Invisbl blg

I know I complain constantly about being busy, but I've reached a point where I'm having to make a few sacrifices. One of them is NOT this blog as such, but I won't be able to blog with any regularity at all for the next few months.

The point of difference this time is that I have a huge looming personal deadline. Usually when I am busy, I shift things around a bit and everything seems to fit (just). This time I have a huge list of things to do and a brick wall to hit: in early November I am planning to have my womb removed and I will be forced to rest for AT LEAST six weeks.



I'm not feeling bad about the womb -- no time, although I'm sure it will hit me sometime. I've crossed that first line of feeling sad and am just looking forward to the opportunity to do nothing but lie in bed and fend off the cats as they try to snuggle on my lap. I'm also looking forward to the holiday from femaleness, although if it all goes to plan and I have no complications, I will retain an ovary or two and that means I will not be free from PMT (poor BB) and I'll get a 'normal' menopause, whatever normal means in this increasingly bizarre universe. I'm also looking forward to the freedom from wanting babies and failing to achieve them. And no-one will be able to buttonhole me about not trying hard enough ever again (this is NOT BB, may I stress. He is completely supportive).

So between now and blissful nothingness I have to complete three commercial academic book layouts, the cover for my next fine press book, get a group binding exhibition project underway, bind more copies of the last book, finish a book project I've been helping someone with, teach a few more workshops, hang around the School of Art Open Day (30 August, peoples), and a few other things, not least family commitments. It makes my brain hurt.

So I will try to shove a picture up here every now and again, I will skulk about your blogs and occasionally comment, but I'm going to stop using that side of my brain (lovingly dubbed 'brian' by my dyslexic typing fingers) that spends a lot of the day thinking 'ooh, I must post that'. It'll be hard, but I console myself that when I'm able to sit at the computer post-op, I'll be blogging so much that your eyes will bleed. But for now, I'm cutting back. Oh, and that goes for Facebook games too. I will try to finish the games I have started, but when they finish, I'm not starting any more for a while. Sorry.

Before I go, a couple of dot-points, for old time's sake:

-- I've been listening to a lot of Thao Nguyen. If you ever loved Edie Brickell before Paul Simon burst her bubble (I'm showing my age here, I know), then get into Thao. She's fabulous.

-- I saw a bit of the Sydney Biennale the other day, on a uber-quick day trip with the art school. We just went to the NSW Gallery and Cockatoo Island. My favorite thing of all was William Kentridge, on Cockatoo Island, and if you do NOTHING else, see his work, it's frigging magical. I got very annoyed at a number of video artists who seem to think that they should be able to show videos longer than 10 minutes. All I can say is: get a film festival. Why should I spend 90 minutes with you when I have three hours before I have to catch a ferry back, and there are at least twenty other artists to spend time with? Tuh.

-- I got my bike fixed up the other day, and they kept finding more things wrong with it ("we tested your chain for wear and it scored 99 out of 100"). By the time I got everything done, I might as well have bought a new bike. Still, it's now fixed, and it is FABULOUS. I'm shocked at how badly it was suffering before... poor thing.

-- Snaps to my friend Lou, who came to me ages ago as a stranger wanting to start a letterpress stationery business and wanting to know where to buy the gear... I scoffed at the time, but look at her now! She's got a real feel for layering colours and varying pressure, and she loves the thrill of the chase (achieving that perfect print in the face of adversity, finding the equipment, etc)... I'm so impressed (sorry, bad pun).



OK. Ciao for now. I probably won't be able to help myself, but I'm certainly going to try.

Read it and weep

Mummy Crit ponders the child she'll never have after having her 'last' child. It's a lovely post.

Intersection (ii)

I am riding along the bicycle path. I have just said goodbye to my one and only child, the child who was clutching his chest in pain and fear a couple of days ago, and who was fine only minutes later. He is riding across the oval to his school. I have only said goodbye for the day. I hope. No, I know.

I am riding along the bicycle path. As he rode away I put my Shuffle earpieces in my ears and switched on. Let's Dance to Joy Division started, loud and clear. I stopped, paused the music, and called this out to my boy, who laughed joyfully and started singing it aloud as he bumped over the grass. It's his favorite song. I started again and rode, hard, pumping my feet to the beat of the song. I feel the upbeat edge of the music, enjoy the damp misty coolness of the grey morning.

I reach where the bicycle path crosses the road, and the pedestrian lights are just about to change in my favour. There is a woman with a dog, about to take a chance against the traffic, not knowing that the lights are orange. I sweep past her in the middle of the road when something about the side of her face makes me glance back. It is someone I haven't seen for years, but have thought about constantly.

Across the road I stop and say her name. She looks at me properly and we recognise each other, happily. We stand off to one side of the path, and start to chat. Last time I saw her she had moved a long way north, about as north as you can go, almost. She was fast-tracked for success in the art world, with her amazing paintings. I ask her about her art, how it's going.

She answers blithely, telling me that she hasn't done much for about two years, how she's re-prioritising her life. I listen to her, and I know that she's trying not to say out loud what I already know -- that two years ago she lost her child at the moment of birth. I read it in the paper at the time, heard it from mutual friends, and didn't know how to get in touch with her. I cried then for her, couldn't imagine going through nine months of joy to end in such a way, wondered how to convey this to her, and then -- typical -- got caught up in my own life.

I can't let her struggle to find non-committal things to say. I tell her that I heard about her baby, and how sorry I am about it. Suddenly the bicycle path and everything on it disappears. We are in a bubble of relief, sorrow and truth. We swap stories about miscarriages, bastard doctors and helplessness. We tear up, we hug. I pat the dog, who looks as though she can listen compassionately forever.

The art has stopped. Time has stopped. She is gardening, all she can bring herself to do. Her partner, a very good man, suffers as well, but carries on. I can only guess he feels helpless and work keeps him on track. I tell her that I've had enough, I've drawn a line in the sand, that I've decided to disengage with my body and get on with stuff; she looks at me sadly and says that she's not quite ready for that yet. I can see that she has unfinished business, that she won't be free of it until she either gets resolution or someone else draws a line for her. All I can do is wish her peace, whichever way it goes.

We sense that much time has passed. We start making excuses; we don't make too many promises to catch up, but it's good to know we both exist now in the same city. We will see each other, and each time will be good and meaningful. It is hard to move away from her, I'm so there in the moment. But eventually I break out of the bubble, put the earpieces back in, and resume pedalling. Suddenly I don't feel the upbeat, it's the words that hit me.

