twangypearl the elastic girl

the shining

Here I am in my father-in-law’s front room, surrounded by photos of his boys in gowns, (ha! Not that sort of gown! that would be a cartoon to do, but no scanner at hand, sadly) in various degree ceremonies. For even unto darkest Kerry I have come, an incredibly lengthy train journey (it would take less time to go to another country altogether, like say, the USA), to see the JB and his Dad. It’s one of those linear Irish towns, his hometown, built as if on a ledge between the side of a mountain and a tidal river, and prone to gloomy dark rain.
This afternoon we went out and walked along the hill behind the town, and back through the terraced houses.  We passed one spooky, grey, semi-abandoned one, and the JB regaled me with a story of how a mad man used live there. The mad man used to forget to take his medication and get up on top of his house and be mad! And there was another, wherein a “shiner” used to live.

A shiner? I said, puzzled. (Did a huge black eye live in the house? Or someone who cleaned shoes for a living?) What’s that?

You know, a shiner, he answered. Someone who, you know, exposes himself to people. He used shine all around town!

I thought about this.

A flasher, you mean?

Pause.

Oh yeah. A flasher.

The JB has a PhD, for Gawd’s sake. He has published a ton of papers. My latest hypothesis about this strange and wonderful JB, is that he reserves all his brain power (every brain cell, yes, I do mean all of them) for his research. It’s a bit like living with a very nice Martian, sometimes. Not so long ago, I witnessed him picking up a packet of cocoa, peering at it, and saying slowly KOH-KOH-AH.

He’ll be the death of me, by laughter.

Freudian slip

I was shearing cutting the JB's fleece hair last night. He goes for a kind of R*ddy Doyle, know the one?

We invested in the Hair Clipping Machine a few years ago, because the JB was too lazy to go to the barber, and would end up with a woolly look, like a bespectacled lamb, that was cute only to me and his Dad.
Like this:

Anyway, last night. We were jokey from relief from dodging the Home for the Bewildered and there I was, ploughing furrows in the JB crop of hair, telling him how good I was getting at this.  (He tells me I am my own best press agent. It's true. For some reason, it amuses me hugely to boast to JB. I do do it a lot. Then I ask him if I am a pain. (However, I'd like to assure everyone, lest they should be put off meeting me in the flesh, that this behaviour is reserved for him.) (And my mother. That's it. I swear. Right, well. Let's pause while you give thanks that you are not married to me.
...
and neither did you give birth to me
...
))

I took the guard (it has settings, like 3 and 4, on it. See? I am practically a professional) off so I could trim some stray wool hairs. I'd just finished. Oh. Wait a minute, it's a little bit uneven there, I'll just...

UH-OH.

I forgot to put the guard on again.

Oh.

 

Home for bewildered: Avoided, by a whisker

We've been through the wringer this weekend. It started in I.KEA, amongst all the nesting, clucking couples, choosing their SNIGLARs on Friday evening. JB was all morose and touchy, and not his normal lovely self (he really is very easy-going normally). But when I'd ask him, he'd claim to be "grand". This went on, the "grandness", until finally that night at home, he admitted to being a bit down about the rough 18 months we've had, and how he felt sad for us. Oh, JB, says I. Tell me next time, so I know.

End of problem, or so we thought.

Saturday was shaky. But better. We went to see Up (which is very good. A child's film with a grown-up central theme, about losing your grip on your dreams and getting older. (How apt)).
In the foyer, JB told me he had been putting money aside for our next visit to the ChildDr in December. Well, (I said) as I 'd explained before, I only made the appointment because the secretary rang me and put me on the spot - I had not committed myself to it. Oh, grand, he said.
By the time we got out I was feeling very sorry for myself. My shoulder was aching, (apparently I have arthritis in it, I discovered on Thursday) I was tired (the 4AM watch continues), I didn't want to think about IVF in December, I was depressed about the whole effing everything.
I started to cry quietly. He asked me if I was ok. We got home. I went into the kitchen, and to my astonishment, he, the JB, my lovely compassionate JB, turned on his computer and started working on a paper, ignoring his sobbing wife.

