TUI

Welcome home

2011-08-30T02:22:00.003-04:00

Damp like you wish your wife's panties were. Damp like the cave between a fatty's rolls. Damp like the towel on the end of your bed. Damp. Damp. Damp.

The jackets in my closet, leather heels, cowboy boots, the cushions on the couch, the curtains, mould like black lace is creeping between them, all over them. Invading my house from the inside. Black splotches are stretching over the ceiling. Like storm clouds heavy with rain.

Or the black billow that streams from the smokestack at the hospital. That's where they burn the diseased body parts, the amputated limbs, cancerous growths, cysts with teeth and tufts of hair in them, the unwanted fetuses and the beloved ones gone bad. It's like the hospital's flag, flying high over the city, so even in the park where life should be picturesque, you can see it.

I chase the mould with an armful of cleaning products and a bucket of hot water that quickly turns textured and blackened. I can smell it.

We've moved out of our bedroom and into the lounge. The mould is still there, but the air isn't thick with it. Our bedroom is unusable.

It's a beautiful old bungalow. But what can you do? Legally, the landlords don't have to do a damn thing.

The walls are thin. Our next door neighbour is in his 30s, tall and spindly, a crop of orange hair, he lives alone, slams his door, stomps around the house. I hear him yelling into the phone at night. He's perpetually angry. His anger seeps through the walls.

One time he screamed through the wall "shut up you fucking cunt" because I went to the bathroom. I think he might be mad. His mother pays his rent, cooks for him and cleans his house. She doesn't live with him, but she spends several hours there each day. She is angry too. She stands on the front porch and glares at me.

Two months ago, I awoke to a blood-chilling scream. It was coming from the flat through the wall. My boyfriend leapt out of bed, grabbed a baseball bat and ran underpant-clad next door.

The angry neighbour had woken up to a man dressed in black and wearing a balaclava, standing in his bedroom beside his bed, watching him as he slept. Like an ominous shadow. When he woke, the man turned and walked out of his room. Thinking maybe he was dreaming, he followed him, down the hall, towards the back door, through the kitchen. The man stopped, and turned. When he screamed, the man took a step towards him.

That was when my boyfriend came crashing around the corner and the man took off. They chased him down the street. But the man had a bicycle hidden in the long grass at the corner. He jumped on it, and was gone.

The street was quiet. Despite the yells, no one else had come to help. The police didn't even turn up.

After that, the next door neighbour stopped shouting abuse through the wall. But he still lies about us to the landlords. He still listens with his ear to the wall.

The 6 month lease is almost up. I can't wait to move.

I'm looking for sunshine.

Not quite dead

2011-01-29T16:48:00.013-05:00

I'm not slashed of throat, formaldahyded, or scattered to the howling winds.

I'm still out there, here, somewhere, my legs climbing stairs, hands typing inane ad copy for brand giants. Still smoking cigs on the balcony on level 11. Still waiting for him to deliver my "lunch".

As soon as I see his car, I'm triple pressing the elevator button, willing the doors to open. Hands trembling, forehead wet. Stomach being gnawed by rats. Skidding through the foyer in heels. I lean through his car window, he gives me a banana, a nectarine, and a syringe full of drugs.

Sometimes, in the elevator on the way up, eyes on the lights as they ding though the floors, I'll rest my stupid head on the cool aluminum walls with relief, sometimes I'll do a mental little wriggly alone-dance. I hate myself for this happiness. This compulsive need. But I just can't seem to stop, it's in me now, it's got me, this need that means enough to lie for. To live a double life for.

Truer than any true love. My very cells are love-sick until their daily kiss. My selfish, parasitic lover is oblivious. The only lover you know for certain will never leave you. Til death do us part as they say. That is his break up routine. So very fucking loyal.

Once in the office bathroom, by the bulb that doesn't shine bright enough, when I see that glorious rosy plume of blood, that is the moment I work until 8pm for. The reason I give my dealer more than my landlord. The reason the dealer always gets paid, the landlord, if he's lucky. Bowed head, bloody wrists. Another droplet hits the floor. The colour sweeps back through my cheeks, my eyes are clearer, like make-up on a mannequin. A polished apple, rotten and dead inside.

Mr Anonymous & friends

2010-10-10T06:50:00.005-04:00

Mostly, I delete them. Sometimes I leave them. But the comments are clear, although he has never met me, Mr Anonymous loathes me. Wants me to overdose and die. In fact, a few years back, he even left a comment pretending I HAD died.

Let clear something up. I am pathetic, I suck, being a junky sucks, it is a waste of life. I agree.

I don't think anyone plans on becoming an addict, let alone dreams of being one as a child. It is scary, lonely. Something you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

And I'm sure I dislike myself much more than you, Mr Anonymous, ever could.

Still, I don't understand why you care so much about someone you find so pathetic. So, please fill up the comments and let me know. I'm interested.

PS
I know I'm not special, everywhere on the internet, anywhere you can post anonymously, there are hellishly mean comments. That is the internet. What people do when anonymous is a real reflection of humanity. It's eye-opening and actually pretty fucking depressing.

Notes from above a shop window

2010-09-25T23:37:00.003-04:00

It was 8am and I was in the shower when the girl was hit.

My boyfriend saw it all from the window. The day was dark and grey, roads slippery with rain.

The little girl was walking to school, the same as every morning. Neat in her school uniform, she waited until the traffic had slowed and stepped onto the crosswalk. A scooter stopped to let her pass.

What caught my boyfriend's eye was the car coming up behind the scooter.

It didn't seem to be slowing. The woman driving it had her head bent down, texting, or fiddling with her phone. By the time she looked up, it was too late.

She hit the brakes, but it didn't do much good. She rear-ended the scooter, and the scooter flew into the child.

These moments always seem to happen in slow motion. The sickening thud of contact, the small body spinning into the air, a messy twisted heap of child, backpack and scattered belongings. The scooter a mangled wreck.

I grabbed a woolen blanket, and ran down the stairs in my bathrobe and bare feet.

They had her lying on the wet concrete, dragged just off the road, to the curb. My first aid knowledge is pathetic, but I knew we had to keep her warm.

Her small pale face was smudged with blood. Big brave eyes, she was conscious. It was hard to tell where the blood was coming from. A panicky crowd had encircled her. Telling her not to move. I retreated.

The tow trucks got there first. The ambulance seemed to take eternity. They loaded her in on a stretcher much too big for that small body. The street resumed normal activity.

This one's for you Matt

2010-05-11T02:14:00.002-04:00

Funny
Kind
Generous
Thoughtful

I met Matt through this blog. He read from the very beginning. I don't think he ever once commented, but he sent me emails. Many, many emails. He believed so much in this fucked up junky. I knew that if I ever needed him, he was there. I found out today he's not there any more.

Matt, I'm going to miss you forever. RIP.

READ

2010-05-08T11:44:00.002-04:00

Some beautiful words for all you blog fiends

Nuffing much

2010-05-08T11:16:00.011-04:00

So I owe you guys an update.

Work either has me traversing town at top speed between freelancing gigs, or sleeping until midday and mooching around in pajamas. It's erratic, but at least it's there (at last). Yes, the economy seems to be perking its nipples.

Even so, more and more beggars and buskers fight for space in the city centre. The music they produce clashes and overlaps as they just crank the volume louder. Even the Hari Krishnas now dance around carrying speakers.

Sometimes I sneak a glance at the proffered hats and see more coins and notes than I have in my wallet.

I asked a group of men killing time in a bus shelter if they had a spare cig. Too late I smelled the giveaway, they belonged to the halfway house across the street. "Can you roll" one asked. He handed me his pouch of tobacco. I was touched. Inside were butts that he had collected off the street. His stinking, filthy treasure. With much respect, I had to decline.

So often it's the people with nothing who are the most willing to share.

The day I met John Mayer

2010-02-18T01:43:00.011-05:00

Not a photoshop job. Pretty awesome.

Somehow I attract vagabond-types, the odd, the mentally insane. The streets in this area are clogged with shiny bmw suvs in modern colours, their obnoxious drivers pulling into their obnoxious mansions. There are weirdos of course, but not many of the kind people desperately-ignore, with teeth rotting out of their heads.

They get me with a question, and once they have my attention, they're hard to peel off. I had a friend in New York who would just yell fuck off until they slunk away. I'm just not tough enough for that.

On Monday, I was accompanied on a 20 minute walk to the bank, and back again, by a severely paranoid, 40 year old conspiracy theorist. Interestingly, he had a lot of advice for me. A homeless motivational speaker. Listening to him talk was fascinating. He was hyper aware of life's little things, and darkly resentful about his past. I contributed the occasional nod. All he really wanted, was to be heard.

It was a challenge extricating myself from his company. Fortunately those sorts of characters don't have cell phones. I have an odd English-like politeness I can't shake, which results in me giving my phone number (under pressure) to people I really don't want to hear from.

As we walked along, he'd target people to ask for a couple of dollars for "gas", a cigarette, or both. It wasn't lost on me that he yielded the best results with pretty young women. They would look from him to me, and back. I tried to look blasé. Having slimy, stained, toothless drug addict acquaintances approach me in public before, I recognized the strange looks. Not all drug addicts maintain a guise like I do.

The last person you'd expect, that's me.

Paper art, so intricate. Not sure who the artist was, or who had that much patience.

Oh, and John Mayer's been getting such a bad time in the press, if you go with the media slant, this may as well be him.

Schapelle Corby

2010-02-15T02:28:00.009-05:00

If you don't know who Schapelle Corby is, read this.
-And don't skip the comments, they add volumes. Public opinion, particularly in Australia, has been extreme. Mostly baying for the blood of their own. Her character was torn to shreds by the media playing for ratings, and although disproven, the vocal majority of Australians still seem to stubbornly believe the false reportings.

I have followed Schapelle's case since first hearing of what happened to her in 2005- and what is still happening. Disturbing, to say the least.

I'd like to do something, be able to. Sometimes it's hard just to carry on. Even harder for Schapelle.

- Schapelle Corby incarcerated, 2006.

You can sign this petition for her freedom, if you believe it will do any good. I did, just in case.

Splastic

2010-01-15T21:52:00.008-05:00

Heidi's breasts are DDD now, and according to her, still not big enough.

Heidi Montag looks... like her plastic surgeon should be sued. The aim of cosmetic surgery, I'd always thought, was to improve unfortunate features, straighten the wonk, downsize the chunk, even the oddities. Instead, this surgeon took a naturally pretty young girl and turned her into something monstrous.

I've never been much of a fan of Heidi Montag (or Spencer Pratt), their desperation for fame via any means, and irritating religious fervour, but now I feel genuinely sorry for Heidi. She was never a supermodel, but she was pretty in an all-American way, with a fantastic figure. Now she's a bargain-bin version of Barbie, and it only cost her 30k.

If that surgeon is proud of his handy work, he's demented. If I were him, I'd be in hiding.

I hope she never realizes what she's lost, because it's too late now. Poor Heidi.

The photo below is older, of Heidi in her prime.

Bye!

T is for time-killer, V is for very

2010-01-11T01:39:00.016-05:00

Hi, my name is Tui. And I watch too much TV.

There, I said it. More skin-crawling, hide your face, deny deny deny, than herpes. Well almost. It's up there. Something no one wants to admit. Hey life, show my dumb brain anything and I'll get addicted to it. It's easy. Here I am, fuck me over. I love it. Must love it.

Cartoons, reality shite, talk shows, docos (look how highbrow I am!), static.

The line up tonight: King of the Hill, Family Guide, The Mentalist, Dexter. And I'm excited. Bleh.

It's my boyfriend's fault. Blame him.

Since he moved in the telly is always on, constant background noise, while I read, crossword, write, do the internets, eat, even sleep. It's on.

I have a lot of catching up to do. Being one of those two-headed freaks who grew up without a telly. All those kiddy conversations and pop-culture references left me quiet, and outside. Maybe it was like that for you too, as a kid, having to be a little clone, or be dead weird. My parents always made sure I was the weird one. The vegetarian, with sprouts in her lunchbox. No lollies allowed. No fizzy drink, yep I was 9 before I tried coca cola. The only kid not allowed to go to the boy-girl parties. I had to wrangle, weasle, whinge and manipulate hard to go to school dances. My dad was suspicious, and bored, and controlling. Pop music was banned because of the lyrics. My purity was his project. And somehow, i systematically became as unpure as possible. And weirder than ever. Yee ha.

