’s third and fourth books in this series try somewhat make up for what her publishers apparently 'made' her do to her characters in the first one. In these ones, the second generation, Jo, Meg and Amy's daughters, all become professionals; or mostly. One becomes an Actress. One becomes a 'Doctoress', (tee hee)... I can't remember the rest. Some of them are still sickeningly sweet examples of 19th century idealized femininity and the ones that aren’t end up tragically alone, married to their careers... But that in itself is kind of entertaining.

Ah. Can't believe I've gone off on that tangent. Waiting for the phone to ring. It’s about Midnight now. Still no word. Yes, I think that movie is Little Women. I can see Beth reposing mournfully on her sick bed. About to have her death throes. Not to worry, Marmee comes to the rescue just in time.

I just had a strange conversation with my flatmate. I picked some blossoms from over the back fence the day before yesterday and put them in a glass on the kitchen bench. They were wilting today so I threw those ones out and replaced them with new branches. W comes in and says, “you must be very good gardener, green shoots come out from the flowers…” I said, “Um… I picked new ones today.” I don’t think he heard me, or understood me, or he chose not to… Oh well. Let him think I’m some miracle gardener! ( ; He’s an odd fellow. Said something once about being a boxer, then having some kind of accident, and then not being able to play guitar after that… Has a series of thick scars on his head. Chinese, and vehemently defended China’s right to host the Olympics. Said that Australia had an equally bad human-rights record and we were being hypocritical… Or so L told me, anyway. I’ve never been brave enough to have that conversation with him! He works as a taxi driver and comes home with terrible stories about passengers who run off without paying, vomit on the seats, and worse. Says he drives taxis all the time because he has nothing else to do. Lonely. My landlord says his strangeness is due to living alone for years before moving in here. He’s friendly towards my cat, which is always an instant point-scorer with me. But vehemently hates our other flatmate. Says she steals his stuff. Is “dirty”. He never calls her by her name, refers to her only as “the girl”…

This is difficult for me. I always seem to be stuck between people like this. I can kind of see where W’s coming from; J doesn’t do a skerrick of housework, whenever she washes dishes I have to wash them again because they’re covered in food. I have to nag her into buying things like laundry powder, dishwashing liquid. Don’t know about the stealing thing. Unlikely. But you never know with people, I guess.

But I feel kind of sympathetic towards her, too. She seems kind of lonely. She misses her family who live in Launceston. She works long hours as a trainee cheff (you’d think as a chef she’d know how to wash dishes- but alas, this is not the case!) She doesn’t seem to have any friends. And W is horribly negative about her… So, arg, its difficult. I once tried mediating between them. Worked to a degree but then the next time they started fighting I just thought, ‘I’m not going to waste my time on this crap!’ And I just left the room.

Tangents. Tangents. A reasonably effective distraction. It’s 2:24 am now. Why haven’t they called? It’s been ages. I should call them. Should I? I don’t know. I’ll call. My sister texted me to say she’s going to bed. I can’t text back as I’m out of credit. I hope she doesn’t mind. That new clock of mine is tick-ticking away so assertively. Will I call? I don’t want to. Maybe I’ll just go to bed. This probably isn’t as big a deal as I think it is. No. I’ll call. Might as well.

Wow. Just called and they found him! Apparently is ok, but stuck somewhere. Will get chopper to him in the morning! A chopper! Jesus Christ. What a big fuss. “He has lit a fire and is not injured as far as we can make out” said the cop on the phone. Tee hee. If he’s not injured, what the hell is he doing there? Too dark to go anywhere I suppose. But I hope he didn’t just decide to camp out on a whim and we’ve got the bloody helicopters coming after him for no reason. Kind of a silly thing to do in the middle of winter, and he did tell my sister to call, I suppose, so fairly unlikely. Well, a happy ending for tonight. Guess I can go to bed. Probably tomorrow he’ll say, “can’t believe you stayed up until 2 in the morning worrying! It was really nothing that serious… ”  Ha. I’ll probably reply, “Oh, I was up writing an essay anyway. I wasn’t that worried, not really…”

( ;

***

Morning now. Well, afternoon actually. My dad called me about 10:00 am or something. I was still in bed, but I got up when I heard the phone ring. Was pretty much the kind of conversation I imagined it would be. Said he was scared occasionally, but mostly ok. Had water etc. Apparently went down some steep cliff and off into the wilderness somewhere and then when it came time to head back couldn’t find his way up again. “I tried and tried, I tried so, so, hard to get back up. But just couldn’t,” he said. And, “I knew C would call the rescue people, but I was really hoping she wouldn’t.” Seems like he got out by himself early this morning, rather rueful. “ It’s so embarrassing. I’m just like one of those guys you see on the news!” But philosophical: “Oh well, I guess this was bound to happen in all my years of hiking.”

I’m inclined to see the whole thing as quite hilariously funny by now. A helicopter. All those serious people heading out there with ropes and backpacks and torches and he was out there sitting in front of a fire, trying very hard to “stay in the moment”. My keen-nosed sniffer-dogs are feeling very redundant.