Let's dance to Joy Division,
And celebrate the irony,
Everything is going wrong,
But we're so happy,
Let's dance to Joy Division,
And raise our glass to the ceiling,
'Cos this could all go so wrong,
But we're so happy,
Yeah we're so happy,
So happy,
Yeah we're so happy,
So happy,
Yeah we're so happy.

I turn it up, to drown out the thoughts, and ride.

Beware the ides of Calpurnia

Bad questions to ask a transsexual

This is 16 and a half minutes long, but worth it if you have the bandwidth. I'd been exploring the website Bad Plastic Surgery, and it was sitting there as something funny to watch. It is funny, but not for the reasons they meant. I found myself warming to this woman, especially in the tenth minute (fast forward if you want a quick sample). There's some odd moments, but some good shit buried in there.

Catching up (ladybits alert)

I'm sorry to leave you hanging... this is the first chance I've had to get back to the blog since the last post!

Bumblebee is away with his dad, Best Beloved jumped a plane to Devonport (for work) at dawn this morning and I've now got three days to myself... which I will hopefully put to good use. I am planning to be in the studio printing, and going home via the movies. No cooking, just leftovers and takeaway, no cleaning until the very last moment before everyone gets back on Tuesday afternoon (bringing with them Bernice Balconey and her offspring for a sleepover).

I hope.
I'm in the BookStud now, finding my makeready (the work you do to set up the type and press to get a good print) extremely frustrating. Lots of eeny-weeny measurements that seem perfect one moment, and completely out the next. GAH! So I am going to take a blood-pressure break and tell you about Bumblebee's birthday.

THE FIRST

Because I dangled it in front of you, I'll give you a quick overview of B's actual birthday.

I'd gone to the obstetrician that morning, and it was a week before his due date. He made a joke that if B turned around, I'd be right for a natural birth. Not having prepared for a natural birth, having been told all the way that it was going to be very tricky if I did, what with my weird insides and masses of fibroids, I reacted quite violently to this suggestion and told him that if he left me to have a natural childbirth at this late stage I would personally wrap the cord around his neck. He laughed nervously and said 'see you in a week!'.


Here's the little tucker in utero, looking just like himself, except with a touch of the deep-sea creature about him. They did a few of these scans, to make sure he was ok amongst the fibroids, but at no point picked up that he had a dicky heart...

Anyhoo, I came back from my appointment, and went for a walk with a friend to the local secondhand bookshop. While we were looking at books, I had a contraction. I'd had a lot of Braxton-Hicks contractions, so it didn't bother me. All afternoon, though, I kept having them. My mother was my planned birth partner, and she was ready to drive up from Bega. My father was staying with me for a business trip. (I was a single almost-parent already, by choice. I only wanted one child in my life.)

I rang the hospital, but they weren't fussed and told me to hang about at home. Colonel Duck was getting nervous -- he's licensed to shoot people, but the idea of birth makes him go green around the gills. He tried to distract me by buying fish & chips and putting on a video of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (borrowed from the local library, and complete with subtitles for the deaf: 'Music swells. Bird goes tweet'). It was quite fun for a while, until the pain ramped up, and the hospital said come in for a check.

CD bustled me into his Little Red Ute and we drove to the hospital, with him nervously sucking and clacking his dental plate all the way. We rang Lady Duck, but we couldn't tell her to come yet because everyone seemed to think it wasn't time. I begged to disagree, and after an hour of people faffing around me and a whole whack of indecisiveness, someone finally checked between my legs properly and discovered that the baby was trying to shove his knee through my cervix. Oh! Emergency caesarian time!

CD rang Lady Duck, who jumped in the car. Unfortunately two hours of driving wasn't going to get her here in time, so I told CD he'd have to come in and hold my hand. He nearly fainted at the thought of it, so I asked him to ring my friend (M) I'd been shopping with that morning. She took 15 minutes to get there, by which time I'd been given an epidural and I'd yakked fish'n'salad (I couldn't hack the chips earlier) all over the nurse.

M did a sterling job, holding my hand and making jokes. I was shaking violently, scared that I'd feel the first cut, since the epidural had masked the pain but not the physical sensation of cramps. I asked them across the green sheet if they'd started, and they said 'yes, we're halfway through!' so I started to relax a bit. Then there was the most extraordinary sensation of a huge weight lifting off me, and I heard a squalk... OMFG, I've had a baby.

They passed the baby over to M, and we both sucked our breaths in, as he looked EXACTLY like his father, and neither of us thought that was a particularly good thing at the time. Then I said 'oh, it's Bumblebee', and the moment was broken and we fell in love.

It took ages to sew me up and do all the things they have to do, and I forgot to send word out to Colonel Duck, who was pacing a rut in the corridor. By the time I did remember, Lady Duck was there, and they had first cuddles as we emerged.

He wasn't a well baby -- he'd tied true knots in his cord, and was starving and eating his own brown fat, which is why he'd gone into distress. He was also jaundiced, and small.


On the way home from hospital -- tiny! I had to cut off the cuffs from his little home-dyed babyskins to make them fit.

But he was/is mine, and he's a bloody trooper. We hoped he'd plump up once he got home, but he didn't thrive, and it turned out to be his heart. For that story, go here. That kid has been close to death so many times and survived that I've stopped fretting.


THE LATEST

You can see why Bumblebee is utterly indulged by his grandparents and I. He's not spoiled, mainly because we don't have enough money to give him everything his friends get, but he keeps up enough.

So. He got a mobile from his grandad this year. It's not too fancy, with enough credit to let him ring me if he needs to, but not too much so that he can learn how fast it runs out. He messaged me yesterday to tell me his dad had taken him to Sydney. I love knowing stuff like that.

His nanny made him a cake for his party:

Isn't it lush? Choc sponge layers with fresh cream and sliced strawberries between, topped with all sorts of nice things.

It was a Lasertag party. I've never seen so many happy boys in one place.


This is the geekboy demonstrator showing off the new equipment. Flashing lights and noises... they were in heaven.


He gave a few of the teams some strategic tips, but only if they asked the right questions. The place was pretty scraggy on the outside, but once they got inside...


...it was the place of their (electric) dreams.


Team Red. Note extreme seriousness. Gawd I hope he grows out of this phase... I prefer swords to this stuff!


I love all the names they were given. They also got scorecards at the end with statistics on who shot who.


Once geared up, they ran around a darkened maze, shooting each other and the bases. I stayed outside and watched the screen, but I could hear the music and the yelling through the walls.