And now, please excuse me, the ads are over.

Riiiight

2010-01-10T16:12:00.003-05:00

-Pam Carter

//For fuckssake I'm not going to get addicted.

You sound like I did.

Seriously. I'm not. Stop trying to be my mother//

I've helped a few people fall over, along the way. I know better now. I'll never introduce anyone to a dealer again. I think. I hope. Who knows. My promises aren't worth much.

Addicts are dropping like flies over here.

Jim died last month with a pick in his wing. I missed his funeral, and it makes me cringe. I hope someone went. He was one of the good ones. Brought me a huge, messy bunch of flowers he'd stolen on his way. Thought I was beautiful. Always ready to help. Always wanting "to borrow" ten bucks. Always around. I keep thinking I see him, on K road. But then I realize no, he's dead too. His best friend gave him the pill. One pill. The police went round to his house and searched it, after finding Jim's body. Any excuse, really. Even strip searched his teenage daughters. He'd just been trying to help out a friend. Terribly low tolerance. Who would think you could die from so little? At least we'd seen him the day before and I'd given him a hug. Old Jim. Sweet old Jim.

Terry was dead for a week before they found him, elements still burning. Sarah gave herself HIV, gave it to her boyfriend, probably gave it to numerous johns who brought it home to their wives.

Those that don't OD, who want to quit, they kill themselves. It's all too big. Every day without drugs looms massive. There's no way to describe it. It's in your cells. Relapsing is terrifying. So is abstainance. Every second of everything is fucking terrifying.

But I'm still here, and I'll try to update more often. No resolutions. Just... try.

Get depressed

2009-10-20T02:59:00.005-04:00

Amazing. And sickening. Chris Jordan photographed these albatross carcusses (and many others) on Midway Island, to show us exactly where our litter goes.

"These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent."

-Chris Jordan , Oct 2009

What a world we live in.

Old news

2009-10-15T08:10:00.006-04:00

Jeremy was the one to find Theresa, on the floor of their bedroom, quite dead. A suicide note, empty champagne glass and scattered pills said goodbye. Inconsolable, a week later he strode fully clothed into the ocean. That was the last time he was seen alive.

The 2007 deaths of Theresa Duncan and her boyfriend Jeremy Blake are still a big dark mystery. They were together 12 years without a night apart, the tightest of couples. Officially, they were surprise suicides, but a back tangle of scientology harrassment and stalking muddies things. You may have heard their story before, it raced through the dry hills of the internet like a scrub fire. In part due to the many fans of Theresa's luscious blog The Wit of the Staircase. She was a fantastic writer, he a well known multimedia artist, together described as "darlings of the art world".

This is one version of the events that led to their deaths. There have been many attempts to discredit Theresa after her death, label her a liar, paranoid, mad. But after delving into her blog, these accusations are a bit hard to believe. Eccentric, yes. Enviably smart, witty, fascinating- definately.

It's a frustrating story because the more you read about it, the more it doesn't add up. And even more frustrating, it probably never will.

The only "new" news is that Bret Easton Ellis and Gus Van Sant are writing a screenplay based on the Vanity Fair article about their death (same link as above). I wish they were taking a broader view of their lives and deaths, and including all the odd bits and pieces that weren't included in the article, but still, Glamorama (by Ellis) being one of my favourite reads of all time- I'm hungry for their take.

The womanly woman

2009-09-17T07:12:00.009-04:00

There's a new trend. Big, curvy women are back. Or so I've heard. Apparently, in times of recession, curves are comforting. When people are having trouble feeding their kids, Kate Moss-like bodies stop being something to strive for. Quick, quit weight watchers!

You thought the old-fashioned pin up girls had curves? Check out the toil girls gallery. It's a voyeuristic kick. Les Toil makes modern day pin ups of fat women, "real" fat women, who send him their photos to draw from. On the site, you can see the photo the subject has sent him, as well as the final art.

Meet Cheryl, April & Deirdra.

For photos of them with their clothes on, have a looksy over at toilgirls.com

Last fashion post I promise (for now)

2009-09-15T02:50:00.003-04:00

Alexander McQueen's knuckle-duster clutch. I'd give two-black eyes for one of these. They're also available in a snakeskinny red. I don't even want to know the price.

Perfume-clad

2009-09-15T02:39:00.004-04:00

Mary Katrantzou's latest range- perfume bottle dresses!

Bangle, bangle, ring.

2009-09-15T02:16:00.004-04:00

Designer Anthony Roussel makes jewellery from birchwood. Pretty cool. I discovered his stuff through neatorama, one of my favourite time-killing websites. Unlike me, they update frequently, so they're always worth a visit.

Thanks for sticking around guys. I'll try to update more often.

Boring little post

2009-09-02T21:43:00.005-04:00

No mortgage.
No kids.

It could be worse. But I'm sick to my stomach with debt. In one way, or another, I owe everyone I know.

Re-rechecking under couch cushions for enough coins to buy bread. Putting gas in the car in $3 increments. This isn't an interesting tale I'm sorry.

At least we have a welfare system. So I'm allowed to queue. Stand in a crooked lie of tarted up young mothers, old hunched men, the aggressive, the mad, and more and more like me, suited up.

Because the government gives me money, any money I make goes back to them. I had a 40hr week of work, no breaks, an admin job. Paid 18 bucks an hour, after tax, and giving welfare their share, I get $2 an hour. $2, when to buy a loaf of bread and carton of milk costs more than $10. One orange costs $1.50.

Everyone (anyone) who has a job is afraid. Working for less, longer hours, and you're supposed to feel lucky. No sauntering in late with a crumpled shirt. It's redundancy fever.

The situations vacant section of the overpriced newspaper has shrunk to a slim column. Most of these are "Ladies Wanted" ads, shiny euphemisms pressing through. No jobs in my area, nothing even close. Even cleaners need diplomas now.

The shop downstairs used to give me the pastries at the end of the day. Then they started charging $3. Then $5. Now they sell them stale the following day.

My computer has been stacked in the back of a pawn shop, with my boyfriend's cell and mp3 player. That's one of my excuses for not writing. If the pawn shop would have taken it, they'd have our TV too. I hate being a statistic. A boring, depressing, whiny statistic.

It's been so bloody long since I've bought a pretty dress.

Battle on

2009-05-03T18:44:00.007-04:00

There were about 30 people in the old wooden hall for the NA meeting. Some have a couple hundred. It must take them forever to do the old "hello my name is & I'm an addict" intro. The hour was thick with the usual. Overwhelming friendliness, clapping, hugging, and people secretly eyeing each other. We're a crazy, damaged lot.

I dodged volunteering too much. But my boyfriend talked about his addiction, so I ended up flaking anyway. I'm a cry baby these days. It can suddenly all well up. Although, taking my anti anxiety meds regularly, and not just kinda-when-I-remember-ish has made a BIG difference. Fancy that.

The bit about getting a sponsor has always put me off. My eyes did the rounds, circling the circle, trying to assess the NA successes, trying to picture who I could comfortably text at least weekly, or in theory, daily. And who wouldn't be a drill sergeant. And who I could be honest with.

There was one woman, soft and plump and kind. A happy motherly looking girl in her early 30s. A three year clean opiate addict. About 80 percent of the group is always male, and I don't want some guy making things weird. The rest of the women were meth addicts, and though it shouldn't matter, it does. I want someone who can say "after a year I started feeling okay" or "I stopped dreaming about it after 2 years" and mean it.

We were accosted as we left, by a veteran member, spit flying as he ranted passionately, giving me flyers and "pick me me or me as your sponsor" hints. I didn't bite. We'd rolled cigs in the last 5 minutes of the meeting and we were past ready to light them.

And then we were out of the hall, and into the blue sky and sunshine, swords drawn, ready to battle another week.

Loser

2009-04-04T23:15:00.006-04:00

Yep that loser's me.

Rent day. (Sounds ominous already!) Withdraw two weeks rent, and some, and stuff into my already obese-with-receipts-and-other junk wallet. Squeeze it into my purse, a swingy leather thing with a flap that closes it- and what should have been a crucial piece of foreshadowing- no zipper.

Get a call twenty minutes later. A good samaritan has found my wallet, matched my business card to my ID and has it in her lovely hand, ready to return it. Phew, without even the panic of realizing I'd lost it.

That was quite different to how things turned out on Friday night.

I missed my bus after work, and had to catch one that took an unusual route, involving a good long walk over hill and dale. It was at the fruit and vege store, grabbing dinner supplies, that I dug around for my wallet, and realized. Voila... poof! it was gone.

Tracing my footsteps back yielded zip. Calling the bus company, and asking the driver, zip zip. One carries a lot their wallet, I discovered. Bank cards, library & dvd card, drivers license, and yep that's all my ID. And rarely for a Friday, there was money in my wallet too, 200 unfortunate dollars.

For some reason I lose things I love or need, and I do it a lot. I barely notice my surroundings, it's a blur out there. If I was a witness to a crime, I would be useless. I'm too far in my head, stretched out daydreaming, most likely sipping tea and smoking cigarettes. Sometimes I have to wiggle my toes, just to remind me that they're part of me.

At the A&D clinic I've sat for hours in groups, one-on-one and with pamphlets, all devoted to mindfulness. Still, it's bloody hard.

Archie and me

2009-03-27T03:45:00.008-04:00

(Ha!)

A lot has passed since my last post, and my cat's death. There's a new meower in the house. Archie. A red head pussycat, named after the comedic Archie of my childhood, and just as clumsy and good natured. I'm his Betty and his Veronica. As I type, he's passed out on my shoulder, small white paws in my hair, his favourite position. There's something very comforting about a warm furry little guy by my side again.

This morning, as the city slept, I chewed a bit of breakfast, swallowed some coffee and worried. Job interviews always put me on edge. Trying to find a shirt that isn't wrinkled. Finding an unravelling hem at the last minute, quickly painting my toenails while smoking a cig. It's always the same. Same fitted skirt, heels, same long sleeves hiding same scars. The job-interview uniform.

I'm notoriously unpunctual for everything. But not job interviews. I pulled in 15 minutes early and checked my lipstick. Thanks to the web, I'd already seen what the man I was meeting would look like. Forties, cocky, black-hair and big-teeth. I recognized him immediately.

The agency was like a dark early 90s cave, I couldn't do my usual "nice place you've got here". He led me into a small meeting room with mismatched bad art. I showed him my work, he showed me his. They're semi-creative with bad design, but they pay well. Enough to keep Archie in cat biscuits at least. I'm slowly gathering freelance clients. There aren't any full time jobs. Not one. I have three weeks left before my last day at work. The ad agency I work for, like so many, is going under.

It's scary, but it will all work out. Life has been too predictable for too long,

Fuck everything

2009-01-24T15:29:00.003-05:00

I was napping in the afternoon, when my mobile phone rang. It was a number I didn't recognise. The woman on the phone asked me if I was missing a cat. I said I didn't think so. She asked me where I lived, she was with my baby and he'd been hit by a car. I begged her that he was still alive. She said it was impossible.

She wouldn't let me see him, she said he was too broken. I gave her a bag to put him in and left over christmas paper to put over him, I'd recycled all the newspapers the day before. I sat for hours holding that bag in my livingroom alone. Feeling his warm weight in my arms, accepting the smell of feces with love. I rocked him and rocked him. Maybe I was just rocking myself. The fleas started jumping off his body after a couple of hours.

My boyfriend arrived home. There'd been a shooting on the motorway and traffic all over the city was gridlocked. He gave me a huge amount of drugs until I was too numb to cry.

After dark, arms around the still warm bag, I carried my little one to a quiet hill nearby. My boyfriend carried the shovel, and a bag filled with his treats and toys. He buried him while I sat smoking a cigarette and praying to something, anything to take care of my little one. We planted a pretty purple plant over his crushed body, and patted it down with goodbyes. He is at the edge of a cliff we used to walk.

As we stood there, reluctant to leave him alone, fireworks boomed in the sky above us, I'm not sure what they were for, but they were huge and glorious, like his little soul was. I've never met anyone, human or animal with so much love in them. The house has been very empty. I'd do anything to have him back. I could go on for hours.

Xmas hooha

2008-12-25T22:04:00.011-05:00

-Snowman by Shrigley

Dun dun dunnn... the annual Christmas family dinner. My parents and brother flew from their respective cities. The celebration is usually held at my granny's, but she's fragile and just too old now (her opinion), so this year it was to be held at my aunt's. My religious extremist aunt's. Lets just call her Bitch from Hell.

