Confessions, a Train Ride Home

I have  been thinking about writing, and how I am not.

There is a part of me that wants to blame medication, even though I stopped writing before the medication ever came into play. This is not unfair as it has shifted the way I think and feel. The heart does not howl any more, or, I have forgotten how to listen to it. I think this silencing has in turn silenced my need to write, to capture and tame my storms with mere words, precise words. And this should not be a problem, but it is very close, only a step away from, having nothing to say.

Which is not true, cannot be true, yet is very true.

If the need to express a voice does not come from within, then, given all the noise being forced into the world already, how can I possibly justify adding to it? If I have nothing that I need to say, then output must be because there is something I believe others need to hear. The audacity and arrogance aren't mine, not comfortably, to assume I have the authority to decide this. Even though I may choose the platform so that the choice to consume lies with the reader - no. There is already too much noise out there. There is nothing I can say that has not already been said.

There is no requirement for need in the writing of fiction. Need in the writer's voice can lend power to a story, but it is not required. I could write simply because I want to. But when the power of need has fuelled you for so long, action by want seems pale and trivial by comparison.

All that occurred in my life was for writing. All the learning and heartache and new experiences; all grist for the mill. It would all out in the stories one day. But now I don't need to cast my trials in such a light in order to make them palatable enough to see through, my lover stands by me throughout all fire and flood. It is enough to simply spend my days with him. But is it? Is a life that is enjoyed but to no end of any purpose? Writing was a purpose I gave my life in order to keep my life. Now that I am in no such danger, the purpose is no longer required, and yet to simply live is not enough, would be such selfish and wasted time.

I have already lost so much time. To waste more will lead only to self-disgust. Still, I cannot underestimate fear and the scars left by physical pain and emotional anguish that come into play. I lost my future, one I did not even know I projected upon myself, and so all I have and had done became untethered. Echoes of this singular horror I've heard from those struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is not for me to self-diagnose, but it would be remiss of me to overlook this one and only echo.

To confront my identity as a writer, to consider reviving it, is to also risk the possibility of losing it again. Hope is such an awful creature. I had to give her away. She cost me too much. To survive I had to give her away. I had to.

Even from now, this place of strength, I can't dip into this subject matter without feeling it in my nerves and knowing that I will never be strong enough to survive the loss of my identity again.

There most probably lies the heart of the matter. Not all the medication and emotional well-being in the world will help me finish a story if I am afraid.

And I am so very afraid.

this bitter pill and apathy my shield

Monday
Enough said.

Tuesday
Insomnia. Still reeling from the previous days' episode. Fear of taking pill = not taking pill = day spent in pain. Headache. Phone call. Doctor's appointment booked a month prior now canceled due to doctor calling in sick.

Wednesday
Insomnia. Fear of taking pill = not taking pill = day spent in pain. Headache. Shittest job interview ever, for the job I'm doing now no less. Anxiety and despair. Single most painful physio experience of my life. Spilt whole cup of tea on my phone.

Thursday
Insomnia. Have bruises from previous day's physio. Take pill. Have a lesser episode on train in to work, but still an episode. Remain at work. Headache remains in head. Visit cobbler's to pick up boots put in to have the soles repaired, and discover cobbler has given my favourite pair of boots to some random other customer. Paid, and so pay my bills and rent and am left with less than a third of my pay.

Friday
Insomnia. Take pill. Have lesser episode. Remain at work. Headache remains in head. Rescheduled appointment with doctor = talking about RSI = dredging up a lot of things I expend a great deal of energy not thinking about. Cry in public. Wear sunglasses indoors. Cyclist hits me so hard I leave the ground. The impact from finding the ground again knocks my vision black. Too stunned to get his details. My right arm took the brunt of the collision, and I landed on my left elbow. They are starting to hurt.

This Is Not Patience

Useless I

Breakfast has never been a regular feature in my diet. Unless it's special, like eggs benedict or pancakes, it doesn't exist. Recently I've been forced to add it to my day. I dislike the weight it has added to my hips and belly. I don't need any more cushioning, but my stomach does.

Most mornings I take a painkiller before I've finished getting dressed.

Job Interview

He said: "So, what qualities do you bring to the position?"

I said: "That's a pretty broad question."

She said: "This is your opportunity to tell us how great you are."

I said: "Oh! I'm awwwwwesome!"

The above conversation based on a true story. "Based on" meaning "word for word".

Useless II

Some mornings it doesn't matter that I've eaten, or what I've eaten. Some mornings my body won't have a bar of it.