They emerged from each game red-faced, adrenalin charged and shouting constantly. For anyone planning to have one of these parties, take these tips:

They really only want to drink water and light fizzies. They guzzle down chips, but don't try more elaborate party fare because they're not interested, just needing a quick snack so they can keep yelling and pumping their fists. A slice of cake, another drink, and they're off again. Take earplugs. Have a Bex and a good lie down afterwards.

It was, perhaps, the easiest birthday party I've ever hosted. But I was still exhausted afterwards, from the noise and lights and testosterone levels.

I went to see 'Lars and the Real Girl' a couple of days later, and it was the perfect antidote. Highly recommended.

Back to the makeready. Wish me luck...

PS -- JUST FOUND, thanks to Helen. Heh.

EEEEE!

And today's happy squeak upon waking was articulated so much better by Barista.

Drawmo 15: from the vault

Another busy Thursday, but I didn't do any working drawings at Bookbinding class, so I pulled something from the vault. I figure it's better than not doing any drawing...

This one makes me laugh. We were doing a project at art school where our brief was to make plaster casts of bits of our body and then use the casts to mould handmade paper, then manipulate those pieces and photograph them, developing the photos ourselves. Phew! It was very involved. But it meant thinking about our bodies as subject/object/whatever, and I'd JUST got accidentally pregnant to a man who wasn't the husband I was breaking up with. GAH.*



The funny thing is that if I was doing a self-portrait of my relationship with my body right now, this is pretty close to what I'd draw. That look on the face sums up my personal mind-body dichotomy. Heh.

This is drawn in watercolour graphite, with a touch of watercolour colour pencil, with the head on the left page of the sketchbook and the pelvis on the right. The book gutter really makes a gulf between the original drawings...






* I have NO idea why Drawmo is bringing up so many memories from this period. Maybe it's because it was a time when I really loved drawing, and filled lots of sketchbooks?

Drawmo 12: A New Hope

It's not easy being green premenstrual with a broken press. The lowest lows, the highest highs, and hormones in between. No wonder Best Beloved caught an early plane to Melbourne yesterday. He's at some sort of airport conference; every time he goes to one of these things he comes home laden with promotional crap, just because they gave it to him. Gah. There's only three of us in the house, five if you count the kitties, and he brought home NINE baseball caps last trip, all embroidered with logos of flight or oil companies. I wanted to have a ritual burning, but it would have increased my envo-footprint more than the making of the caps did. Double GAH. He's under stern instructions to resist, this time. I don't want anything else in the house with a picture of an airplane on it, unless it's a ticket. For all of us.

Anyhoo, today was the first chance I had to ring someone about fixing the press. All weekend I'd feared the worst -- obscure parts needed that would take months to import from some museum in Germany (it's an obscure German press). Instead I got three cheery fellows from ANU Facilities and Services who whooped with delight at seeing such a grand old lady (the press, not me) and rolled their sleeves up. They poked and prodded and debated excitedly about seals and fluid thingies and dryness before one of them cried EUREKA and held up a shard of hollow pin, something that had shattered and wasn't connecting to the doobie (see Naomi? It is a usable word) that went around and thus the rollers couldn't be supported. Nothing to do with oil!

Then there was a tense waiting period when Bloke 1 ran back to their workshop where they had a storage room of Half of the Things You Need and the Other Half the Things You'll Never Need Again (their words). This pin would come from the latter category. While we were waiting, Bloke 2 (a first-year apprentice) watched admiringly while Bloke 3 negotiated dinner at his girlfriend's mum's place later in the week ("Geez you're slack, I'm surprised she still admits you're her daughter. How about I cook? I can do lamb with heaps of garlic and rosemary. Yeah!") and I doodled:



It's a Waiting Doodle. I do variations of it when I'm stuck somewhere or listening to something. This one started a lot darker and blobbier, then I rubbed out and as things got better over the morning it got lighter and bubblier. It's small, only about 3cm across.

Bloke 1 came back with the exact size pin. There was much cheering and rejoicing, especially from me. They had other urgent things to do, so they just fixed the most pressing urgent problem and promised to be back in the next few days to give it a proper oil change and service. I think they like her. She's pretty endearing, albeit Brunhilda-ish.

So I could print my colophon this afternoon! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Happy girl. Doesn't take much. And now my project is back on track. And I got to have a lovely day yesterday with Bumblebee, wallowing in chocolate. And there's a new Machine Translations album out, which I bought yesterday, which is terrific, apart from the best song being spoiled by a bloody ghost track. (I hate the construct of ghost tracks. All that bloody space and you can't listen to the two songs independently. But the ghost track itself is lovely.) And two of my loveliest cousins bought me a book voucher for my birthday (love vouchers of any kind, thanks!) and I used it yesterday to buy Garth Nix's Abhorsen so I'm finally finishing the trilogy. So again, all's right with the world, and I'm a lucky, lucky woman.

Drawmo 7: heartstrings

Most mothers would say that they have pretty good insight into their child's heart. I go one better: I get a regular look inside my child's actual heart.

Today Bumblebee and I made our biennial visit to the paediatric cardiologist, to get his heart checked out. After the usual manual checks on pulses (Bumblebee can easily name six places to find a pulse in the body) and blood pressure, the echocardiography machine is fired up and the ultrasound commences.

It's the same as a pelvic ultrasound: cold jelly, lying still, looking at the ceiling. Bumblebee manages the still thing as well as can be expected when everyone else in the room is cooing over how beautiful the images are.

Two years ago, and every year before that (he used to have annual checkups), I would look at the ultrasound images and marvel at the intricate nature of the human body. I would listen to the gritty swishing sound that my son's heartbeat was making and think how well the black and white imagery would translate into a woodcut print.

This year, however, my mind kept being drawn to the contrast between the ultrasounds I've had in past years and this one. To the sound of his heartbeat and those awkward and painful moments of finding no heartbeat at all. The sight of all that pumping and wriggling and flashing colours amongst the grainy black and white next to the memory of that cold unmoving black space surrounded by my own warm flesh.

Best Beloved and I had The Conversation last week. It was the one we needed to have, the one he'd been avoiding and I'd been rehearsing for months, finally going to a counsellor to help me find the words. And when it happened, I didn't feel a sense of relief. In fact, I'm still trying to find a way to make my mind accept it, even though it's my decision.

I drew the line. I don't want to get pregnant again. I just can't try again. I don't think I could cope with [a] the fear [b] the hope and [c] the resentment (my own, at yet another few months of being forced to do NOTHING, and have an outcome of nothing). It would be more destructive than creative, I'm certain of that.