My boyfriend has no family to spend Christmas with. His father abandoned him at birth, and his mother beat him viciously from before he could walk, until he was old enough to run away. That was about 20 years ago. He has nothing to do with her now.

It's a shit time of year for people without families. I wanted to spend the day with him and my family.

My mum rang to let Bitch from Hell know that I wanted to bring my partner. She said no. She wanted to "keep the numbers down".

I was sure that once she realised the situation, and that he's kind of important to me, not some fuckbuddy, it wouldn't be a problem. But yeah, I was wrong.

I rang her myself, and it soon became clear that Bitches from Hell can be quite creative:

"I'm a single woman living alone, I don't want a strange man in my house."

"If he doesn't have family he's obviously used to spending Christmas alone, it's not as if another Christmas by himself will be a change."

"If you were married, then it would be a different story."

Aha. The truth.

So sadly, I missed out on seeing my granny, uncle, other aunt, cousin (her son) and his wife, and my teen second cousin. Not to mention parents and brother. None of them thinks like her about "living in sin". But no one was willing to rock the boat.

It was the first Christmas my boyfriend got presents. And he got lots. All from me. We did the santa stocking thing, ate a pile of pancakes, and had a huge shot.

It was lovely, but the fact that one relative had managed to exclude me from my family due to an out-dated judgement of my morality, that wasn't so lovely.

Sickeningly, she feels sanctimonious about the whole thing, because jesus is on her side. I wish I could make my aunt see how fucking unchristian-like her behaviour has been.

Any ideas?

Meow

2008-12-05T02:30:00.003-05:00

I woke up to the sound of glass shattering.

My boyfriend was already standing at the open window. It's hot now, and we sleep with the windows wide. The pussy cat can jump in and out that way too, which saves me being his door attendant through the night.

Then the alarms went off. The corner store we live above was being broken into. I lay very still, listening.

My boyfriend had woken up to them arguing outside. There were three of them, one sensible, who thought it was a shit idea.

"What are you, are fucking pussy?" The other (non-pussy?) said. That was enough, of course. Boys.

My boyfriend closed the windows against the alarm, after watching them run off down the street.

The police arrived 5 minutes later, and stood around outside. The alarm switched off.

There was a thump at the window and a distinctly feline shriek as the cat rebounded off the glass. His attempt at jumping through not as successful as usual. Shit. I jumped out of bed, flung open the window and peered out, blind without my contacts.

"Puss? Puss puss?"

"Do you know that cat?" The police megaphoned up.

"Uh... yes?"

"Well okay then." He sounded almost disappointed.

The robbers got away with $200 worth of cigars and an adrenalin rush. The pigs haven't caught them yet. And probably won't. If they'd circled the block after getting my boyfriend's description of them, maybe. But the cop who (very slowly) took the details barely looked old enough to drive. He wasn't the sharpest knife in the draw, that one.

My theory is drunken boys on the way home, no ciggies and the shop was shut.

This area is flash, things like that are rare. But the recession is winding people up, and with Christmas coming, it's probably just the beginning.

Whale-time

2008-11-30T00:59:00.011-05:00

There must have been hundreds of sculptures over those grassy hills. Some with intricate moving bits, some 20 feet tall. Others tiny. They all looked straight out across acres of bright blue ocean with a willowy wisp of a distant horizon. My thin cardy slung around my throat like a scarf, the sun was thumping hot.

My hand tight in his big furry paw, we clambered along the edge of the cliff until we found a spot just right. Out of sight, made private and shadowy by thick flax and brambly bushes. We laid out the yellow blanket and sat in silence for a moment. That was a view. He passed me the pipe and started unpacking our picnic. Savignon Blanc, check. Cigs, check. Crackers, cheese, check, check. Watermelon, strawberries, sunscreen, magazines, checkity check. We'd eaten the ice cream on the way. Well, you know, it would've melted.

Mid lunch, something shiny and black cracked open the surface of the sea. It leaped out, and twisted so we could have a good look. The orcas had arrived, babies in tow. Rising high out of the water and crashing back in, a hundred metres from the shore. They put on a damn good show.

It'sss summer!

Bit more

2008-10-10T00:11:00.003-04:00

A little more on my new boyfriend, before I go home for the weekend. It's 5.11 and time is ticking.

He was born addicted to heroin, to a scummy slut of a mother who beat him from a baby, until he was old enough to run away. Eleven. He stole cars then, to survive. That was 19 years ago.

He's surprisingly charming and deft with witticisms, smart, cute. You'd never think all that stuff had happened to him. I'm not sure how he turned out so nice, but somehow he did.

Honestly, it worries me, how he hasn't broken. Unless it's like a dam, with cracks creeping their fingers through the concrete. And I'll be that final crack he can't take.

It's okay for now, I love him back.

But one thing that getting clean has taught me, is that it changes reality. And everything isn't quite so nice anymore, or so easy to love. And fuck it, the shadows are too long already, I can't keep using forever.

It's 5.32, see ya.

Um

2008-10-07T00:01:00.003-04:00

Sorry. I know I've been away for a while. I've fallen in love, gotten clean, fallen out of love, started using, and fallen in love again.

My beautiful sweet new boyfriend cooks rather well. Food as well as drugs.

I got home last night to a syringe full of cherry red liquid. Injected it quickly as mum drank sweet blackcurrant tea in the lounge. That sort of thing makes me sick. Sometimes I wake up with the rain on the windows and I just want normality so fucking badly.

Today. I'm in the office eating ice cream out of a cup at my desk. I'm on the 11th floor. The top. A storm is beating the glass beside me. My legs are starting to ache.

My boyfriend will be here soon. Sticky and sour smelling as he is at this time of the day. It will be hard to kiss him, it always is when I feel this raw. But in his pocket will be a little something for me. And once I've had that, I'll be able to kiss him all night.

Little post

2008-06-10T03:57:00.004-04:00

It's been a funny day. One of those days when the air seems charged. And words turn into witticisms as they tumble out, carelessly brilliant. You're positively charming. Your cigarettes light first try. And handsome, expensive-looking men swing around as you pass. One of those days that don't happen enough.

This evening I visited a potential apartment. It's just two blocks from my work, on the oldest street in the city. It's beautiful and gothic, with a heavy quiet and regality to it.

The man who lives there is an actor. He's generically handsome, squints slightly as he talks,a nervous laugh, and a height of perhaps 4ft. He's the first and only little person I've met. His dwarfism is the apartment's biggest selling point. I've always had a fascination with miniature things, and miniature people, and now I have the chance to have my very own.

But.But.

Yes the entrance, lift and vast rooftop are gorgeous, opulent. But the apartment itself is like something from House and Garden, modern bachelor feature.It's immaculate, with all the gadgets. The decor is conservatively zany, clean. Trendy in the worst way and utterly unimaginative. The body corporate seem to have a lot of rules. I don't like rules. Every apartment is mandatorily owner-occupied. Residents are prohibited from working in the sex industry- even as exotic dancers!! (Somehow that fact slipped into conversation about past flatmates). No smoking. No pets.

No pets.

The odd thing was, as the little resident showed me around, he proudly informed me that there was not a single Asian living in the 25 apartments of the building. Every potential owner must meet with the board and be screened before being permitted to buy in. Yes, there are a lot of Asians in this city now, and at times it feels a little overrun, but as a little person, one would assume he'd experienced a lot of discrimination growing up, and would take no pleasure in it himself. Not so.

It's a strange world.

My kitten and I will find another home.

My very own soap opera

2008-05-31T03:09:00.006-04:00

I'm sitting here, at this seedy back-alley internet "cafe", hiding.

My apartment situation is best avoided. It's my own doing, or undoing as usual. He, my flatmate, started off fine. A nice guy, just not the kind of person I like to spend vast amounts of time with, or even any time really. A salesmanny bloke, pot head, mid-forties, never leaves the telly- in fact, the first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is yep, switch it on, loud. That noise to me now is like fingernails slowly screaming down a chalkboard.

I can wish I was more tolerant, but I'm just not.

The pros, the room is dirt fucking cheap. The cons, the dirt. He does like my kitten, which elevates him in my eyes, but he's a little too attached. In that now he seems to have taken a possessive stance, and keeps warning me (joking- but with an odd tone for joking) that if I ever leave, the cat won't be allowed to. He's also taken to buying shit for the cat- a 60 dollar monstrosity of a scratching post, special bowls, ultra-expensive cat meat etc.

Presently, he's moping around huffing and puffing, sighing, cursing, depressed. And I know why.

He depressed because of me. Because of two stupid, drunken nights, one with e thrown in for good measure, when I shagged him. I feel sick to think of it, let alone admit it. I don't know why I did it. I don't have a clue. Why would I sleep with someone I'm not remotely attracted to? He was there. Saying yes was easier than saying no. The empty feeling I don't know how to fix without drugs. I'm an idiot. I'm trying to feel something again. I'm a dirty whore. Bad excuses really. I think I'm just weak.

If it had just been a shag, something fun, move-on, forget it, that wouldn't be so bad. That's what I wanted at the time. But it's my bloody flatmate for fuck's sake. And worse, someone I know is lonely and craves love, a girlfriend, a family. And here I am, ready-made to slot into his dreams. Again (like with so many men) it's not so much that it's ME, it's the idea of me. There is no such thing as strings-free sex.

I don't have the internet at home, as I'm planning (surprise!) to move out as soon as I find somewhere okayish, and I can't write this sort of crap at work, hence my long absence. My month trial is over already, it feels like a week. I was not in top form. Chronically tired. Weak, self-hatred filled moments of shooting-up in the bathroom. Late. Foggy-headed. Ineloquent. But I guess my good spells outweighed the dodgyness, because they didn't seem to notice. I'm on fulltime forever now, with a chunky raise to make my salary even more silly. Now I just really need to learn to save, and feel proud of myself.

It's nice to unscramble my thoughts and put them down for you out there. I've missed it. Hopefully you'll hear again from me soon.

Thanks for sticking around.

Kiss me honey

2008-04-27T19:01:00.009-04:00

I have honey dripping off my face.

Yes, I'm a weirdo. But I'm a weirdo with damn good skin.

And I'll share my beauty secret with you, my loyal, er, 5 readers.

The first time dad went to shift the beehives, we had to pick him up from the emergency room at the hospital. He had been stung through his clothes, when the bees sneakily stealthed in under his "bee suit". Some bee suit. He took the next two days off work, and couldn't walk. This was a pain in the ass for me. Dad is NEVER sick, ever. And so I got to see a side of him, that, lets say, isn't his best. The big baby side.

He swore that was it. No more bees. But as the pain subsided, so did his resolution, and two weeks later, he was back shifting the bees and, yes, getting stung again. But from his sacrifice came dark, golden manuka honey, every pot or bowl in the house was filled with it, and every surface in the house was slightly sticky.

Three days ago, I was pointing out a particularly stubborn pimple, when dad suggested honey. It's a natural antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and it re-hydrates the skin. blah-de-blah. So, I lathered on a pure honey face mask, and left it on for forty-five minutes. Now, I'm addicted.

I've been doing it twice a day, because seriously, after every mask, my skin looks younger. Now I'm in my late twenties, my natural youthfulness is gone, with all those not-so-sought after attributes of aging starting to affect me. ME! Deep down, I'd always refused to believe age would get me. But no more blissful naivety. I had to admit it, my skin was starting to look tired and dull, and smile lines (otherwise known as WRINKLES!!) were creeping in. Pretty depressing actually.

After just three days, all the aging thingys are gone. My skin is glowy, smooth and soft, dewy if you will. It's fucking perfect!!
And after every honey mask, it gets even perfecter. I know that's not possible, but that's honey. It Is A Miracle.

Try it yourself, and see what you think. I know that outside NZ manuka honey is v expensive (still, it's cheaper than most skin creams), but it is the best kind to use. Otherwise, any raw honey will do. What an infomercial. No I'm not selling it.

Bee fact:

Bees communicate via special dances, often within the hive, where it's dark. Other bees will crowd around and stretch out their antennae to receive the vibrations in order to comprehend the message. This is how they choose which pollen to plunder, its exact location and quality, among other details. Cute eh.

Last beauty post ever.

Looksy!