It usually hits on the train into the city; a slab of nausea; an intense cold sweat that leaves me dehydrated in seconds; and that heavy distance between me and my body; all the harbingers that indicate I am about to collapse and/or puke.

Speaking of Puke

So I suck at breakfast and I suck at dinner, but I take lunch very seriously. Usually because by that point I'm starving.

If it weren't for habitual thinking I would have used lunch to illustrate this post, but to be honest, it would have been equally tedious. I cook batches, freeze batches, and eat the same thing every day for weeks on end.

The last batch I cooked was soup that deviated from my normal vegie soup, so of course it was scrotum. I've been eating poo soup for months.

Last week I decided to experiment again and have a go at making dal makhani. Which would have worked fine if I had black lentils instead of black beans.

Oh well. Can't go too bad with all those spices.



All last week, except Friday when I had peanut butter toast.

Useless III

Like today.

Tempus Can Go Fug Itself

I feel I should comment on the changing light, the newly opened sky, and the longer warmth in the days. They say that people who live with marked seasons feel the passage of time deeper than those close to, say, the equator. Any other time I would have rolled all over this unwrapped season, welcomed that passage of time. Not now. I have had to draw myself in close to these passing seconds. I cannot support the weight of my future, or the burden of my history, I've had to recoil and instead of smearing myself across time I am a small concentration of awareness. Here. Now.

Useless IV

The trials of living a lone are never so emphasised as when you are incapacitated.

They Won't Be Silent

When the sun is out, they come out. And sit in the court yards and cafés. And talk. And laugh. And talk. And talk. And talk. And their talk comes in my windows, and even here I can't escape the world.

Useless V

I need a doctor's certificate. I can't burn through my sick leave so fast, or I'll be forced to start taking leave without pay, and I can't afford that.

The medical clinic doesn't bulk bill. The money left in my account is needed for a train ticket.

The Best of the Horrible

Best of ASIM vol 2: Horror available for download as a PDF, and featuring Bitter Elsie Mae, a story I wrote about a vengeful ship. It made Ellen Datlow's Honourable Mentions. Not bad, little story, not bad.

Useless VI

I take these pills and sometimes they work and I can do my job, and sometimes they don't and I lose sick leave and time, and who knows what they're doing to my kidneys, and they constipate me and make me put on weight, and ultimately, they make no difference.

I still can't write.

Useless VII






Useless VIII

I can't bear the future or my past, and I can't say the present is easy to carry either.

Useless IX




Useless X

Is it self-pity if you can't-

Useless XI











Useless XII

I'm just lying here with a bucket for company, picking out these words a letter at a time.

I know it's only because I'm suffering some serious fatigue and am PMSing like a feral bushpig, but today is horrible and I hope it ends soon.

Happy birthday, me.

Monday I was back.
Today is Thursday.
I am not unpacked.





Tired.

Meat

Today I did not go to work because I felt rotten. This happens exactly never, as I have an immune system that is never defeated, and because I'm one of those horrible people who just goes to work even when feeling a bit crook.

When the alarm went off this morning, I felt ghastly enough to decide that yes, actually, sleeping for the whole day was in everyone's best interests. So I did.

I haven't eaten for more than 24 hours. Considering my current condition and two seconds spend pondering my recent diet, I figured I probably needed some iron, so meat was the go. To the shops I shambled, and spent a lot of time staring blankly at the shelves and counting the money in my pocket because right now, counting and decision making are beyond me.

Eventually I found some 'spinach and meat cannelloni' on discount. Spinach AND meat! There's some good hearty iron. And I can afford it too, bonus!

Having just consumed a couple, I can state with all certainty that there was no spinach or meat involved, and what I just ate was in fact a couple of tubes of cheese.

I'm going back to bed.

ICE TESTICLES ATTACK MELBOURNE!

When you throw hailstones that are the size and shape of angry testicles at the roof of the Domed Reading Room in the State Library, it sounds not like rain, or hail, it sounds like coconuts. Lots of coconuts. Lots of coconuts over many minutes, which is quite deafening in a big cavernous space. And dark. And then the fire alarm went off. And the lights went out. And we GTFO.

Into "this thunderstorm is very dangerous", no less.



Flinders Street is flooded. AGAIN. And the roof at Spencer Street Station, being a lovely and striking design which is not actually designed to cope with weather, let alone extreme weather, broke, and when I went through there were snow drifts on the platforms. Rail signals are down on a heap of lines. Trams are stuck several feet of water. As far as I know, my sweetnesses are still out there, trapped by floods. If there are any white knights who can pilot helicopters reading this, go get rescuing.

I had a really hard time motivating myself to get out of bed this morning. I had an even harder time convincing myself to put pants on and step out the front door. Now I know why. I shall never confuse apathy and premonition again.

