There’s a whole hole in my brain. I’m sure of it, simply because information, data, instructions, to-do lists, fast facts, quick quips, punctuation, spelling, all fall through the giant, gaping hole in my brain.
I am unable to remember the basic of things. I walk into my wardrobe then out again meaning to tell LSH some salient point only to have it vanish, just as quickly as it appeared.
I am often left standing in the lounge, in my underwear, pointing to the sky, mouth agape, with my eyes twitching from left to right searching my brain for the story I meant to tell. The dog’s heads lifts from her paws as she anticipates my no doubt great oratory (loyal little pumpkin that she is), but is instead left confused, re-resting her head on her cute feet, wondering why she bothered.
A couple of years ago, I was finishing a post graduate degree (I know, roll your eyes, I sound like a self promoting twat), while working insane hours. I discovered back then that pieces of information would fall out of my brain as I tried desperately to retain anything to do with the degree.
“It’s because I’ve got so much going on, two subjects at uni, lots of crazy work hours, while planning my wedding,” I thought, “It’s no surprise things fall off the radar. When I stop studying, things will be better.”
Only things aren't much better. Now, I have nothing to exercise my brain with and I’ve more time to drink. I’m sure I did serious damage to my brain over the Christmas break when I consumed almost three bottles of champagne to myself plus some further glasses of vodka in one sitting between 1pm and 11pm. It was very messy. I woke at 3am feeling a strange heat bubbling under my skin, with the hairs on my arms standing up on end. I was feeling faint all while my stomach churned Malaysian curry, champagne and vodka from left to right, up and down and back around again.
An overwhelming urge made me shift to the lounge room floor so I could feel the wood beneath my back. I’m fairly sure I fainted. The indelicate thud of my body, crashing to the floor woke LSH. Sober as a sensible judge he asked, “Do you need anything my love?”
“Nope, I’m fine, only I feel hot, weak and like I need to rip my skin off. Plus, I might throw up. But that aside, all good”
“You’re going to throw up here?” he asked.
“Yup,” I said.
“So, you’re going to throw up on the lounge room floor?”
“Yup”.
“Okay then,” he said in a way that suggested he’d had to put up with my ridiculous behaviour so many times before. He fetched me a pillow and went back to bed.
I lay on the cold floor trying to remember how Jim Morisson died ( lookey there, I remembered something)!
Previous to that drinking binge I’m sure some synapses were still firing, but that night made the left side of my brain completely separate from my right, voiding all synapses and creating a big black gaping hole in between.
Soon, I’ll be one of those poor people who drank too much in their formative years only to have their limbs stop responding to their brain neurons firing instructions to the extremities of their body. You’ll spot me walking through the mall, dragging my left leg behind me, inarticulate, unable to calculate % off discounts in my favourite stores unable to remember who anyone is. Here’s hoping I don’t lose bladder control too. Or I’d give new meaning to pissfit.
I’m still contemplating a glass of wine tonight though, I’ve had a tough week. Or at least I think I have, if only I could remember it…
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
It's a mighty punch and a kick
I’ve a new thing to be anxious about – some other series of thoughts with which to knot my stomach. These thoughts are about the fact that it appears the planet might very likely explode kind of soonish.
It appears mother nature has had enough of my big feet stomping all over the earth. She’s tired of your feet too. Frankly, she hates us all. She’s the geek in school, the one all us “cool” kids made fun of, ignored, treated like a pariah while blowing smoke in her face from our big fat cigarettes and now she’s turned into an enormous angry mother and is seeking her revenge.
We’ve been in drought, had 6% water in our dams, we’ve then been flooded with 197% water in our dams and we’ve had a cyclone or two, bush fires and now a massive earthquake in New Zealand.
Something about the footage from New Zealand drags on my heart strings. Sure I watched the footage of Haiti and I was both moved and saddened. But in counties with low GDP, I sort of callously expect their buildings to crumble when their foundations are shaken from underneath. I don’t expect New Zealand’s to.
I’ve seen devastating footage of earthquakes in California, but their earthquakes seem so much more severe, with giant rips through layers of bitumen – it’s an earth split, rather than an earth shake.
So this Earth shake has, in an instant, left families without their mothers. This image I saw online, scratched at my throat. The look on the boys face as he tries to swallow his sob captures it all. Just one moment and someone you love is gone in a horrific natural disaster.