2008-04-19T19:17:00.003-04:00

This'll make you smile. Watch it to the very end, it just gets better. And no, it's not some fake-o, I know someone whose actually been there, and seen it all. It's a mysterious world we live in. Enjoy!

Showdown

2008-04-19T17:48:00.004-04:00

I just blew my nose on a leaf. I'm sitting in the garden, trying to keep warm. Houses in New Zealand are NOT built for winter. We have this silly "tough" mentality, that winter here is nothing, and so who the hell needs central heating. This is the land of drafty houses and one-bar electric heaters. Right now it's actually warmer outside, sitting in the sunshine, than inside, where it's still shady.

In a potted plant beside me, sits a grubby little Smurf. I used to collect them as a kid. This is Doctor Smurf, with a stethoscope in one hand, and a giant syringe in the other. It's unreal, but the sight of a SMURF syringe is enough to give my heart a whoosh of cravings. I know the way this all works now, the brain trickery, flooding me with lovely images and golden moments that all say use. Use. USE.

To escape from a drug-lust daydream, according to my therapist, I have to distract myself. Give the rational brain some time to catch up. It's a bit slow, my rational brain.

Right on cue, as if entering from stage left, my kitten trots blindly past, with a tissue-box (bigger than his whole body) stuck on his little head.

They say recovery's a daily battle, and it's true. But I'm glad to say, today, In Smurf vs. Kitten, Kitten won.

New new

2008-04-15T16:00:00.008-04:00

I was still at the print-shop half an hour before my flight boarded. Cutting my fringe as I drove to the airport. Polishing my nails on my tray-table, and gluing in bits to my portfolio.

Two hours and a lot of traffic later, I was sitting in a boardroom high in an office building on the waterfront downtown. The walls were all glass, I could see the seagulls, tiny in the distance, dive-bombing waves.

"So what do you want to be doing in ten years?" He asked.
I laughed. "That really is a job-interview question isn't it?"
He stuttered a bit, but I cut him off. I actually get excited by the future now. By dreams.

At some bleary time around 8am the next morning, my phone rang. I stumbled for it, missed it. Called back. And then, suddenly I was very awake.

My extra well-paid, fun, creative new job starts in two weeks!

Stamp your foot and other things

2008-04-02T06:12:00.011-04:00

For some reason blogger is all fucky and going s o s l o w l y
But here i am, suffering, all because of my love of inky things, in particular, inky-stampy things.
So look! These rubber stamps are just beautiful. The way all stamps should be.

Rubber was discovered in the Amazon River Basin by a French explorer in 1736. Three decades later the idea of using small cubes of it to erase pencil marks was hatched, but as rubber was still a novelty- expensive and hard to come by, most people kept using bread crumbs for that task, just as they always had.

The problem at that time, was that rubber would quickly turn goop if the temperature rose. Luckily, an eccentric inventor named Charles Goodyear became obsessed with the dilemma. He quit his hardware business and stormed his wife's kitchen, turning it into a makeshift lab for his wild rubber experiments. Poor Charles lost precious moments however, when his unpaid debts and recurring bankruptcy led to sporadic imprisonment. At one point, Charles sold his children's school books to pay for his next experiment. Fortunately, a clumsy moment in the kitchen led to a major revelation, when he accidentally spilled some rubber mixed with sulphur on his wife's hot stove. Voila! It maintained it properties, and the next day, was still flexible.
Charles had done it.

It was 1860 and the Civil War saw rubber stamps come into everyday use, an efficient way to authorize all those piles of important papers quickly. Slowly stamps became incorporated into the art world, first by the Russian futurists and then by the German Dadaists. In the 60s-70s stamps had their pop-culture heyday, becoming the old-fashioned equivalent to Game Boy.

Do you have a favourite? Do you care at all?

Walking the something

2008-03-26T22:05:00.008-04:00

My kitten is quite different to any feline I've met before. Usually cats are very independent, they like to do their own thing, and that's that. Bruiser however, is always at my side. If he isn't on top of me, clinging hard, that is. He sleeps on my head, and he only goes outside when I do, although I leave the door open, in case he feels like a stroll. Maybe he'll grow out of it.

These days, when I go for my daily walk along the beach, I'm not alone. There, beside me, is Bruiser, skipping and leaping... and chirping like a little bird.

During these walks he diligently ensures he's within six feet of me at all times. We get some strange looks. I'd say he's a dog in a cat's body, but no dog I've ever walked has been so well behaved.

I don't think he's a kitten at all. He's a springlamb-babybird-showdog-overlyromanticboyfriend hybrid.

Little addicts

2008-03-25T16:47:00.005-04:00

So I'm sitting here sweaty as hell, in old jeans and a fluro orange singlet, smudged with flour and cocoa and sticky with egg.
Yes, there's a cake in the oven.

When I first came back to my hometown I brought some drugs with me, to tide me over before I could meet with a doctor and get scripted. However, as it goes with drugs, they didn't last the distance. I found myself loitering outside the one pharmacy in town that dispenses methadone, looking for a friendly face. After an hour or so of embarrassing myself, feeling pretty desperate and fading fast, Sarah and her six year old pulled up.

Sarah! I recognized her from one of my group therapy meetings (great place to make new contacts!! heh... just joking) and knew she used to work at the local needle exchange. She was heavily pregnant. She had to dose twice a day, on site, due to her pregnancy, so she couldn't personally sell me anything. However, she invited me over, made several calls and went and picked something up for me, reluctant to even take the 10 bucks I gave her towards gas. She really saved me that day, and ever since I've dropped by to drink coffee and talk shit with someone who understands. My dad does not approve.

Yes she's pregnant and yes she's a drug addict. I know many of you are probably judging already. Well, that's what humans do. But first, let me tell you her story.

She has been on the methadone program for over three years. For the last two and half she stopped getting her period (that happened to me too when I was on the 'done) and assumed she couldn't possibly get pregnant. She got pregnant.

As soon as she found out, she raced to the doctor and asked to come off the methadone. He said no. Coming off opiates while pregnant causes such severe stress to the body that she'd most likely lose or harm the baby. Instead, against her wishes, he INCREASED the dose, to cover the extra passenger. Methadone as such isn't bad for the fetus, but there is the risk the baby will be born an addict.

Her lovely little boy was born three weeks ago, heavily addicted to opiates. She is still in hospital with him, and probably will be for another few weeks, as the doctors wean him off. So far, he's doing extremely well. He's a little more unsettled than most babies, and has wires attached here and there, but he's got chub and a little grinning face.

One of the nurses is a tiny overly-muscled woman with ridiculously short legs, a blond perm and a hard face. Another has frizzy grey hair pinned tightly to her head, coke-bottle lense glasses, an oversized, sloppy body and a permanent sneer. These are just two of her many nurses, all who are obviously and vocally angry with Sarah for "inflicting her child with an addiction." How professional. Silly me, I always thought a nurses job was to care, not judge.

Sarah knows better than anyone the enormity of what she has passed on to her child.

It is awful. But the truth is, she did EVERYTHING SHE COULD bar having an abortion. Is that what the nurses would have liked? Why does it even matter what they would like?

So, I go up every few days, so far with chocolate afghan cookies x2 batches, banana bread, peanut butter cookies and today, with a banana chocolate cake.

Bambino

2008-03-23T01:20:00.008-04:00

I have a meeting at the A&D clinic every week, and every week I drive past the SPCA on the way there, and past again, on the way home. Last week, I thought, well, I'll JUST look. There's no harm in looking. Ha! Right.

I signed myself into the cramped kitten cage, trying not to step on any of the frolicking little bodies. I'd seen the kitten I wanted instantly. Black with white bits and pieces, a sweet little face, huddled by herself, as if lonely. It took me awhile to reach her. A pushy little tabby half her size had pounced on me and was in my arms with his face upturned towards mine, eyelashes batting before I managed to shut the mesh door behind me.

The next day I turned up at the SPCA with a cat-sized cardboard box, carefully lined with a snuggly old sweater and a back pocket full of folded twenties. Kittens aren't cheap. Unfortunately, my cardboard box caused a frown. I had to buy the SPCA logo cardboard box for an extra ten bucks. Great. There were four ladies of varying sizes behind the desk. What they all had in common was they diligently ignored me, until I began sighing loudly and shifting foot to foot. There were a lot of things to sign. The ladies kept transferring me to each other while they'd disapear then reappear and I'd be handed back until no one knew what the hell I'd paid for, who I was or what I wanted.

Finally, the kitten. Handed to me in the approved cardboard box, I could hear him crying. I put my eye to the box and peeked in. The tabby little face widened its eyes when it saw me.

As soon as I reached my car, he was out of his box and on my lap. EXTREMELY illegal, the SPCA women had warned me. I didn't care, he wasn't crying. The kitten perched there, paws on the staring wheel with a smug expression on his face until we reached the supermarket. In typical disorganised fashion I still needed to buy him food and litter. Even with the windows cracked it would be sticky hot in the car. I took the bandana from around my neck and wrapped him tight, like moses in his swaddling get-up. Only a little whiskered face peeped out. Together, the teeny baby bundle and I went shopping.

At home, in bed, he crawled up my body to cuddle at my throat, his little face an inch from mine he very softly extended one paw and began to gently stroke the side of my face, while gazing into my eyes. Yes it was cute, but also very slightly creepy.

That was when he was still reveling in freedom from orphanhood. And thus, I guess, on best-behaviour. I think he's forgotten all about the hell that is the SPCA already. Biting my toes (hard!!), tearing up important anything, climbing up my body to my shoulders where he digs his claws in tight. He's realised how goddam cute he is, and now he's in charge.

Guest blogger

2008-03-20T17:38:00.004-04:00

=]]]]===;ppppp juuuuuu]
snnn =;///

-Bruiser (aka my new kitten)

Now this is art

2008-03-19T04:17:00.005-04:00

This is an actual court sketch!! Probably one of the most dramatic court sketches ever.

Ahem, so, what do you think about the one and only Heather Mills?

My feelings are surprisingly neutral. Unlike, it seems, the rest of the world... and if there IS extraterrestrial life, they probably hate her too. But then I was never a big Beatles fan. She's always been heavily involved with charities, I like that. Gold-digger yes maybe, but hell, there wasn't a pre-nup, and that's the way it goes. It must be a hard world to live in, when millions of people who don't even know you, hate you.

It seems like she's had a rough life, and the only difference now is where the decimal point sits on her bank statement.

Her mum upped and left when she was 9.
Her dad was jailed for fraud and she was sent to live with her mother, whom she didn't get along with.
She ran away and survived homeless.
When she was 21 she reconciled with her mum, but shortly after, her mum went to hospital for minor sugery and died.
At 25 she was mown down by an ambulance and had to have her leg amputated from just below the knee.
(And as we all know) in 2006 Paul McCartney broke off their marriage via the media.

The thing I don't get, is that she named her kid (to McCartney) Beatrice Milly. Hopefully she's Beatrice Milly McCartney, not Beatrice Milly Mills. It irks me when people call their kids things like Robert Roberts or Wallace Wallace. Just, why? My mum many years ago knew a family surname Beach. They had a ton of kids, all with names like Shelley, Sandy, Rocky etc.
Guess they thought it was funny. Dorks.

double trouble etc.

2008-03-17T04:00:00.006-04:00

Steep tea, roll cigarette. Light it. And there it is, a two headed match.

Those things make me happy. The double filter, the time 12.34. Yes I'm looking forward to the day 08/08/08. I look for four-leafed clovers every time I'm in the grass. Always I'm looking for signs, of something. Anything.

Two-headed fact:
Unfortunately for two-headed reptiles (which are pretty common) they usually don't live long. Apparently it's because they have two brains, and will often try to attack each other, in some instances successfully biting the other head clean off...

Just beachy

2008-03-12T04:59:00.007-04:00

So, a bit about me and my exciting life.

I was on my way home this evening, heading for the warm glow of a parents' living room, when I passed a long stretch of autumn beach. It was twilight, the sunset was long melted away, but the sand still radiated heat. Abandoned sand castles dotted the high-tide mark, haunted houses now, crumbling away. I rolled up my jeans and dug my bare feet into the sand. There were all the scuffles and squeaks of night noises in the dunes. Shadows stretched longer out to eat the the beach as I walked. I could see shapes of other beachcombers but their faces were masked with dark, too anonymous to need a hello-isn't-it-a-lovely-evening. Yes, anti-social me likes that. The velvety dusk was like an invisible cape swinging around my shoulders. And I didn't even step on an errant dog poo.