My GP is utterly supportive. Every other specialist and advisor tells me there's a chance, if we use IVF, if we have millions of tests every step of the way, if we hope. My female GP, who has been with me every step of the way so far, offered to write me the equivalent of a note excusing me from class. 'You're now 40, you've got your own physical factors increasing risk, and you've got a history of problems, including a child with congenital defects. I think you can safely say you've done your best.' Bless her.

I don't know if I have done my best, but I've tried. But I can't keep trying. Now I just have to make peace with myself. Best Beloved was amazing. He's utterly supportive, albeit sad, and resigned to a life full of cats. And Bumblebee. At least we've got this marvellous boy, who gives us daily joy and challenges, whom all my doctors have said is a miracle. Who could want more than one miracle in a lifetime?


I was brought back to earth today (luckily before I burst into tears) by the cardiologist saying 'oh, he's got a heartstring in his left ventricle'. A what? A heartstring! I watched it wibble back and forth as his blood ebbed and flowed. I had no idea they were anything but poetic creations. I've just done a quick bit of web investigation and apparently they help to strengthen the walls of the ventricle, although some surgeons think they are unnecessary and removable matter.

My drawmo is a hand-drawn diagram of a heart and its valves (from a picture I saw on the web), and I've drawn in what I think I saw onscreen in the ultrasound, although probably not to scale (and I may have even got the wrong bit of the heart!). The background 'noise' is a piece of paper I ran through the rollers of the press before I cleaned them... I do that regularly, and keep the paper because I'm a sucker for textures.




I love the fact that I've seen my boy's heartstring. I love the fact that I'm lucky enough to have a child. A lot of women go through a lot more than I've done and come away with a lot less. So I'm grateful. And sad. And weary. But now we can just get on with life, and I think we'll be a lot stronger for it.





* I haven't discussed this with my parents or wider family yet. Consider this an icebreaker, my loved ones. It's hard to say these things out loud, especially when you are the vehicle for everyone else's dreams. (I wish sometimes that men could have wombs. But then my feminist streak slaps me in the face and says NO YOU DON'T! And she's right. I really don't. But sometimes it would even things out a bit...)



PS: If you want a soundtrack to this post, try Lisa Miller's 'Words for Sadness' from her Car Tape CD. It works very well indeed.

Cake! Love a bit of cake. Cake! Ca-aaake...

Hooray! Poppy and jonquil season, which make August just that bit more bearable. If I could have my 'druthers, I would travel away from Canberra in February and August, because the former is just a bit too much Summer, and the latter one month too much of Winter.

Anyhoo, enjoying the first poppies of the season has become a bit of a tradition around here. The smell of the jonquils as I sit and type is glorious, and every so often a poppy pops and starts unfurling, much to the delight of the cats (and myself).

Yesterday I was feeling unhappy with my ladybits (yes, AGAIN. I have a very short cycle these days) and even unhappier that I was ejected from my snuggly bed by BB, who doesn't understand that the first day of a bleed outweighs the fact that Saturday is the only day he gets breakfast in bed (as a friend said, it's a bit like paper-scissors-rock, debating reasons not to get of bed first on a winter morning).

So I went to the farmers markets in a very grumpy mood and proceeded to spend a quarter of my grocery budget on flowers and cake. Then came home, festooned the house with flowers and ate cake with lashings of tea. Not just cake, friends. They were slices of Amore Cakes, the best bloody cakes in the southern hemisphere, and only available in Canberra at these markets and possibly the Kingston Markets. I bought a slab (no such thing as a dainty slice of Amore) each of: Macadamia & Ginger Cake, Raspberry Slice, Sour Cherry Cake, Lemon Polenta Cake, and Toffee & Chocolate Cake. All under $4 and all about the size of your outstretched hand. None of them good for your waistline, but very good for the soul. We've been eating them slowly through the weekend, chunks at a time, and the cake tin still looks respectably full.

I also spent most of the day yesterday with Bernice, working on our collaborative project, trying to solve problems with printing with a mangle, and getting partway there but not all there. (I work occasionally around John Loane, who prints all of Mike Parr's huge prints, and I think I'm going to pick his brains next (very Zombie-like) about how to get the rest of the way through our large-scale intaglio printing adventure. I suspect it's going to involve changing the paper we're working with.) So we got back last night not as UP as we would have been if we'd cracked it. Never mind, half a bottle of wine worked for me to restore the spirits.

Bumblebee is meant to be with us this weekend, but he went a friend's beach house for a birthday sleepover, lucky boy. He went to his school disco on friday night (dressed in Sith Casualwear, of course, minus the lightsabre) and watching him greet his friends -- once we'd got past the increased security measures, each child accompanied by an adult to get in the door and brandishing their permission slips bearing parental signature and emergency contact number -- was akin to watching the T-birds from Grease greeting each other after the long summer holiday. Hilarious attempts at Cool Enthusiasm.

On thursday I attended one of the art school's twice-weekly public lectures (Art Forum, all welcome), this time by the curator of Knit 1 Blog 1, Barb McConchie. It was great; as she gave her lecture about discovering the world of knitting blogs, she got the technical assistant to sit next to her and use the projected laptop to click through blogs. His challenge was to move only through knitting blogs, and to never visit the same one twice for the whole hour. Heh. I think he could have done it for two days and never run into the same one twice. It was great to see how many international craft blogs link to Canberra's own Whip Up blog.

There was something else I wanted to write about but it's totally escaped my brain. Hmmm. Nope. It'll come back sometime, no doubt. Sometime when I'm NOT near the computer.

Womanly blessings

O, wot a week. Busy as hell, thanks to the demands of the Bot and her anxious spouse wanting a number of her books to arrive in London before the glue is dry. I tried to tell them that the British Library wouldn't be so keen on it if I made hasty mistakes, but they're blinded by the light. I have been in the Book Stud every day since I escaped from the clutches of Mary Gilmore, printing, stitching and gluing, and thankfully have only made minor boo-boos, nothing to really stuff anything up. Phew. That batch is done, only 11 copies to go, and last tonight I celebrated that and the fact I'm not pregnant with a large couple of glasses of Aldi's wine and dark chocolate.*

The latter celebration is a silly and controversial one; I have been forgetting to take the Pill, and then when I ran out of it, I couldn't find my prescription and have been too busy to see a doctor, so the last month has been a bit dodgy. Of course, I figured my insides were too scarred and old to fall pregnant randomly (last time was thanks to a massive dose of folate -- it DOES work, ladies.) so we got a bit cheeky with each other without protection. Ahem. And my reward was a late period and a complete inner freakout on my part because I've just put my foot down about not trying for another baby until my book project was in the bag, if ever again. Ahh, nothing like a scare to get the adrenalin rushing, and it made me realise that if I HAD been pregnant, it would have been a very very negative experience, and possibly damaging to our relationship. Isn't it fun, being a woman? I've said it before, I'll say it again... roll on menopause. Sounds like a big stretch of freedom to me.