Me (bitterly, with maximum sarcasm): That must be very important to you, J.
He said he didn't know what to say, and I said he didn't have to say anything, just be with me and give me a hug. Then the whole thing came out, (incoherently, in an un-Jane-like messy rush) about how I felt pressurized to do IVF, and I didn't feel I was getting any support, or he would stick by me even if it was a disaster, and he was avoiding me and just burying himself in work. He admitted he used work to avoid thinking about our problems but he was there with me and we would be okay, he loved me no matter what. Things ended on a better note. He was happy we had cleared the air, we had a bit of a laugh on the sofa about ourselves.

End of problem, or so we thought.

Sunday morning. What does JB want to do today? (Does he want to come down to see my parents, as previously discussed?).

He said: I think I'll stay here and do some work.

ARGG.
More tears. Seriously, this was his response to last night's discussion? Seriously, now? MORE WORK?

Well, (he said) really he just wanted some time by himself and didn't want to hurt my feelings.
Well. I could understand that, I often ask for quiet time. That was okay.

I sometimes think you'd be better off without me, says JB. Your life would be less painful.

Sad silence.

And then a little voice in my head pointed out that the JB feeling guilty like this, it is not good, for either of us.
Thank you, little voice.
In a moment of inspiration, I got up and got my little book, The Portable Therapist, which I bought while having a wobble on our honeymoon. It is so sensible and kind.

We read some chapters to each other and it was like being trapped in a blind alley, and suddenly finding a door handle. The author, a wise, wise woman, tells how destructive and pointless guilt is, how it paralyses you, how it turns into blame and resentment. and prevents you from really living. So all the guilt the poor JB was feeling about wanting a biological child so much, about my having the lap and all the treatment I might need, and the guilt I felt about not being able to get pregnant, all had to stop.
Oh!

What a relief.

Not that that's going to be as simple as that, of course. But I feel like a door opened for us. There's help there if we need it.

We are finally, finally, on the same page, at least for now.

 

entertaining

JB's friend and colleague plus wife/partner (depends who you ask) were to come over on Saturday for dinner.  In the midst of the mad panic culinary preparations, I rang my mother who is a well-known good "cooker" (as the kids say) to ask her how to prepare some chestnuts quickly, in time for dinner. (JB had come home with uncooked chestnuts in their shells.)

She responded:

Where did you get the chestnuts? You didn't.. did you find them in the park?

Ma. I do know you can't give people conkers for dinner.

 

state of play

Menopause symptoms=0

(Unless you count the rush of blood to the head I got when JB had the NERVE to ask me to get him some mayonnaise and milk the other day and then, after 10 mins, ADD green apples to that list as if he'd never heard of rush hour traffic and parking. This was even as he kindly was rushing home to let me in, when I found I'd locked myself out. Yes, that could have been sheer crankiness, but oh look! here's the zola.dex, let me hide behind that.)
So:

Menopause symptoms=1

All is well. In fact, things are wonderfully quiet internally. You don't realise how much of a tide of hormones your mood rides on until it stops, everything is still, you are unchained from the beast and you become calm and powerful and Jane Fonda-in-that-l'Oreal-ad-like.
(Well, one can but hope).

Here's another thing:

I've been painting the front door, and feeling urges to bake, and knit.
So help me, I think I'm nesting.

sights for sore eyes

Some backstory: I am rather short on sight, blind as a potato, and when I go to the pool, the better to wave my arm around as if training for the synchronised swimming event in the Arm Olympics 2012*, I remove my glasses. I then walk/swim around in a fog, marveling at how all the other people are reduced to blobs, as if painted by an Impressionist. This is wonderfully liberating. It's hard to have prejudices if you can't see if you are swimming alongside a grey-haired man rather than a annoyingly smooth and fit young wan.

But even I could see a canoodling couple in the pool. "Ooh, brave" I thought. "You never know when a situation could arise." And even I, with my weak eyesight, could plainly see when the young fella got out of the pool that a situation had indeed reared its head.
GAH. Mortification by proxy.