Happy birthday Barbie

2008-03-10T17:54:00.005-04:00

Barbie Millicent Rogers (yep, that's her full name) turned 59 on March 9th.

Initially the experts said Barbie was a bad idea, she'd be too expensive to produce, with no long term appeal. Typical.
Every single second, two Barbies are sold. In fact, placed head to toe, the number of Barbies sold would circle the earth 7 times. And thanks to Barbie's love of fashion, Mattel has become the biggest garment manufacturer in the world.

Of course a lot has been written about how she influences culture, and little girls in particular. Critics always seem to focus on Barbie's unrealistic proportions or the innocence she embodies. Ha! Innocence. What no one seems to acknowledge is how much Barbie loves sex, with other Barbies, with Ken, with stuffed animals. Is there a little girl who DIDN'T channel her confused hormones through Barbie's bendable legs?

politicart

2008-03-09T05:15:00.003-04:00

Barack Obama is your new bicycle.

Hillary is mom jeans.

Enjoy!

Two placebos a day please

2008-03-02T02:09:00.010-05:00

Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, DOES NOT WORK and nor do similar drugs in the same class (Paxil, Seroxat, Effexor and Serzone etc.), a new study revealed last week.

"The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.

When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved - but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs."
-The Guardian 26/02/07

I don't know what to think about all this hoo-ha. My pills work. Don't they?

I was v skeptical before I first started paxil, I'd always thought you should just tough your way through the bad-times, but taking it changed everything. I started breathing again. And enjoying breathing.

It's hard to admit to being duped. It's hard to believe it. But drug companies have never been exactly squeaky-clean.

So, what do you think? Are you just another anti-depressanted chump?

monkeying around

2008-02-29T02:37:00.004-05:00

Not at all religious, but this photograph makes me want to pack a toothbrush, a clean pair of knickers, withdraw my life savings (all $13) and run away to become a monk. This is the Meteora Monastry, built in the 11th century in Thessaly, Greece. The best thing about it, is that until 1920, the only access was via winches and ropes!!

I've always inexplicably loved the sound of monks singing. Gregorian chanting does something- that I don't have any words for- to me. It's the sound of one of those golden sunsets, streaming ethereal rays. The feeling that maybe life does care, and my insignificance is incredible, instead of just lonely.

As a child, I romanticized the lives of lighthouse keepers. And oddly, nuns. Stark dedication, isolation, mystery.

Our Dot

2008-02-23T17:57:00.007-05:00

Have you got your glasses on? Earth is the teeny white thing in the peachy-coloured stripe. Yep.

Seen from 6.4 billion kilometres away, Earth is just a dot obscured in a beam of scattered sunlight.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

-Carl Sagan

The Marble

2008-02-23T04:00:00.006-05:00

"There's god, there's the government, and then there's the universe. The universe requires neither blind faith nor my money, therefore I find it to be the most welcoming of the three."
-Lydzilla, mid-fever.

Her blog is truly great. I've just found it myself, and I recommend you all check out her writing.

Something to strive for

2008-02-21T22:06:00.004-05:00

Star Magazine put together the perfect face for a man and woman using the results of a survey by Beverly Hills plastic surgeons.

The perfect male is a combo of Daniel Craig's eyes, Leonardo DiCaprio's nose, Matt Damon's lips, Christian Bale's jaw and John Stamos' hair.

The perfect female face consists of Katie Holmes' eyes, Katherine Heigl's nose, Keira Knightleys cheeks, Jessica Simpson's hair and Angelina Jolie's lips.

Our world isn't just sick, it's a festering rotten mess. Ungh, another good reason for anti-depressants.

Late summer

2008-02-21T01:31:00.003-05:00

Ready for river swimming, early evening. Swinging round the curves of road, music suffocating my common sense. And then, sudden lights in my mirror. Second speeding ticket in two months, happens also to be the second in 12 years. And in EXACTLY the same part of the road. Sighing, my wheels chewed to a stop on a grassy verge a metre from my destination.
I changed into my bathing suit as he wrote out the ticket.

Stones in my back and sandflies on my legs I watched the river fill with retired couples swimming in each other's circles. The light was fading but the river was still warm, leafy shadows skittered across the surface. I waded in, feeling the water cut through my layer of end-of-summer sweat. With a stick and a leaf I made a sailboat. It sunk immediately.

Me with a wet ponytail, the ticket crumpled in my purse, together we drove home uncomfortably slow.

Um

2008-02-05T14:23:00.000-05:00

Okay, okay. So I owe you an update.

Still on the suboxene. Detox didn't proceed as planned. Well, as I planned. The doctor had wanted me to go on "maintenance" from the very beginning. They love that, because it means you're not relapsing over and over and sitting in their office crying your make-up away over and over. To be honest, after so many detoxes and so many relapses in the past six months, I don't know if I can really handle another one. They are fucking depressing. Especially the relapse bit. And the telling your mum you screwed up again bit.

What changed my mind was a phone call. Lots of money, a week of freelance, perhaps leading to more. So I kind of put things (detox-wise) on hold for a bit. It's in my to-do file. It would be drowning in there, if I actually had one.

Money means at last I have a new ibook. I can write properly again. My last one was nicked, I can't remember if I mentioned that. And I swear I won't pawn this one. Ever. Never ever.

Kurt Vonnegut, Iain Banks and Chuck Palahniuck are the main guys keeping me company. Fiction is the closest thing to magic spells I know. I spend most of my time alone, the eye in a storm of colourful daydreams. Yes... yes, I'm hiding.

Normaaal

2008-01-10T20:41:00.000-05:00

I actually kind of have some money, so today, I went shopping. Okay, so I still have a lot of stuff in pawn, and owe my mum, and friends and and...

But the main thing is, I don't have to come up with 80 bucks for smack every day. Thank-you detox.

So I did what I used to do, pre-drugs.

Listen to music too loud and drive from op-shop to op-shop.

Tried on ten armloads of things and came home with one arm-load. Not bad.

My only jeans I have here on holiday are falling off me (I don't know how I can possibly lose any more weight, but somehow- it keeps happening) and worse, they have blood stains all over the knees. My purse is pretty bad too, because the strap was always my tourniquet, but at least it's leather, so I can wipe it off okay.

I guess I need to get rid of all my needles, they still spill out of my purse when I'm looking for things. I'm not sure why I still keep supplies. Or why that's comforting. I've done the complete purge of all "drug-stuff" many times. Too many. Maybe now it's time to remember.

Complicated

2008-01-05T20:34:00.000-05:00

We sat in the car together, post-shot. Mid argument. He passed me something written on a swab packet.
I sighed, "I can't read your writing."
He pointed to it, "it says, will you engage me..." He indicated to turn it over. "...today?"
I looked up at his face. His eyes were spilling with tears- aglint with something new. I hesitated, my anger fading. He looked worried, and beautiful. I smiled, "you're supposed to say: will you marry me."

I am away from him now for two months. He has to sort out his ex-girlfriend, get her psychiatric help, and bond with his daughter so they can't deny him access. She's just starting to talk, and she's asking for him. He's paying his dues, so he says. And then we'll be together. I hope. I hope.

Meantime, I will detox AGAIN.

Another broken heart

2007-12-24T21:08:00.000-05:00

I hadn't been able to get hold of him. He hadn't been answering the phone.
Well, he did today.

His ex girlfriend- the mother of his child- overdosed two nights ago. Intentionally. Because of me. No she didn't die. I almost feel sorry about that, I'm so sick with anger.
She has been threatening to kill me, to slit my throat.
My boyfriend had been staying every night with her, while I have been away, trying to keep her alive, trying to protect his little daughter from her crazed rants and rage. Jealousy is a fucked up thing- and when mixed with true insanity, lethal.

Because of this... because of her, we have to break up, he says, his voice's flatness cut with sobs. He thinks he's saving me, and his daughter. He's trying to be honourable. He's sacrificing me.
How can someone say they WANT to be with you but they CAN'T? How can they say they wish they could spend their life with you, but they CAN'T? Just say you don't love me any more, say that and I can understand.

Now I don't know what I feel. Lost maybe.

Wanting arms around me, so sad any arms would do. Someone to tell me everything will be okay. Someone to love me.
I'm afraid I'm addicted to love.
Did I ever feel anything real for him, or was it all made up?
In love with love.
Homeless now, we were supposed to move in together when I got back. My life is upside down.
Drugs don't make me happy any more.
But still, that's all that I can think of to do, to wipe the pain away.
I just hope they're enough.

despair

2007-12-20T05:37:00.000-05:00

despair and more and more I want to disappear

Lost in space

2007-12-17T22:08:00.000-05:00

All day I've felt like some great ice-cream scoop has come along and scooped my heart out. It was muggy, but now the rain is beating my washing on the line and there's thunder in the sky near by. I have nothing to say that isn't a disapointment. Chain smoking cigarettes that leave my lips dry but comfort me, a lung-hug, they stop my hands shaking a bit. I'm sorry. I wish I could write you a heroine. My hair and t-shirt are wet from the argument we had outside as the sky split open. Me yelling at him not to go. I was afraid to be alone. Afraid of myself. Feeling dark and full of loathing for the girl who is me. I'm not good at asking for help, even worse at begging. But I did, looking at the cracks on the pavement, the small brown loquats the birds had ravaged, squashed beneath my toes. The space between us filled with rain. I looked up into his face but it was closed, and his eyes were impatient. No understanding. Frustrated, he tried to reassure me that he loved me. IT'S NOT THAT YOU FUCKHEAD, I KNOW YOU LOVE ME, I'M JUST AFRAID OF DEATH TODAY AND IT'S CALLING MY NAME AND I NEED SOMEONE TO PROTECT ME FROM THE SHADOWS. But it doesn't make sense, even to me, why should it make sense to him?

So you know

2007-12-09T02:49:00.000-05:00

Every morning we pull into the same carpark. stub out our ciggys on the same patch of concrete wall below the no-smoking sign, and push open the heavy doors to the detox clinic. Each day I turn the same water-cooler's plastic lever, foolishly hopeful. Empty. Get swept to a small room through corridors of clutter by a fashion struck young nurse with a nervous too-easy smile and a soft voice. There are three nurses and they are all this way. We sit hands in lap as the opiates dissolve under our tongues. Yes, it's anther detox.

Another fucking detox.

Typing those words something pangs.

Round and round on the merry-go-round. Failure a pit-stop I can't seem to avoid. In fact, I've almost come to expect it, and accept it, with a sickly relief.

Lets keep our minds away from that. Driving home we know where we will stop, heads bowed counting our coins together, linked in routine, nothing needs to be said anymore. It used to be this way with morphine. Now bourbon and colas in the closest park, staring at the blue sky through the leaves.

At some point the day shifts out of focus and another begins.

14 days

2007-11-19T23:56:00.000-05:00

Well my toothpick legs are still toothpicks, but brown now, after two weeks of lying in the manicured grass of the inpatient unit. They say I look healthier. Maybe it's the freckles.

Woken for meds at 8am, we'd stumble around the unit, sometimes still pajamaed until the night rolled around again, a coffee in one hand and a never ending ciggy in the other. There were eleven beds. Eleven different faces. A businessman, a schoolteacher, a gang member, some rich, but more often broke, some beautiful, some who once were.

I read and read and read. Climbed through a trapdoor in my head, curled tight in imaginary worlds. Had a stack of books, and a boyfriend bringing me more each day.
But the stories told over shakily rolled cigarettes, shared between sore bodies awkward on cheap plastic furniture, sun in our eyes and wind in our hair despite the high glass walls, they tumbled out, like words in a book never can. No novelist's need to be inventive. The sour fear, stupid risks taken, pale excuses, families lost, deaths of course- sudden and slow, the blame, longing that gnaws, the emptiness of loneliness, well, we laughed and laughed until our stomachs hurt. There wasn't much else we could do.

Going in

2007-10-30T23:16:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow's The Day. Check in, 9am. Duration, 2 weeks. It's a spin dry. And I need it.

At least it feels like summer is here. At last. Walking slowly in the sunshine, soaking it up. The little things make me happy. My chocolate milkshake, each inhale of nicotine, my boyfriend's smooth strong body next to mine. Entwined in each other.