Also, the pressure builds to get another car. Our poor old multi-coloured Suby-Ruby has a lot of things wrong with her, including the fact that her suspension is so buggered that she's chewing through tyre tread like white bread. I had a flat tyre last week in Civic, with AP sitting demurely in the car; quite an experience! Luckily a stray NRMA van came moseying past trying to find a park to do some banking, so he stopped to help much earlier than the operator had promised. I know, I know, I could have changed the tyre myself, but what the hell do I pay all that membership money for?! i can't do everything in this world, although I do admit that I seem to try.

I was going to drop in a taste of a great exhibition on at the moment, but it's turned out a bit personal, this post, so I'll write it up separately... remember to breathe, won't you? It might help you live longer (thanks, Zarquon!).





*$2.99 a bottle. Geez we're clarsy. Have I ever mentioned that both Best Beloved and The Albatross are big fans of Aldi stores? Each for very different reasons; but at least they've got something in common beside love of Bumblebee. Gives them something to talk about when they see each other, anyway.

Is this better, dudes?

[NB!! This is a rewrite of an old blogpost from December. If you want to know why, click on the first link below.]

Some of you may be wondering why the author hasn't been writing more about progress on her letterpress project and her arts grant. That's because there has been no progress. Why?

Ok. Get comfortable. This has taken Duckie a few days to write, and she's going to break it down a bit.

Firstly:

The day that our protagonist got the envelope containing her good news about the grant, she also peed on a pregnancy test and got two blue lines. Don't you agree, it was right for her to cry. And oddly enough, not with joy.



It's not known whether the readers have read back over this blog's archives; &Duck has a bit of a history of reproductive problems. She gave a quick linkfest a couple of posts ago, on her wedding anniversary. This pregnancy is around the same timing as the last one, give or take a few weeks. This is the 9th week, whereas this time two years ago it was the 7th week.

Ampersand Duck is ambivalent about having another child. On the one hand, there's her lovely man, who would make such a fantastic father, and who is already a fantastic stepfather and uncle. On the other hand, she's 39, and she's just managed to get to a point in her life when the next 12 months will allow her to achieve something to be proud of professionally, rather than helping other people achieve their goals.

But hey? When nature calls, even at an inopportune time, it's probably best to accept what is happening and make the most of it. Especially when everyone around you gets so excited and happy for you.



For the first few weeks your hostess really had to fight off depression. She felt cranky that the only way her family could grow involved her body, her time and her energy. She kept wishing that Best Beloved could be the pregnant one (nice thought, but she would joke, in a classic female way, that if men ever worked out how to have babies she'd be first in line to protest about it). All she could think about was the lousy timing, and how she was poised to start printing, but then it all had to stop.

And everything HAD to stop; Duckie is really bad at pregnancy, and luckily had her name down with a specialist who started giving her blood tests every few days and hormone supplements. He told her not to travel more than 2 hours, which put the kybosh on going to Woodford, and advised against riding her bike and walking too much. Printing, with its physical demands and reliance on solvents for cleanup, is definitely OUT. Our heroine spent the last few weeks driving (oh, the petrol prices!) and sitting in front of the computer, sulking. Your blogs have kept her sane, truly.



Last week Ampersand Duck started coming to terms with the thought of being pregnant. She realised that she could use the grant money, buy all the materials and get the artists involved working on their images, make the polymer plates (it's a pretty harmless technology), and then have everything in place to print later next year. She felt sure the Arts Board wouldn't mind granting her a slight extension.

Duckie talked to her boss at the art school, who was very supportive about a change of plans for the BookStud next year. And she could always work on her bookbinding skills, which don't involve a lot of standing up.

Best Beloved and the Duck started talking about what to do about their tiny house: extend or move? they made an appointment with a nice real estate agent they'd bumped into to discuss how much their house would be worth, to help them decide. They knew it was early days, but they knew people who had their babies in amongst the builders' dust, or amidst packing boxes; it pays to plan ahead.

Actually, our mistress of the blog started to feel quite jolly. Morning sickness was kicking in, and her boobs felt like bursting, but that's just the fun of sprogging.



And then Ms Duck had an ultrasound last Friday, and encountered a familiar worried look on the face of the technician. Are you sure about your dates? is a question that makes your heart sink, especially when you've been there before. And yes, she was very sure of her dates.

From that moment everything went poo-shaped. It's amazing how fast a woman can go from feeling like you're doing something special with your body to feeling like your body is just a mutant visitor from Planet Defect. It took moments. Suddenly you're not a fertile goddess, you're a failure. There was the black blobby sac floating on the screen, tucked in a nice safe place between three ravenous fibroids, but there was nothing happening inside it. Well, there was, but it wasn't alive. In fact, it had stopped about three weeks before, but Duckie's body was convinced it was still pregnant. It still is. But instead of feeling nauseous in the morning and knowing that it's for a purpose, now she wakes up and feel nauseous and then feel nauseous about feeling nauseous. Just like last time.



Since Friday Duck has been pretty numb, apart from some pretty full-on crying in the car. She finds the car is the best place to be a watery tart, probably for the same reasons that men like to talk sideways about serious issues -- you know, while they're gardening, or washing up. She can sob but stay in control, and that feels valid. Until you stop at the traffic lights and look sideways and realise that the people next to you can see you with snot and tears all over you. And they are always looking, probably because this little black duck has a wildly-painted car. Bugger. Lying on a bed crying just feels like I'm indulging myself too much a lefty whinge. Go figure. It's not like we don't indulge ourselves in other ways.



Things done in the past few days to escape reality and feel better:

Videos: The Razor's Edge (1946 version, of course); the second series of Extras; Catching up on West Wing; Hairspray.
Music: Tim Buckley, new mashups by Arty Fufkin (great timing, thanks), Johnny Cash's American III.
Reading: Jasper Fforde, trash magazines, blogs, Anne Tyler.
Imbibing: wine, cider, chocolate, salami, soft cheese.