I regularly say to LSH after part of our country is affected by flash flooding that it would be the worst thing, in my mind, to have my life or the life of someone I love, taken in a natural disaster. There’s no good way to go, I can’t imagine anything is good, after all, grief is grief. But to get up, say, “I love you, have a good day and I hope you’ve packed your lunch” before heading off to work, only to either be swept away in some random flooded river water or have your office wall crash down around you, that’d be, again, in my view, very very shit. More than shit, actually, completely fuckety fucked.
A split second changes it all. It’s mental. It’s crazy. I can’t get my little brain around it.
I know trite platitude after trite platitude: life’s fragile, special, short etc etc blah blah, but we never think it when we’re in it. I spend so my time wondering what I should be doing with my life, as I run round and around in circles chasing some invisible goal, but there are those moments, that unify us for a moment and quiet the dull drone inside our heads a feel something for someone we don’t know.
So, I have a knot in my stomach, and it’s getting bigger with every mighty punch from mother nature, as I am more convinced that I’ll have no choice, it’ll all end with a massive natural disaster.
I really hope the planet calms down soon, it’s getting to be beyond a very bad joke.
It appears mother nature has had enough of my big feet stomping all over the earth. She’s tired of your feet too. Frankly, she hates us all. She’s the geek in school, the one all us “cool” kids made fun of, ignored, treated like a pariah while blowing smoke in her face from our big fat cigarettes and now she’s turned into an enormous angry mother and is seeking her revenge.
We’ve been in drought, had 6% water in our dams, we’ve then been flooded with 197% water in our dams and we’ve had a cyclone or two, bush fires and now a massive earthquake in New Zealand.
Something about the footage from New Zealand drags on my heart strings. Sure I watched the footage of Haiti and I was both moved and saddened. But in counties with low GDP, I sort of callously expect their buildings to crumble when their foundations are shaken from underneath. I don’t expect New Zealand’s to.
I’ve seen devastating footage of earthquakes in California, but their earthquakes seem so much more severe, with giant rips through layers of bitumen – it’s an earth split, rather than an earth shake.
So this Earth shake has, in an instant, left families without their mothers. This image I saw online, scratched at my throat. The look on the boys face as he tries to swallow his sob captures it all. Just one moment and someone you love is gone in a horrific natural disaster.
I regularly say to LSH after part of our country is affected by flash flooding that it would be the worst thing, in my mind, to have my life or the life of someone I love, taken in a natural disaster. There’s no good way to go, I can’t imagine anything is good, after all, grief is grief. But to get up, say, “I love you, have a good day and I hope you’ve packed your lunch” before heading off to work, only to either be swept away in some random flooded river water or have your office wall crash down around you, that’d be, again, in my view, very very shit. More than shit, actually, completely fuckety fucked.
A split second changes it all. It’s mental. It’s crazy. I can’t get my little brain around it.
I know trite platitude after trite platitude: life’s fragile, special, short etc etc blah blah, but we never think it when we’re in it. I spend so my time wondering what I should be doing with my life, as I run round and around in circles chasing some invisible goal, but there are those moments, that unify us for a moment and quiet the dull drone inside our heads a feel something for someone we don’t know.
So, I have a knot in my stomach, and it’s getting bigger with every mighty punch from mother nature, as I am more convinced that I’ll have no choice, it’ll all end with a massive natural disaster.
I really hope the planet calms down soon, it’s getting to be beyond a very bad joke.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Something to be grateful for.
Everyone said, “don’t have a list”.
“You’ll never find Mr Right if you have a list. It’s too prescriptive,” they said.
But of course I had a list. Not having a list is like going shopping for shoes without knowing the colour, style, heel type, toe style, material or price range and expecting the perfect pair to magically appear and match every outfit in your wardrobe.
Mine was a relatively specific list, but I was prepared to wait to have at least most of the “requirements” ticked off. I noted things like:
He’s my incredibly wonderful, unbelievably generous, totally selfless, caring, warm, centred, funny, sarcastic, understanding, fun, patient (except when he’s driving), sometimes argumentative, pissfit, smartass, tender, honest and kind husband.
I call him my Long Suffering Husband (LSH) partly because he’s a very private person and tends to merely tolerate my telling our stories both here and out in public with a laugh and a shake of the head, but also because he puts up with all my many idiosyncrasies and they are many. So plentiful are my slightly crazy habits that my mother once said she never thought any man would ever want to commit to me, but would rather have me committed.
He’s the warmest person I’ve ever met. It’s really hard to explain, but usually I feel kind of filled with a frenetic energy going in every direction. My emotions move up and down, while my thoughts go around and around. Yet, when I’m near LSH it all stops. I’m still because he is still. I am convinced his energy, which is so steady and centred, spreads to me when I am near him. Someone once said that talking to LSH was like smoking a good joint. That person was patently an idiot, but I understand the sentiment that was being expressed. Being near LSH, for me, is like taking a really deep breath and then exhaling. This all sounds so selfish. This is what he gives me. And I have to say I feel like it’s everything. I am not sure what I provide him in return, except perhaps a headache and maybe even hypertension..