We're entwined in addiction too. Yes, he's bad. But not to me. To me he's soft and lovely. Used to associating with criminals, he wears the mask of tough guy- don't piss him off, don't get too close. His deep dark secret is his sweetness. What a secret! It's a topsy-turvy world, but the more I learn him, the more he shines. He's good for me.

As I clean up, so will he. And that's when reality will close in. Like going from crooners on the record player to a skipping heavy metal CD. From candle-light to harsh fluorescents.
I expect it all.

I want it all.
I want the track marks on my hands and wrists to heal. I want to wake up without the aching and the sneezing. I want a short sleeved summer. Messy orgasms. Change at the bottom of my purse. Clarity.

Again

2007-10-14T18:30:00.000-04:00

Waiting for the sickness. It's time.

The duvet cover flaps over the window in my room. It's hung by push-pins. My mother bought me blinds, nice blinds. But they were $90. As I watched her pass 5 20s across the counter, I knew indelibly I would be back there, returning them for cash, enough to get high. Enough to not be sick. That was days ago now.

Yesterday, the last-last-LAST day, my legs ached early as I climbed the hill to the dealer's. Big-handed boyfriend dragging me up behind him. Senses raw, the fur of my jacket steamed in the sun with the smell of my own sour vomit. I remembered that day, now so long ago, tolerance still low, he held my hair back as I vomited out the car window. A different he, the same unstable me.

Last night

2007-09-23T01:59:00.000-04:00

His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Thick Eastern Block accent hard to understand. My hand on his knee.

Calm down baby. Calm down.

The tyres squealed as he turned another corner west. I knew where we where going.

I've got a hammer and a knife. He said. And I'm goNNA TEACH THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS a lezzon.

He slammed his fist on the steering wheel. I held on to my seat belt. We pulled up outside the council flats with the patchy, dying cat sprawled cancerously on the doorstep. The cat looked up. Depressingly, it recognized me.

Bedder vait here babe. his voice was flat.

He slammed the car, darkly heading up the concrete stairs. Heavy footsteps echoing into the night. I jumped over the mid-console, ciggy ready to be ashed. I was worried I was going to see a lot of blood. I knew who lived in that apartment, I knew they were all as crazy as each other. Once in the driver's seat, I slammed the car into reverse and repositioned. We were going to have to leave there fast.

The day before, I had broken up with the orange haired boy. By telephone. He made it through his 3 day coma. He somehow lived. Surprised the experts. That is all another story. I broke up with him because he told my little old granny (who used to think I was special) that I had a needle problem. Why? Supposedly he was worried because I wasn't calling him every day.

Within 12 hours I had found myself a new boyfriend. Just as obsessive, just as crazy, different hair colour. 6ft 6, a hammer in one hand a blade glinting in the other, he strode calmly out of the apartment less than 3 minutes after entering.

He was laughing. I got them all, he said to me.

Fucking narks.

Paxilized

2007-08-07T05:14:00.000-04:00

Like swimming against a rip-tide, it's been three months since I started the detox.

I was seeing the waves from underneath. Lungs filling with water. So tired, ready for an underwater nap. Snug in the tightest mermaid song, when Paxil helicoptered in, pried the mermaid off- its angry tail flicking, and winched me into the air.

One, two white pills every morning, and in return, ease. Release.

I was afraid I might never be me again. Might not want to be me again. But time is a good doctor. The fluttering badness, anxiety to the fingertips, has been cut out. Thrown out. Burnt like old love-letters.

I never thought I'd write it, or think it, but read this: There are things that are better than heroin. Much better.

Empty

2007-07-21T22:03:00.000-04:00

Spending time with the orange-haired boy. I guess I have a boyfriend. He is nice to me, too nice. Stroking my hair, worried he's said the wrong thing. Worried I don't love him enough. I unhook his arms and roll away, uncomfortable in my skin, anxious. What are you thinking? he asks. I'm thinking of filling my veins, so I just sigh. My mind is sticky with the thought.

I keep trying to remind myself of something I read in a brochure at the clinic. Cravings are like stray cats. The more you feed them, the more they'll come around.

Mistaking

2007-07-07T01:14:00.000-04:00

I wanted all the goodness. Not the moments in his grubby fluorescent-lit bathroom, waking up with a needle in a shitty vein. Stumbling, not walking. Losing things, finding things. Nodding in the cab, seeing the driver's eyes cold on me in the mirror. Burbled one-sided conversations. And then through the bathroom door and puking up my ginger ale/ wine/ peppermint tea. The bruises spreading across my throat.

And so I went back for more.

But even the second time, the shots much smaller now, sensibly-sized, my high was not the happiness of before. Nausea still, too blue eyes, avoiding my friends they asked me what was wrong. Something had changed. My voice perhaps. It's because I'm sick, I reasoned, irritably waving at the wait girl to bring honey for my tea.

But if IT'S different now, then who am I?

I was counting on it. A safety barrier, of sorts. Just knowing it's there makes life okay. Knowing the cure. The code. The goodbye-reality. Now, I know I should be happy... relieved. But truthfully, softly rubbing Arnica cream across my wrists, my throat, I'm just very, very scared.

H is for happiness, and hell

2007-07-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

My therapist adjusted her glasses, and asked me watery-eyed, the last time I wasn't doing any drugs, or drinking and remember being happy. I thought and thought, but finally, my lip between my teeth, I had to shake my head.

Drawings of pills cover pages and pages of my old journels. The messy handwritten words say things I don't want to hear. And sometimes, depending on how wasted I was, things I can't even read. I thought I missed myself before heroin. It turns out I've always missed myself. Always.

What if heroin users just know a secret that no one else does? We may wish we didn't know it, but we always will.

Why spend money on that boob job, those overpriced heels, why buy a plasma TV, an anything? They won't make you as happy as...

If you knew the secret you'd be fucked too.

Cold

2007-06-25T00:05:00.001-04:00

I remember my first love, my second, my third. I remember heroin.

I try to feel things, I just can't. Hollowed out, so very distant, that's how I stop myself from using, by watching from afar, I could be a character on tv, an actor, for all the emotion I can feel.

Men want to save me, as if that might save them. Like it's a contest, between them and heroin. They don't understand. In love, heroin will always win. It has already been decided.

I can't be your girlfriend. Or yours. Don't love me, because I can't love you.

Crushing my friends like old autumn leaves between my fingers. How can you fall in love so easily? I am a paper doll playing with scissors. I'm dangerous. I'm barely here. I'm barely anywhere. You love someone fictional, not me. I may not use heroin anymore, but it still owns me. Imagine, babies and picket fences now! I'd tear that fucking fence apart to get away. It would be nice to feel my hands bleeding for a bit, better than my heart.

I despise declarations and revelations. Don't tell me anything, everything you say gives me an excuse to use. Do you even see me, or are you seeing what you want to see? I'm messed up, I'm lost, I need to find myself before anyone else can.

I've trampled a bad path, hurting everyone. What are you all, masochists? That's my role. Go now, go.

After midnight

2007-06-24T05:45:00.000-04:00

It comes for me, when I'm not looking.
Shadows up the wall, mid dream the lighter flicks, bubbling that familiar smell, brown liquid sucks syringe-wards, pull tight the leather purse strap, fit too-warm between my lips I would smile- but everything's too helter skelt, a suspense snowball towards one moment, the vein found, confirmed, that satisfying bloody flower, the sigh half-formed oh so ready for

My eyes snap open, wide.
Heart a-gallop, chest wound tight. Want, skyscraper-tall. Every cell aching for one thing, as the quiet night breathes outside, sea on rocks, covers to my chin I wish they were over my head, wish they were twisted on the floor and I was gone.

RIP fairsCaPe

2007-06-18T17:33:00.000-04:00

we have chosen to come to this life

it is just like choosing to get on a rollercoaster

we are here for the experience

there is no right or wrong

there is only the ride

taking drugs while on the ride just alters the experience

do what you want

you'll return to the place you came from and you'll be back

think of yourself as a raindrop

you come from above

join a stream a river an ocean

evaporate into the clouds

and return as a raindrop

one of millions

part of all

no god

no religion

no reward

no punishment

just being

-Written by fairsCaPe, Nov 2006.

A comment I've never forgotten.
Thank-you.

...restless

2007-06-18T05:59:00.000-04:00

These legs, this mind, this heart, everything restless. I know what will cure it. Two things. Heroin or time. Time or heroin. Two cures, one option. And so I wait, heart jumping with the second hand.
...

My counsellor expressed concern that I haven't been to a supermarket since detox. She thinks I'm afraid.

Maybe I just don't feel like shopping. I don't feel like swiping my card, moving up and down aisles. Looking at things that I don't want. I don't want anything. Except. But that's natural. Ignore the want. Ignore everything except the blue sky. Drink it through a straw. Mix it into my milkshake. Swim in it, drown in it. Dream.

Of course I miss you and I miss you bad, but I also felt this way when I was still with you

2007-06-13T19:45:00.000-04:00

Volume up. Way up. Love songs all sound like they're written for me. I guess I'm breaking up with heroin. It's hard. I want break-up sex, but it'd hurt worse. I'd never be able to get enough.

Driving home yesterday, this town is small. I saw her face, her peroxide bob, and went numb. Dealer. Heart pounding in my ears. Pull over it screamed. Ask, buy, cook, inject. Do it!!

Even writing this, my pulse speeds, sick with want. I know where she and her pit bull live. That was the night of the shared spoon. Her bloody methadone swirling over my dregs. I knew she had hep c, but for some reason I'd entrusted my blood to her. The sour kick as I realized I had just gambled disease for a shitty rush. The endless wait. The difficult blood tests. And finally, just four days ago, relief. Another reason to turn the page.

Do I really want to go back there? No! (yes) NO!!!!!!!!! No no nonononono please no

Bruised

2007-06-10T19:33:00.000-04:00

I can feel them watching my hand. Mum said to put a band-aid on it. But violetly blue, the bruise still leaks out the side. Still, a week later.

They ask,
what happened?
Oh, the dog.
It bit you?
Mm yeah.

The doctor dog, who bit me for a blood test.
Pulling off my socks, we examined my feet together. Nope. Ankles patterned with scratchy scars that look like veins. We both know there's nothing under there. Tap, tap, squeeze, pump your arm. Nothing.

I wait, breath held, can't look. I can feel his tension, just want that sigh of relief as the veins fill his little vials red. Finally, in quiet desperation, he lowered the tournequit over my head. Will they ever come back? I asked, holding a small cloud of cotton wool to my neck. He looked at me, face expressionlessly smooth. My veins? I repeated. Maybe something caught his attention, through the window, blinds half-drawn. He looked away.

Cleanliness

2007-06-05T03:21:00.000-04:00

I crawl out of bed. Up stairs. Float in the bath. Float under. Swallow pills. Pink ones, yellow ones, white, two-tone, speckled. Feel everything. Intense lust. Relief. Something.

I can feel the methadone creeping out of my bones, slowly, very very slowly.

I look different, acquaintances say. Have you done something new with your hair?

Life sparkles again, sometimes hurting my eyes, but I can't look away. Tomorrows are coming, ready or not.

Group therapy

2007-05-30T16:09:00.000-04:00

I was late, I always am. Running stop signs and getting sweared at.

The lady at the front desk was cold, I think she likes to be. Likes to make you wait while she colour codes her biros. She pointed down the hall. Right to the end she said. Right to the very end.

I could tell which room it was straight away, the only room with a closed door. As soon as I walked in, the chatter skipped a beat. I could feel their eyes. But there was one red chair left, mine, so I hunched myself up in it, trying to keep warm. A bosomy grandmother-type wearing a pink and purple tracksuit offered me a cup of tea. I gripped that tea in both hands. Hoping it would help me blend in. Stop my hands shaking.

But I wanted to look at each of them, as much as they did at me. Study their faces. Other people with problems. Worse problems. Sadder stories. Better excuses. We sat there together like mismatched toys, thrown in a heap. I'm not sure which toy I am yet. I want to be one of the repairable ones.

Like everyone else there does.

You can stop feeling sorry for me

2007-05-23T16:23:00.000-04:00

There was a big storm here while I was sick. The doors kept slamming with the wind, and the sea sounded like it was tearing the beach apart. It's not all calm yet, but everything is very bright and shiny and washed clean. A bit like me. But still, the swell is strong.

Do you get that funny burning sensation in your nose when you're trying not to cry?

My dad says it's better to talk about your (bad) past experiences in 3rd person. So they don't/ won't effect you so much. He read that somewhere.

