choice

I don't know if you have been following the kerfuffle over Doonesbury and the anti-abortion campaigning in Texas, but it's ramping up, daily.

Here's the link to the start of the Doonesbury strips. They're still in play, and of course a day behind us, so the last one (he usually works in weekly sequences) is yet to be released.

Here's a link to a bunch of photos that I keep turning to that helps me feel better, because young people are fighting back. It's good to know that even if they think feminism is a dirty, hairy word, many young women (and men) still want to fight the good fight in their own way, and all hail to them.

It doesn't matter which side of the fence you stand on with this issue, the crux of it is CHOICE. If you think someone should/will go to hell for their choice, that's your decision, but it's still their choice, so please let them make it.

I know this looks like an American fight, but government intervention in issues of the body happens all the time in Australia, in many ways. There are often one or two people outside the ACT Health Dept picketing against abortion. It seems to be members of one family. It's sad, the woman always looks so grim. I wonder what her story is, but I'm too scared to approach, which is My Bad.

Anyhoo, have a nice day y'all.

Dawn, in full glory

I just received an e-newsletter from the National Library of Australia which among other things announced that they now have a full archive of the Dawn newspaper digitised and freely accessible. You can even download it as PDF files. Slightly after International Women's day, but in the same month, so HUZZAR!

I have a casual interest in Dawn, mainly because of its printing history. It was the first Australian paper written totally for women, by women, established by Louisa Lawson, who also happened to be Henry Lawson's mother (and so much more than that).



If you want a really good read about Louisa, find a copy of Pat Clarke's Pen Portraits (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1988). It's well out of print, but I'm sure there are secondhand copies to be found, and good libraries should have it. There are chapters on all sorts of women of the pen, and a very good chapter on Louisa.

Here's my favorite part:

The production of the paper was a saga in itself. Years later Louisa Lawson described how she got a printing machine* and some type and with her female employees started to print a paper:

"How did we learn to set type and lock up formes**? Goodness knows! Just worked at it till we puzzled it out! And how the men used to come and patronise us, and try to get something out of us! I remember one day a man from the CHRISTIAN WORLD came around to borrow a block -- a picture. I wouldn't lend it to him; I said we had paid a pound for it, and couldn't afford to go and buy blocks for other papers. Then he stood by the stone*** and sneered at the girls locking up the formes. We were just going to press, and you know how locking up isn't always an easy matter -- particularly for new chums like we were.
Well, he stood there and said nasty things, and poor Miss Greig -- she's my forewoman -- and the girls, they got as white as chalk; the tears were in their eyes. I asked him three times to go, and he wouldn't, so I took a watering pot full of water that we had for sweeping the floor, and I let him have it."****

Two weeks after founding the Dawn, she decided that there was nothing peculiarly masculine about the skill involved in typesetting so she sacked her two male employees and employed girls for this work also. [p. 164]

Of course, the trade unions balked at this, and there were campaigns mounted to boycott the paper and its advertisers. Louisa Lawson fought back as hard as she could, but the fact that she wholeheartedly supported trade unionism made it a tricky process. She exhorted her readers to support unionism and also to support her advertisers so that they wouldn't stop supporting the paper. BOOYA! In Pat Clarke's words, "All this provided the Dawn with great copy" and the paper lasted seventeen years.



One of my academic friends, Paul Eggert, once showed me one of Louisa's side projects, a volume of Henry's poetry printed very early in his -- and her -- career. It was dreadfully printed, with the quality of the printing varying from too heavy to so light that lots of letters were missing. Paul asked my opinion as a printer, and what I could remember of my readings about Louisa seemed to bear out in this physical evidence: that when she started her press, she went around to other printers and asked them for contributions of type and other bits & pieces. They obviously gave her their oldest and most worn typefaces, not taking her seriously.

She showed them, didn't she?



* I guess she means 'a press'
** Not a big stone, but a metal-slab-topped table that was used as the place to put your type as you lock it up. Also called a 'printer's stone'.
*** The forme is the complete type set-up blocked into a chase (metal frame) with metal or wooden furniture and locked up with quoins, ready to put on the press to print.
**** Good for her.

pillow yearnings

You know how I made those pillowbooks about yearning? Sigh. Pillows + yearning. Here's another sorry tale:

We always take our pillows on holiday with us. They are beautiful expensive microfibre pillows that mould under your neck and manage all through the night to shift when you shift and stay plump in the right places and flat in the right places. My neck never hurts with my special pillow. It transformed my life a couple of years ago and I've been ever so grateful ever since.

