Nothing in this blog post will be news.

Fuck, you know, I've tried to fucking "sculpt" an opening paragraph three times now. This isn't going to be a technically skilled piece of writing. It isn't going to have a structure that means anything to anyone but me.

Last night was not so much a breaking point as a an unexpected bubble making it to the surface. The tearstorm came out of nowhere. A conversation about devops suddenly careened into empathy and then I found myself sobbing into my hands and blubbering all over J. Which, being someone with depressive issues, isn't actually that out of character, but I hadn't spotted it coming. In fact I'd had a good day, was feeling fine. I thought I was.

Originally I'd been working 11 till 4. My own confidence growing and some crunch time at work led to an extension of my hours and my joining the 9-5 crowd for a week. Only one week. Not counting Wednesday. That's all I lasted. On Wednesday I slept until 3pm. On the weekend I did the same. Right now I'm using a mouse only with my left hand, because the increased hours simply resulted in me doing myself an injury. With a computer mouse. To my right intercostal. Which affects everything I do, including breathing.

It's a pattern established over six years. Change my work routine and set up, and something inside me will break. When I was a House Elf I had tendonitis from scrubbing the fucking showers in the bed & breakfast. At FOI I had to go part-time. Before that at my data-entry role, my body...broke. And I had to just leave and get another job. Actually that's what I did with FOI as well: I left the country, became a House Elf, and failed differently. Six years of failing, and being in pain for trying.

This time I'm in a completely new organisation, and it feels like having a fresh audience. In front of which I am failing. Again.

How can I plan for my future when I can't even control my capabilities in the present? I'm coasting along on the goodwill of others, and that's what my future requires, and it isn't something that can be taken for granted.

I'm just so tired of this. A positive frame of mind doesn't even come into it. I'm happy if I can keep my mind quiet, because it takes so little for all my frustrations and anguish to stir and stampede. It all just feeds my depression until I just look at the massive beast it has become and shrug.

There's no way out but through.

ETA: I think it's especially sharp-edged this time as my current work environment is amazing. A small comfortable office in which everyone actually does their job and gives a shit, and few people actually complain. I want to live up to that. And I all my aches and pains mean I have to make decisions which ensure that I can't. I don't want to be dead weight.

Today I also discovered that typing, not just using the mouse, aggravates my injury. This cuts into my editing work. Nowhere is safe. 

Disabled In The Water

Yesterday saw (after a couple of weeks of grumbling about key selection criteria) the opening salvo of job applications sent to Sydney. Exciting! I have to confess, the past month of navigating the absence of my lover has been, is, continues to be harder than I let on. The job hunt may be a hateful process, but I will go at it tooth and nail to close the distance between us.

The positions were with the public service, and at the end of the bemusingly complex online form, I was asked quite simply if I had a disability. The drop down list gave me two options: lie or dare.

I often fall into the thought trap of assuming myself to be normal. "Okay." I mean, I have a job I can do just fine, I can go out with friends, I can-

-not.

I'm part time because I cannot, can not, survive a full working week without pain and deep fatigue. My salary is so much lower than my friends and peers because of this, because I must balance my health before any sort of job advancement and stress, the fucking demon shitheap it is, can decay my wellbeing in mere minutes. That extra day off on Wednesdays I have is not really a 'day off'. Much as I like to plan to do things on that day, mostly it is used to rest. Sleep. To do nothing and use that inertia to keep the fatigue and pain in balance so I'm capable of another two days of sitting at a desk.

Whether or not to be open about this in my job hunt is a little imp of indecision and anxiety I can never quite crush. The fear that admitting I'm a lame horse will mean I'm passed over for jobs isn't unreasonable. The fear that this will see me waiting months before I can move up to Sydney is nauseating. However, if an office isn't prepare to accept my limitations, then it is not an office in which I want to work. I know this. It's the buoy I cling to.

So I chose 'dare'. 

It's the first time I've referred to myself as disabled. 

Some threshold has been crossed in my mind.

Then there was Chinese New Year (KUNG HEI FAT CHOOOOI!), and a house warming party, and a birthday BBQ, and I was all set to bounce into all three. The logistics were planned out, I had my outfit picked, I was fucking looking forward to the silliness and cackling.

Bones wrought of fatigue, a substance heavier than lead. After firing off my applications I crawled back to bed, hoping a nap would bolster me. It didn't. I didn't leave my bed until today. 

FOMO is close, but not quite the right trajectory. My own not-particularly-well-thought-out take on FOMO is that it stems more from the lack of invitation than not being present. We're adults now, I'm not being invited to events out of pity. My friends ask for my presence because they genuinely want it. That's a fine gift, and I do treasure these requests. I just can't.

Every time this happens, I think of all those passing remarks in which someone is referred to, with exasperation and a touch of disgust, as 'flakey'. That I am that person is anathema. I don't want to be unreliable. I don't want to be a bad friend. All your celebrations and achievements I want to add the happy too. In that joyous memory-making dance I want to play my part and add another thread of glee. I love your presence.

The apologies I send are weeping with penance and self-flagellation and regret, and I doubt anyone is blind to the fact that I'm not asking for their forgiveness, but my own. 

There is no way out of here. 

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.

Circles or Spirals

The last time I was unemployed I had moved back to Melbourne from Canberra after breaking up with my fiancée of five years, I had just finished an arts degree, was living with my parents and had only retail work experience to my name.  It took a year and half of applying for jobs and smiling at interviews before I finally landed a full-time position.

Being unemployed when you don't want to be is awful. Quite a number of the blog posts in the archives are dedicated to the subject of just how awful it is. Very awful. Extremely awful. Awful to the point of staying in that full-time job despite it also being awful because I never wanted to go through that again.

There's been oceans of water under the bridge since then. I've exercised pure financial independence, collected some mean skills to toss on my resumé and climbed the organisational ladder (mostly to find a less crap job). It's one thing to know you're a fantastic worker; quite another to have the track record to prove it.

We've been in Glasgow a month and a half with not so much as a sniff of possibility. I had assumed, not unreasonably I think, that this time around the job hunt would not be as demoralising or as hard. Look! This piece of paper shows how awesome I am! I have references and everything!

Not a bite. Nowhere. On nothing. I've widened my net and started applying for jobs well below my ability and still nothing. No response when applying for a data entry position? I don't even warrant that?

Demoralising. Internal erosion. Cracking security. Despair.

It is different this time though. We've paid several months of rent up front on this place, and have savings to keeps us going those months as well as take us to Iceland. I do have a platform of proven amazingness from which to launch myself from. There are two of us. He's picked up shifts at a pub and I'm doing freelance editing. My worry and despair keeps his optimism grounded, and his optimism keeps my despair in check.

I sleep around 12 hours out of 24, and I feel good. Whole and rested. Even when I have full control over how many hours I spend working on the computer my body gets cranky much swifter than I plan for. It aches and I fight on in frustration, pushing myself into a stupid cycle of forced down time.

These things make me look at my future and wonder how I am ever to fund the dreams I wish to pursue. If I do require that much sleep to be sane, how am I to work a full time job and do any sort of writing or have a social life at the same time? If computers are the devil to my arms, what work can I do? Not housekeeping, that was just as damaging, if not worse. Customer service positions would result in mental stress, and to be honest I'd prefer the physical pain and psychological strain of a desk job than the mental stress of a face-to-face job.