My sister must have downplayed my part in this small drama because J sounded surprised when I mentioned finding out from the cops at 2 in the morning. I don’t think she told him that I even knew. She’s a bit funny like that sometimes, tries to manipulate situations. Possibly in this case she would have thought that he felt embarrassed about it enough, let alone that I knew as well. It’s all very well meaning, but sometimes I think honesty is preferable. Not that I’m honest about everything myself. But ideally, I think it’s important for people to know the truth about things and then they can choose how to react… So, to my dad, I said; “Yeah, I was a bit worried. But I was pretty sure you’d be ok. Because I know if I was in the same kind of situation I would be ok, you know, not panic or get too worried or anything. And then when I called them they said that you’d lit a fire I knew I was right.”

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Hmmmm... An entire entry devoted to my cat...

My cat, Teddy, is treading the thin blue line today, perched on the back of the sofa in what is surely a deliberate transgression of the 'no animals on furniture' rule... Of course the parameters of 'acceptable behavior' depend mostly on what I can be bothered to enforce! It's kind of an effort for me to get all authoritarian, and I always feel terribly guilty when he looks up at me with those large, unblinking, eyes...

Poor Teddy. He's mostly well behaved. Mostly. Wakes me up at night now, because W started feeding him scraps from his cooking and W sometimes comes home from taxi driving and cooks at 3 am; meaning Teddy jumps out of bed and urgently starts scratching at my bedroom door, anxious not to miss out on a single morsel of food. All very annoying. But I'm always surprised at how quickly he gives up his scratching. I sit up in bed and yell at him (swear words seem to work better for some reason!), maybe throw a pillow, and after hearing a few  disappointed meows I feel the (rather heavy!) impact of him jumping back onto the bed. And I sigh with relief.

But under the relief I'm almost a little bit disappointed at his lack of persistence. Surely he should have more backbone? The last cat I had, well, she would persistently meow and meow all night no matter what I did. Very irritating of course, but I had to admire her endurance! Sometimes I suspect Teddy’s a bit of a sap.

He’s a Persian with a large flat face framed by a thick mane of fluff. Frill-necked lizard kind of look. Kind of getting old now, has luminous golden eyes, and his luxuriously silky fur is labeled by the cat books as ‘apricot’, but to me sometimes looks yellow, other times even pink, depending on the light. He came with his name, at age 12, from the local cat shelter, and my dad thinks he was named after Teddy Roosevelt. I googled his picture once, and they do kind of look similar….

He seems hopelessly besotted with me, to the point that I feel like a haughty woman with an overzealous admirer. Or perhaps a girl with a persistent stalker… He’ll pad silently down the hall, head down, tail vertical, following me wherever I might be headed. Out into the garden. I hang washing on the line and he jumps up on the barbeque so that I can run my fingers through the thick fur along his back, scratch him under the chin. Then back into the house. If I sit down at the kitchen table to do some homework, he’ll want to jump up on my lap. “Not now, Teddy.” I’ll lean forward over my books, making as little space on my lap as possible. From his position on the floor, Teddy’s keen eyes never leave me. Working away, I forget for a moment and lean back a little. “Sh#t!!” He’s jumped onto my lap, sticking his claws in my leg in an effort to balance himself. “Oh bloody hell. You might as well stay there now.” Purring and purring away, he treads circles over my lap. Victory. I guess my easy defeat makes me kind of a sap as well…

To improvise a cat bed, I covered a cardboard box with gift wrap paper and bought him a piece of faux fur fabric that is as close to his own fur colour and texture as I could find. When he’s in there its hard to tell what is fabric and what is cat… But the fact that he sleeps in there, that he actually seems to like it, is a continuing source of wonder and amazement to me. The last cat I had, no way would she ever sleep in anything I had made her. She loved cardboard boxes, but if I ever put any kind of comfortable cushion in or a blanket in them, well, that would be it. Back to sleeping on the floor. If I could locate her in any historical period, she would have been a Protestant living in the early modern era... Maybe the 16th Century? A frugal and austere existence that hoped for rewards in the afterworld… Her large, green eyes did often seem to meditate on some otherwordly existence…

Not a very good photo unfortunately!

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The Ghost of Christmas Future

Just half-made my bed. Only half. Making my bed has become a detested chore. One of those unexpectedly difficult things. I used to love it. Really. Making everything look pretty and inviting and aesthetically pleasing… something to look foreword to getting into at night. Pillows, cushions. Throws. All disgustingly colour co-ordinated. But now I get so out of breath. I appreciate the end result, I guess, but I don’t like doing it any more. Makes me feel pathetic and helpless, like I can't even look after myself. It doesn't help of course that I have so many layers on there... Two doonas, three blankets. A bedspread with little tiny mirrors sewn into it. I loved that thing when I bought it. Cost me $300, can you believe it. I don't think I'd spend that much money on something like that now. That was when I had a job. I miss having a job. Maybe I’ll go get something. Just something a few days a week… Give me a sense of purpose, of being useful to society. Even if it’s a false sense. We all live with illusions in some way, don't we? Not that I'd neccesarily even be able to get a job as I've been out of the workforce now for so long.