The JB is back from Canada where he'd been lying around being fed grapes by servants in gold tunics, or, sitting on a panel in a conference, as he refers to it. So early Tuesday morning found me waiting for him in the arrivals hall. There were touching reunions all around, and I was becoming misty-eyed at the way we people form attachments, at our wonderfully human capacity to love.
Ah.

I got a text from the JB saying he was waiting for his bag.
"Let's run together in slow-motion when we see each other" he said.
But sadly we were too chicken, (ah, if only I were brazen, I'd like that) and we had to satisfy ourselves with a hug, suitable for public consumption. I was glad to have him back.

Meanwhile, in another county, my father is settling in back home. He still has work to do, but he's getting on well, and I think he and my mother are adjusting to this new turn of the page.
(Strange, this marriage thing, isn't it? You hitch your star to someone else's, in the name of love, on a hunch, really, but with no inkling of what might happen, and you can but hope for the best.)

Your, blinking in bemused fashion,
Twangy

*Arm-waving as recommended by my physio. We had another torture session yesterday, and this time, instead of crying, I laughed semi-hysterically. It still hurt. The spangly-eyed one twisted and levered, pummeled and pounded as if her life depended on it, but somehow I was more prepared, and it was okay (sort of). And worth it, because it does seem to be working.

Destiny is calling

Well well well. (The story of the three wells, as my father used to say, in a fine example of Dad humour). Here we are again. The Time, as JB calls it, came in a timely fashion, (though oddly, it was almost painless). So no miracle then, I am for the chop. And, to add insult to injury, (literally) it's going to be rather expensive.

No point in arguing though, it's booked. The die is cast. (Hah! I used half-wittedly to think it was the dye is cast, I thought it was something to do with home hair-dye jobs gone bad. Oh dear.) I may have to stay overnight, in order to be starved, a thing I object to on two counts:
1) it costs even more of a fortune to stay overnight (because we made a mess of our health insurance, and the ChildDoctor only works at certain private hospitals) and
2) Sleep? huh, in my dreams! (ironically), in a hospital bed.
And oh! 3) pay 5 star hotel rates, to be starved?

WOE IS ME.

The JB is currently lounging around in Toronto like a playboy on some kind of a "work trip". Lucky divil.
I may need to make greater efforts in the socialising dept before he comes back to find me a wild lunatic who has lost the power of speech. The only person I spoke to today was my mother, on the phone. My voice sounded a bit croaky and out of practice, even after just a day.
(I work on my own in a shed at the bottom of the garden, with no one but slugs and spiders for company).
Further evidence I should probably Get Out More: I made a cake today. Whizzed it up, put it in the oven. Then it struck me that I had forgotten to put the eggs and milk (ie, the whole wet part) in the mixture, so, quick as lightning, I  retrieved the sludge from the oven where it had hardly started to cook at all, and beat them in determinedly. Good save, me.
 
Speaking of the cake, it is calling me from the house.
TWAAANNNNGY!!! If you don't eeeeat me, I won't have fulfilled my destiny! Myyy deeeestiny!

It's probably not a good sign when baked goods start speaking to you.
I best away before I add to the body of evidence against myself.
Till later,
Twangy