We travelled for three weeks with our pillows and then forgot them on the second last night of the trip and left them in a motel in Singleton. Last night, when we discovered this fact just before bedtime at Bernice's lovely shack, I felt bereft. And guilty as hell, as if I'd left my child behind at the shop.

Bernice had ok pillows. Now we've come home to all our second-best pillows. I don't want to look at my bed now, because my pillow isn't there. I miss my pillow more than I miss my cervix, and I miss that quite a lot; it always felt like a friendly nose-tip pushing back at me. Sorry, that was a sudden thought, and obviously just for you females. Didn't mean to gross out the boys -- but ladies, you know what I mean, don't you?

Sigh. We got home today and I had a speeding fine waiting for me. O joy. My first for years and I'd achieved it only metres from home before we left on our trip. Only metres away from arriving home, I'd been pondering whether to pursue my old pillows or swallow the guilt and buy some new pillows, but the speeding fine was around the same cost as new pillows, so I rang the motel in Singleton and organised to have them returned, which will be a LOT cheaper. And I'll feel less guilty about forgetting them in the first place. I'm not Catholic, but I do enjoy a touch of penance.

Whether my pillow will forgive me and be quite as comfortable again is the next issue.

It's very nice to be home.

The cats haven't sulked at all at our tardy return from wherever they thought we'd gone. In fact, they've been ever so clingy and loving, with constant love-eyes* and much lolling at our feet wherever we happen to be unpacking / sitting / sweating. For lo! it is hot, not as hot as poor Adelaide, but hotter than most other capital cities, I notice. The cats are so hot they're loving a quick surreptitious spray with the water misters we bought for Woodford and never used because the sky spat on us sufficiently. They lie in front of the fan with their sprayed fur and purr at us with the love-eyes.

Tomorrow I plan to clean the studio up, since it will be horribly messy from my rushed end of year, and at least ten degrees cooler than the house. And then to the pool, which is between the studio and home and the logical place to be on a stinking hot afternoon when all you want to do it curl up in the shade with a book and all your son wants to do is track down his friends after weeks in the country with his father. If he doesn't find a friend or two at the pool tomorrow, I'll be very surprised.

Have I mentioned how much I missed Bumblebee over the last three weeks? He's missed me too: we've been hugging each other at every opportunity, which is not fun when it's so hot, because we make a weird sweaty ripping noise every time we pull apart. He seems to be inches taller, and he now looks like a high school student, so I'm almost used to the idea. Our mutual relief at having never to see or deal with his old headmistress again is more than words can express.

I think it's time to go and sit on the front step in the cool before going to bed. The night breeze is spectacular, but it doesn't seem to want to come inside, no matter how many windows and doors I open. Never mind, I don't blame it for not wanting to be inside, I'll go out to it, seems the logical thing to do. I think my belief system, if I have anything near such a formal concept, has a large dash of Shintoism in it, or something that allows inanimate objects and natural elements to have personalities of their own. The wind is feeling shy and stubborn, my pillows are sulking in a lost property room in Singleton, and the cats are just glad that everything is back to normal. Sort of. My neck will grumble in its sleep tonight...








*Can it be possible that anyone doesn't know about kitty love-eyes? If you don't like cats, never glare at them with angry squinted eyes, because in cat language you are telling them how much you adore them and their bespittled fur and they will instantly jump on your lap and wish to be adored in return. If you want to keep them away and confused as to why you don't succumb to their irresistible charms, glare with eyes wide, wide open and don't blink for a while. Our cats look at us with long slow winks, which is deep love and appreciation, and I do the same back to them, which ensures that we get on most agreeably.

Body memory

Sorry, haven't been very blogg
Oops, remembered that I swore not to apologise anymore when life gets in the way of blogging.

I've been on autopilot lately; operating 'normally' face to face with people, but feeling really flat and numb inside, the sort of caught-in-a-bubble mood that can be completely indulged by driving the car hard down the highway playing Vienna at ear-blistering volume while tears run down your face.



This is an odd time of year for me: the art school winds up, so I have a less obviously pressing schedule (even though there is LOTS to do), the weather hots up so that my body slows down, but the rest of the world seems to be in a high whizz towards Christmas. I am energised by busy-ness, like a self-winding spring, so unless there are pressing deadlines (I tend to type 'deadlies', which feels right) or people depending upon my efforts, I go into slow mode, and that leaves me time to think or mope, whatever my inclination. This year it's mope, big time.