My cat has this very strange interest in bed-making. I don't know why, but me making my bed totally rocks his little world. Partly what he likes is that moment when the blanket is being shaken out; the fabric in the air, rippling above him, down, like a wave, then upwards again, stretching endlessly like sky. If I’m quick I can get a look at him under there, his round, unblinking eyes transfixed on that moving sheet above him, fur lifting upwards as if by static electricity. Sometimes he’ll try to pounce on a corner of the sheet that goes whizzing past him. Or he'll just sit there as it settles over and all around him. Its cool sinking heaviness must feel like water...

Enough about Teddy. I’m turning into an old cat lady before my time. Although, come to think of it, ‘scary cat-lady’ has actually been a long-held career ambition of mine. Maybe I should do it while I still can. Once, a long time ago, when being quizzed about future ambitions, I said jokingly, “When I’m old I want to have really long white hair, and a big old house with cats everywhere and the pervasive smell of cat piss...”

“Yuck! Does it really have to have cat piss?!”

“Definitely. The smell of cat piss is an inseparable part of this fantasy.”

Fantasy it was, of course. Aside from the fact that I was joking about the whole cat piss thing, I really don’t know if I will live long enough to be an old lady with white hair. I might, of course. It would be silly to be excessively morbid about this, to dwell on it too much. To start writing a will, or telling people what music I want played at my funeral. Not that I haven’t thought about that stuff. My doctors, when I ask them about longevity, always say, “Everyone with your condition is slightly different, so we really have no clear prognosis regarding that...”

But sometimes, asking such questions feels a bit like getting to have a chat with God. Well, since I don't actually believe in God, lets say instead, Charles Dickens’ Ghost of Christmases to Come…In any case, It can be very confronting. At my appointment with my PH specialist the year before last, I was told I had about five years until I would need a transplant. Boy, that was depressing. No, depressing doesn’t describe it. A weird, sinking feeling. Time running out. Not exactly scared yet, but scared of being scared. Or scared because it didn’t seem to be sinking in with me. I couldn’t absorb it. Mostly, because day to day, I don’t feel too bad. I don’t feel like someone who might only have five years to live.

Back in Hobart I had my blood taken by the Hobart PH specialist’s research assistant, and she asked how the appointment went. In a devestated-sounding voice, I said, “They told me I have five years until a transplant”. To which she cheerfully replied,  “That’s good news!” As if she had been expecting it to be a lot worse. Maybe that made it sink in a little bit more, because if anything, I had been expecting her to say the opposite. More like, “Oh don’t worry about that, you could have years and years left!”

This research assistant is a strange character. She is very kind to me in a brisk, efficient, sort of way, but it stops there. This puzzled me for a while, and then one day this thought popped into my head: that it was because she didn’t want to get to know me only to have me, well, die. Scientists don’t get emotionally involved. I remember the hazards of that when I was a vet nurse. It can be very draining. But it’s probably not that at all. I’m being over-dramatic as usual. She’s probably just very busy, and I really can be a handful as a patient. I’m probably their most annoying patient, what with getting the flu and almost dying and not going to a doctor etc… Forgetting to take enough meds that time I was in QLD, every other stupid thing I've done.

This entry has a happier ending, though. At least for now. Actually that’s funny, as I was thinking the other day that I have what is probably a kind of ‘Walt-Disney’ influenced attachment to happy endings. I can’t ever, ever, end an essay on a bad note. Always have to say something positive. Terrible. But anyway, this happy ending is as follows: Last year at my appointment with the Sydney specialist, I asked the Ghost of Christmas Future about my transplant likelihood, and I heard these magical words, “… Maybe never.”

Wonderful.

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various ramblings

Sunny outside. Blue sky. White snow on the mountain. I'm up on the fourth floor again, typing away. I'll go outside at some point, take some books out there and take notes from them or something. Nice to enjoy this weather while we've got it. My thoughts are scattered all over the place today. So I don't know what this entry will be like.

This morning I went to a cafe on the corner of my street to have a coffee and warm up in the sun. Traffic and people streaming past. A man sitting there smoking defiantly, even though it made me move tables. There was a yuppie-ish group of people at the next table talking tax returns and staff problems. Their black and white fluffy dog calmly sunned itself and thumped its tale at passing pedestrians. Two young boys and their mums at another table, the boys filled with a restless energy that at one point translated into one of them suddenly pelting off down the street, his mother helplessly yelling after him; using his full name as mothers do when they want to be paid attention to. As if to remind them that they belong to a real, grown-up world with responsibilities and consequences. "Alexander! Get back here!" I thought: that's what would happen if I had kids. The little ratbags would run off, up a hill, up some stairs, down some stairs. Anywhere. And I would be helpless to stop them.