I'm awesome. Really. I'm the most disgustingly great employee ever. And I am a completely spent monkey.

But.
It's different now.
I do not know what dreams I have, let alone which I wish to pursue.
Perhaps here and now is enough.

Three Months

A couple of days ago, four to be exact, marked three months since I left home.

Three months is generally a point at which things looks less than wonderful. New jobs become familiar and new relationships lose their shine. This vagabond life has had the edges worn off, and I'm looking forward to stopping, but I'm also quite comfortable being beholden to no place and no person. This form of travel is the ultimate indulgence in selfishness and freedom. My time is mine own, my decisions need refer to no one else for approval or compromise.

Today, I woke up to a letter forwarded to me, regarding the work cover that paid for my medical costs for my fibro and RSI treatment back home.

Hunched over my measly free breakfast in a pub on a Monday morning, blindsided by tears and a rising stress that shook me with its relentless and unexpected onset.

All the majesty of glaciers and blizzards, ancient castles and quirky museums, dingy hostels and luxurious private rooms, all these days are nothing but distractions.

This letter reminded me that, no matter how many times I tell myself this journey is something I always wanted to do, I nevertheless undertook it as a retreat, that I gave up the life I'd built because my hands, my body, and an overwhelming depression one by one closed the doors and windows and threatened to trap me, that everything I'm running from is traveling with me.

Three months, and the change isn't enough.

Goldtouch Go! Ergonomic Travel Keyboad

I've been using this keyboard for the past year and abit. It is the only keyboad out there tha is ergqonomic AND portable.

As you can see, it just craped itself.

I used t he exat same keyboad a work, and of course since it sa far more use, it did this ealier. GQot it replaed on waraty no problem. I don't hae the luxury this time aound. It wa, incidentally, the exactly same problem. Somethingq in the wiringq gqoes nuts, and suddenly the keys don't line up.

I've looked, but been unale to find ayone else reportingq on this.

Feelingq, ater tha lat post, ater statingq my only gqoal for the da wa to sit ad write my diay, thwated.

I've left my job, my home, my family, friends, loves and country. Scuttled my life to try build a new one, better suited to me now.

What more must I sacrifice?

Little wins. Let me have some little wins.

Traveling with Fibromyalgia

That I have deleted some six starting sentences for this post indicates that perhaps I am not yet ready to write about it yet.

To begin with, I am not as well versed on the effects of fibromyalgia as I should be. This ignorance was initially willful and deliberate; I was in denial about the whole thing and just didn't want to know, which is not a novel way with initially coping with the idea of a chronic condition.

Then tempus fugit and in the last couple of months in Melbourne I was busy failing to get my affairs in order for my departure and trying to see as many friends as possible. After that, well, travel is travel. I've been busy.

I can say with utter certainty that not spending 8+ hours a day sitting at the computer has alleviated my daily pain levels substantially.

I can say with certainty that lugging my rucksack and satchel around isn't really good for me, but so far I haven't done this for any great length of time. This will change as soon as I leave the US, but given most of my stays are several nights at a time, there is plenty of time to let my muscles rest.

Reasonable suspicion that sleeping on so many air mattresses, couches and sofa beds with all sorts of different pillows isn't doing me any good, but the effects haven't resulted in any impediment yet.

I don't remember what it was to live without perpetual pain and discomfort, and I know that sounds dramatic, but I don't want it to be taken that way. I just don't. Things seem to be holding steady, and that doesn't mean I'm feeling good, it simply means I am not stuck in the grinding cycle of work followed by aggravated muscles and pain, building up over the week until the weekend when I got enough time out - only to repeat it again. Things still hurt. I'm sitting here today, with the express intention of not going out but writing this and putting things in my diary, and I know I will pay for this tomorrow.

The coming price doesn't upset me as much as it used to, because now I have the time to recover.

Fatigue, however, has begun to worry me greatly. Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are very closely tied, and do tend to come hand in hand.

I am flattened. Excitement and wide-eyed curiosity got me through San Diego and New York, although toward the end of my time in the Big Apple I desperately wanted to stop the ride and get off. North Carolina has being a wonderful balm of quiet and calm, and to the friends who have opened their homes to me I have no words. Thank you. For comfortable silence and big couches and your wonderful delightful pets. Thank you for letting me be boring and sleep. Thank you.

And yet, it doesn't feel like enough. As though there simply isn't enough rest in all the rest fields of the whole world for me to feel fully rested. My need to sit, not to catch my breath but simply to use less energy, happens far more frequently than it should.

I want to blame this on being unfit and failing to eat and drink properly (the latter of which always happens when traveling). Except I'm sitting here now, having done nothing but watch the #OWS hashtag and drink tea, and I still feel flatter than a pancake.

I don't know if I'm being reasonable or alarmist in even considering CFS, especially considering my own fibromyalgia is...

...I was going to say mild, but it isn't, is it?

I'm just good at ignoring it.

At any rate, my advice to people traveling with either of these conditions is to allow yourself plenty of opportunities for rest, whether that means allotting yourself time to sit on the train between museums or blocking out entire days to do nothing. Unfortunately, New York simply has TOO MUCH IN IT which makes not going out and doing ALL THE THINGS very hard, but, you know, try.

Common sense is, sometimes, not that common. Especially when you have shit to prove.

Only Symbolic

That was my last head doctor appointment.

It was a gesture only, in order to make sure all my medication is in order for the journey ahead. (It wasn't, by the way, thanks to my GP screwing up medications a second time. I will not be seeing him again. Thankfully psychiatrist actually knows her stuff.)

It should be a triumph to announce that was your last medical appointment, as usually that indicates you no longer require special care. I have to keep reminding myself that while I am free of all these appointments and receipts and referrals and specialists and tests, I am not free of the problem.

I've been on 150mg daily of Pristiq for nearly two months. As an anti-depressant it isn't too bad, probably comparable in effect to the Cymbalta; still hit some very low notes, but generally able to cope with life. No horrific side-effects, at least no new ones. Sleep appears to have been a bit better than previous.

Pain relief has been notable.

Which pretty much proves the psychiatrist, gp and rheumatologist right. I have fibromyalgia.

Which means walking away from a desk job will not necessarily have any impact on the perpetual discomfort in my body. It means I may just be stuck like this forever.

I'm very tired. I've pulled so much wool over my eyes to trick myself into going on a few more days, just a bit further, I don't know what or why or how the landscape of my mind grows. This grief continues, but I know longer know what it is for.

Go on. Keep going. Just a little further. Every day. For the rest of your life.

no more please no more

I think the cold has contributed greatly, in that aside from getting into my bones I spend most days wearing heavy coats, hunching my shoulders and hunkering down in them, with my hands in my pockets. Bad posture. Bad for hands.

Been chewing Nurofen Plus like they're lollies. Terrible bad lollies that, if I take two at a time and wait an hour or so, provide real tangible relief. They're the shit. They've also burned a hole in my gut and when I shit I stain the bowl bloody. Lots of it. Clots of it. Fresh and infringing on McDonalds red.

I stopped taking them of my own volition, and stuck it out until my next GP appointment. Told him this. He told me I should not have been taking ibuprofen with Celebrex. I don't recall this, I'm sure I've checked with multiple pharmacists every time I buy yet another box of Nurofen. I'm sure I've even checked with my GP, multiple times. But, these drugs, they make things fall out of my head. Maybe they made that fall out of my head.