PEACE HAS BROKEN OUT

The Charm and Disarm strategy seems to have done the trick! Hurray for nice-iosity.
I was in the back today in the bright and chilly sunshine, doing some clipping of the jungle and standing on of a snail, (sorry, snail. I did not enjoy the sudden underfoot crunch, and actually gazed at you for a minute after your untimely demise on the paving, (ironically I had just "saved" you from being thrown amongst the rubble) wandering if 1) you could be saved, by cleverly throwing off your shell and becoming a slug or 2) I should put you out of your misery by pouring salt on you and watching you shrivel up), when I was distracted by my neighbour's cordial salute, all friendly-like, from the fence. We had a slightly awkward conversation through the fence. It is not designed for inter-neighbour communication, in truth, the lathes being laid in such a way to be either covering the eyes of the person to whom you are speaking, or the mouth. So I was forced into a kind of solicitous bobbing dance to catch the drift of what Nuala was saying. Which was: they are not going to do anything with the fence - it's fine. And when I tried to apologise for the fact that our extension takes light from their garden, she said "ah sure, it gives us a bit of shelter!" And then, after the ritual complaining about the weather, we smiled cheerily and bobbingly at each other and bid our farewells. I am really happy. I hate to be on bad terms with people, especially those with whom I live so very cheek-by-jowl. Nuala, too, redeemed herself - and will now be characterised in a more favourable light when I write my graphic novel about the neighbourhood - Cheek by Jowl, which was to be a murder mystery with her as the rotten-hearted culprit, and much skulduggery and fleet of foot around of the back lanes at night time (Well. I just made that up, but I think the point is made). It was a stunning transformation and I am a bit pleased with myself, I have to admit. My relief is out of proportion with the reality, because in some deep unlit part of me, I now see I perceive it as some sort of omen. (I wouldn't have thought of myself up till now, as a superstitious person, really, but in fact it seems that I am, really. Might as well admit it. Time to get on with it, in fact. Although I draw the line at joining a coven). I mean, how else to make sense of the way life runs in great loops of bad luck and good? I feel we've been loitering in the dark these last 18 months - I haven't felt my usual doesn't-bear-thinking-about luckiness (Lord this is truly middle-class angst. I do realise. I realise. Apologies to those with Real Problems)  - like:
the 2 penalty points I got for the one and only time I ever answered the mobile while driving (in bumper to bumper traffic too).
See: pregnancy, lack thereof
See: purchase of house the very second before the boom ended
See: being ripped off by builders big time
See also: gratuitous violence done to car x 2, and husband x 1
But now, with our lovely builder, Peter the Great, his beautiful job on my shed, (he wouldn't even take the money for the roof he fixed for us months ago - I mean I had to press the payment on him! extraordinary, it was) and JB's thumbs up from the doctors wrt to his "boys", with the fact my neighbour Came Around, my show which was a success, and the fact we are well, and healthy, and it's Spring, there is so much to celebrate.
JB came back from Kerry, all giddy and rested and back in 15 year old gear. (Whenever he goes home (it is my contention that) he regresses to his teenage years and forgets to bathe and goes around on his bike with his little legs going like pistons.) And we seem to be on a better track, too. I rang the Italian Police for my clearance last week and was told by a kind man with an all but unintelligible (to me) thick Roman accent that it must have been lost and he would send it again. He even asked me to ring him to confirm that it arrived safely) I could just imagine him sitting in a dusty office in Rome, surrounded by metal filing cabinets, planning his pensionable years, with the marble statues outside, keeping their relentless watch.

And so it is that a ray of sunlight slants into my young/old heart. And today is good, and that is enough for me.

Your grateful
Twangy

Water water

12.00AM SMS to Twangy's mobile from JB:
drink some water
13.00PM A little more water
14.00PM Have a little sup
15.00PM A little boiled water
And so on. I don't know why, it must be one of those blessed mysteries that make marriage work, but I find this very sweet. You see, last night I had a bout of cystitis (horrors! dreads!) but it seems that with all these helpful hourly reminders to imbue enough H2O to sink a Mediterranean cruiser, I may yet have dodged that burning bullet.
That is the JB. The problem, but also the solution. My heart nearly failed me last week - he'd gone away for a few days for St Patrick's Day to see his father at the Edge of the World (aka remotest Kerry) - and I was left to brood over our situation. While others pirouetted and cavorted their way down O'Connell St, painted green, I was weeping quietly into my keyboard. I don't know why it hit me so. (I mean, obviously, I'd like to blame St Patrick, but I'm finding it tricky to find the thread of responsibility that joins a shamrock-loving medieval saint to my marital problems). I feel as if I am grieving for the happy calm early years of marriage I had so arrogantly envisaged. I feel I am making an adjustment to the reality of what and where we are, and it's hard, sometimes. But it's so strange too, it's like a wave breaking over me and then it's over, and I am - not fine exactly - but peaceful enough and able to look forward to things.
I went to have water torture this week a la pelvic ultrasound. It seems that I have some little fibroids and a little cyst. Nothing to worry about, really, but as the doctor explained, there could be some "polycystic element" going on there, which could be an explanation for our non-up-the-spout-ness, if the JB's test turns out to be normal. Indeed, I did have some cysts in the past. And though my tests were all fine, and dandy, when I looked at the list of symptoms, I thought I recognised the moodiness and acne. (Blooming Nora, what a syndrome. Talk about insult and injury. Infertility, weight gain AND depression. And if that wasn't enough, have some painful volcano-like spots too). He is going for that on Wednesday, poor feller.
In the meantime, I am working away on my shows, and I had precisely 3 weeks to turn out a ton of animated scenes. Yikes. The clocks are driving me flipping crazy. (Another witty clock joke! I slay myself).
It seems that somehow there is however time to go to Eindhoven to see my college friend Joa.nie in Str.p. She is in a show with A.phex Twin and Laurie Ander.son! Oh the reflected glory! and the reflected reflected glory! for yes, I helped her make her performance machine, wherein she will lurk for the 10 days of the festival ("err" I said, "are you sure you really want it to be that small?") albeit in that slightly nay-saying way. I am so looking forward to it. OH WOW! Give me a change of scene and I am all excited.
In the meantime, hand me down a glass of water. I'll need to be in good shape for all this.