This is a dangerous stream of thoughts for me: I can't have kids anyway. I can never have kids. A doctor I used to see said that I could, but as I got older I guess my pressures got too high. Because now it is always a firm no. No way. Never. Such a firm fact in my floaty, indeterminate life, my life that seems to change all the time... My health will always not be great, but does seem to get better and worse, have differing fazes. And with work, uni, jobs... Sometimes I work, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I have money, sometimes I'm poor. But this. This is one thing that won't ever change. A weight, something solid. Stones in my pockets, my shoes, tied round my neck. In the river of my thoughts, I'm drowning in its unfairness.

Well. That's a little dramatic. But it does seem like there's a thick glass wall between me and rest of 'normal' human existence. I've always felt outside of things somehow. Cut off. Finding out about this at age 22 or whatever, just confirmed that. And it's a fact that seems unnatural. I tend to think of generations like stairs, going down and down through the years endlessly... My great grandmother, my grandmother, my mother. Then with me it just stops. How can that be? Doesn't make sense. It's like an unfinished story. A book with the back pages ripped out.

But enough of that.

A few nights ago N, S, and I went to a lovely Italian restaurant for S's birthday. Was such a great evening: our talk was smooth and interesting and light-hearted and then intense at different times. Reminded me of when we first used to hang out together, only three or four years ago, I think. It was different between us, back then. Sometimes I would feel a kind of merging of identities. A sort of mingling of souls... Was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. Lovely, really. But these days its usually different. Resentments and assumptions, creeping in at the edges of our talk, our body language. Our actions.

But at the restaurant things were back like they used to be. Afterwards we went back to N's flat and listened to Leonard Cohen, talked some more. Had more wine. Silly, giggly, conversation mostly. Why were things better? Birthdays often have the effect of people bringing out their most congenial, happy, selves. Bright and shiny.

Ah... Well, two different streams of thought in this entry. Confirming my scattered, cluttered, disorganised state of mind! I think I'll go down to the reserve room and get that book, open it up, pick up my pen, and start writing something for this essay...

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Market Day

Saturday afternoon, shadows deepening into blue evening light. Home at last, in my fluffy chicken slippers, I'm sitting at my kitchen table, heater on. The shopping I bought at the market is in the fridge, or cupboard. A bunch of spinach. Chocolate. Tea. Honey. Nina Nastasia on the cd player, her pensively beautiful vocals , mysterious and intricate like somewhere dark and unexplored; an old ramshackle house with many rooms...

I set up the market stall at 8:00 am today; worked all day, then packed up too. I don't usually do that. Usually its an easy job: 10am start and finish at 2pm, nothing to pack up just, 'see you later' and pocket $60 or $70 depending on how well we did. Today, got up at 6 am and hastily put on as many layers as I could. I'd forgotten to check the weather the night before, so I had no idea of today's temperature. Top of 12 degrees, I think. Which isn't that bad...

Stood in the weak morning sun waiting for the bus. Blowing on my hands to warm them. Then the walk from town to Salamanca, took me about 15 minutes, I think. For a normal person it would take maybe 5. I have to stop a lot and catch my breath. Down at Salamanca it was nice. Markets just starting, people parking their cars and vans, taking out card tables, setting up racks of clothes, setting huge bunches of flowers into buckets of water. I still had time so I went and had a coffee, read the paper. Half an hour spare. Maybe I can get up later next week...

At 8 I helped set up, which was actually ok. I had to bend down to pull things out of boxes, but it didn't seem to bother me too much. I remember last year I really hated doing that at the market if I ever had to re-stock, so my health must be better than it was then. It was a reasonably busy day, not completely crazy. And mostly nice and sunny, not windy at all. Pretty easy work, not rushed. And by now adding up prices is easier because I'm used to doing the same mental calculations all the time. A few friends dropped by, and I was torn between wanting to chat and serving customers. Lucky for me that Ken is such an easygoing boss!

Later on I helped pack up. This was harder. I guess I was already tired from being on my feet all day. Pulling big boxes out, filling them up. Then folding the legs down of the card tables and carrying them over to the van. Not terrible, but I think not great. I don't know if I should do it again. I felt pretty out of breath, dizzy, etc. I guess I'll see how I feel tomorrow. The good thing about it was that I made $115! Is hard to say no to that... I've told Ken I'll do it next week, but I could call up tomorrow and ask him to get someone else... I guess I'll see. Was going to go to a friend’s gig tonight. Don't know if I will now... Not until 9:00, so maybe I'll feel like going then, but I think it’s unlikely. Opted out of going to a party last weekend because of $$, and I feel like I really want to see people and have a drink or two... But I have a feeling when the time comes the heater and a DVD will seem like the more attractive option!

Oh well. I'll try to get T, M, and L to go have $5 pizza at the ally cat tomorrow, that might satisfy my yearning for human company...