I do know that I am the luckiest woman alive, I’m lucky to have even found LSH – what will all those criteria, let alone have him love me with the same limitless and never ending amount that I love him.
Happy V day all and, in particular, my dearest LSH!
“You’ll never find Mr Right if you have a list. It’s too prescriptive,” they said.
But of course I had a list. Not having a list is like going shopping for shoes without knowing the colour, style, heel type, toe style, material or price range and expecting the perfect pair to magically appear and match every outfit in your wardrobe.
Mine was a relatively specific list, but I was prepared to wait to have at least most of the “requirements” ticked off. I noted things like:
- must have straight, white teeth
- must have a strong, biggish nose
- must be a few years older (men my own age have not stood the test well and there’s something super sexy about someone a little bit older…)
- must have blue eyes and brown hair.
- must have good sized ears. (I dated a man once who had small ears, it was weird).
- must make me laugh
- must laugh at my jokes
- must be easy going
- must not be moody (I’m moody enough, thank you very much)
- must be able to deal with me and my many other personalities
- must get along with my friends
- must must must love dogs and animals in general
- must love all music (except country and western, I can forgo having to listen to country and western)
- must have travelled and be interested in travel
- must like curry and food in general
- must like alcohol and be good with it.
He’s my incredibly wonderful, unbelievably generous, totally selfless, caring, warm, centred, funny, sarcastic, understanding, fun, patient (except when he’s driving), sometimes argumentative, pissfit, smartass, tender, honest and kind husband.
I call him my Long Suffering Husband (LSH) partly because he’s a very private person and tends to merely tolerate my telling our stories both here and out in public with a laugh and a shake of the head, but also because he puts up with all my many idiosyncrasies and they are many. So plentiful are my slightly crazy habits that my mother once said she never thought any man would ever want to commit to me, but would rather have me committed.
He’s the warmest person I’ve ever met. It’s really hard to explain, but usually I feel kind of filled with a frenetic energy going in every direction. My emotions move up and down, while my thoughts go around and around. Yet, when I’m near LSH it all stops. I’m still because he is still. I am convinced his energy, which is so steady and centred, spreads to me when I am near him. Someone once said that talking to LSH was like smoking a good joint. That person was patently an idiot, but I understand the sentiment that was being expressed. Being near LSH, for me, is like taking a really deep breath and then exhaling. This all sounds so selfish. This is what he gives me. And I have to say I feel like it’s everything. I am not sure what I provide him in return, except perhaps a headache and maybe even hypertension..
I do know that I am the luckiest woman alive, I’m lucky to have even found LSH – what will all those criteria, let alone have him love me with the same limitless and never ending amount that I love him.
Happy V day all and, in particular, my dearest LSH!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Loose cannons and Sunday roasts
My parents have, what I would consider, connections with people who live in Offensive Town. A place that shares its borders with Ignorant Ville and Judgemental Hill – where the glass houses have views of the high horses put out for agistment.
There was once a “friend” who made comments about my sexuality when I didn’t bring any boys to dinner. He would also question my political beliefs as a young woman at university who was enjoying sharing feminist ideals with her new colleagues, by eloquently stating that “you can’t be a feminist because you wear a bra”. How underwear relates to one’s ability to think, I’m yet to learn.
In this man’s presence I drank and smoked more. It was my only line of defence. No point in arguing with someone who is patently stupid. Plus, my mother would take umbrage with my calling him a “fuckwit”, at someone else’s dinner table.
His wife, when I met LSH – the first man to be tortured by being a guest at one of these gatherings said, “I am pleased you’re happy.” I smiled, although thinking that I hadn’t realised I was unhappy before. I’m being harsh, but that type of un-thought out platitude makes my trite-ometer go haywire.
Until recently, I’ve been safe, somehow protected from the silliness of my parent’s friends. Now married and having been working full-time for what seems like an eternity, I had my lifestyle choices being challenged over a Sunday roast. I’ve mentioned before I’m not a great wife in the traditional sense of the word. I don’t actually like the terminology for married folk particularly that of ‘wife’. They are too labelling and smell of pigeon holes. LSH and I think of ourselves as a high performing team, working synchronistically to achieve goals. This, for so many people of my parent’s generation seems impossible to fathom.
“Do you make lunch for LSH?” One woman asked.