A Tuesday

Tuesday 7.15
I slide out of bed and into shower in one movement. I'm vaguely aware of more brightness and warmth. Apparently in the last 2 weeks spring has sprung, and the grass has riz. JB's mobile goes off in the bathroom where he has seen fit to leave it and I go back to the bedroom to throw it on the bed. There is no speaking. My hair is wet but who cares, I am going. I can get a tea later. On the bus, which is good enough to come promptly, a bad-tempered woman sits by me and occupies more than her Twangy-allotted space. So I think. Then I chastise myself for thinking that. I plug in my mp3 player, but the battery is dead. My eyes glaze over. My brain glazes over.
It's 8am. At O'Briens I indulge/sustain myself with a take away green tea and a flapjack which I partly wolf as I wait for the LUAS. (The crumbs from the remainder spread around the bottom of my bag, sticking to various pieces of fluff and tubes of lip salve). I step on to the LUAS. I am happy, the LUAS is wonderfully sleek and modern and I pretend I am in a film travelling into the future. In reality I travel along Abbey St to Hueston and out to Tallaght and the hospital. It's tremendously bright. The canal is very high, and is catching the blue light of the sky. Things are pretty. I am thinking about last night when JB applied the wrong tone to the wrong words and upset me. (Although really, of course, the matter is another deeper one). I feel teary. I get bored of my thoughts and pick up a free newspaper. My horoscope tells me not to force the issue with loved ones - things will fall into place on their own if I leave them alone. I am cheered by this.
It's 8.40am. I'm a bit hungry. I turn over the paper. There's a story about J.ade Goo.dy (is that her name? She of Big Brother fame?) and how she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She is only 27, and the fact that she at one point became something of a despised figure in the tabloid press (after her racist behaviour on celebrity BB) makes the reporting of her news an uncomfortable affair. The change in tone doesn't convince - it's not different enough, its focus is still on her celebrity - as if this was a publicity stunt. I contemplate her circumstances. So much worse than mine. I step off the LUAS.
It's 9 or so. I gobble the few lumps of flapjack that remain in the wrapper by turning it inside out as I walk along and lobbing them down my throat. I throw out my tea cup in a steel LUAS bin. I slip in the back gate where the staff enter unofficially and take a shortcut through the smokers' meeting place. It has an illicit air about it. Past the Recovery Doc where the staff are having breakfast and I am inside the hospital. It's warm and clean. The usual notices about Clean Hands saving lives, the trolleys along Main St whirring along, the patients in their PJs taking a stroll, the whole place has a reassuring air of quiet competence about it. It's a ticking machine.
There's no sign of L.ucia, although it's 9.10. I collect the art trolley, do the requisite back-and-forth with the keys and trundle back down what is jovially referred to as Main St. Past the people waiting for blood tests, the splinting dept, the mortuary, to the dialysis department. I apologetically enter and dump the trolley there for a minute, while I step out to try to conact L.ucia. (Phones are emphatically prohibited in the department for fear they could interfere with the dialysis machines. These dire warnings are cheerfully ignored by the patients, who openly chat and text on their phones, let alone keep them on. Makes one wonder if the similar warnings on aircraft are a load of hooey, too-ey).
