Dull

I know, in my heart and in my head, that I have nothing of import to impart, but I spit things out anyway, like those bits of puke that get stuck in the back of your throat and make you gag: a piece of undigested spaghetti, maybe, or a fragment of spinach.

I load the dishwasher, careful to place the forks tines-up, wipe the crumbs from the counter, clean the sink, feed the cat. No one posts pictures of loaded dishwashers on the internet. Or not to my knowledge anyway. Maybe I'll google it later. In this era of cats and coffee mugs, loaded dishwashers can't be far behind.

Watching video footage of a cycling tour through Italy while running in place seems unfathomably ridiculous. I wonder how many people are concerned about their heart health and how many people just want to look good at the beach. Why are there kids on the treadmills?

Ah, the drudgery of life. This is not the first time I've written about minutiae, about ennui. Only boring people get bored. Am I boring? Iggy Pop is the self-proclaimed chairman of the bored, and he's had a pretty exciting life, all things considered. He probably loads his dishwasher. I bet he even goes to the gym. 

I often catch a glimpse of something dark in my peripheral vision, something too tiny or moving too quickly for me to see. This time it was an ant, which I picked up, tossed in the toilet, and drowned in urine. If it finds something, a counter crumb I missed, maybe, it will relay that message to the surprisingly-hardy colony that lives just outside the garage door. Best not to take the chance by letting it live. The urine drowning was incidental; I had to pee. Two birds.

But it's not always an ant. Sometimes it's nothing. Which makes me wonder what it is that I am seeing out of the corner of my eye. Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I blinked and didn't realize it. Sweet mother of fuck, is this what I've sunk to? Wondering if I've just blinked?

Tomorrow I will be vivacious, witty, vibrant. Today I'm going to try to beat my score in computer mah-jong.













   

End of June Blues

I do this thing where I meet with kids once or twice a week and help them with their English homework. I also double as a counsellor a lot of the time, because being a kid these days is rough, man. (Being a kid is always rough, but I think it's even harder today. If you think navigating the labyrinth that is social media is tough as an adult, imagine trying to fumble your way through it as an awkward teenager. I thank my lucky stars that my adolescence was pre-internet.)

We share a secret, these students and I, because they know that I am on their side, not the side of their parents or teachers. More rewarding than an A+ essay is helping these kids realize that they are more than just the marks they get in school. Marks are important, I tell them, but only insofar as they are stepping stones to one possible future. You have so many more possible futures than you can imagine. There is no single path to success, despite what your parents or teachers might tell you. It might take you a while to find your thing. Some people never find it. It sucks, but that's life. Trust me. I know. But if I can help you find it, I will do everything I can. Now remember to use present tense and active verbs.

One of my kids plays hockey and broke his two front teeth. I noticed right away, and I also noticed how he avoided looking directly at me, frequently putting his hand in front of his mouth. Hey! I said, after a few minutes. Did you break your teeth? Playing hockey? That's awesome! All the best hockey players have no front teeth. Are you getting them fixed soon? And the kid relaxed and we read another chapter in Lord of the Flies. Sometimes you break your teeth. There's no point in trying to hide it. (I'm pretty sure that's a metaphor for something. Life, maybe.)

Twice I have had girls get their periods on my furniture. They are mortified, but I am cool. Periods happen. Sometimes they happen on someone else's couch. (I'm pretty sure that's another metaphor for something.)

My favourite student will be leaving me soon for university. On Friday she asked if she could come for the next couple of weeks, even though her final exams are finished and we have nothing to work on. She said that she can't imagine not seeing me, she doesn't want to stop. And I know that part of this is just the anxiety that accompanies this next step, but part of me also knows that I have played a role in shaping this gorgeous, confident creature who is about to go off into the world and help make it a better place, and she doesn't want to go without me. And that feeling, man. It's indescribable.

It's watching their reaction that moment at the end of Of Mice and Men.  Listening to them complain about the pressure their parents are putting on them and reminding them that soon they will be out of the house. Introducing them to Ray Bradbury. Congratulating them on getting 27 on the speaking section of the TOEFL. Discussing the blow-your-mind ending of Life of Pi. Assuaging their fears about university. Reminding them not to procrastinate. Playing poker as a reward for memorizing their vocab lists. Sharing bands. Assuring them that they are not alone in feeling alone. Explaining the symbolism of colours and seasons. Watching comma splices disappear. Having them point something out that I hadn't thought of even though I'd read the book sixteen times.