***

Wanted to add something funny from Saturday- One of the stallholders next to us is this guy who is mostly pretty nice (and makes beautiful glassware) but often comes over and talks to my boss, saying the most reprehensibly sexist things; silly things, just jokes mostly, but in a way that is irritatingly designed to go 'over my head'... (As a woman I don't exist at those times apparently!) I'll often roll my eyes as I listen to them, saying in my head, "Oh, yet another dinosoar remark from Mr sexist bastard..."

I think it's funny that Ken manages to good-naturedly parry these remarks with exactly the kind of comments I would have made had this guy been actually talking to me and not 'over my head'. I suspect sometimes that Ken is something of a closet feminist...Anyway, yesturday I was listening to some inevitably politically incorrect chauvenist comment, and thinking, "What a jerk!" when i realised his little joke was something about Viagra, and I went, "Oh that's right, its middday, time to take a dose!"

How handy to have someone remind me like that! (I often forget to take this dose!) So I forgave him for his stupid comment right away! ( ;

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market re-jig and annoying conversation

Well, I told my market boss that I didn't want to pack up the market next week, but that I was happy to set up if that was convenient... He called today when I was at the tip-shop, (a very tempting opp-shop on the way to uni)... I was fossicking for silly plasticy toy things, my latest stupid money-making plan. I have this idea that I can create weird-looking brooches and sell them at my freind Kate's market stall. Random and postmodern is all the rage at the moment, apparently... Not that I'd neccesarily know these things.

Anyway, Ken called while I was picking over these things so I went out into the street to talk. I'm so self-concious about talking on the mobile in public. Especially these, most hated, kinds of conversations. He was fine with it, of-course. I said something like, "Well I thought I was fine on Saturday, but then I felt rather the worse for wear on Sunday." Let him add his own interpretation to that. He knows I have 'heart problems', knows that Sonja and I discuss transplants and the like... And what do I care, anyway? It's agreed, now, I'll come early and set up and then the new girl will pack up... I'm so grateful for this job. I really am. I love the extra money and the sense of purpose I get from it, sad as that is! Although I do wish that I could pack up. Although it was difficult, I kind of enjoyed it too. The afternoon sun streaming down through the trees. The sound of packing up; rumbling car engines, clackings of tables being dissasembled, people shouting directions to each other,  jokes, farewells. A feeling of comradeship, I guess... It's nice staying right until the end. And I miss that 'tired from a hard day's work' feeling...

I had a coffee with L today and felt very much irritated by the way our conversation went. Not that I have said as much to her... But we were talking about high school reunions and she was basically saying how much she was dreading hers, then she went into this narrative about how in actual fact she was doing great, was a curator of a gallery, writing things, managing a Journal etc. All wonderful. Shiny, bright, career. Happy, happy. All of this just made me really depressed. I said something like, "Well the reason I don't want to go to my high school reunion is because I have none of those things... I'm just a first year arts student... God that sucks."

I guess saying these things, one expects some reassurance from one's closest freinds! But no... She said something like "Well you could be a contributor to my new Journal" Oh thank you, Magnanamous One. But then, sap that I am, I suggested writing a rant about Tim Winton (who i don't like much) and she said, "No, it has to be about art." Oh. right. Well I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ART!!!! Goddamnit. Stupid stupid conversation. How completely irritating. So she gets to have a great career, and I get stuck with nothing! What else would I expect? this disease lets me make hardly any money, go through uni at a snail's pace, and makes me forget every damn thing I learn anyway... *sigh* sometimes its just seems pretty bloody hopeless...

Ha, oh well, there's always my 'brilliant' new 'brooch scheme'... Although I still have to actually get around to doing it! Today at the opp shop I bought two tiny plastic smurfs, an esso key-ring, two figurines of people in old fashioned clothes, and a very small but rather creepy looking seal on some rocks. Now all I have to do is go to spotlight and buy some clasps, some superglue, and hey presto, my brilliant career in retail has begun!! ( ; Hmmmm... Interesting....

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Ergness

Woke this morning to a loud thumping noise that seemed to be outside the window. My Dvd player I thought foolishly. Grey light was seeping in over the ceiling, a ghost of a headache, my heart thumping. Damn it. Not enough oxygen again. Got to call that guy. Hate that guy. You know what he said? "I really enjoy helping people to die." Not what he meant of course, but what a way to put it. Really. And so healthy, active. Going on about his three jobs, two university degrees. Reminded me of that expression, In rude good health. His healthiness and evident enjoyment of life is obscene in front of my wasted, struggling, life, my half-lived life. Really. Those thoughts running through my head. But the noise at the window. Kind of a crunching noise. Song lyrics, Nina Nastasa; Oh my stars, you should have seen it/ from the sky,a piece of ice fell. Maybe its raining large chunks of chrystally blue ice... My alarm beeping, 7:30 am. Morning now. Time to do things. And the clock's under the bed somewhere. Oh right. That might explain the noise of something falling. Probably just the clock. Funny how in the dark things seem to come from different places...