Clearly the Celebrex was not enough, so he gave me a prescription for Tramadol, to be taken twice a day instead of the Celebrex. He told me it was an opiate, and there may be some nausea and drowsiness, and it was simply a matter of getting my dosage right. He's still treating me for fibrmyalgia, he says, so this will be targeting neurological pain. I asked him if it was okay to take Nurofen with this. He said no, I wouldn't need to take it you see. But you said we had to get the dosage right-

Off I went with my prescription. $38 later. The pharmacist sought me out. I shouldn't be taking Tramadol with Cymbalta, and should talk to my GP. My GP prescribed them. Oh. Well. They really shouldn't be taken together, so if you feel any nausea, any side effects, stop taking them immediately.

First tablet Sunday morning. No noticeable effect. Second tablet Sunday night. No noticeable effect. The pain could have been less, but it's hard to judge on weekends, there being considerably less time spent in front of the computer.

Third tablet Monday morning. Intense cold sweats, shakes and faintness on the train in, to the point of pushing for a seat and still not being sure that I wasn't going to keel over. This getting progressively worse during the day. Not having any flex time or sick leave without certificate to my name. Not being able to go home because I'm so behind at work I just can't justify it. Not being able to go home because I was certain I wouldn't last the trip. Spent five hours of work day mostly faceplanted on my desk and concentrating very hard on breathing.

Early afternoon the nausea took a step back, only to be replaced by drowsiness. "Drowsiness" is too light a word however. Diet narcolepsy perhaps. I did a quick dirty google on Tramadol. Lots of talk of seizures, and Serotonin Syndrome, and the fact that it is highly addictive both physically and psychologically.

I left work early to head over to Richmond, where I finally had an appointment with a psychiatrist.

Finally? I don't know. As if that is a good thing. The first session is always given to backstory and context, and I cried, because I can't break any of this down into small, easy to swallow pieces. It is either all - drowning and choking on everything - or nothing.

Cymbalta and Tramadol, the psychiatrist said. They should not be taken together, ever. The interaction can bring on Serotonin Syndrome, which isn't something that requires a dosage level be met, but can come on at any time. Stop taking it immediately.

Try Pristiq.

Who the hell comes up with drug names.

I've prescribed Pristiq to patients with both depression and fibromyalgia and had success, she says. You'll only have to take the one pill a day.

She does not give me a prescription, but sends a report to my GP, whom I am seeing later in the week.

For some reason, I am not relieved to be given professional permission to cease the Tramadol.

The drowsiness remains for the following day. I nearly miss my station. I nod off in a meeting I am chairing. I nod off while penning a sentence. I nearly miss my station again.

Questions. What the fuck was my GP thinking prescribing me these two drugs that would interact negatively? Does he have any fucking idea what he's doing?

Do I really want to try yet another drug?

And fail?

Friday. I see my GP. I tell him that the drug incapacitated me, and that the pharmacist and psychiatrist both stated emphatically that Cymbalta and Tramadol should not be taken together.

He shrugs and says "Well, that's where we're at now isn't it? We have to try these things, because we're running out of options."

He told me nothing other than it was an opiate and I'd probably get a bit of nausea. He did not inform me of anything. He made the decision for me. If I'd known, I would have decided against. I keep my mouth shut. He writes me a prescription for Pristiq. A box of 100mg and 50mg. Take the 100mg for a week, and then bump the dose to 150mg daily.

He doesn't tell me anything about this drug either.

I go home, and read about it. All the standard side effects you'd expect from an SNRI. Welcome home night sweats and muscle contractions, hello again insomnia and appetite loss.

What frightens me this time, what really frightens me, is that Pristiq has a much shorter half-life than Cymbalta. Pristiq is also marketed as Effexor, and I have read and heard many stories of people caught out by that - not randoms, people I know and trust - and being hit by severe withdrawal within hours of missing a dose, if that. Cymbalta has quite a long half-life. When I first started taking it I was prescribed Seroquel as well, in order to have a crutch to support me for the three to four weeks it took for the Cymbalta to kick in. Weekdays I take my dose when getting out of bed, at sixish. That's fine, that's regular. Weekends, however, I might not surface til 10, 11, 12.

Cannot do that on Pristiq.

Went to pick up prescription. Different pharmacist pulled me aside. Gave me advice regarding what other pain relief medications may be taken in conjunction with - Nurofen and Panadol with codeine are good for go. When I described the effect of the Tramadol, he said I'd probably had the beginnings of Serotonin Syndrome.

Had I? I didn't think- don't I know the effec- I've researched Sero-

The drugs. They make things fall out of my head.

$68 later, and I can tell you Pristiq are small, pink and square.













I am so tired of this. I don't believe I have fibromyalgia and therefore treating fibromyalgia won't help me. I hate these drugs. I hate what they do to my mind and so what they do to me as an idea. I'm in here somewhere. I must be. But I'm so tired of this. I'm so scared. I don't want to do this anymore.

Cross Section of Strata Emotional and Forgotten

There is a marked difference between the previous two posts. Not in terms of the emotional megaphone confession of soiled laundry and public displays of melodrama, but where they came from. One typed, one dictated. The dictated is the shorter by far. Perfunctory. Concise. Not even attempting to furbish the reader with details or texture because the Dragon is not my voice. It is a translator, and even the best translators lose some ethereal poetry of being when taking meaning and filtering it from one language into another.

In terms of pure logistics, the Dragon cannot keep up. It mishears so many of my words, and so every sentence is broken midstream as I correct and correct and correct. Perhaps the Dragon could keep up with a train of though; it can only fail miserably and watch this crashing satellite flash by.

This is my voice. This, unheard and sometimes unseen. Chewing the inside of my cheek as I hammer furiously on the keys and burn up in the atmosphere - is there nothing so exhilarating as choosing your own destruction, brilliant and slashing the twilight sky caught only in the periphery of a stranger's eye, knowing that your end will be to disintegrate without ever touching a soul or crush all those present at your termination - because I am sitting here typing this, this small act this small slight act, and my stomach quivers with old excitement that runs too deep to ignore, and my wrists ache, my neck aches, my shoulders ache, and in doing this I will amplify that pain and the consequences will stretch languidly across the week ahead.

The choice is always one pain over another. I'm tired.

Last night I took myself to the Butterfly Club and saw Tom Dickin's one-man one-hour cabaret show "Fuck Plan B". Despite the fact that I adore simply sitting in and being surrounded by the curios and sweet lights of the place, arrived at the perfect empty time to have the bartender spend 10 minutes making me the perfect ridiculously extravagant red wine/chambord Bloody Mary, I walked out containing ground zero of a nuclear detonation within my rib cage, and watching the shock waves flatten everything and nothing.

Plan A is being a successful artist, travel the world, inspire others, and follow your dreams.

Plan B is the necessities of reality. Rent. Food. Cocktails and socks.

You don't have to follow many blogs of artists to know that it is a constant struggle to maintain balance between A and B, and the odds are stacked against A. It isn't as though writers even have much in the way over overhead; our tools are minimal and not specialist, physical logistics are rarely an issue and there is no use by date in terms of getting too old to write. All we need is time, and it is the one thing in which we are poor.

It is a privilege to pursue Plan A at all. Art is a luxury of the middle class and up, and yet, and yet.

