twangypearl the elastic girl

weeds

(Oh dear. The thing is, I can't seem to stop blogging. It's become a displacement activity. There are so many things I should be doing instead, like working on my show, or quoting for a job, laundry, house-work, such-like. We have instituted Date Night on Wednesday evenings, in an effort to avoid the Home for the Bewildered, so I should probably be plucking my eyebrows or something. You know, real world stuff. 

But never mind that, on with the blogging!)

_______________________________________

People are funny. 

I was inspired to do a bit of weeding in the front, last week, before Kerry. (Though, in truth, part of me feels this is discriminating against the weeds. I mean, you know, just because a plant isn't as pretty as the other plants, and is good at growing, must it really be executed by strangulation? After all, I suffered an unattractive, gawky phase in my childhood, where I was the tallest in the class, by at least 6 inches. I was 5 foot tall when I was 8. Very weedy, but no one even attempted my execution. I was thinking about this, as I weeded, in my conflicted way.)

A grey-haired woman came along and we exchanged a "hello!" all friendly-like. She paused.

"Now, please say no, if you don't want to", she said, "but I was wondering if you'd like to collect for the church."

In my new-found honesty, I felt compelled to confide in her as follows:
"Oh! Well, you see, I am not actually a member of it."
And she was all nice and reasonable and said:
"Oh that's fine, even if you were, you still wouldn't have to! I just thought I'd ask as I saw you there."

Beguiled by this lovely respectful way of going about things that the nice lady had, I gaily confessed:
"Actually I'm not even a Catholic!" (not forgetting to slip in, perfidiously) "Though my husband is." (Har! Poor JB)

"Oh well," she said. "Great day for weeding!"

"Indeed!" I agreed, (a word that only ever comes out of my mouth when conversing with vicars and older people) and I go back to the weeds, thinking what a beautiful thing ecumenical relations really are, how we join together in a peaceful reconciliation, each respecting the other, living in harmony.

But as my new friend moved off, her parting shot across the bows was:

"And you have plenty of them!"


 

the black night of the soul

Sleeping.

It should be easy, shouldn't it? But it seems to have slipped my mind how to pull it off. I can fall asleep easily enough, but come 4am (not a good time to think about Life, kids) I am half-awake, and then totally awake, and then thrashing around like a dying fish on the pier. It's not so much fact that it's tiring, as it's depressing, the kind of things you think about at that time of night.
Know what I mean?

Last weekend at my parents', on my squeaky old nun's bed, (and no Kerryman to keep me company), marked a bit of a low-point. Mad thoughts circled my mad little head, including (but not limited to):

• dark thoughts
• mournful thoughts (about a pony I knew that died about 20 years ago, funnily enough)
• ludicrous thoughts
• "brilliant" demented ideas
• Thoughts about my post-menopausal role model, Jane (Surely she doesn't ever feel like this?)
• hungry thoughts
• bored thoughts
• frustrated thoughts

And so on. I'm annoying myself with my early morning angst.

Anyway. I got that off my chest.
Here endeth the moaning.

Twangy

Menopause, the preview!

Two days ago, I went to the GP to have my hormones murdered suffocated momentarily surpressed via zola.dex. I am almost pleased to say that she was nearly as confused as me as to what exactly the ChildDr was up to, and kept asking me what I thought the plan might be. We went over the scenarios a few times, and she explained the zola.dex effect (temporarily to push a woman, kicking and screaming, (in my case), into menopause) before she finally, in a spirit of, "ah sure, you might as well" plunged the waspish sting into the fat of my belly.
I had a few lip wobbles on the way home. My inner voice-over kept saying: but I don't WANT to go into menopause! (I am assuming I am not the only one with a inner voice-over? Anyone? ..anyone? Mine sounds like it's about three), maybe because I didn't understand the need of the treatment, and wasn't prepared for it. A chugger (charity mugger - we have the highest % of chuggers in the world per capita in this town, a fact I have from a reliable source, ie. me) approached me and losing heart as she saw my face, just said: How are you? on a falling intonation. That even a chugger knew it wasn't a good time to "talk for a minute", as their euphemism has it, says it all.

