Mud (Blood) - 1997-1998

Events contract and merge. They expand to fill a lifetime, then summarily divest themselves of my influence. Time becomes fluid; it drips and it flows; it pools about my feet and then evaporates to leave a patch of sticky, putrescent mud.

* * *

...So after the rape, I was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit. Constant supervision. Closed circuit cameras. Big foam blocks instead of mattresses. No blankets. I don't remember much more. It blurs with the High Dependency Unit at the first place.

He was left on the ward. When I was released from the ICU, a day; a week; a month later, he was gone. Apparently he was well enough to leave.

In the meantime, the population had shifted. There was a new batch of adolescents who had listened too closely to the voices in their heads and been locked away for it.

My roommate was gone. Traumatised by having interrupted barely long enough before fleeing, she was flown back home to a kinder, gentler place for further treatment. Rendered delicate and insipid by vampiric delusions and a related leap from the balcony of her family home, she too had ignored my protestations; my request that she merely, “Stay, please,” and by her very presence, offer the assurance of escape. She is thus forever painted in my mind as a rather pathetic fucking vampire and an even more pathetic woman.

The witch at the end of the hall was far more likable than the child of blood. New to the hospital and at the very peak of her psychosis, she was utterly mad, but so assured was she in her delusion that it seemed impossible for me not to become a minor character in its unfolding. Who could disappoint such a disarming creature with the crass intrusion of a baser reality? She was all about the magic and the love. Nevertheless, I don't doubt she'd have gone all Hermione Granger on his nasty little ass had she stood in the quavering vampire's fluffy pink slippers. 

“Avada kedavra, Shithead.”

The Spiderpup Chronicles - A New Friend

I told u I was hardcore...


But not that hardcore, obviously...


Just imagine a process that doesn't involve any squealing at all. Right. Now me catching this spider was the precise opposite of that. There was also hysterical laughter and I don't mean funny ha ha hysterical, I mean half sobbing, out of control crazy person hysterical.

Still, I think I'm making progress.

Knitting for Penguins

In case you forgot it, here is further proof that I am HARD-core.

Check it out, people. That there is a knitting injury. Yes, I actually knitted until my finger bled.

I am using this delightfully hardcore Patons Powder Puff yarn in pale blue and pink to knit a Christmas present hoodie that I'm telling DK is blankets for penguins. As she watches me knit (and bleed), we discuss the unfortunate Arctic penguins and how terribly cold they get in all that snow. We talk about the logistics of getting the finished products to them and measure the blankets against her, because, as luck would have it, she is about the size of a small emperor penguin.

I think she suspects that I suspect that she suspects, but she's learned already to take her pleasant surprises where she can get them. And so I knit an eerily sleeve-like blanket for a rather little penguin and she talks about how soft and warm that lovely blanket will be for some poor shivering, inadequately feathered baby and (I suspect) secretly hopes that her suspicions do not disappoint her.

DK's music teacher overheard one of the penguin conversations and interrupted to ask about the penguins. Were they live penguins? She seemed concerned. Had there been an oil spill? I looked at her, horrified, "Um... I'll tell you about it later?"

Now she calls me "the penguin lady".

PROMPTuesday - Held

Today's half-assed post comes to you courtesy of San Diego Momma's PROMPTuesday and the word, 'held', suggested by One Word (also the number 4, the letter 'z' and the Cookie Monster). Please note, however, that neither SDM nor One Word can be blamed for the actual half-assedness of the post. That's all down to me. 

Oh, and happy, happy birthday, SDM. You pwn 40!

Held

I fall in love with sad, sweet boys.

I hold and I am held.

I feel the strength

Of their arm's embrace.

I hide my face

Against their chests.

Then I watch

As they sink slowly

Into that abyss 

I know too well.

I wonder

That a thing 

So strong it takes my breath

Should be brought low

By a trick of the light.

I cannot watch you die,

So watch as I avert my eyes.

Big Mouth

I think that I was almost shocked to discover how many of you share, in some way, the bitter sadness that I thought was all my own. I'll try to ignore the fact that the one element you all seem to have in common is tinsenpup. I'm almost positive it's just a coincidence... Although, just between you and me, in the past, people closely associated with me have been known to take extreme measures to get away.

Avoiding negativity-soaked posts that I would sorely regret with the dawn of happier times was well and good, but there is a point where a judicious decision tips the scale and becomes self-indulgent excuse. So here I am. I was going to post yesterday, but I had this whole puking/pooing thing going on, which made it more fun just to lie about, when I wasn't rushing out to try to construct yet another Vegemite sandwich for DK, before wiping out on the next wave of nausea. If, like me, you think that life works best as a metaphor for itself, you would realise that all that purging was clearly a statement about my need to spew my life out onto this electronic page, regardless of the fact that all those spewy words will end up in precisely the same place, and hopelessly intermingled with, a whole lot of (simultaneously produced) shit. Then again, maybe I just had way too much time to think yesterday.