ETA: Elizabeth Street flooded in a I GOT PLACES TO GOOOOO sort of way.





Twice the CBD of Melbourne has been hit by flash flooding since I got back from South America. Melbourne, honey, what are you doing?

The Ghost of Harddrive Past Does Not Walk

Took Eddie's old brain to a data retrieval centre. A quick diagnosis indicated that the reading arm was busted, a mechanical fault that would cost over $2,000 to fix and take up to four weeks. That was a punch in the guts, but I told myself I was buying my future self a present, and there was a finance scheme of sorts, but-

But that particular model of harddrive was built with a coating on the disk which comes off, clogs the head and erases the data.

He said they could give it a go, but the chances of retrieving anything were infinitesimal.

Sayonara, Hokkaido.

Sad Hands, Sad Face

My hands greatly enjoyed my trip. All that time not spent at the computer! They were very happy hands.

I spent three hours this morning taking care of my inboxes, and haven't touched a computer in ten hours. But now they are not happy hands at all.

All the things I want to do involve typing. All of them. I don't know what to do.

For Those It May Concern

Recap: September last year, I went off the pill. I'd been on it for 10 years.

Current Status: I have just started my third period since then. That's averaging one ovulation cycle every three months. Which, to be honest, I'm not complaining about, but it is something to keep in mind if you're in the same situation and planning on making babies right away.

Possibly Unrelated, Probably Not: Insomnia dropped in for a visit Sunday night. I was still awake when my alarm went off, and spent most of the day quite deliriously cheerful. Lack of sleep, probably combined with the usual hormonal skirmish, sent me home with a screaming migraine. I slept till late evening, shuffled about in an unattractive fashion, then went back to sleep for a further thirteen hours.

Probably a good thing I did not plan on discovering cold fusion today.

PSA

The last year broke my inner thermostat. That heat wave in February granted me all sorts of resistance to heat. Before, a thirty degree day would have been utter hell, now, well, that's not that hot, no big deal, barely notice it really.

Last winter really, really, really wrecked my cold immunity. I spent the whole winter without using the heater because of a electricity bill snafu, and it was miserable enough to leave me with a good amount of dread. Now the cold has returned, and I am a) still too scarred by the bill to turn the heater on and b) have a very good idea of how cold it gets in this flat and am just about gibbering in horror at the months ahead.

I hate the cold now. It gives rise to some half-remembered panic that I'd really like to not remember at all.

I shall buy woollen things (actually had four conversations today with people who were desperate to go buy gloves and scarves), new socks that don't have holes in them, another blanket for the bed, even use the heater now and then, but I feel I should warn you appropriately.

From here until spring, the content of this blog will mostly revolve around bitching about the cold.

Remove from your feeds as necessary.

I'm going to put my scarf of +10 cold resistance on now.

The Tortured, Impoverised, Starving, Whinging, Self-Pitying Arteeeeest

(aka, Week Four of beard growing attempt)

Oh Porker, there you are, hello Porker.

OMG HI!

Are you okay, Porker, how you doing? Have I told you you're my best friend, Porker? I love you, Porker, no, seriously mate, I love you. You're my best friend. Only you understand me, Porker, only you.

OMG wow really that's so cool thanks so much wow!

I'm having a terrible time, Porker, I really am, just terrible, terrible.

OMG oh noes really that's terrible!

Badly timed bills, Porker. I could have made it through the fortnight on $300, but my health insurance bill turned up. Badly timed bills, Porker. Badly timed.

OMG that totally liek sux!

Truly it does, Porker.

OMG you should totally do something to cheer yourself up!

I am, Porker, I am. I'm going to see School of Seven Bells tonight, they're playing at the Corner.

OMG that's great wow!

...they don't start their set till 11.30.

OMG cool!

They don't finish their set till 12.30.

OMG wow!

Porker, that's after the trains have stopped. I'll have to take a taxi home.

OMG cool!

No that's not cool, Porker!

OMG really wow that sux bad what will you do?

Go anyway. I'll just cut the beans out of my diet and live on rice. It's fine. I'm okay, Porker. That's why we have credit cards, right? In case of emergencies (and vaccinations). But oh, that's not the end of it.

OMG no wai!

Eighty-three thousand, three hundred and seventy-four words into this story, Porker, that's a long way in. That's good, Porker, real good. But it's a real bad place to make a mistake.

OMG really?

I made a terrible mistake, Porker, a terrible mistake. A mistake that renders at least the last five thousand words null and void and not covered by warranty, possibly even more than that, and makes utterly useless all that is to come that I've plotted out, and oh, Porker, what have I done? What have I done? What am I going to do?