Since then, I have been trying to see this as a positive thing, a nice calming, time-out kind of thing, where my ovaries realign themselves with the House of Leo, or something, and get all happy and productive.

However it is difficult not to take brooding account of every passing whim and give it the name of side-effect. Like I have a slight headache at the moment, as if I had a few too many last night. A side-effect, no doubt.

Lack of energy? SIDE-EFFECT!
Bad mood? SIDE-EFFECT!
Poor sense of decorum? SIDE-EFFECT!

No hot flushes so far, though, in fact, I have been even more chilly than usual of late.

I am finding myself really tedious. So in an effort to make my Month as a Menopausal Woman fun, I am calling it, Menopause, the preview! Which sounds like it should be, (maybe it already is), on Broadway. I am thinking how I could illustrate it.  More on this later..

In the meantime, I finished that job. In the end, they went for an animation of the members of staff jumping into a box, to illustrate the fact they are moving. Here's that Busin*ss Development Manager leaping:

Any resemblance to Mi*s Piggy (who is a very pretty pig anyway, don't you think?) is purely coincidental.

some distraction, but not as we know it

spiral of doom

Today was the day of the physiotherapy, that, along with the rather de-humanising experience of an MRI and cortisone injection, is intended to heal my shoulder, so that no longer will be limited to the Na.zi salute (ie 90° ) but have its full range of the Power Salute/air-punch/high five, even. After a half hour waiting, I was invited to join my torturer physiotherapist, in a curtained off area of a large gym, complete with racks and thumbscrews. She levered my arm back and forth in a competent, if slightly offhand manner. It hurt like a focker. And I cried.

Actually that's not quite true, it wasn't so much the pain as the fear of the pain that made me cry. (This is the screwed up world which we like to call our neuro-muscular system: say you get an injury, to your shoulder, while swimming inexpertly in a pool in Eindhoven (as a totally random example). It hurts and your muscles tighten up in an effort to immobilise and protect the area. So when you repeat the movement, it hurts even more, which makes the muscles even more paranoid and Hey Man! You threatening me? and tight.
And so the cycle of pain and fear of pain gets worse and worse until you are a gibbering rolled up ball in the corner of a cell. Not because of the injury, but because of the fear of the pain of the injury. As the man said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Oh, that's fine, so. THANKS.)

Anyway. I was afraid so I started to cry quietly. And then I felt, oh no! I can't be crying, I am an eegit. Which made me cry more. I thought: get a grip, self. And then, I can't, and it's because I am such an eegit. And the physio said: Are you okay? Is it the pain?
And I was thinking: it's the fear of the pain! How can I tell her that, she looks about 23, not to be ageist, but has she ever pulled a muscle in her life? it's the fear of being an eegit! it's the fear.. we have nothing to fear but.. oh Gawd, what I am thinking, I am such an eegit. Then I looked up long enough to see that the Physio had spangly Urban decay-ish eye-shadow on. And this, (essentially seeing something shiny), distracted me enough to climb out of the hole. And the grip was got, finally.

I still feel bad about feeling bad though. No-one cries unless he or she needs to.

Twangy says: CRY IF YOU LIKE.
I am printing tee-shirts.

a brush with the medical

Artist's impression of my doctor at the clinic.

I don't know what I expected but the most high-achieving and competent 12 year old in the world wasn't it. I looked her up on the web, and there she is, getting her qualifications in South Africa in '95, and therefore, despite all appearances, not 12, but rather in her thirties. Yet, she is TINY, like a preteen dressed up as a adult in black tights and a dress, I tell you.
The child Doctor told me that my tests are looking good, apart from the scan which shows my Whoppers, (the Monster-endo-cysts). She recommends a lap and then IVF, given my advanced age. (I, at any rate, am not 12, more's the pity).
So there's that to digest. I think I'll have the cysts out anyway, to improve "the environment", as she called it. (I felt like suggesting putting a few trees and a recycling centre in there, but resisted the urge).
 IVF, I don't know. I am afeared of it, still, but, there you are in the clinic, and there they are telling you what they can do for you, the momentum alone is liable to carry you along.