Thank-you Erin Brockovich, Elaine, George, Jerry, John Maclain... all the distractors, when reading was impossible.

And thanks to all of you out there who actually passed a thought my way. It worked.

2007-05-21T23:42:00.000-04:00

shakytummychurninghotcolddiarrheaheadspinningclimbingthe
wallsthosefuckingrestlesslegswon'tcan'tliestillpouringsweathead
soreeverythingsorerestlesssoveryrestless

Soon

2007-05-16T07:31:00.000-04:00

2007-05-16T07:22:00.000-04:00

3 days left of methadone.

Nights

2007-05-13T23:27:00.000-04:00

The earthquakes are frequent. Like a giant child picking up a mysterious present and shaking it, to see what's inside. But it's our house, and we're inside, tiny heads shuddering on tiny pillows. It always happens in the pre-dawn hours. Knick knacks, books, vases falling off shelves. New Zealand is a very shaky island. A monsterous living thing, stirring in its sleep. Drills all through my school years. Giggling, sighing, hiding under chewing gummed desks. We're supposed to be tense, waiting for the BIG one. Like one in the 60s, in Napier, when the earth literally opened up, buses and people walking dogs tumbled into it, down down down. I think the earth closed again, then. A nifty time to fake a disappearance.

Remembering

2007-05-01T04:50:00.000-04:00

I woke up with the dream still under my skin. Jealousy hot in my veins. I loved him again, last night. So much, it was like at first. The way we were at first. When his smell, his touch, everything drove me mad. We had to sleep close, wrapped up in each other, as tight as we could. Until death do us part. It wasn't death though. It was drugs. For him, jail. His hands swollen and bleeding. His eyes weren't his any more, and face, gone. The baby face cracked away, a mask, a skeleton of lies fidgeted in its place. The big brown eyes I would have done anything for, different, terrifying.
I'd said we wouldn't get addicted. It turns out that he was right to be afraid. I should never have laughed. He knew himself better than I did.
But in just one dream, the resent, the calculated void, those feelings were flipped. Asleep, I let myself think about him, for the first time, not shake it off, or change the channel. And all I wanted, craved, was him back beside me, eyes and all. And to know if he made it. If he's still alive. If he's beautiful again.
I really, really hope so.

Real-life

2007-04-22T22:24:00.001-04:00

60 milligrams of methadone

60 dollars used to be the magic denomination. However much was in my bank account, existed only divided into 60s. That was 2 and a half points, 2 shots, one day of moderation, or one evening of freedom. Seems like a long time ago.

The pharmacy that I visit, daily, is small, christian-owned and run, crammed with display cabinets and knick knacks of dragons with glittering eyes and overpriced incense. It exists solely through methadone profits. The only place in town that will let us in the door. Us riff raff.

I'd swallowed my dose and turned heel when the yelling from the car park turned into yelling from the door. There, on the doorstep, the old man was being kicked. He looked up, blood running down one side of his face, from the eye. A lot of blood. I stepped backwards, through the baby blue pharmacy door frame, to the too blue eyes of the man on duty. You better call the police I said. A concerned citizen. I almost convinced myself. I could have had a savings account, with savings in it.
The woman with the large perm, the other worker, took the cordless phone in hand. Dial. I said. She didn't seem to hear. These were their customers brawling on the concrete step outside. The blue, blue eyed man ran out from behind the counter. Out, out. Pulled the fists and boots and blood apart. The permed lady holding the phone like a shield, stepped blinking into the sunlight after him. Alone, I looked around the little store. What a perfect moment to shoplift. An automatic thought, a hangover from loving someone who stole endlessly. But there was nothing I wanted, or wanted to take.
She came back in with the bleeding man, firmly. He wanted to go home, he just needed to go home and sleep it off, he said. She wouldn't let him. Ripping open sanitized wipe pads, I left her.

I secretly wrote down the license plate number of the rusty car full of yelling, on the back of a receipt, with an eye liner pencil. The policeman came then. He was the same age as us. Me, the women in the car and the man with the fists.
All of us so different.

I like that pharmacy, but I don't like the man with the blue blue eyes. I don't like they way they look at me. Just in case.

2007-04-14T22:03:00.000-04:00

QUESTION ONE:

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

Read the next question before looking at the response for this one.

QUESTION TWO:

It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three candidates.

Candidate A.
Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologist. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B.
He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.

Candidate C
He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife. Which of these candidates would be your choice? Decide first... no peeking, then scroll down for the response.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Winston Churchill.
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.

And, by the way, on your answer to the abortion question: If you said YES, you just killed Beethoven.

I stole this off Xiaxue. Interesting, but depressing. It only clarifies how impossible life is. Go with your gut, your heart, your pinky toe. Ignore reason at all costs.

Bits

2007-04-10T06:16:00.000-04:00

S o s l o w.
Oh blogger.com why must ye take so effing long? 3 coats of nail polish too many. Sparkley yellow smudges on my sheets. Glamour skidmarks.

I was away. In the depths of beach and sand, cut off by the tide. Mosquitoes decorating my ankles. Dimp with every meal. Cold bracing showers, or none at all. I built up my salty layer, plump with sand.
Unfortunately I do love things like deep hot baths and internet. Telly through the night. Powdered milk is shit. I think all these whiny thoughts and a million more. But you'd never know. I just grin bigger, harder, pretending to everyone, self included I'm tough and hardy, carefree, non nitpickish. I draw the line at skiing however. Snow in my boots ugh.
This will be the year of thickening the skin. Until I'm good and outdoorsy.
Keeping it rural. Keeping it rural...

It's the NZ way. I have to fit in somewhere.

In other news, from the 95mgs of then... to the 70mgs of now. Takes a long time doesn't it... This number marks a halfway point. When I hit 45mgs I will be low enough to do a rapid detox at home. A strange thing to be excited about. I'm just so impatient. Hurry up hell.

Conversationally

2007-04-03T01:16:00.000-04:00

MONDAY MORNING, A WEEK AGO

The phone rings.

-Hello.

-Hello, is that you Tui?

-Yes.

-Oh hello Tui, it's Jenny, from the methadone clinic in Auckland. I'm so sorry I didn't get your email in time to organise takeaways for you. Did you still manage to get away for the weekend? I just felt awful about it. You see that's why you'll be so much better off with a doctor in your hometown, there won't be these silly hiccups if you need a take away dose or a transfer at the last minute.

-Well, don't worry about it. I mean, I only gave you one day’s notice. Thanks for everything. I mean it.

She talks fast, seems as anxious as I feel. Very sweet. Proper. Well spoken. A lady. I’ll miss her. But rules are rules, and I have to be prescribed the methadone from a local clinic. The only local clinic.

.........................................

WEDNESDAY MORNING LAST WEEK

The phone rings.

-Tui. You rang?

-Mary, is that you? (Mary is from my new methadone clinic)

-Yes.

-Oh, hi! How are you?

Silence.

-Uh... I have the opportunity to meet with a recruitment agent, for work, in Wellington on Tuesday next week.

Silence.

-I was just wondering… If maybe, I mean, I know it's short notice, but I can get a lift with a friend this weekend. I'd just need takeaways for three days, or else a transfer, so I could pick up my methadone from a pharmacy in Wellington.

Mary starts laughing...

-Tui. It's MUCH too late. You have to ask me by TUESDAY each week. That's when we have our meeting to decide takeaways and transfers. TUESDAY.

-Okay, well… thanks anyway.

...........................................

MONDAY AFTERNOON

I call Mary ….and even manage to get hold of her, first call. This is an achievement.

-Mary speaking.

-Hi Mary. It’s Tui.

Silence.

-Tui Cyr.

Silence.

-I’ve been invited to a friend’s bach this weekend, in Awaroa. I was wondering if you could ask at tomorrow’s meeting if I can
get two days of methadone to take with me.

Silence.

-There won’t be any pharmacies, it’s too remote. So I’d need to take it with me.

-Isn’t that Easter? (finally she talks!)

-Well, yes.

-She laughs. Tui, Easter’s been DECIDED. We’ve already DECIDED everything for Easter. The pharmacies have already been FAXED. There’s just no way. Easter’s COMPLICATED.

This time I don’t say thanks. I can’t. I can barely say okay. And press the off button on the phone hard, my thumb trembling. Stupid fucking cunt. Bitch slut. Fucking whore. Laughing in my face. I want to kick her in the head. And this is the person I’m supposed to “open up to”. My drug counsellor. What a fucking CUNT.

To forget

2007-03-27T23:04:00.000-04:00

It's this time of day.
The sweaty minutes. Dripping cold and hot.
Don't look at certain things. Don't listen to others. Hold onto the railing, tight.
Stomach falling sickly. Food, another enemy.
So insanely impatiant. Yet carefully looking no further than this evening. The gaping void of life, arms wide open ahead of me. I catch sight of it sometimes, if I turn too slow. That's the scary part.
I'd found the cure- to everything. A happiness potion I have to forget.

Falling up

2007-03-21T19:29:00.000-04:00

The reduction has started. I'd prefer to do it faster. I'm ready for tomorrow.
But the doctors look at me with these sharp eyes, cynical smiles. They've seen me before, in other people, failing people. They say it's fine to fuck up. I have to expect to. They remind me the statistics are on their side. But I know I won't, I say. They look bored, tired, slightly irritated. Like I'm an over-smiling born again Jehovah's Witness, door-knocking on a Saturday morning.

The fastest the doc will drop me is 5mgs a week- until I hit 40mgs. Then, they switch me from methadone to bup, for a home detox with a nurse checking in, daily.

I'm on 90mgs now. Three days ago I was on 95. This is supposedly the easy part.
Around 70mgs, she expects me to be "a mess". Their faith in me is just amazing.

The new drug

2007-03-19T21:16:00.000-04:00

Home-home-home

2007-03-17T06:50:00.000-04:00

I didn't realize, at all, but I was hungry. Starving. There was, is, an absence of something I crave. I filled it up with drugs, filled up with work, filled it up with worry and love for someone who kicked me in the face over and over. Anything, to forget. Good distractions. They did their job. But it was like feeding a monster, a greedy monsterous baby that never got full, barely even swallowed, until I was running back and forth to it, and around and around, and the more it had, the more it needed.

It's good to hear the waves on the rocks. The streaming pink of the sinking sun. God-like beams and shafts of gold through the clouds. The wind here, it blows right into my chest, and it fills up the hollow parts, every nook and cranny. It's so beautiful, it's the warm-blanket-around-the-shoulders feeling, that old hug of heroin- without the shadows.

I think I'm going to be okay.

Weightless

2007-03-01T14:11:00.000-05:00

Sun on my back. I'm okay kiddies.
10 days to home. And the methadone detox. Swimming with the dolphins, lounging in the shady, fern filled courtyard, the smell of flowers and sea in my nose. I have these big aviator sunglasses. They look normal from the outside. But through them, the world looks sunny. Happy. I call them my therapy glasses. They take the edge of the icy blue sky here, razoring my nerves away. Anxious mornings. Don't like waking up. Unemployed on methadone, I could sleep to four pm and go to bed again at ten. I want to. I wish. The nightmares have gone. Drugs too. Heroin once, my first day back. Two fucked up attempts at coke, fumbling through the scar tissue, blood splattered floor, heart in my throat. It makes me want to vomit. Last time I called him, the mafia-oso dealer, pseudo hot, lanky, young, increasingly flirtatious, cloying, I waited ten minutes. There, on the street corner. Shivering. Nauseous with anticipation. Hopping one foot to another. Men driving slowly, the way they always do, thinking I'm a hooker. I just try not to look at them. He was a minute late. The nausea deepened. The hate thickened, like something big and heavy deep in my stomach. A taxi had stopped at the lights. So I just ran to it. Shaking still, jumped in. Went to the pharmacy. Handed over my dollar, gulped down my small bottle of methadone and tang.
Trying not to think of him waiting there, at the corner. In his big expensive car. Beating the steering wheel with his fist. Swearing at me in Italian. I don't know why, or how, I left like that. I'd always wanted to, in the past, waiting for dealers. Never had the guts. I know how angry they get. I know he'll hang up on me, if I was cheeky enough to try and call him again. But just maybe, I don't care.