Up now, still not breathing properly. I haven't been feeling too crash hot over last couple of days and wanted to record it here, so that I'll be able to tell now how often I get this little phases. Erg. Feel all puffy again. Awful. I'm surprised someone hasn't come up to me over the last few days and said, "When's it due?!" Ha. But really, I'm in a pretty good mood today as yesterday... ta da... Got a HD on my Bluebeard essay! Love uni sometimes.

Last year I got terrible marks for simister one English. I had the same lecturer that I have now, a scarily intense woman... Sarcastic, but precise comments on that essay, the second one I had ever written for uni. I would have to say now, in hindsight, that essay was pretty awful. But perhaps the sarcastic comments could have been spared? That simester was a little traumatic for me, needless to say! Yesterday at the end of the tutorial JM opened up the folder that contained everyone's essays and turned and looked at everyone and said ominously, "Some of you have failed this essay!" Oh dear. I turned to Mel, a woman who I often sit next to in lectures and said, "Oh shit. She's definitely talking about me...." But then, the wonderful moment. She handed out the essays and when she got to where Mel and I were sitting she said, "Well done!" to both of us. Mel got a Distinction, and I got a HD! Oh the elation! ( ; Actually, all I could do was stand there and stare at it, saying, "Holy shit!" Not very eloquent, but funny, because I recall now that that was exactly the same thing I did when I got my bad mark last year.  

It's not a high, high distinction. 16 out of 20. But she wrote lovely comments. Although at the end, she did write something like, 'Frankly, L, your last paragraph is a complete waste of space." My essay's woeful conclusion- the reason I was sure I was going to fail. Partly owing to the fact that I wrote that bit in kind of a hurry as I wanted to go camping for the weekend! So on this next essay, I will write a much better conclusion... It will be the conclusion to surpass all conclusions... Well, I think that might be pushing it a little bit! ( ;

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Strange Cakes and Dog Conversations

Well, morning again. Used the O2 machine for about 15 minutes or so this-morning, sitting at my desk, sipping a cup of tea and flipping through a Margaret Atwood book of short stories. I like Atwood. I like her sharp cynicism. Although sometimes I get sick of it; there's a kind of weariness in her writing, a way she has of making everything in the world seem old and tired and clichéd. Sort of like how I feel in the mornings: Old and tired and clichéd. Ha ha.

Mysteriously, no headaches from this machine, although I used it yesterday morning as well. I have a slight tinge of something that maybe would have turned into a headache if I used it for longer... But could be hangover from two G and T's I had at L's place last night. Maybe it was.

Last night, T and I helped L make biscuits and cakes for a stall to raise money for this art gallery thing called the 'guerrilla gallery'. Sort of a mobile, cardboard box gallery with random works from all different people. It's traveling to Sydney soon. Lucky it. L has done something to a nerve in her arm so couldn't stir stuff, hence her need for our help. I must admit, I was a bit reluctant to step in and save the day after our conversation, but I didn't really know how to bring it up so I just tried to get over it. Bragging about my Hd (and, goodness me, another one in sociology yesterday!) helped a little... ( ;

I made a pineapple-upside-down cake because they're easy to make and look so inviting. I eased the cake out onto the bench, upside down, and we all went, "Ooooo!" because it really is a very pretty cake. I leaned over to smell its rich, sugary, fruity aroma...

"Hey guys, this is weird but this cake kind of smells like... Well, it sort of smells like... Like catfood!"

"What?? No way!"

But after smelling it themselves, L and T had to agree! Catfood cake. Very strange. I don't understand it at all. All the ingredients for it I bought at the supermarket that afternoon, so nothing was out of date or anything. Odd. But very funny. Have asked L to text me from stall today if anyone says anything! Nothing so far! ( ;

Just had conversation with J about her dog that I've been meaning to have for ages. I've been kind of worried about it; is so skinny and hungry all the time. When I moved in it was overweight and on a diet, and I think J just hasn't known when to take it off the diet. Difficult conversation; I didn't want to upset her. So I tried to be casual about it, oh just a little bit worried... And advice from 'what I would have told someone when I worked as a vet nurse'... So went pretty well, I think. She agreed to stop feeding it tinned food, buy raw meat and feed it more dry food. And worm it. All very good. But who knows if she actually will.

Sometimes I worry that I do my sister's manipulative stuff a bit in these kinds of cases. But I think its different in this situation. Yes, its better to be honest with people, but in a share-house situation sometimes keeping the peace and having happy animals is more important... Maybe... 

 * * *

Adding this at about 1:pm today, just got this text message from L:

"Your cake is amazing! It's selling brilliantly and I had a bit and its gorgeous. Thanks so much for your help."

Awwwww... That's nice. Mustn't have been too bad after all. And nice to be appreciated. ( :

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Sunday...