I had a blood test then, after a quick crossant with the JB, and trotted over to the GP where I waved my arm up and down as much as that is possible. She agreed that it is "bad", and on the road to being a frozen shoulder altogether, and referred me to a Sports Surgery Clinic in my neighbourhood, where apparently they are all state of the art and whatnot, (although  the word "surgery" in their name is not filling me with confidence).
Thus endeth the update.
(I do this for posterity, you know.)

Your duly examined,
Twangy

back on ould sod

Yesterday, while we were on a train to Munich, the Fertility Clinic rang and rescheduled our first appointment to Friday, that is, tomorrow, which means: Gaaaah! My blood pressure is climbing even as I type this. As is my custom though, I am determinedly hanging a sign up in my head which says: THINK ABOUT THIS LATER. Combined with some loud interior la la la singing in there, this strategy helps me to survive all manner of embarrassing Dr's appointments/ interviews/exams.
It is hard to hear over the la-la-LA-ing, though. I have loads to do in the house, and catching up with work, and making lists of all the Fantastic Things I planned to do when I got home. (Coming home from holidays is the equivalent of New Year's Eve because as I leave, the thought that I may never see home again never fails to enter my head, uninvited. So when I get home, I am all new and full of vim, because, surprisingly enough, I AM ALIVE! I make all kinds of resolutions. I am reborn! Hurray!).

Before I forget all about Zell, here is a quick tour of our photos:

Wonderfully repressive sign on carriage of train. The grumpy old woman in me loves this.

Cake-like building in Innsbruck, with icing window frames. (Photo does not convey wilting heat).

I am a giant framing device. I am massive, bigger than Alps! I AM A COLOSSUS.

Day of big long walk down mountain. In the battle between fear (avoiding chairlift, but walking all the way down to the town) and laziness (taking the frightening, frightening chairlift but avoiding big long walk), I fear that fear won.

Far far distant town of Zell, and no way to get there except Shank's Pony. Hrmm.

Your cowardly
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

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?]

in the bleak mid-winter, snoooow on snow

It's snowing. Quite exciting really. We are in thrilling trench mentality, in batten-down-the-hatches mode, even though the snow storm is more of a little Irish-style Shnow Stormeen in a teacup. I dodged world-saving One Dialysis Patient At A Time today on account of (what we like to think of as) the severe weather conditions. The idea of getting up early and slip-sliding down the road to the fogged-up bus full of sleepy commuters and then walking up the wind-swept plain with the wind coming straight off the mountains was enough to strike laziness terror into my heart. Never mind, we'll make it up to them later in the term.
I feel a lot more cheerful. Phew. And hurray! even.
Spike and co were down to visit on Sunday. Spike is a stickler for precision. And he doesn't seem to buy into the idea that there may well be more than one word for anything. So for instance, sheep are not to be referred to as Sheep, but as lambs, to please His Highness. Call a truck a lorry, and you risk being cut off with a bellowing NO! He reminds me of one of those Evil Kings in fairy tales who cuts off his daughter's suitors' heads at the drop of a hat. Was there one I remember that when he asked the young men to describe  what was wrong with his legs, if they dared to say one was shorter than the other, rather than one is longer than the other, he would summarily behead them? Or was that one of my lurid dreams. (Last night I dreamt I got a resounding round of applause for singing that old Beatles song I want to hold your hand. It was really fun. Maybe I have a secret desire to be a big show-off!)
Spike got over all those word-games in any case and turned out to be in a good mood, with much shrieking and jumping and wrestling. Dazzle is lovely - she can pull herself up to standing now, and is tolerant and as sweet as something really sweet like..eh.. a lump of sugar.
Smokey (Oldest Horse In The World) seemed much better than I expected. He seemed so full of energy and so strong that it was easy to dismiss any idea of this being an appropriate end to his life. He seemed not bothered by the snow, just shying and snorting like a youngster at a plastic bag. (A lot of horses have paranoid delusions about plastic bags. Why, no one knows. They are to horses what surveillance devices are to mental patients).
So all is well, for now. And even with that proviso, for now, I am happy and relieved.