The catalyst- an update

2007-02-17T17:05:00.000-05:00

She hugged me tight at the airport, crying into my shoulder. I’d only seen her cry once before, the day her father died. Oh mum. I wanted to tell her everything, force her to save me. Stop me leaving. Put her in charge. But the relatives stood broad, a wall of pleats and perms, impossibly close, and anyway, I couldn’t find the words. I’d tried before, but nothing came, not even a stutter. I’d convinced myself it would be the end of everything to tell her. I couldn’t watch her face, her eyes. The crumple from inside, all my fault. So I cried too, my face turned away, posture brave.

Oceans between us, I switched on my computer. Spine sagging under the weight of the 33 hours of flights and airport lounges. Her email made my blood roar. My beautiful daughter, it began. She’d admitted it to herself too late. The damaged veins, the strange pharmacies. The clues I’d laid out, like cards, waiting for a question, the one she was too frightened to ask. She loves me, she wants me home, she loves me, she loves me. No blame, or judgement. The relief poured down my face as tears. Of course she loves me.

-

2007-02-05T11:53:00.000-05:00

Maybe I will write again. Maybe not. No promises. It's time to say goodbye to everything. A big shower. A scrub clean. Raw, like a rape victim. Scrub away yesterdays. Say hello to tomorrow. This is good grief. A kind of exorcism. Cutting the cancer out. Free and weightless, floating to, through, the whites of the sky. Accept everything. Admit it. Own it. Say my goodbyes. So, goodbye.

Dread and me

2007-02-03T04:37:00.000-05:00

It. Something. Feeling it. Like I want to hold my chest. Hang on, to myself, to my mother. Step into cement and stand there. Let it dry, in my boots, around my ankles, over my toes. Squidgey at first, but cold. Dive right in, inhale, deep, deeper. Lets all stay here, in now. Keep in this second of togetherness, none of us dead yet, or tomorrowing. Sorrowing. Borrowing more moneying.
Bored of this. Of writing this. Over and over. Round and round. Faster and faster until

ug

2007-01-31T16:23:00.000-05:00

Funny how you receive bad news in your stomach. However you may try to ignore it, it's there. Cancerous. Hairy. A nauseating rock, a heave.I fucked up. Big time. Ever wanted to just shrink inside yourself, a grape gone raisin. If I think about leaving I get pangs. Don't want to step out from my mother's soft smell, safety.

Before

2007-01-29T20:09:00.001-05:00

I blamed myself. That's what made the blunt needle, oofed through scar tissue, the dose estimated, a blink from overdose, the toilet floor rising from between my pale thighs, rising to my forehead. The bruise a shadow hid by swinging wheaten tresses. This is my mask, my bulletproof armoury. The daughter of a policeman, the magic last name, a code to rip up tickets, to scribble out the report. I found my way in early in the hyper-coloured, thickly emotional days of new-teen breasts and swollen hips. Power, finally, surprising, the way each foot hit sidewalk, the swing of ass in little shorts. Innocent eyes that made men squirm, the uncomfortable overlap of forbidden fantasy and sober midday bright, sunshiney reality.

With granny

2007-01-29T20:00:00.000-05:00

In the old days, as children, we'd play along the side of the road, to and fro, home to school. Squeezing through the farmers' hedges, for the blackberries shielded from the dusty road, foraging for the small, sweeter turnips, to crunch raw. Although, granny giggled, they did make us backfire... not that we cared. If a hearse would come, the little boys would take off their hats. We'd all stand silent, to attention, facing the road, and bow our heads as the hearse passed. A moment of silence, respect for the dead.

Lasts

2007-01-25T01:16:00.000-05:00

Last swim. Rocks slippery and round beneath my feet. Underwater, my favourite spot, sliding through silky pressure, silent. Worryfree dreamscape. Up for air, the tingle of salt on my cheeks, wind in my hair. I love that moment, coming up, bursting through the surface. Sometimes I wish I could disappear inside that crisp layer between air and sea- like the split second seperating then and now. Over before it can exist. As much as I love the first salty gulp of air, as if a screaming newborn, I prefer a thousandfold the quiet depths, the underwater world way below the waves, where only the tide breathes in and out.

Last drive, a heavy load of goodbyes to distribute. Indicate and turn, roaring up the Best Friend's House Valley Road, quietly familiar, so far from the backseat of the dealer's car. Foot like lead on the accelerator. Things have been set in motion. Life moves on, has moved on... I was untouchable here. Even death was a curiousity, between ads on telly. Growing up brilliantly naive and confident. Confident I was strong enough for anything. Yeah mate, anything.

Last walk, up the hill. Walking as slowly as possible.

Evenings

2007-01-22T18:26:00.000-05:00

Swinging our legs off the wooden porch, warm glasses of yellow wine, shoulder to shoulder with my best friend. Our perfumes like small attention-starved children, scrapping in the air between us. The generic summer evenings that seem to stretch, the mower droning in the distance, smells of fresh cut grass and sunscreen, mosquitos batting at your ankles. A ciggy hanging from your lips, her lips, everyone's lips. Pink lipsticked butts floating in the ash tray.
"What are you doing Tui?" she said. "It's not cool any more." I looked into my glass, down to the bottom. I hadn't known she knew. "Come home," she said. "You have to come home."
The smell of night vegetation, flowers moist and lush rose from the dark shadows around us. Home.
Somewhere, from deep inside, a sigh fought to escape. Suddenly, I felt very tired.

Instinct

2007-01-15T07:08:00.000-05:00

Every year, for years and years, the same couple came to the nest in the front courtyard of my parent's house by the sea. A bird couple, in love. She would lay the eggs. And sit on them. He would fly for food, scrounge for juicy worms or insects, diligent, hardworking. Doting on his bride and babies, as they hatched. Guarding his small family. And sometimes they took turns, to run errands, sharing the babysitting, and their own version of supermarket shopping. We didn't know where they went in winter. But every spring, they were back. Until last year.

The dog had noticed the way my parents watched the nest. Built at eye-level, they could see the tiny beaks, cracking through smooth shell. The first cheeps. The puffed, proud chest of the father-bird. The happy song of the mother. The dog slunk in the shadows, eyes on my parents, eyes on the birds. If horror music could have played, it would have. Pacing turned pounce, one quiet afternoon, my parents out. Through the lines of sun and shadow, the mother bird swooped nestward, flying trustingly low, babies on her little mind. I hope she didn't see it coming, the smelly dog-breath, a guillotine with salivary jaws. Just fed, stomach round and full, it was attention he was hungry for. Evil with jealousy. The dog wanted the human oohs and aahs and soft, low voices that wove around the bird family for himself. That evening, when my mother arrived home, she wasn't first to find the carnage. The male bird was already there, hopping dazed around his lover. Her small, feathery body headless. After that, he abandoned the nest. Who could fucking blame him. The eggs grew cold and dead. He never came back, the little brokenhearted bird-man.

relation-ship sailing

2007-01-11T20:37:00.000-05:00

Scrounging through small faded op-shops (thrift stores to the Northern hemisphere), torn between new terms and old terms, not belonging anywhere. I never did. Treasures and overpriced stains, all with stories, held up under the watchful eyes of old ladies. Waiting in the emergency room, while my ex ex boyfriend tried valiantly to be medicated. I'll be sick for a day, and give him my weekend take-outs. It's hard down here. Him, violently grumpy. I woke up in the quiet, last night, maybe the kitten with bulging eyes hopped across the bed. The light was still on, his sleeping face beside me, angry, even in repose. I reached for my book, an easy galloping novel, like a doorway to sunshine, passed on with a cleared throat at the airport gate. I was asleep in the way I've perfected, long hair now, it falls in front, covering my slack face, my neck bent over my lap, as if transfixed on one sentence in the newspaper. The big, wide lady, I'd noticed her before, no make-up, I'd thought she looked severe, was waving a brightly jacketed book in my face when I started awake, a wrinkled, twinkling smile, I changed my mind, liking her instantly. "I thought you might like it" she said, probably repeating herself. "It's okay, quite good actually, and I'm finished with it." She lumbered off. I whipped through the first few chapters, trying to catch her eye, to smile thank-you. It was surprisingly good. Funny. She wasn't used to eye contact apparantly, tucking herself away, like a kid used to being picked on. And then I forgot.
Awake with the silent house, I chomped on minties, a favourite nostalgic NZ sweet. I write sweet compromisingly, torn between lolly and candy. I really am homeless now. It could have been four years ago, in bed like that. Husband and wife-ish. Almost comforting. I could have this back, I thought. If I wanted it. That only made me sad, lonely for love. I want to want something again, anything. I buy things to fill up the hole. Shoes and bags. Pretty lingerie, beauty products. But all I want is drugs, and band-aids don't work on a hole that big.

Visiting

2007-01-10T18:00:00.000-05:00

Old light. Quiet cold stone. The tip of the Southern hemisphere. Plants with eyes, and hands. Breathing, moving as you pass. Dark leafy gullys. Magic written in the wind.

Organic poppys cut from my parent's garden, bled and scraped and chemicaled and cooked. From opium, to homemade heroin. Digging past scars, like soldiers standing guard, to the blanket of happiness and relief. Swimming underwater, liquid softness around me, inside me, in my heart. Looking through my lashes. It's a disentangling, like sleeping with your ex. I tell myself.

I feel too empty to regret anything. Anything to do with me. I am so fucking bad tempered. Don't cross my path, I'll twist the steeringwheel. Too angry to be neat. Hurting everything. Everyone I love, I only have them for a a few weeks, some a few days. Don't try to get close to me. Don't care about me. Innocent in appearance only, fruit with poisonous flesh.

Happy little family

2007-01-09T03:43:00.000-05:00

It's started. The tone, the words- fast dartlike, have started. Deeper, harder to ignore. On guard! I'm small again.

The longer I stay away, the more I forget. The sharp edges blur out, splinters sanded with time. I remember myself though. Angry to own my childhood. My cruel, fast tongue, my prickliness. Stubborn hate for everything he did, or said.
Sweet, divine-smelling mother, gentle, soft, warm. I knew, from old-enough to know, that she was with him unhappily, there for me... for my sake only. A terrible, accidental pregnancy, from one brief encounter- damn snowstorms!
My birth ended the happy life of my mothers.
A martyr by desire, I've never seen anyone take that role as willingly, as addicted as me, she is to that feeling. I see it now, finally.
Dad screaming. Locked outside the house. His angry, throbbing face. At first. Then crying, wheedling, bribing.
"I'll buy you anything you want, if you tell her not to leave me."
"No!"
Packing fast, trying to outdrive him.
Sharing a small bed in a spare bedroom of someone I'd never met. Someone, anyone, he didn't know. Hiding. The strange smells of their house. Doilies. Oiled wood. Whispered adult conversations. Children trying to be nice to me, following parental commands.
And then, always, the phone call. I'd beg her not to.
Him raging down the line.
Him buttery, lovely, flowers sprayed with perfume.
I knew 'Jekyll and Hyde' as a description of my father, long before I knew it as a novel.
Days and more days not going to school. I couldn't go, he'd be there. Ready to follow us. Or steal me.
Like an ice-cream in the hot sun, it didn't take mum long. Maybe even just one meeting in person. Me, the bargaining chip, the suitcase fat with 20s, left alone at the aquaintance's house.
The dinner always tasted strange that night. Waiting. Feeling it about to happen. Like the mugginess, before the rain. I'd try to fork things into my little mouth, vegetables cut differently, un-motherlike. She would never serve both cauilflower and broccoli, together in one meal! How gauche. I chewed and chewed, delaying each desperate swallow.
And then, my eyes zigzagging down page after page of Judy Blume, thinking "don't do it!" blind to the words in front of me, the strange dinner clogged in my bowels with dread. The happy engine of her car would pull my head up from the pillow. Her footsteps telling me everything I needed to know. I gathered our things, wearily, still pyjamaed. We were going home. For my sake. She would stay with this horrible man because it was best for me. A child needs both parents etc. fucking etc.

And then, when I was almost old enough to free her, 8, still persistantly encouraging her freedom, guiltily witnessing her sacrifice, day in day out, I hated him more than she did. On behalf of her. I couldn't smile at his jokes, enjoy a meal made with his hands, he was the jailor, the high wall blocking out the sky.
That year, she had another baby. And so it all began again. "He needs a father. A boy needs his father."

The ultimate sacrifice, your life. But I didn't want her life! My beautiful little mother, she could have had any man, done anything, been happy. Was she scared? A masochist, like her daughter. And so it goes.