There are so many names for what I'm going through. Churchill called it the Black Dog, Nick Cave wrote about The Moose in the stairwell. I've been on an internal emotional rollercoaster, which is hard for BB, who is a very smart man but not very intuitive and finds emotional outbursts befuddling. 'What can I do?' is a sensible question when you've been highly trained in management skills and how to motivate a team, but it's infuriatingly useless in the face of someone who wants you to just do something, anything, as long as it's not planned or discussed beforehand. And preferably accompanied by laughter, but he's not inclined to jolly me out of misery: he joins in, which never helps matters.

He sent me a text yesterday, from Melbourne airport, where he'd spent the day:

It's our anniversary soon! What shall we do?

And while I'd like to say everything fell into place, I certainly had a beam of clarity pierce the grey matter.

This is the time of year when bad things happen to my body. Just typing that made my eyes water.

I started writing a list of what happened each year, but if you've been reading the blog you'll know it all. Ever since we've been married, starting from the actual wedding, I've had surgical intervention on my woman parts, mostly for failed pregnancies, but culminating a year ago in the removal of them. All around this time of year.

I'm sure I did the right thing by myself to remove the offending organs (well, they offended me), but I still feel bad about BB's chance to have babies of his own. I console myself with the thought that I have laid a lot of suggestions on the table as to alternatives, with the proviso that if he wants to pursue them he has my full support, but the paperwork/organisation is all his (I think I've done my fair share so far). He's done nothing to date, so the regret can be fully shared in future years.

I think, though, that the combination of time of year and weather and everything is triggering off a large amount of body memory: pain, fear, dissatisfaction, anger, an annual time to take stock and make big decisions about forks in the road. I can't work out if I'm indulging myself or if it's involuntary. I'm unsure if this will pass or build, or be annual or whether I can nip it in the bud. I think having the same routine this year as most of the other years isn't helping (like going to Woodford)... I think I/we need new experiences to avoid this sensation of falling into a pit at the end of the year.

It's not just my flawed body and its memories that has been bringing me down... last weekend Poor Bumblebee had his tender young heart broken by someone we thought was a really good friend. It's a boy in his class who seemed more sensible and sincere than most; he was part of a group of kids who fall in and out of favour with each other constantly, but this boy always seemed to stay out of the pushings and pullings. We had encouraged B to spend time with him after school and on weekends, invited him over a lot, were cheered by B finally finding a friend who seemed to appreciate him for himself (for all his loveliness, he finds it hard to hang out with groups of kids, they always seem to find his weak spots -- he is very easy to tease, he's very thin-skinned). B had so much confidence hanging out with someone who actively listened to him on the same level.

But there was a boy in their 'group' who was very jealous about the afterschool activities, and unbeknown to us was working upon the situation. It's a long story, but ultimately this friend succumbed to the group's mood and hung the phone up on Bumblebee quite brutally, saying he wasn't 'really' his friend anymore. We watched B's face crumple and his confidence shatter on the spot. It was distressing, and made worse by this lad & the rest of the group of lads continuing to ostracise B through the week (not quite silently: pointing and giggling from across the classroom) for nothing that we can actually pinpoint other than it's making the jealous boy happy.

It's sad, and as a family we're all saddened. We feel quite helpless as to what to do. The lad's mother rang back straight after the hang-up and apologised, but didn't sound like she wanted to intervene, thinking it would work itself out. It hasn't, and it isn't a trivial matter. B, who had been feeling secure in that one crucial person's support, feels utterly undermined. He's wary again, and cautious, and we're suffering with him. We all, as a family, feel rejected. We're pretty bad with social upkeep generally, and situations like this show us how thin-skinned the three of us actually are. I went through a lot of them as a young adult, and I'd hoped my child would escape them... but no. So I'm also reliving bad memories of this kind too.

I am pinning my hopes upon high school for Bumblebee. I know it's a whole new big potentially cruel arena, but it will have a breadth that small classroom microcosms don't have. He'll go from a year of 50 students to a mosh of at least 250, and all jumbled up into different classes and groups. The old pecking order will be disrupted, and there will be new opportunities for friendships. And these kids will hopefully learn that you can be friends with each other in different ways and for different reasons.