Has the writer ever told you how much she likes Anne Tyler's fiction? AT's books have a certain emotional space in them, and are peopled by characters who have been emotionally damaged in different ways; they tend to live quietly within themselves until she finds them a reason to come alive again. Each novel is a gentle lesson in internal survival and renewed hope. &Duck goes through phases of needing to read them. Now is one of those times. If you haven't read one, she recommends starting with either The Clock Winder or Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Or The Accidental Tourist, but read it before you see the movie version.



Ampersand Duck is not telling this tale to get your sympathy, because she's getting weary of casting herself as a person needing pity. She's really starting to understand (although really, universe, she got the lesson at least 20 years ago. RLY.) that there is no quota for painful experiences. She knows, as many people do, that there are many women out there who go through this, and go through it over and over in their quest for children. Our heroine saw many of them at the fertility clinic she was visiting for my blood tests, and she felt so sorry for them, with their looks of quiet, dignified and painful optimism. One day &Duck went in and the place was full to standing-room only, and that air of suspense was palpable. When she asked about the crowd, she was told it was 'embryo implantation day'. Sigh. Poor girls.

We all know that women go through miscarriages all the time. And they keep trying, which is admirable. Or they stop, which should have everyone's utter understanding. Ampersand Duck will not try again.



Actually, Duckie is telling this tale at this point in time because tomorrow morning at 10am she's going under the knife to get Wellsley Giblet (see, they'd nicknamed it already!) scraped out.* And she's scared. She wants lots of blog-reading good vibes to steady that surgeon's hand and keep her safe. Last time a stupid doctor perforated her three times, and she bled for two months. This is a different hospital, a more experienced doctor, but the same soft mutant fibroid-filled womb. It should only be a day-visit, and she should feel better in a day or two. If all goes well.

Wish her luck.

She is the twin cats' mother. She likes writing using the first person. Now you can see why. It's a bit dry, no?

PS: THANK YOU, MY HIVE MIND SISTAS AND BROS. You know who you are.





*Actually, there's a tale here as well. This is the perfect situation for a drug like RU-486, when an abortion is needed and there's no live baby to kill. BUT. Because it was not available last time, &Duck was D&C'd, roughly, and thus was perforated. It still isn't available now, but even if it was, she wouldn't be able to use it because the strong crampings might reopen the perforations from last time. GAH! Thanks, Mr Abbott. It's all your fault Duckie is going under the knife again. Put that in your pipe and stick it where the sun don't shine.

On bodies and bits (TMI warning)

Over the past couple of years I've read many posts about underarm hair on women, and we've all contributed to comment threads exposing our own practices re. that subject, but I just wanted to reiterate my amusement and frustration that underarm hair still seems to be up there with nipple escape as a titilating conversational distraction.

It's been very hot lately, and I generally prefer not to wear sleeveless tops (more to do with my bye-byes than anything else), but the heat has driven me to wear them. Nearly every conversation I have, with either men or women, gets sidetracked slightly if I raise my arms slightly and a wisp of hair is exposed. They don't change the topic, but I notice the other person getting a bit flustered and either looking or trying very hard NOT to look. One man I was talking to couldn't drag his eyes away for a moment. I felt like I was topless! In fact, I think if I had been topless he wouldn't have blinked; it was something to do with the hair.

I like to move my hands as I talk, so my underarm hairs do get an airing regularly. I even trim them neatly, preferring the slightly prickle of freshly-trimmed hairs to the sharp irritation of deodorant on raw skin and the agony of stubble rash. It's HAIR. It grows naturally. It belongs there. It's nice and furry. I shave my legs these days, but I can't relinquish the little underarm mice. Are we really such a waxed and polished society? I can't wait to get to Woodford (yes, we are going, after all) and let it all hang out in an anything-goes atmosphere for a while. That's what I call a holiday.

While I'm on the topic of bodies, my lovely sister outlaw, while commiserating on the phone last week about my ladybits, said something that really resonated with me. We were talking about that plunge into nothingness with general anaesthetic, and how scary it is even if you trust the doctor. She mused that she couldn't understand how people can willingly go under the knife with plastic surgeons, to take that plunge for the sake of making your body different/more acceptable. More acceptable to whom? is my first question. WTF? is my second. Especially in the case of vaginoplasties, or 'vaginal rejuvenation', as I was reading in the latest issue of The Monthly this morning.* Erk. Anyway, I agree with my outlaw: going under the knife for something necessary is scary and risky enough; going under for sheer vanity or to be fashionable is sad and foolish.** Apparently vaginoplasties are 'in' because it aims to make your ladybits 'more attractive', and as Anne Manne says:

These are not ... surgeries to increase female pleasure. They are designed solely to render a vagina*** more "attractive" -- and more in line with the quietly universalising standards established by pornography: the surgical version of the Brazilian wax, with its faint resonances of child pornography. Indeed, the Society for Gynecological Surgeons warns of the scarring, nerve damage and numbness which may follow vaginoplasty.*

Are men really that judge-mental? Actually, I can believe that some are, after an experience a few months ago (I can't remember if I blogged it and I'm being naughty taking this much time to write, so I won't search -- apologies if I have) riding along the bike path and having a man ride very slowly behind me for a while, then slowly overtake me and look back. He took one look at my face and sneered and shook his head, then rode fast away. At the next intersection I saw him chase up to another female rider, and then later again he was trying to chat another one up, a nice-looking girl with great legs who obviously met his standards. She was ignoring him. But the irony was that this man was short, fat and oddly hairy; something I wouldn't hold against him in an ordinary meeting, but in this context it was sad and offensive.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say here. It's a mosh of ideas that I just needed to vent today. Yay for women who like themselves just the way they are, to quote Mark Darcy. I'm sorry for people who think they need to be better. I'm sorry for people who can't accept other people's bodies. And to all of you out there who think women shouldn't have underarm hair, I'm sorry. It's YOUR problem. It's really very friendly if you get to know it.


* "Love Me Tender: Sex & Power in the Age of Pornography" by Anne Manne, The Monthly, Dec 2006.

** I should say here that I don't consider a breast reduction vanity surgery. Nor reconstructive plastic surgery. Duh.

*** I'm hoping that having the V word in this post may attract some readers who never think about underarms. May you learn something today.

Womb intact, hooray!

A big



to every one of you.

Today went really well, and now I just cross fingers that there's no complications. I'm not allowed to drink alcohol for 24 hours (nor make important decisions or sign legal papers) thanks to the general anaesthetic, so I'll save the 'my womb is intact' party for tomorrow.

You're all marvellous people, and I knew that influx of good thoughts into the ether would help.