And yet.

For so many artists, the pursuit of their art is not a decision they get to make.

They are artists because they must be. They can be and do nothing else.

















My dayjob was only ever to support a life that would let me do what I want. It was there to pay for the necessities; food and a roof over my head, and exploration and travel, for these too are necessities for me. My jobs have all been proof of this: they do not and cannot follow me home, they do not and I will not sacrifice extra hours to them, and they do not and I will not let them take up any more space in my mind that what is required between signing in and signing off. Some of these jobs have been shit boring, others exciting and interesting, and all of them have only ever been jobs. I am not career orientated in any traditional sense and am not even making eyes at the corporate ladder. Higher paying jobs I've left unpursued because they would ask more of me than I'm willing to give.

But we all know how that ended out. My dayjob was there to support the writing, and the dayjob required the same physical tools as the writing, and the dayjob destroyed those tools, and I had constructed my life in such a way that no amount of small alterations would be enough to correct this balance. Everything is over-balanced. These past months have been the topple. It is all too late. There is nothing to do but watch the fall, that moment between losing contact with the cliff and making contact with the ground.

I'm tired.

Tom said he'd taken out a sizable loan and traveled the world to allegedly study theatre, and instead wound up writing song after song and performing them to strangers in strange places, and that was...right is not the world. True, perhaps. There are so many trees that we forget to be the whole forest.

I've been looking at this 'scuttle your life move to another hemisphere make no plans and see what happens' caper and feeling nothing but dread and nausea, because I'm at the centre of that plan, I cannot escape myself, and where ever I go these aching bones come with me. Nothing is left behind.

I'm tired. Much as my friends feel shut out because I do not speak of these things, I've leaned on them so much, my feet are on the ground and my knees are hanging low. The only reason I'm not face down and blank on a city sidewalk is because they're holding me up. What resilience. What determination. What illusions have I that I will weather the stress and fear of being alone in unknown and survive without them.

















More strangers last night. More strangers the night before.

















None of these people are known to me. None of these people know me. I could be anyone.

I could be someone who is not afraid of strangers. I could be someone who listens to you for a drunken half hour and takes your stories and antics and uses them to attempt to conceal the void I am but a vessel for, and then I could use them again, somewhere and somewhen else, with my voice, instead of throwing them away as useless, as worthless, as having helped me not at all.

If no one around me knows I'm a nothingness, then, I can and will buy into that illusion.








What's that. Determination. Obstinate pig-headedness. The conqueror and king rolled over in her sleep and opened her eyes a moment, she who would view this as only a challenge to be accepted in order to prove herself victorious again, over all things, and would meet that challenge with teeth-bared and eyes-wild and welcoming all the damage that would come from the battle ahead. She who in conquering the world so conquers herself, over and over.

Excitement. Anticipation. Lick your lips and fantasize about the messes you will make for yourself.








It's hope. It's hope. It's hope. Hanging out with all the shit in Pandora's Box because there is nothing so agonising as hope, and my fears cannot decide which is the greater threat; depression or hope.

Spectacular failure, quiet lie. Tedious failure, thin-worn lie. The fish aren't a school.

















But. It was Plan B that got me here.

I'm so tired, and this hurts like this and like that, and I can't remember what point I was trying to make. Pointless. There are no points, on masses of fear and indecision that change shape and colour like so many metaphors you fail to capture because you have strangled your voice enough that nothing it says is worth listening to, but it must be said, it must be said, let it out out out out out.

I was considering not going. I was considering committing myself and spending all my hours staring at wall and waiting for my heart to stop beating as I can't find it within me to do anything else.

I'm tired. So much has died. Death is a cessation that is not wholly encapsulated in medical definitions. Wastelands and deserts. No fish in the open ocean.

Some perverse sense of curiosity is still twitching. The smell of all the stupidity of the past few weeks is coiling thick in the air and it wants to see what other messes we can make.

Some perverse sense of fury will not stop breathing. It will not let the consequences of Plan B be the victor.

There are no winners in this. But fuck it, I'm going to lose on my own terms.

It is still cold, within and without.

The referral to the pain management specialist went out in the mail today. I've been sitting on the letter a couple weeks, always intending to but never making any effort to act upon it. Did I hesitate before releasing a letter to mailbox's maw? Yes. It is so little an act, but then at the moment it takes very little to overwhelm me, and nevertheless have left my hand my reaction – physical and emotional – was complex.

But it is done.

A few people have contacted me regarding the last post. I cannot reassure you. It is. .. Some would say I share too much, and yet the burden seems to fall upon me, and the price is not paid by me, because I do not care. Those I spoke of at the last, those who still love and still care, they pay the price.

It was a necessary release. As I am no longer spending strength I do not have it maintaining a rational facade and hiding my implosion I can now use that strength I do not have on small little other acts, such as posting letters.

I admit more strangers yesterday. It is still cold. You wake us, even though we are dead in the water. The piles of books on my bookshelves grow; there is nothing more calming exhilarating delightful soothing and inspiring that being surrounded by books. The sight of all these books guts me. I hoard what I cannot have. Hampson of time with.

Dragon can barely understand and Australian accent; it cannot dictate a voice from a sob-choked throat.

Winter comes, true Winter, Winter with a captial W, the season that pays fuck all attention to the Roman calendar and heeds only the orientation of the sun, and the sun turned away and it got cold.

Your physio was off sick, but you were desperate and so made an appointment with whoever was free on the day. R has a mop of blonde curls and a baby face that rivals your own. He has read your file and is unhappy with what he has seen and the answers you have given. Raise your arms here. Now here. Tilt your head. Hold your hand out.

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome

Thoracic outlet syndrome(TOS) is a syndrome involving compression at the superior thoracic outlet involving compression of a neurovascular bundle passing between the anterior scalene and middle scalene. It can affect the brachial plexus (nerves that pass into the arms from the neck), and/or the subclavian artery or rarely the vein which does not normally pass through the scalene hiatus (blood vessels as they pass between the chest and upper extremity). Rarely a Pancoast tumour in the apex of the lung may be the cause.

The compression may be positional (caused by movement of the clavicle (collarbone) and shoulder girdle on arm movement) or static (caused by abnormalities or enlargement or spasm of the various muscles surrounding the arteries, veins, and brachial plexus), a first rib fixation and a cervical rib.

Beneath his fingers your muscles, nerves, tendons and scalenes shriek and shiver, and you lie on your belly with your teeth grit and your concentration divided between merely breathing and listening to him. It's a tirade, and you're not sure who it is aimed at; these stories of patients with symptoms and stories identical to your own, fixed after a mere four months of therapy and exercise focused on different muscles, and he didn't like that you've been like this for years, he didn't like it, he wasn't happy, and he knew with this and that you could get better, because you're still young, what do you see in your future?

Remember to breathe.

You may not agree, he says, as his fingers press here and sends a knife of pain there, you may think everything I've said is a pile of rubbish, and that's fine, but, I don't care, I've read your file and I'm not happy with it. It's up to you what you want to do, but I don't like it-

It's your lack of reaction, always your lack of reaction.

You can't afford hope on a new diagnosis. You just can't.

















At the end of your session, your counselor says
She says
She








I don't know if we should continue these sessions. I'm just not sure if this is giving you any benefit or if it is making it worse.