“No”. Was my deadpan reply.
“Who does the ironing in your house?” The same one woman asked again.
“I do it, in the main, but when I’m out or too tired and it needs to be done, LSH does it.” I said, wondering why I am giving away all this boring, mundane detail about our household chores.
“Do you cook for him?”
“Uhm, sometimes,” I replied.
“Do you clean?”
“Yes, we share tasks.”
“When you have a child who will look after it?”
Things are starting to get out of hand and I, in turn, start to behave like a five year old.
“Oh, LSH will,” I say, my tone thickening, “He’s better with remembering to feed things than I am. I can barely remember to feed the dog.” This is not entirely true, I just take longer to get ready for work than LSH does, so he’s already on the front foot with dog things.
“Oh Michelle.” Super offensive nosey woman says. “Tsk, tsk tsk. Poor LSH.”
LSH who doesn’t do confrontation, said nothing. His silence made this woman feel like she’d uncovered some great relationship secret LSH had been hiding from me. She gave LSH a knowing, pitying look of knitted eyebrows, sad down-turned lips and puppy dog eyes. I’m insulted for both me and for LSH. Apparently while I am a crappy, selfish wife, LSH is an idiot who can’t cook or clean for himself.
I can’t believe I have to endure these types of conversations. Anything I say as retort is going to be inflammatory, hence I say nothing and bury my face in a big glass of wine.
“Are you getting drunk?” asks super offensive woman.
“Yes.” I reply.
“Don’t you have to go to work tomorrow?” she asks.
“Yes. And that’s precisely the point of this entire conversation.” I say, while my inner voice does fist pumps.
There was once a “friend” who made comments about my sexuality when I didn’t bring any boys to dinner. He would also question my political beliefs as a young woman at university who was enjoying sharing feminist ideals with her new colleagues, by eloquently stating that “you can’t be a feminist because you wear a bra”. How underwear relates to one’s ability to think, I’m yet to learn.
In this man’s presence I drank and smoked more. It was my only line of defence. No point in arguing with someone who is patently stupid. Plus, my mother would take umbrage with my calling him a “fuckwit”, at someone else’s dinner table.
His wife, when I met LSH – the first man to be tortured by being a guest at one of these gatherings said, “I am pleased you’re happy.” I smiled, although thinking that I hadn’t realised I was unhappy before. I’m being harsh, but that type of un-thought out platitude makes my trite-ometer go haywire.
Until recently, I’ve been safe, somehow protected from the silliness of my parent’s friends. Now married and having been working full-time for what seems like an eternity, I had my lifestyle choices being challenged over a Sunday roast. I’ve mentioned before I’m not a great wife in the traditional sense of the word. I don’t actually like the terminology for married folk particularly that of ‘wife’. They are too labelling and smell of pigeon holes. LSH and I think of ourselves as a high performing team, working synchronistically to achieve goals. This, for so many people of my parent’s generation seems impossible to fathom.
“Do you make lunch for LSH?” One woman asked.
“No”. Was my deadpan reply.
“Who does the ironing in your house?” The same one woman asked again.
“I do it, in the main, but when I’m out or too tired and it needs to be done, LSH does it.” I said, wondering why I am giving away all this boring, mundane detail about our household chores.
“Do you cook for him?”
“Uhm, sometimes,” I replied.
“Do you clean?”
“Yes, we share tasks.”
“When you have a child who will look after it?”
Things are starting to get out of hand and I, in turn, start to behave like a five year old.
“Oh, LSH will,” I say, my tone thickening, “He’s better with remembering to feed things than I am. I can barely remember to feed the dog.” This is not entirely true, I just take longer to get ready for work than LSH does, so he’s already on the front foot with dog things.
“Oh Michelle.” Super offensive nosey woman says. “Tsk, tsk tsk. Poor LSH.”
LSH who doesn’t do confrontation, said nothing. His silence made this woman feel like she’d uncovered some great relationship secret LSH had been hiding from me. She gave LSH a knowing, pitying look of knitted eyebrows, sad down-turned lips and puppy dog eyes. I’m insulted for both me and for LSH. Apparently while I am a crappy, selfish wife, LSH is an idiot who can’t cook or clean for himself.
I can’t believe I have to endure these types of conversations. Anything I say as retort is going to be inflammatory, hence I say nothing and bury my face in a big glass of wine.
“Are you getting drunk?” asks super offensive woman.
“Yes.” I reply.
“Don’t you have to go to work tomorrow?” she asks.
“Yes. And that’s precisely the point of this entire conversation.” I say, while my inner voice does fist pumps.
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