Now I'm going back to bed. I'll make some comment responses tomorrow. xxx

Gathering strength

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't been writing more about progress on my letterpress project and my arts grant. That's because there has been no progress. Why?

Ok. Get comfortable. This has taken me a few days to write, and I'm going to break it down a bit.

Firstly:

The day that I got the envelope containing my good news about the grant, I also peed on a pregnancy test and got two blue lines. I have to admit, I cried. And oddly enough, not with joy.



I don't know how much you've read back over my archives; I've got a bit of a history of reproductive problems. I gave a quick linkfest a couple of posts ago, on my wedding anniversary. This pregnancy is around the same timing as the last one, give or take a few weeks. This is the 9th week, whereas this time two years ago it was the 7th week.

I'm ambivalent about having another child. On the one hand, there's my lovely man, who would make such a fantastic father, and who is already a fantastic stepfather and uncle. On the other hand, I'm 39, and I've just managed to get to a point in my life when the next 12 months will allow me to achieve something to be proud of professionally, rather than helping other people achieve their goals.

But hey? When nature calls, even at an inopportune time, it's probably best to accept what is happening and make the most of it. Especially when everyone around you gets so excited and happy for you.



For the first few weeks I really had to fight off depression. I felt cranky that the only way we could add to our family involved my body, and my time and energy. I kept wishing that Best Beloved could be the pregnant one (nice thought, but I tell you this, in a classic female way, that if men ever worked out how to have babies I'd be first in line to protest about it). All I could think about was the lousy timing, and how I was poised to start printing, but then it all had to stop.

And everything HAD to stop; I'm really bad at pregnancy, and luckily had my name down with a specialist who started giving me blood tests every few days and hormone supplements. He told me I can't travel more than 2 hours, which put the kybosh on going to Woodford, and advised against riding my bike and walking too much. Printing, with its physical demands and reliance on solvents for cleanup, is definitely OUT. I've spent the last few weeks driving (oh, the petrol prices!) and sitting in front of the computer, sulking. Your blogs have kept me sane, truly.



Last week I started coming to terms with the thought of being pregnant. I realised that I can use the grant money, buy all the materials and get the artists involved working on their images, make the polymer plates (it's a pretty harmless technology), and then have everything in place to print later next year. I'm sure the Arts Board wouldn't mind granting me a slight extension.

I talked to my boss at the art school, and she was very supportive about a change of plans for the BookStud next year. And I could always work on my bookbinding skills, which don't involve a lot of standing up.

Best Beloved and I started talking about what to do about our tiny house: do we extend or move? We made an appointment with a nice real estate agent we'd bumped into to discuss how much our house would be worth, to help us decide. I know it's early days, but I know people who have their babies in amongst the builders' dust, or amidst packing boxes; it pays to plan ahead.

Actually, I started to feel quite jolly. Morning sickness was kicking in, and my boobs felt like bursting, but that's just the fun of sprogging.



And then I had an ultrasound last Friday, and encountered a familiar worried look on the face of the technician. Are you sure about your dates? is a question that makes your heart sink, especially when you've been there before. And yes, I was very sure of my dates.

From that moment everything went poo-shaped. It's amazing how fast you can go from feeling like you you're doing something special with your body to feeling like your body is just a mutant visitor from Planet Defect. It took moments. Suddenly you're not a fertile goddess, you're a failure. There was the black blobby sac floating on the screen, tucked in a nice safe place between three ravenous fibroids, but there was nothing happening inside it. Well, there was, but it wasn't alive. In fact, it had stopped about three weeks before, but my body was convinced it was still pregnant. It still is. But instead of feeling nauseous in the morning and knowing that it's for a purpose, now I wake up and feel nauseous and then feel nauseous about feeling nauseous. Just like last time.



Since Friday I've been pretty numb, apart from some pretty full-on crying in the car. I find the car is the best place to be a watery tart, probably for the same reasons that men like to talk sideways about serious issues -- you know, while they're gardening, or washing up. I can sob but stay in control, and that feels valid. Until you stop at the traffic lights and look sideways and realise that the people next to you can see you with snot and tears all over you. And they are always looking, probably because I have a wildly-painted car. Bugger. Lying on a bed crying just feels like I'm indulging myself too much. I know, go figure. It's not like I don't indulge myself in other ways.



Things I've done in the past few days to escape reality and feel better:

Videos: The Razor's Edge (1946 version, of course); the second series of Extras; Catching up on West Wing; Hairspray.
Music: Tim Buckley, new mashups by Arty Fufkin (great timing, thanks), Johnny Cash's American III.
Reading: Jasper Fforde, trash magazines, blogs, Anne Tyler.
Imbibing: wine, cider, chocolate, salami, soft cheese.

Have I ever told you how much I like Anne Tyler's fiction? Her books have a certain emotional space in them, and are peopled by characters who have been emotionally damaged in different ways; they tend to live quietly within themselves until she finds them a reason to come alive again. Each novel is a gentle lesson in internal survival and renewed hope. I go through phases of needing to read them. Now is one of those times. If you haven't read one, I recommend starting with either The Clock Winder or Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Or The Accidental Tourist, but read it before you see the movie version.



I'm not telling this tale to get your sympathy, because I'm getting weary of casting myself as a person needing pity. I'm really starting to understand (although really, universe, I got the lesson at least 20 years ago. RLY.) that there is no quota for painful experiences. I know that there are many women out there who go through this, and go through it over and over in their quest for children. I saw many of them at the fertility clinic I was visiting for my blood tests, and I felt so sorry for them, with their looks of quiet, dignified and painful optimism. One day I went in and the place was full to standing-room only, and that air of suspense was palpable. When I asked about the crowd, I was told it was 'embryo implantation day'. Sigh. Poor girls.

I know that women go through miscarriages all the time. And they keep trying, which has my admiration. Or they stop, which has my utter understanding. I'm not trying again.



Actually, I'm telling this tale at this point in time because tomorrow morning at 10am I'm going under the knife to get Wellsley Giblet (see, we'd nicknamed it already!) scraped out.* And I'm scared. I want lots of blog-reading good vibes to steady that surgeon's hand and keep me safe. Last time a stupid doctor perforated me three times, and I bled for two months. This is a different hospital, a more experienced doctor, but the same soft mutant fibroid-filled womb. It should only be a day-visit, and I should feel better in a day or two. If all goes well.

Wish me luck.