Remember to breathe.
On the train those brief minutes between Richmond and Flinders Street, trying to smother the howling heart, dam the tears and stop, just stop, turn it off, turn away.
With a new diagnosis R gave you hope which terrifies you, and his vehemence highlights its absence in your normal physio, H, and you wonder what she will think, you wonder if she even cares, and you wonder how to put this to your GP, who is absolutely set on the diagnosis of Fibromyalgia and will fight this new suggestion, and your counselor, who-

Does she think you're beyond help?

Winter comes and sows cold into your bones, and with it your pain blossoms. Back to flinching when laying your hand on the mouse, snatching your hands from the keyboard, holding your wrists and staring out the grime-flecked window at nothing because there is nothing you can do. Back to weekly physio treatment and taking whole days off work to rest your hands that little bit extra.

Remember to breathe.

But, what for.

The weeks pass, the cold is sinuous in your veins and no amount of wool and warmth can soften your terror. Reel in your future, because to look at it is to see nothing worth living for. Think not of Scotland, new lands new people new adventures. There is nothing you will discover that you cannot find here. You will change nothing by going there.

You must take yourself where ever you go. There is no escape.

This room is too crammed with things, just things. This house is full of people. People who love you and care for you, people who know you and around whom you can relax, but there is never any stillness, silence, solitude. Their presence echoes in the floor boards, the kettle boiling in the kitchen, unmuted conversation through the wall. You cannot go to the toilet, get a glass of water, stretch, without having to leave this room and put a face on because they will see you, talk to you.

You cannot howl. They will hear you.

You go to bed early. Earlier. Earlier. The sun follows you down and you lie there with heat packs swallowing painkillers and waiting for random bleeding and low blood pressure. You can't get to sleep fast enough. You wake too soon, too often.





He fights. The GP shakes his head and disagrees and argues. The spare cervical rib he will not let go, he's sure you don't have one, and for that matter so are you. You don't believe you require one to have TOS, but he does. He wants to raise your dosage. You don't.




You go to bed early. You wake before your alarm in a cold sweat. You miss your alarm. You're late. Later. Later.

Drown yourself in work, but, you cannot.



R discusses medication. Celebrex and Cymbalta are heavy duty stuff, he says. You agree. He recommends other pain medications, stating you should go off both. You say you were prescribed Cymbalta as dual purpose.

Ah, he says, and says nothing more.

Your GP shakes his head at the medications R has suggested. The relief and disappointment are equal and equally perverted. You'd looked up the numbers for an overdose of Valium.

He shakes his head at the pain management specialist who specialises in TOS. He wants to send you to one specialising in Fibro. He talks about rehab. You argue why can it not be both diagnoses, and he shakes his head and shakes his head and disapproves and disagrees but it is your body and your decision and he types out the referral letter.

His disapproval evaporates when you start crying, even though you have already won.

No one wins in this.



















The void will not be ignored. Nature abhors a vacuum. This hunger saturates your minutes - there is only so much future you can turn from - and you are weak and feed it and feed it and feed it. With good friends. With friendly acquaintances. With distant friends and far friends. You sign up to dating sites and rummage around forums and fuck with strangers and buy drinks for strangers and flatter strangers and press them down stretch them out and force as many minutes upon them as they will suffer. You seek out new people, meet new people, people worth knowing, people who could become quite good friends if only they had entered your territory in a different era an era without famine and hunger and desperation. You push your true friends away in favour of these strangers, because you know exactly what you are doing. No one can fill this void, and yet you will try to make all do so, and when they inevitably fail you will still resent them for it. Keep your friends away from that. Keep them precious.





You cannot make the appointment with the pain management specialist. It is too great an ordeal and you have not the strength to lift the phone.






This is your 30th birthday.

Imagine that. Three decades. You're still here. Remember to breathe. But, what for?

People will say that how you spend New Year's Eve is how you will spend the coming year. This sentiment you've applied proper logic to, because the Roman calendar means nothing, but the internal calendar listens. Do not repeat your last birthday. It was your own doing as much as anyone else's. This birthday will be your own doing as well.

Make it a birthday week. Go out, every single night. Fuck more strangers, meet more strangers, drink more drinks and eat more junk and laugh a little louder and with a little more ice. The cold is every where. You're good at this. You're really good at this.

Some sanity in the sunshine, with family and friends. For a day or so, you don't have to concentrate on breathing. Years of having a birthday in the middle of exams have scarred you well, and combined with a marvelous lack of self-worth have made a formidable obstacle, and in spite of that you organise your first birthday do. The anxiety of who to invite leaves you in tears and sick. People come. More than you anticipated or booked for. On the night, you're in a room full of people you know and people you like and people with whom you have no social awkwardness. An amazing night. The cocktails stop your high heels from hurting your feet, but not the grinning from hurting your cheeks. You jump out of a plane and fall 14,000 feet to the Earth. You use your birthday to bully a number of leads into dancing with you. You sleep exhausted and exhilarated.















None of this is shared with your counselor. There isn't time. This is your last session, and you ask her what she meant by her parting comment; that she did not feel she was in a position to help you, or that you are not receptive to help.

She speaks of psychiatrists and medication, and the fact that your depression is so intense and deep seated, and most of the sessions have seen you in a high anguish for their duration. There needs to be more discussion, less silent howling, for progress to be made. You need to have already started to heal yourself.









You go to bed late. Later. Later. Because you get home late. Later. Later. Arrange to meet more strangers. Buy more drinks. Walk slower between the station and the front door, you have to have control of yourself before you set foot on the front verandah, they might hear you.

You haven't done your washing for weeks. Your room is filth.

Go out. Find more excuses to go out, stay out, stay in company. Name after name is added to your contact list. You can dazzle them with the shit you talk, make out like you're someone worth knowing, a bit of sleight of mind and you don't even need your neckline that low cut.

Hunger has no end. Now fed, the void grows, because this is not what it wants. Plans are canceled, rescheduled, canceled, and you take it because it is still something, anything, that will sit in the forefront of your mind for long enough.

Friday night you end up in a lovely guy's flat, a thai restaurant, an unknown bar, where you meet yet another stranger, the three of you talking shit as the music gets louder and the lights lower and the arrivals uglier. Wing it. Why not?




























Until it's just gone midnight and you're standing in a warehouse in Abbotsford with a long neck in one hand and the wall painted with ghoul sperm by your shoulder and the toilet being the rape alley around the corner and someone in a ratty beard is telling you that another in a ratty beard rolls the best joints ever no one rolls a joint like him at least you think that's what he said because you can't hear anyone over the band crammed in a room under the stairs and and you know no one, no one here, and you don't know what you're doing here, or why you're here, or what you were expecting, you only know that this isn't what you wanted and the resentment and bile rises up because no one here is saving you from yourself.

No one is capable of that.

Blink hard on the train home. Oversaturated by people. Overstretched. Easy to fix, simply cut everyone out for a while-

-and sit in the void.

The void will not be ignored, and you are not strong enough to withstand it.

There is no escape. Remember to breathe.

But, what for.




The hangover is sullen. You're weary and broken. So broken. You'll do your washing today, clean your room, make the bed, stay home because there are enough chores to keep you busy for this one day, surely. You'll write this post, because this has to come out, this must be written, it must, surely, it must, you'll feel better for it. A day, surely one day, surely that would be just enough, just enough to make the difference between a trip and a fall.