Finally, in the interests of not dropping in just to complain (and talk about poo), I give you this photo, simply because it makes me smile. This is the family of tawny frogmouths that live in my friends' suburban front yard. That's Dad on the right, Mum in the middle and Baby on the left. They are touchingly devoted parents; standing together to battle the ever-present perils of suburbia and keep their little one safe.

I Have Despondency

Lashings of the stuff. Enough to go around, in fact, if you're in the market. I can tell you now that I am in possession of a veritable cornucopia of sadness, with bitterness bubbling and frothing to the surface in the absence of the positivity which usually renders it inert.

As a consequence, my thinking is utterly aberrant. Where most of the time, I'm all: "I'm sure she didn't mean to run me over with her car. After all, I was walking on the footpath...in broad daylight...wearing a safety vest...I was asking for trouble really..." now I'm all, "Did you see the way that bitch looked at me when she was smiling and saying how lovely it was to meet me? She was, like, totally judging me."

Given that no good can come of it, I'm trying to defer thinking for better times. That could make blogging difficult. Then again...

The Spiderpup Chronicles - Mostly 'Armless

Admittedly our latest intruder was relatively small, but he scores extra points for proximity, appearing, as he did, on my bare arm as I 'helped' DK pack up her Thomas the Tank Engine train set. I confess, I screamed and flicked my attacker off in what can only be described as a blind panic, after which it became evident that the innocent fellow had merely lost his way while trying to catch a train.

Although his intended destination remains a mystery, I can tell you that he ended up in a far corner of the backyard.

It is probably for the best that DK was in another room while I was 'helping' to pack up her train set. I'm almost sure I'd not have had the wherewithal to take aim in my frenzied flicking and I don't believe that propelling potentially venomous arachnids at your children is on the list of prescribed parenting practices.

And so we are left only with the age old mystery: What's with all the goddamned spiders lately? Are these little archetypes, these ancient representatives of the tribe of fear, trying to tell me something? Do they have an idea to sell? And why have all three recent intruders had only seven legs? Does this perhaps mean that, while fear lives on, impinging upon the everyday, it has, at least, been handicapped or hobbled (by precisely one eighth, in fact)?

The Spiderpup Chronicles - A Shared Adventure

Once upon a halcyon time; in a lost era of more idealistic parenting, my pretty little head conceived a notion, undeniably admirable in theory. This notion was part of the grander scheme of circle-breaking that informs all I do as a mother.

I determined that I would not infect my young with arachnophobia (among other colourful and varied madnesses with which I share more than a passing acquaintance). So when I came across a fat, sharp-angled redback in the compost bin one day, I called my tiny girl to me. I drew steady breaths and spoke in soft, measured tones.

"Look at the redback spider. We know that this one's a girl, because only the girls have the big red stripe on their abdomen. Isn't she interesting? Yes, but we never touch redbacks, do we? No, they're very dangerous."

She is interested. She is calm and relaxed as she examines the spider, suspended in its ragged web. Then she moves; shifts her weight slightly; leans forward and suddenly I am grabbing her in panic; snapping at her, "Don't touch it!" She shrinks back inside herself and I apologise. I explain as best I can.

She is fine. She is not afraid, but she no longer wants to look at the spider. She prances away, back to her game. And I know that while I have not yet transmitted my fear to her; a latent, primal force has been triggered and she will never again look upon a spider with a wholly quiet mind.

The Spiderpup Chronicles - An Unexpected Discovery

This tale begins with what is, sadly, one of my earliest memories. Cue the fog machine and the eerie flashback music.

Now, picture me, a tiny little girl with golden hair. I am standing in the backyard, facing my mother and older sister. They are grinning and stifling laughter. I do not yet know the word 'conspiracy'. I am merely appreciative of their unprecedented joint attention, if a little confused.

"Take a step backwards," they giggle. I do as they say, giggling along with them.

"Okay, take another step...and don't turn around!...Take another step...Another one...and one more...Okay, turn around...NOW!"

I turn, excited by the delightful surprise that their gleeful demeanor surely promises.

Do I even need to tell you that there, only inches from my sweet, chubby little face, was a spider as big as my hand, hanging in a web, that in my memory covers the whole of the recessed section of the back wall of our house?

I scream. Stagger. Fall. My mother and sister laugh themselves silly. I cry. I discover betrayal. I am outraged, but I am also forced to accept the still amused comfort of my mother, because I am a little girl, sobbing, and she is everything to me.