*Actually, there's a tale here as well. This is the perfect situation for a drug like RU-486, when an abortion is needed and there's no live baby to kill. BUT. Because it was not available last time, I was D&C'd, roughly, and thus was perforated. It still isn't available now, but even if it was, I wouldn't be able to use it because the strong crampings might reopen the perforations from last time. GAH! Thanks, Mr Abbott. It's all your fault I'm going under the knife again. Put that in your pipe and stick it where the sun don't shine.

Too much information, yes REALLY really.

Walking through Dickson shopping centre today, I took a moment to browse in a little shop that sells odd Asian fashions. You know the sort -- lots of large clothes in shiny synthetic materials, lots of sequined things in very small sizes, cheap unsized Indian cotton pieces with elaborate stitching and some clothes that I can't even begin to describe because I'm not even sure which part of the body they are meant to fit. Sometimes you can find a little something that fits alarmingly well and lasts for ages, but you have to do a LOT of careful looking.

The woman who runs the shop started making random stabs at showing me things I might like, and eventually stopped when I told her to rest her feet because I'm very fussy. This caring attitude on my part must have struck a chord with her, because she rushed behind the counter, sat down and started massaging her head with a very odd contraption that looked like an electronic currycomb. I asked her what it was, and it turned out to be a type of acupuncture-y massagey thingy. I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but the shoplady's accent was very strong, and it was quite hard to understand exactly what she was talking about, but I want you to know that I listened quite sincerely and tried my best to understand.

This air of sincerity is actually one of my disabilities, because I have never learned the gentle art of stopping a conversation politely when I've had enough (unless I'm in a tearing rush) and this has led me into some staggeringly boring situations. This particular situation was not so much boring as positively alarming... as I nodded sympathetically over the headache she has been warding off since last night, she suddenly veered onto the subject of her period pain, and before I knew it, she was telling me that for 13 years until recently, when she discovered some marvellous new women's vitamin supplement, she'd had horrendous 'blobby' periods where she would think she was finished on the toilet but then she'd stand up and it would 'blat' out all over again!!!

Ah! Oh, Um, Yairs, I was politely saying, wondering how to nicely finish up and run to Woolies, when she started cupping her breasts and massaging them, telling me how sore they got every month and how they would change shape regularly. For one awful moment I thought she was going to ask me to prod one of them. Oh gosh, yairs, dreadful, I was saying, and in my head I was thinking GAH! HOW TO ESCAPE?

Some women came into the shop, and I thought this would be my chance, but she ignored them and leant forward, dropping her voice to a consipiratorial whisper. Now she was talking about her 'hot liver' that she was treating with Chinese herbs. She started massaging her stomach.

Luckily, my mobile phone beeped and I leapt at the excuse to check the phone outside the shop. I've never been so pleased to get a Telstra announcement in my life.

Either that poor shoplady is extremely lonely and starved of attention, or she has a very odd sales pitch! I'm starting to worry about even walking past the shop again now, and wonder if other people scuttling past there with their heads down are doing so for the same reason. I don't see many people in the shop usually, and now I think I know why!

Dizzy with poetry

It's National Poetry Week again! To celebrate I thought I'd share the fact that I had dinner sitting between Rosemary Dobson and David Malouf at their poetry reading tonight and it was one of those evenings where you just sit back and soak it all in. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. One of DM's poems had a line a bit like 'I was so happy I forgot to be happy'. Sigh.

To temper this highbrow moment, I also wanted to share that I lost half of today by overmedicating myself for severe woman-bits pain. I had none of my usual pills left, so in desperation I popped 2 Panadol Forte and rode my bike into the art school. An hour later I was lying with my head on the desk groaning, feeling very spaced out and dizzy. The only comparison I can make (and this is from the experience of a very long time ago) is the effects of sucking on a bucket-bong. I couldn't do anything useful, so I just had to wait until I was sure I wouldn't fall back off my bicycle and ride home.

Two good things came out of this experience:

1. it was a glorious day, and I decided that if I was going to feel stoned I might as well embrace the feeling and look around me for a while. A few times on the way home I stopped the bike (or maybe it stopped me) and sat in the sun watching cockatoos or looking at the shadows cast by trees on the bikepath. There's some lovely bits of the inner North.



2. I did recover, but was still a bit lightheaded when I went to the poetry reading, so I didn't drink, which meant that I was able to give my dinner companions my full attention and didn't turn into a nervous galah.

Last year for NPW I blogged a poem every day, and I think I'll continue that tradition, including the fact that I've started a bit late into the week.

Here's one of Dobson's poems (not read tonight), which I know from tonight's conversation is one of Malouf's favorites. I'd love to post the poem he wrote in response to this (which was read tonight), but I don't have a copy and it won't be published until next year, so I'll have to wait for that pleasure.


BEING CALLED FOR

Come in at the low-silled window,
Enter by the door through the vine-leaves
Growing over the lintel. I have hung bells at the
Window to be stirred by the breath of your
Coming, which may be at any season.

In winter the snow throws
Light on the ceiling. If you come in winter
There will be a blue shadow before you
Cast on the threshold.

In summer an eddying of white dust
And a brightness falling between the leaves.

When you come I am ready: only, uncertain---
Shall we be leaving at once on another journey?
I would like first to write it all down and leave the pages
On the table weighted with a stone,
Nevertheless I have put in a basket
The coins for the ferry.

Rosemary Dobson, from Collected Poems (Sydney: A&R, 1993)


Beautiful, non? Spring is such a good time for poetry. I lose all interest in cut flowers in Spring. Gone are the days of buying poppies and jonquils at the markets. Who needs them when there are camellias outside my windows and blossoms in the streets?



Exactly.



Postscript: I caught that last photo just in time. Today as I rode by the sky was grey and the blossoms were muddied by the new red leaves coming through on the branches.

Thoughts whilst driving under the influence of PMT

Bus drivers are freaks. They are sometimes worse than taxi drivers. I saw a bus driver tailgating a small car at top speed a-la Duel on a major thoroughfare.

Taxi drivers are freaks. (I'm not speaking casually here -- I used to be one).

The Australian National University has committed major crimes to drivers and cyclists by closing off a road which puts tremendous strain on West Civic and cuts off the art school from civilization. Getting to work now involves advanced thinking and convoluted detours which vary according to the exact minute before 9am that I started driving.

It's effing cold.

Most people sitting at traffic lights seem to think that no one else can see them picking their nose. And eating it.

I saw a woman wearing all black except for a band of t-shirt that was a pastel yellow and a pastel pink coat and she looked like a liquorice allsort (mmm... liquorice allsorts)

I need chocolate.

Only 6 hours until I have to find my way home again.