OMG really what are you going to do?

The only thing I can do, Porker: keep drinking.

OMG wow yes that makes sense what happened to your face?

What?

OMG your face your face!



Oh, this? Yes. This five o'clock (six fifty-two, to be precise) shadow. Yes. This is what happens to artists who are caught up in the passion of the craft. They get hairy. And drunk.

OMG.

OMG, indeed, OMG.

say what is it it looks like you've seen a ghost

I sat in an Italian restaurant on Wellington Parade with some friends, some people I knew, and some people I didn't know, and ----- leaned across the table, and said:

"So, Tessa, are you Australian?"

And for a moment I couldn't answer. It was just a touch too perfect. It was almost scripted. I was waiting for a laugh and joke and revelation that ----- read my blog and was just messing with me, and I kept waiting, and it didn't come, so I took a touch too long to answer an emphasied affirmative.

Which was followed by:

"Oh, because you have a bit of an accent."

aldkfja;lskdjfa;lskdjfa;lskdjf;laskdjf. It had to be a joke, because if the first was too perfect, then this was far, far too perfect, and occurring before witnesses.

The conversation rolled away, but not before it was established that the particular accent I am (allegedly) sporting is American.

Where I'd get an American accent from, I don't know. I don't think spending a couple of weeks over there with friends who happen to have a wide variety of accents between them a couple of years ago is quite enough to change my vocal patterns entirely. That's three times in one month. I'm now self-conscious of and angry at my voice and don't want to speak any more.

Today is a giraffes using their heads like morning stars because they don't like each other and it's the only sort of fighting they're capable of sort of day.



Is eleven in the morning too early to start drinking?

And the dust

What happens in sleep?

I went to bed really happy last night. Sort of delirious and giggly and stupid and quite in love with the world. Which is just ace, by the way, I heartily recommend such a state of mind.

And I woke up furious and bitter and toxic. For no reason whatsoever. Mood set before getting out of bed. Before even checking the time on the clock. Which is not ace, by the way, I think that's just fucked up.

Makes me wonder if maybe my brain is so unfamiliar with happy hormones that it treats a good mood like a dose of methylenedioxymethamphetamine, pumping out the serotonin gogogo, and then hitting me with the appropriate withdrawl and backslide. Stupid brain.

I think my unconscious is still out to get me.









And I've run out of tea.

Seize the day, they say.  So I seize the damn day, I say.  By the damn throat.  And while I have this miserable little Saturday in my hands, I tear its damn throat out with my damn teeth.  I chew its damn head off until I can wear its damn tonsils as a damn bracelet.  Bits of Sunday fall out in soggy lumps all over the floor and my jeans.
Sunday looks just like Saturday.

Carpe Diem, fucker.

and now we're falling off the launch pad

When I woke the migraine had downgraded itself to merely being a razor-edged headache, and that's, pfft, easy peasy, so I went to work.

Where the migraine proceeded to regroup and launch a second assault, having brought in the reinforcements of nausea and mild vertigo. Fuck that horseshit. I'm home now, am snorting my way through a sloppy lunch so the pills aren't sitting on an empty stomach, and I'm about to make a complete blistered baboon's arse out of my sleeping pattern and go to bed. Again. Where I will feel sorry for myself some more.

I would like to say that this is all run of the mill stuff, the harbingers of imminent period arrival, but, haha, I've been caught out.

The Vandermeers are off traipsing about Europe (as rockstar authors and editors do, right?) and in doing so discovered my Secret Glowing Penguin Army in Prague.


In the future, armies are manufactured on request (you've all seen Clone Wars), and this is the future. My marvellous Dr Who Villainesque penguins, you will note, are not walking the plank, but invading from the water. They're beamed down from the mothership (cleverly disguised as a weather balloon, as you can see), and are currently completing infiltration exercises in Prague.


Which mostly involves visiting museums and pretending to be art critics. They're doing a great job.

However, to oversee the logistics of such an operation I must project my mind-control super-vibes all the way to Europe, and dude, that's on the other side of the planet. Do you know how much concentration that takes? It takes a lot. Hence I have this blinding headache, and some rogue green penguins.

The bunnies, though, are nothing to do with me.

It's times like these I really feel for Zeus. His headache was so bad he had someone cleave his head in with a hammer, and lo! out popped Athena. I doubt any BAMF goddesses are lurking in my frontal lobe, but I do fully sympathise with the sentiment, and harbour a great desire to stick a screwdriver in my temple.

However, doing so will probably result in more multi-coloured penguins, and this army ain't no disco.