A stranger asks if you want to see a movie.

After the movie you find old friends, and cannot dazzle them so sit sullen and ill at ease with the delusion you're clinging to.

Later, after drinks, after dinner, decisions before you. You could call that person. This person lay out an open invitation, they're only a few blocks away. This person would jaunt in to catch up. There's this event and that event. Choices.

You find yourself slumped beside the parking pay machine at the end of the escalator, heart hammering and staring at the options listed in your phone, and paralysed. You could go out, it would be great. You could. You should. You could. You would. You press call raise the phone to your ear and immediately hang up oh no oh no you can't you just can't face any more people not tonight not now but you don't want to go home because there is nothing there but the void framed by all the evidence of what you once were.





There is no escape. Remember to breathe. But, what for.





With the new diagnosis comes hope and thus more terror than you can bear. A wonderful counselor cannot help you. Doctors will agree with specialists who've seen you a total of ten minutes and dismiss what you know of your body. So many brilliant new people unearthed, worth nothing. Too long. You can't do this any more.

Raise the dosage. All of them. There is nothing to preserve.

There are people who care, still, and love you, still.

But, you are not one of them.

Apply Now

Tessadom Inc. is now taking applications for the role of SACRIFICIAL MONKEY.

Your role will include giving up your soul, dignity and possibly your life (not necessarily in that order) to Our Lady of Unseen Tensions, who inflicteth and taketh away Repetitive Strain Injuries.

Responsibilities include: stop Tessa's arms from hurting, appeasing the above mentioned saint, and not getting blood on the carpet.

Unsurprisingly, I am paying for yesterday's triumph today.

The disappointment surprises me.
But.
I guess I hoped that winning one meant winning all.
And I'd woken up from two long years of unhappy dreaming.

For the record

Today I completed a first draft of a short story. That's the first story since I wrote Acception in 2009 and the first time I've written anything in more than a year.

The last day of April is okay, you know?

Don't rock the boat; sink it.

If you reach the point at which your Doktor prescribes you two anti-depressants, one prescription painkiller and weekly sessions with a counselor, it's a pretty clear sign that shit ain't working. It's time to admit that while you have worked incredibly hard to set yourself and your life up the way you want it, that shit ain't working. And when shit ain't working to that degree, then there's nothing for it. No tinkering or tweaking will fix something like this.

Time to take this life and scuttle the fucker.

Today I handed to my real estate agent my Notice to Vacate Property. I am become one of a massive diaspora of not youngin's but not oldin's who are returning home to roost. Mum is actually quite excited about it. I don't think she fully grasps what I mean when I say I live a bachelor life.

This will enable me to save money much faster and thus acquire the funding necessary to enable my Cunning Plan.

A good friend I hadn't seen in a while, on discovering I wasn't writing at all and knowing what writing meant to me, asked how I was coping with that.

"I'm on drugs," I said with a laugh. "And moving to another hemisphere."

That's right, kids. The Ultimate Kamakazi Operation: GTFO.

It. Is. On.

The Good, The Bad, And The Otherwise

Back in February 2010 I was referred to a specialist, a rheumatologist. He twisted my joints, poked and prodded, made a couple of comments about Asimov and sent me on my way.

My Doktor, upon receiving the rheumatologist's findings, gave me a "...wtf?" look.

Regional Pain Syndrome

The symptoms of CRPS usually manifest near the site of an injury, either major or minor. The most common symptoms overall are burning and electrical sensations, described to be like "shooting pain." The patient may also experience muscle spasms, local swelling, abnormally increased sweating, changes in skin temperature and color, softening and thinning of bones, joint tenderness or stiffness, restricted or painful movement.

The pain of CRPS is continuous and may be heightened by emotional or physical stress. Moving or touching the limb is often intolerable. The symptoms of CRPS vary in severity and duration. There are three variants of CRPS, previously thought of as stages. It is now believed that patients with CRPS do not progress through these stages sequentially. These stages may not be time-constrained, and could possibly event-related, such as ground-level falls or re-injuries in previous areas. Instead, patients are likely to have one of the three following types of disease progression:

1. Stage one is characterized by severe, burning pain at the site of the injury. Muscle spasm, joint stiffness, restricted mobility, rapid hair and nail growth, and vasospasm (a constriction of the blood vessels) that affects color and temperature of the skin can also occur.
2. Stage two is characterized by more intense pain. Swelling spreads, hair growth diminishes, nails become cracked, brittle, grooved, and spotty, osteoporosis becomes severe and diffuse, joints thicken, and muscles atrophy.
3. Stage three is characterized by irreversible changes in the skin and bones, while the pain becomes unyielding and may involve the entire limb. There is marked muscle atrophy, severely limited mobility of the affected area, and flexor tendon contractions (contractions of the muscles and tendons that flex the joints). Occasionally the limb is displaced from its normal position, and marked bone softening and thinning is more dispersed.

Upon reading the symptoms, I returned the "...wtf?" look to my Doktor.

The only symptom I had and have in common with this condition was pain. And you know, that's a symptom I have in common with, say, piranhas. Does that mean I have piranhas? No. No, it does not.

As such, we elected to overlook that diagnosis and continue with physiotherapy, which had been making significant improvements. For a while. Well. Yeah.

Hands started to deteriorate again, no matter what I did or did not do, which lead to the prescription of Cymbalta among other things, and, eventually, another referral to the rheumatologist.

My Doktor had specifically chosen Cymbalta as it has been proven to be effective in the mitigation of chronic pain. Curious, I asked my physiotherapist about the idea behind Regional Pain Syndrome and the theory my Doktor appeared to be latching onto in regards to overactive nerve activity and a brain that no longer filtered properly.

"Absolutely," she said. Although the problem with my hands may have started as a very straight-forward Repetitive Strain Injury, it had gone on long enough that the nerves would have changed with the conditions they found themselves in. In layman's terms; the nerves expect pain, so they make it. The brain expects pain, so it receives it.

I had my doubts when my Doktor explained his reason for the Cymbalta. Pain is not something that should be covered up. It's there for a reason, it's the best warning sign you get that something is wrong. There have been many, many steps backward on this "road to recovery" my hands have taken me on. One of the biggest was late last year. The Doktor had given me Celebrex, with instructions to take one a day for a month, and see how that helped. I was having adverse reactions to over the counter painkillers, and thankfully the Celebrex had no such effect. It's a slow-acting medication. Not designed for quick pain relief, but for chronic pain relief. It only kicks in after a few days, once appropriate amounts are in your blood.

It was lovely, being without that pain. Lovely.

At the end of the month, when I went off the Celebrex, the pain returned and was significantly worse than previously. I could only assume that without the pain to hold me back, I was working too much and not realising, and doing even more damage to my hands.

That terrified me. I wouldn't take any more painkillers after that, except at night when it was the only way I would get to sleep. The pain was necessary to keep me in check. I needed the pain, to listen to.

However.

I was getting better.

I could see it when my physiotherapist tested the tension in my nerves, and I could feel it when she went at my muscles and nerves with her frighteningly effective hands. I could feel it when I moved and when I stretched.

Improvement = more pain?

No comprende.

The rhuematologist twisted my joints and poked me hard enough to bruise and made some more comments about Asimov, and then wrote on a piece of paper "fibromyalgia" and peered at me over his glasses.