Sunday today, a bland, cloudy day. Beige. It's a beige, monochromatic, day. Most hated, kind of day. What will I do? More homework, I'll read those two texts again, and, I was thinking this morning, I need to write a much better intro for my current English essay. Something that launches you right in, that somehow mimics the filmic quality of Jedda, the entertaining melodramatic Hollywood thing...  Not that I could necessarily even pull off something like that. And best not get too carried away with this. But I hate boring essays.

I would though, wouldn't I? This uni stuff is just about the only thing in my life that has any real purpose and meaning. And T and L the other day were making snide comments about first year students... God that was hurtful. Don't they realize how fragile my sense of self is? How perilously I cling to any thin wisps of identity I can??

Hmmmm... Yes, I'm being a bit over the top. Again. If they ever read that they'd probably say something like, "Oh but we don't think of you as a first year." Well, I bloody well I am. With all the bland-eyed idiocy that goes with it.

Anyway. Today. A bit later I'll plant some seedlings I bought at the market. Oregano, chamomile. Maybe the swedes and carrots are ready to go in. I hate crouching over in the dirt, makes me out of breath. But its worth it when stuff grows, I think. And I enjoy the general experience of being outside, the icy wind fanning the leaves, the sounds of the city churning away all around, but distant because of fences, divisions. My garden. A private space. The cat usually sits on top of the barbeque, the breeze trickling through his pinkish fur, he'll blink at the sun, its white, bright, light. Watching me work, or perhaps cleaning his paws. Jumping down to go on some mysterious but important cat-errand, tail waving, head high, tasting the wind.

My garden's not quite the picture of earthly paradise I wanted it to be, but its not too bad. Struggling along through the cold. Veggies coming up nicely now, poppies about to flower. Rose  bushes sending out little green buds. Yellow and white daffodils coming up now. I didn't actually plant those ones, or I might have put something out there, but I think only a few bulbs. Most of them must have been there already, dug into the cold winter ground by some previous tenant.

I worked at the market yesterday, fairly busy, sunny and even warm. Kids pulling on their parents' hands, whining. Can I have it? Can I? Some kids glowing with happiness at a purchase, such joy from a three-dollar page of Dora Explorer stickers, a two-dollar-fifty growing pet! Then one little boy of about three, with hair so blond it was almost white, throwing a tantrum over a toy car. His screams shrill and piercing, like that classic ‘eagle sound’ in old Western films. All the way up the rest of the aisle he kept at it. His grandmother bundling him along, embarrassed, fed up. She had three or four other grandchildren. Meek and well behaved as kids are when there's one really naughty kid around. THE BAD ONE. I felt sorry for this grandmother. I could tell she was doing her best, struggling to know what to do; buy him the toy, or not buy him the toy. And she had all the other kids to keep an eye on as well. This little boy was so intensely obsessive; he would grab hold of something, and then wouldn't let it go. And the idea in his head that he should have it, had to have it. Wouldn't let that go either. That deep sense of the unfairness of life that children feel. It's a kind of horror at the world they live in, full of stuff to want, want, want, all the time. And can't have, can't have, can't have. Not ever.

After they'd gone we sighed with relief and laughed about it and my boss said, "If that was my kid, he sure wouldn't have got that toy car." A father of three grown kids, veteran of temper tantrums in public places.

But I think this kid had some kind of behavior disorder. ADHD. Autism. I don’t know much about that stuff, but you could tell there was something a little intense going on. Not quite part of normal childhood stuff, somehow. Maybe the old woman wasn't even their grandmother. Foster carer. This boy deemed by the relevant authorities as ‘a problem case'... If so, I am awed by this woman. Such patience. I'd never be able to cope with that. This world we live in, all these people with problems. It feels overwhelming. Too much to deal with. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I'd rather stand safely behind my market stall, perhaps smile sympathetically, but then watch people with problems like that walk away. Out of my life. I have enough to worry about already, is my excuse. But I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. Just lazy. Emotionally, mentally, and… Well, I don’t think I’m physically lazy. Not all the time, anyway. I can let myself off the hook for that, at least. Maybe.

I can see a few bars of sunlight coming in through the kitchen skylight now, brilliant white yellow over the kitchen cupboard. Almost hurts to look at. May not be the worst day ever. Breakfast. Eggs, maybe, scrambled eggs made with sour cream. But I probably shouldn’t, as I’m trying to lose weight… But oh well, just today maybe. Eggs are good for me… And I have way too many now, as I bought heaps for cake-making... After breakfast I will, definitely will, get going on my stupid homework.  

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A few different things...

Thursday afternoon. Day three without television. I’m happy to say its been pretty good so far. W took it away on Tuesday. About a week ago he asked me to stick signs up at uni advertising all his stuff. I was suspicious, and I have to say, just ever so slightly hopeful he was moving out. Well, ok. Very ( and very guiltily), hopeful. But apparently he just wants to get rid of excess stuff.