All are quiet. One patient, who was so sick and afraid last week, is sleeping. I hope he's better. I don't dare wake him. I hate waking people, even healthy ones. I know that despite the clean orderly appearance of this ward, with each patient resting or watching telly in bed, things could turn on a tuppence at any time for any one of them - they are so vulnerable to infection - even the Winter stomach bug could finish them off. For all that they look comfortable and safe, death is lurking not far away and they never forget it. I look around. Most people are sleeping. Then the nurse calls me to the phone. I am all apologetic. It seems a frivolous use of the ward phone. L.ucia tells me she has to go to a funeral of a young parent in her daughter's school. She says she forgot to ring me last night, but I am not sure why she didn't ring this morning. I feel slightly stitched up - maybe she knew I wouldn't want to come on my own and thought our Art Office Co-ordinator might notice no-one was there at all. (She, L.ucia, is the artist-in-residence here, not a volunteer) I tell her it's okay, but I let a silence lengthen for a second after she explains to indicate my lack of thrilled-ness. But, it IS okay.
It's 9.30. The nice man from Kerry has been sick last week, but now he's well. He is persuaded to paint in the lawn on his painting of a country house. And at least in that way, we both feel something has been achieved. He offers me a Fruit Pastille (he is fond of snacking on dialysis) and I am grateful. After a time, I leave him to it and go down the hall for a sit-down. I have a cup of weak tea and a some ginger biscuits. I give up my seat because they are in short supply and pass the time as I gulp my hot tea by reading a poster about smoking. The coloured illustration of the diseased lung looks like a sandy sponge. The cervical tumour looks huge and out of place. I am appropriately alarmed. It's time to go back to the ward. I tidy up and discreetly trundle away up the Main St. It's about 11. I return the trolley to the age-related end, and I take the LUAS back to town. I go into a pleasant daze on the way. The LUAS has a comforting rhythm, and is all nice, even though it is plastered - even the ceilings - with ads for a vibrating cleanser. Phhhiifff. I am not buying it. In town I feel tired. It's The Time. I text my friend A, thinking she may be working in the GPO today but she tells me to come up to her office and I get on the 13A and do that. It's sunny. We go and buy a sangwich and eat it in the park. She and her sister also my friend L, quiz me about my plan for the shed conversion. I am increasingly queasy - though not enough to prevent wolfing of sangwich - and can't parry them effectively, though I know they are right. I should get moving on it. I should get him to re-do the roof and put in a dome window. I just feel too defeated at this minute to make the effort. JB rings me as I walk uncomfortably home, hoping I will make it before my stomach explodes. He can't find his phone. I tell him I am not feeling so good. He says "Ok, grand, I'll go so", and hangs up summarily. I feel abandoned. I get home and have to lie down for a bit, so I stretch out on the sofa with the West Wing in the background. It's an episode that concentrates on CJ - she's meeting Danny in a restaurant while a nuclear reactor threatens to melt down. I admire her calm. How do these people hack it? (I mean the real ones? I wonder if they actually have a personality disorder of some yet to be diagnosed type - who could do it? Who would have the nerve? the hubris?) I fall asleep to the reassuring rhythm of the clever dialogue. When I wake I feel So Much Better. I am renewed! Tra-la-la! I do a bit of work on my computer. I improvise a nice dinner of sweet potato and spinach stir-fry. I smile. I make jokes to myself. I wonder what has happened in my brain to allow this to happen. I am a different woman. When JB come home, we talk about how he might not hang up immediately next time I am telling him I am sick. He explains he thought I was travelsick from the bus and would want to get off the phone as soon as humanly possible. I explain that this is not so.
And this is ok. It's ok. It's OK.
We watch Desperate Housewives. I do my yoga. We go to bed. I sleep deeply. Tuesday is over.


[Some men I drew in the cafe. I wonder if they were gangsters?]