Fibromyalgia is a medical disorder characterized by chronic widespread pain and allodynia, a heightened and painful response to pressure...Other symptoms include debilitating fatigue, sleep disturbance, and joint stiffness. Some patients may also report difficulty with swallowing, bowel and bladder abnormalities, numbness and tingling, and cognitive dysfunction. Fibromyalgia is frequently comorbid with psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety and stress-related disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Not all people with fibromyalgia experience all associated symptoms.

"I've seen this," I said. "When I was reading up on Cymbalta."

He gave me his recommendations - to raise the dose of Cymbalta or stay on Celebrex indefinitely - and sent me on my way.

My Doktor was well pleased to hear this, his hypothesis being confirmed by a second source, until I pointed at that at the current dosage of Cymbalta I had noticed no different in pain levels and given the somewhat UNRELENTLINGLY ARSEHOLEY side-effects currently afflicting me, no way in hell was I going to start a higher dosage.

And that's where we are now. I'm to stay on 60mg of Cymbalta for the next couple of months. Should the current side effects of RAGING INSOMNIA and SOB-INDUCING RESTLESSNESS abate, I will try a higher dosage in the hopes it alleviates my chronic pain. If not, I'll drop back to 30mg of Cymbalta and stay on Celebrex for...however long.

I've done my reading around on the intertubes, and I have my reservations about the diagnosis. Fibromyalgia itself is something of a controversial condition, and when I look at the symptoms and requirements of diagnosis, my face gets a little skeptical. I'm not sure I tick all those boxes.

But, what my physiotherapist said makes sense to me, and she is the one who knows my condition best. I trust her opinion.

The majority of those I have shared this diagnosis with have expressed quite sharp-edged dismay, to my surprise and gratitude. Yes, well. The idea of living with chronic pain isn't exactly a happy ending. It's not something that really featured in my plans for the future, you know?

That said, I'm descended from people who pay sweet bugger all attention to pain. They shrug off cuts and don't notice bruises, strain and pull and twist things and simply treat them gently till they've calmed down, barely even notice when they're sick because, hey, it isn't actually stopping them from getting on with things. One of the problems in talking to my medical posse about my hands, for the entire duration, was being able to express the "level" of pain. When it's bad enough to keep me from working, then I notice it. Beyond that...look, I'm uncomfortable all the time, so I don't really pay it any attention, sorry.

The pain was there to stop me from doing damage. If my nerves are simply crying wolf, and there is no damage being done?

Fuck yes I will live with chronic pain. Fuck. Yes.
Fuck yes I will take medication indefinitely. Fuck. Yes.

Because what this means is the damage is not that bad. What this means is physically I can and am recovering.

What this means is I can think about writing.

I have a future, again.

BOOYAH.

Which isn't to say I can throw all caution to the wind. I'm currently filling another position at work, a role that involves more computer work than my own, and combined with the recent spate of blogging; I feel it. Oh boy am I feeling it. Ouch. Ow. Argh. Getting a bit carried away with this heady air of possibility. Oh air. Oh air.

This may be the first breath I've taken in 21 months.

It doesn't recognise 'eh'. DOOMED.

hello, my freaky darlings.

for Christmas, my family put in together and bought me Dragon Dictate for Mac. It was at my request. A year is long enough to sit on an idea, and where it down, until, it is no more threatening than my age painted this. I was actually a little bit excited to receive it, as while I will not be using it for fiction it will enable me to properly e-mail all you far-flung distant beautiful friends. I have missed you.

Unfortunately, many in technology, well, we have “issues". When I installed Dragon Dictate it politely informed me that it refused to run on the current version of Eddie's operating system. Fussy little sheet. That shouldn't have been a problem, and I was quite happy to even pay for a legitimate upgrade (because Macs are just too weird and funky to our stuff on) and went to do that right away. However, Apple beings so forwardthinking shooter orientated, and all that, there was no option to simply download the upgrade. Noel. They insisted on shipping me the physical disk. Which... Was not what I wanted this year on the first day of the four-day long weekend.

Beach ripe Martin.

I cultivated some patients (meaning I stole some from our little old lady on a Zimmer frame outside the supermarket) and ordered the damp upgrade will stop. It was not delivered on Wednesday. It was delivered on Thursday. And of course Apple use a courier service so they weren't going to just shove it in the letterbox. I had to sign for it. So I missed that first delivery, and low! The next delivery would not be until Tuesday due to new years public holiday will stop. Fine stop. That's just fine. Fortunately they agreed to deliver to my workplace which happened on Tuesday quite early, and it was just a CD case. It's not even like it was a big cardboard box of new slots packaging will stop they could have quite easily have shoved in the letterbox. It was only $40. The.

After doing a quick backup of all my necessary files, of which I'm sure I forgot many, I upgraded Eddie's operating system. Which was surprisingly painless.

Then I ran Dragon Dictate.

Then, I pulled out the fancy Swedish headset that my family had also given me for an extra $100 and went to plug it in. The fancied swish headset has a USB plug that is the some reason ridiculously why stop.

Eddie has only two USB ports.

I could not plug the headset in and have my ergonomic keyboard plugged in at the same time.

Can't.

I can tell you right now I did not just say “can't" Asian stop.

So I had to unplug my ergonomic keyboard, which meant that Eddie could not sit in he's nice ergonomic laptop stand, as it covers his own keyboard. This seems to be, I don't know, ergonomic forces at wall? I know. Factions of occupational health and safety revolution coming into conflict and you're getting distracted so that they not actually fighting the problem which is RSI and instead bed is fighting each other and... It is a little bit frustrating. I'm going to have to buy a USB hub. The better Eddie gets for my hands, the first portable he becomes.

So. There we are a will stop. As you can see, I have a little bit of trouble ending sentences. I haven't corrected anything in this post. For ease of reading I will go back and insert paragraph breaks.

And then, I am going to teach this program how to swear will stop.

Expletive. Blasphemy. Expletive.

The Boom of Empty Minutes

The first thing Margo Lanagan did was give us writing exercises. Clarion South is six weeks of writing and criting and little else. Giving us more was a bold, some might say, reckless, move, but it paid off.

She handed out prompts and gave us five minutes to write. First we were given pictures. I don't entirely remember what mine was, I have the vague impression of an oil painting of wheat, or dry grass, and beside it some previous student had doodled a little bird in blue pen. I do recall staring at it blankly for the bulk of the five minutes. It gave me nothing.

The second prompt was a sentence, or half a sentence. Again, I don't remember what mine was, but I do recall it set my brain on fire and when Margo told us time was up, stop writing, I resented her immensely. I wasn't finished, the idea was still moving through me.

It confirmed something that perhaps was beginning to be recognised in my subconscious - the triggers for my inspiration are nested within the written word.

Knowing ones strengths is as important as knowing ones weaknesses.

Sometimes, they're the same thing.

In an effort not to create internal pressure to write, I have





had to

stop








reading.







When people discover this I am inevitably asked what I then do with my time.

I don't know.

I do not want to be at work. As soon as I sit in my cubicle I'm counting down the hours and minutes till I can leave.

I do not want to be at home. I get home, and I sit, and I stare out the window, at the wall, at the carpet, and count down the minutes till it is reasonable to go to bed.

Weekends are an interminable agony. I wake, but do not open my eyes, and lie as long as I can force myself to. I take my time in the shower, getting dressed, making a cup of tea. I linger over the dirty dishes, the washing, the ironing. The grocery shopping is a slow ambling excursion.