This, I think, is my strength and my purpose: to help people feel confident and beautiful and smart when they feel self-conscious and ugly and stupid. So when they leave me and fly off to university or (as so often happens) back to Korea, I feel tiny splinters jabbing at me from inside my chest. My darlings, I am so proud of you. Good luck out there in the world. Don't worry too much if you break your teeth or get your period on someone else's couch. Try not to procrastinate. Be confident. Be bold. Keep reading. And riot on.  

Leaky

If you've been following along at home, you will probably be aware of two things: 1. I was recently waiting for a repair guy, and 2. if something interesting happens, I will tell you about my period. (That was your warning. If you find either of those facts boring and/or offensive, stop reading now.)

So a few months ago, I bought a DivaCup to aid in my body's superfun transition to menopause because my period was getting out of control. I'm talking slasher-film bloody here, but this ain't no corn syrup, friends. Period Monday was a goddamn nightmare. From the DivaCup website: "The DivaCup conveniently holds one full ounce of menstrual flow (30 ml). As the average woman only flows approximately 1 to 2 ounces (30-60 ml) per cycle, The DivaCup is the ideal menstrual solution to care for your cycle. In fact, many women are surprised at the amount of flow and expected that there would be much more!" I overflowed that cup twice in one hour on the first day of my cycle. Do the math. That's a lot of fucking blood.

Tuesday was pretty normal. Nothing out of the ordinary, although I did remove, clean, and reinsert the stupid thing 8 times just to be on the safe side. If there is one thing I've come to expect these past few months, however, it's that my period likes to fuck with me. And fuck with me it did.

Today I was sitting on the couch waiting for the fridge repair guy to arrive, watching the latest episode of Parks and Recreation and eating a bowl of mini ravioli, when two things happened simultaneously. The first thing was that I saw the repair van pull into the driveway. The second thing was that I felt a gush and a gurgle down below. A quick hand down my pants confirmed blood.

Unless you have a uterus and sometimes shove a soft plastic cup up there to contain menstrual blood, you will be unable to imagine the peculiar blurpy feel of blood oozing past the plastic in your vagina and spilling into your panties that I felt at that moment.

I was faced with a dilemma: do I run to the bathroom, knowing that the repair guy would be ringing the doorbell any second, and knowing that the particular brand of mess I had to clean up would take considerably longer than his patience? Sitting around waiting for the repair guy to show up is a drag, and I didn't want him to leave. Or do I answer the door while little bloopy fart sounds are coming out of my cunt as blood spills into my crotch, possibly down my legs? (I was wearing shorts.)

I opted for the latter, after hurriedly throwing a pantiliner down my pants and washing the blood from my fingers. Ah yes! Hello! Pleasantry pleasantry! Right this way! Here's the fridge, there's a leak back there! Excuse me for a moment, will you? I'll be right back!

I used the basement bathroom in case the embarrassing queef noises continued. Removed the overflowing cup, rinsed, reinserted, wiped the blood from the toilet seat, flushed, washed my hands. When I exited the bathroom, the repair guy was shouting down the stairs for my assistance. There was no changing my soiled outfit at present, apparently. Thank Christ for dark denim.

The service call lasted less than half an hour, and the fellow was pleasant and efficient. Both the leak in the fridge and the leak in my cunt have been remedied. For the moment, anyway.


 

Adrian the Butcher

Adrian the butcher always picks the best cuts for me.

 

He is a big man, ruddy of complexion. His eyes are a disarmingly pale blue, and his hair is white beneath his white cap, although we are probably the same age. (Is there an almost-albino gene?) His apron is stained pink with the blood of a thousand slaughtered cows.

 

He chooses the most-perfectly-marbled of striploins, the meatiest racks of lamb, the savouriest of sausages, and the plumpest of pork chops, weighs them, wraps them in  brown paper. We talk about music and the concerts that are coming up, and once he showed me cell phone pictures of him with KISS backstage at a show and I was suitably impressed.

 

 

  

I write.

I write because I want to say things to you but I can't say them out loud and so I hide them in words and images that only make sense to me, or maybe they make sense to you but what I write and what you read are not the same thing so it doesn't matter.

I write because sometimes words want to be placed next to each other just to see how they look or sound, and because it's fun to see them next to each other, looking or sounding kind of cool even if they don't mean anything at all.

I write to remind myself of things, because I have a pretty shitty memory and one day I can look back at these words and remember that there was a time when it was just me and the spider in the insulation and the polytarp super-six in the basement, fingers tap tap tapping on computer keys in the dark. Trapped, crumpled and helpless, suffocating (the spider, not me).

I write because I cannot draw or paint or sing.