I can hear thunder outside, which is heartening, but bad for my computer. I think it's time to get out & about, try to jolly up somehow. Harden the f%&* up, as they say.

Feeling full

[discussion of lack of ladybits warning]

*

HELLO!

Thank you for all those lovely well wishes, I'm sure they were floating around my head in hospital like some kind of charm shield. The nurses were all commenting about my swift progress when I was showering myself on day 3. Not that I particularly wanted to shower myself -- I wasn't given a choice, they were majorly understaffed -- but when you need a shower, you need a shower. And I could sit and hold onto things at the same time, so it wasn't too big a deal.

The surgeon said I could go home on Monday. He's very nice, but he's a bit perfunctory. I decided to stay another day (I had the luxury of a private hospital, which is really the only thing I can thank Mr Howard for after forcing us to take health insurance a few years ago, even though I choke on the thought a bit. I did draw the line at watching him on Monday night, though. He still makes me ill when I hear his voice.) because I got a bit wobbly about being at home with our bed that hasn't got a really secure bedhead for sitting up, and that has two huge prowling kitties that like to leap on my lap unexpectedly. So I stayed until Tuesday.

Then on Tuesday the surgeon said that the nurses could take off my plastic wound dressing before I left, to save me coming back to his rooms the next day. He went, and when the nurse came in I asked her about it. 'Nope,' she said. Keep it on until the weekend at least. It has healing and supportive qualities and you'd be much better off. Take it off yourself then.'

I love that sort of knowledge, the stuff that actually benefits the patient rather than is convenient for the doctor. But I shouldn't moan -- my surgeon, and anaesthetist, were fabulous. I've now got no womb, but two healthy ovaries and I still have my appendix (did I mention removing it was an optional extra if it looked a bit peaky?). Which means that I get to keep my wurty hormones, and I get to have a 'normal' menopause, whatever normal means.

At the moment I don't feel like anything has been taken out; when I was a small girl I had a recurring nightmare that people would steal into my bedroom at night, cut me open (in a very small-girl un-gory way, sort of like opening one of those teddybear pyjama-holding pillows) and take out all the bits, replacing them with assorted nasties -- machinery, snakes, stones, whatever -- and sew me up again. I'd wake up, be alive for a few moments then die agonisingly. And then wake up, and prod my tummy cautiously. I feel like someone's done that to my abdomen, it's bloated and full of odd pains and aches and wind. I'm being careful to keep up my pain relief!

The womb itself was apparently very distended with fibroids, so once this bloating disappears I SHOULD feel like something's gone. The poor organ has been to the pathologists to be checked; I haven't heard back from my doctor so I presume there's nothing urgently nasty about it.

The thing that surprised me most about the last week is how little I felt like reading. All that time, all that lying about, and my brain just wasn't interested in text. I watched a lot of bad television, things that made me very glad I don't usually watch a lot of live television. I played a lot of gameboy, particularly Sid Meier's Civilisation Revolution, which is easy and just involves wandering around building cities and snotting other people's armies. I used to play Civ I on my Mac Classic, and don't like many of the changes made to the game, there's less of the actual city control and more emphasis on the snotting. But good when your brain doesn't work.

I'm playing Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass at the moment, and I'm halfway through the game, with the help of the occasional cheatsheet, which I justify because my brain still a bit of a puddle. Bumblebee is very jealous of the fact that I spend my days lolling about playing games, so I've taken to reading to him in bed after school. We're reading Diana Wynne Jones' The Pinhoe Egg. The one book I did read in hospital was her The Merlin Conspiracy. I think I could read her anywhere. People say she's better than JK Rowling; I think they've got separate strengths. Diana's characters aren't as lovable as JKR's, but her vision of magic is, for me, more appealing, much more wicca, or even shinto than JKR. I can see why the Japanese adore her.

My goodness, I'm blathering a bit, aren't I? I'm getting a bit stiff, so it's time to walk around a bit then lie down a lot. I'll be back before you know it, maybe tomorrow. Before I go I just want to say that Best Beloved is still earning his name, big time. He's spending his time cooking me the most wonderful meals (of which I can usually only eat a little bit) and making me comfortable. I have to think of a way to thank him properly.




*THANK YOU (properly) to Laura and Dorian. This image is the front of their get-well card, greeting me when I got home, made by old-fashioned cut & paste methods. I lurv it. (And, BTW, the kitties have behaved themselves beautifully.)

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.