No-one called about anything, except for the TV. W drove off in his taxi with it Tue morning, saying he was delivering it somewhere. But I don’t think he sold it after all, must have had to bring it back with him. Because I was lying in bed Wed morning, and heard some gruff Aussie accented bloke at the door, “Nah, I don’t think that thing’s worth $250. I’ll give you $150… $180? $200?”

No sale, apparently. Poor anonymous Aussie bloke. But the TV hasn’t reappeared in the living room yet.

 I was upset about it being sold, initially. Planned to go out to Moonah secondhand and see if I could find something for $50 or less. But then this thought popped into my head: “What if I become one of those people I’m always so envious of, someone who doesn’t have a TV…” The idea persisted, so that afternoon I carefully packed up my DVD player and put it in the cupboard, then re-arranged the living room so that the empty corner where the TV lived is no longer its focus. I pulled the table it used to sit on out into the middle for a proper coffee table at last. A blue cloth. An array of tea-lights in different shades of pink glass candle holders. Ha. My ‘new look’ living room.

So far its been nice. The black screen no longer beckons with its endless possibilities... All those adverts, all those catch phrases and jingles that used to clog up my head. I feel wonderfully free of them. For now… It’s a novelty at moment. It’s kind of exciting to say, “I’m going to go home and not watch television!” As if that were an activity all in itself.

Which its’ not. I have plenty of books to read now, made sure I borrowed three or four heavy volumes from uni today to keep myself entertained. And there’s always the internet. (This site, for example!) But once the newness wears off, I may very well go buy a TV secondhand…

What is it about television? Such a drug. The opportunity to lose ones’ self, and to leave your life behind, shrug it off like a old coat, a moth-eaten jumper, swap it over for a brighter, shinier, world. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz leaving grey, tornado rattled, Kansas for the technicolour vividry of Munchkin land. A digitally enhanced, wide-screen, surround-sound, drug. And everyone’s hooked. Hence the guy at the front door on Wed morning, plainly desperate to get that TV, yet not wanting to be ripped off.

Time to go cook some late lunch, I think. Felt queasy this morning after L’s birthday dinner. Too much champagne, red wine. Ug. Still feel strange. Went to uni and took notes from a book on writing about films. On the way home I read a Helen Garner non-fiction thing about traveling to Antarctica. I remembered half way through that I’d read it back in High school English. I don’t remember much about it at all from then. It was the title that rang a bell. We probably spent one, hot, grumbly, afternoon on it, back in Mrs Burton’s english class. Her whiteboard marker squeaking emphatically over the board, wearily searching our blank teenage faces for any tiny glimmers of recognition.. Intelligence… Anything…

Through a lot of her story, Garner rages against the other travelers’ excessive use of cameras. She seems to have a more ‘organic’ view of memory… She writes, “Why can’t we just let experiences lay themselves down in us like compost, or fall into us like seeds which may put forth a shoot one day, spontaneously, as childhood memories do, in answer to the stimulus of ordinary life?” A lovely sentence. Lovely idea. I’ve always hated cameras myself.

Photos. Happy snaps. Do they trigger real memories? Everyone lined up in a group shot against backdrop X, Y, or Z. Does it take you back to how things smelled? How you actually felt on that day? What you thought? Is it any different from taking away a stone, a leaf, or a doing a drawing?

I once lived on a rural property in Victoria. What can I say that would describe it without overly romanticizing it or making it false? Probably nothing. But the wind roaring through the gum trees and down the hillsides made me feel like I belonged there. And like I was awake, not just going through the motions of life, from one thing to the next. That’s all I can say about it.  One day, when I was about eleven, I had to move away, and then some years later it was sold. Always, I live with this loss. The loss of that place, of that life. Not a major tragedy on the scale of tragedies in people’s lives. But I have always felt somewhat… displaced, I guess.

Anyway, the point of this is that I don’t have a single proper photo of it. I have some badly done photocopies of two different photos that are getting more and more faded by the year. And if I do happen to see real photos of it its not really how I remember it anyway. Sometimes memories surface in sudden bursts. The smell of new paint. A spider drowning in a bath. Onion weed growing thickly along a hillside, its clumps of flowers like white bells. The rather awful colour combination of mission-brown and white. For a long time I used to say “I like daggy old houses. Reminds me of ****.”

Well, they did. And continue to. I don’t think I ever want to live anywhere new. Anywhere prefab. Blonde brick rendered. Thick gray security screens. They have masses of those houses around Hobart now, mushrooming up around outer suburbs. Mc Mansions they call them.

L is thinking about buying a newish sort of place. I don’t know how she could do it. I need to live in a house with soul, art and history embedded in its sagging old joints... Strange, because out of the two of us, she’s the artist. Maybe the ability to make art means you don’t need it in your everyday environment. Or something.

Hmmmm… How to finish this incredibly long, rambling entry? Its about five-twenty now. Time to make some food. All I’ve had today is some avocado on toast and a vending machine packet of nuts and dried fruit. And a cup of lemon-mint tea…. Time for pasta, I believe. And to distract myself somehow so I don’t have th