And then, I have run out of things that must be done, and my time is my own.

It is all empty time. I cannot write. I cannot read. There is nothing else in my life.

I sit, and stare out the window, at the wall, at the carpet, and count down the minutes till it is reasonable to go to bed. Most of the time, I do not last until 'reasonable'.

Empty time is not a trial I've ever had to navigate. It's...devastating. To quote Tyler Durden, "This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time."

To be sure, I tested my suspicions, and while undertaking Operation: GTFO III I took The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges, as yet unread.



Because that's when you do on holiday; all the indulgences you normally deny yourself.

It was with trepidation and intense anticipation that I picked the book up, made a cup of tea and settled on the hostel couches. It took me some time to crack the cover. Fear of causing myself grief is no easy conquest.

And oh, it was wonderful. I read.

Read!






Read.







And oh, it was brutal. My notebook and pen never left my side, as I had to pause frequently to copy down quotes and jot down questions raised. It had be so long, too long since such nourishment. My mind devoured and tore up the paragraphs, sucked the marrow dry and demanded more, more, more, and as I had feared, eventually stopped taking, and started giving.

I scrawled down a short story idea, one that hit me like lemon juice on an open cut and left me shocked at its state of completeness despite its only having just arrived, and left me excited as only the smell of something new can do, and left me itching, itching, itching to write.

When I got home, I put the book back on the shelf, and stood there a moment surveying all the other glorious books awaiting my appetite.

And I had to walk away.

Logic is not without its loopholes. With so many writers in my life, there is always critiquing to do. I have persuaded and cajoled rough drafts out of a number of friends and acquaintances. That's okay, you see, because I'm doing it for someone else. It is a means of thinking about reading and writing without having to approach the subject head on. I can fool myself about what I am doing, and come at it sideways. Especially fortunate am I that I know so many fabulously talented writers; Rjurik Davidson, Deborah Kalin, Alistair Rennie, and Conrad Williams; the pleasure was all mine.

This loophole is not without its own shortcomings. Toward the end of this mad spree of critiquing some point of saturation was reached, the balanced tipped, and I found myself having to walk away frequently as a froth of bitter snarling jealousy threatened to taint my objectivity.

I do love criting, perversely so. But I love writing more, and to handle their brilliant beloved works with the aim of strengthening them when I can do nothing myself tests my altruism and the lengths of my denial.

As such, I have not sought out any further manuscripts, and empty time returned to me.

There are more loopholes to the logic. For many years I have maintained a strict philosophy regarding the rereading of books, ie, VERBOTEN. There are too many books in the world that I will never get to read, I cannot waste time rereading stories I have already known.

But, well, it is new words that trigger new ideas in me. Old words must therefore be safe.

Right? Right. Examining the argument closely would be counterproductive. It doesn't need to be airtight, just solid enough for me to fool myself.

I was tempted to do this properly, and leap on my old Dragonlance books, but couldn't quite bring myself to take it to such extremes. Instead I picked up Tad William's Otherland series, each book of which is a massive behemoth with its own gravitational pull. I have them all in lovely hardcover, and the first is signed by the man himself, in person when I first met him in LA.

I read.

Read!








Read.







And discovered that my copy was faulty, as page 81 was followed by page 52, before hitting 81 a second time and skipping on to 115.

Do you believe in signs? I try not to, but it was hard not to take that as an uncompromising statement that I am simply not meant to read.

I have borrowed a copy with the intention of reading those missing pages, but as yet have not returned to reading. Guess I'm afraid of being thwarted again. As such, empty time is returned to me.

The latest loophole I have crawled into acknowledges the difference I perceive between the written and spoken word. Most people nudge me toward voice-recognition software and I've explained many times over that in this case, it is the act of writing I need, not the end result. To speak is an entirely different action to undertake, and ignites different thought-matrices. Writing was cultivated because speaking is, for me, anathema. This blog is called Silence Without because I cannot say the things that require saying, and thus, I write them instead. Silence without, expression within. Over time, the act of writing has become an exercise of storm-appeasement like nothing else I have experienced. There is nothing that soothes the howling heart more than the formation of a sentences and the composition of a paragraph.

They are different. The words may be the same, but written or spoken, they are different.

Audiobooks and podcasts, you are my friends.

Now going to bed before the flying foxes have started their foraging is no longer unreasonable. I lay on my back with the curtains open and watch the sky change, flying foxes heading out for breakfast, and listening to stories. I do so love being read to. There may be no quicker way to get me into bed. I've found many marvellous stories (I recommend pillaging Clarkesworld, Dark Fiction Magazine (particularly Pinborough's Do You See?) and Podcastle) and equally marvellous readers (anything by Rajan Khanna).

The spoken word triggers nothing in me. It is safe.

My hands have been very bad of late. It has taken over a fortnight to write this.

Denials and distractions; none of them last forever.

the end will not be narrated

Curiosity has enormous round eyes and towering pointy ears which perk with interest at all going on in the world. Curiosity is never sated, never stops finding something new to take delight in.

Delight is a fat beam of sunlight curling a a living mobius like an ADHD eel.

Desire has short arms and short fingers. Desire reaches for things just beyond its grasp, but it can see them, it knows with only a little work it can change the position of the world and have what it wants. Desire is never sated, never lets its arms drop, never stops yearning.

Fury is fists and a mouth that never closes and so the roar never ends. Fury is constantly battered and beaten by that which gives rise to it, and as it defeats that which has woken it so it slays itself. Fury doesn't want to die. Fury can't help itself.

I can anthropomorphise character traits till you get bored and stop reading. Hope is a tortoise and fear is an elephant. Resolution is the bug on the windshield that no amount of speed will blow away.

None of these entities want to die. They don't fight back. Most of them don't know they're dying at all. But when I hold them under they don't stay down. I can't keep them down.

What I fear is depression. It's a perfectly rational fear to have all things considered, but I let it affect me in an irrational way. I've cut people out of my life not because they were going to do anything that would send me back there, but because I couldn't trust myself not to use them to send myself there. There are whole countries of conversation I won't visit because they call on memories that may sit next to other memories I don't want to visit. I fear depression and so by proxy I fear all things that may lead to it.

It is only logical that I then cleave to those things which combat it. "Being awesome" is about as WMD as you can get without prescription medication. In this case, the awesomeness is entirely internal. The space my mind occupies is immense and ridiculous and so much bigger than me; I have made it that way. I have made it so that even when my head is full of poison and horror it is still breath-taking and glorious. Everything I consume as thought-food, all the experiences and trials I put myself through, the rewards and punishments I vest upon myself, all of them become architecture, amazingly intricately stupidly illogically whimsically viciously laying out new ground. Be glorious. This is all I need to keep myself alive.

The character traits are my hunters, catching pieces of the world and laying new foundations.

I fear the damage I do to myself by continuing to push on. I fear the damage I do to myself when I strangle my voice.

They're different paths to the same destination. I do not like what I am becoming.

It doesn't matter how I anthropomorphise these character traits, how much distance I put between myself and the violence I wreak upon them. I can build walls of detail, personality and symbolism into their being. It doesn't matter. It makes no difference. In the end there is only me, murderer and victim and crying for both.

Written at 19:54 on 16 August 2010