I write to create pictures out of words, but not the kinds of pictures with descriptions of furniture or landscape or weather; I write to create pictures of thoughts and feelings and ideas, which aren't really pictures at all, I guess.   

I write because I must resolve my daddy issues and because his absence is a presence and because I want him to be proud of me even though he will likely never read these words. And I write because I  must resolve my mommy issues and because her presence is an absence and I want her to be proud of me even though she will likely never be able to read these words with any real comprehension.

I write because sometimes I am my own favourite writer.

And I write because I have always been writing, even when I haven't.





 

Reticence

From a very young age, I was aware of a certain disconnectedness in my character. I was an observer rather than a participant, even in my own life.

I was not shy exactly. I was friendly and confident and unafraid of things like boys and worms and raising my hand in class and questioning authority (although I did not like getting into trouble, even when I felt vindicated in my reasons for breaking the rules). I got the lead in the school play. People seemed drawn to me, for reasons I could never understand.

I did not readily confide in others, as so many people I knew seemed to do. I made friends easily, but was never really a "best" friend. I was something that I didn't have a word for, something that kept me apart even while I was a part. I was the inside outsider. 

The word 'reticent' was an epiphany. Here, at last, was a characteristic that helped me define myself. If there was a word for it, I was not the only one. There were other people like me, people inclined to silence rather than sharing.

I am still all those things I was as a child. I am friendly and confident and unafraid of things like boys and worms and questioning authority. I still do not like getting into trouble. And I still do not readily confide in others. I am still an inside outsider.

Social media is a conundrum for me. I see people's lives laid bare: their dinners and pets, their movie and record collections, the births of their children, their relationships and break-ups, their parties and politics and plans for the weekend. Sharing in photographs and updates and comments and tags and likes and 140 characters.

And I want to be a part of this brave (?) new world, but my inherent reticence hinders me. I want to connect, but I want to disconnect in equal measure. (And I probably spend too much time thinking about it, but one cannot helps one's nature.) And so I trudge bravely (?) on through this media mire, struggling to find a balance.

The social part of me wants to share my observations and my vacation pictures and stories about my period, and she wants to learn about what you're doing and what is important to you and even sometimes, if it's really impressive, about what you had for dinner, but that other part, the silent, reserved part, the loner part, the part that finds value only in herself, wants to say fuck this inane oversharing social media bullshit and delete it all.

Ah well, and riot on.   

Blood and Life and Death

I got my first period after I had already started having sex at the age of 15. (I thought that maybe I got it just moments after, but it turned out that that was just ruptured hymen blood.) I envied the other girls their training bras and period-talk, their whispered confessions of cramps and blood-stained panties, their furtive tampon smuggling.

When I did finally get it, my father gave me a dozen white roses to celebrate my metamorphosis from girl to woman. (Ironic, as I was no longer white-rose-pure, but you don't tell your dad about the first time a boy makes you Kraft Dinner and then takes you into his dark basement bedroom in the middle of a fine summer afternoon and fucks you (twice) in his unmade bed between boy-smelling sheets.) This gift from the most important male figure in my life made me thereafter think of this blood not as a thing to be whispered about and hidden, but as a gift to be disclosed and celebrated. Shared, even.

Being rather of the more responsible sort, I went immediately on the pill. For the last 25 years, I have had a four-and-a-half day period with light flow and minimal cramping, possibly a mild headache, a marked tendency to be induced to tears during long-distance commercials, and the increased desire to consume foodstuffs of the cocoa-bean variety. I knew that other girls' periods were not nearly as kind as mine: terrible tales of gut-wrenching cramps that made gym class impossible and Midol or Tylenol necessary in order to bear the week of horror, flow that arrived unexpectedly during swimming lessons or band practice or math tests,  periods that came only once every few months, and then with a vengeance. I was lucky. I was grateful (or as grateful as a teenager unconcerned with mortality and the mysteries of life could be). I came to count on her timely arrival as a sign of anatomical mastery: the dissembling hormones had done their job and no embryo had taken up lodging inside my uterus.  

And now all that has changed. My body has decided, after so many years of benevolence and submission, to rebel.

I began waking up at night, my t-shirt soaked with sweat. Is my duvet too heavy for the season? I wondered, as I changed my top and stuck my feet out from beneath the covers. And then in the middle of the afternoon, that first rush of heat out of nowhere. God, is it hot in here? I need to open a window. I must have been over-exerting myself. But in the recesses of my brain, the dim thought that maybe this was it, my procreating years were nearing an end. Impossible to imagine when one is under 40 with no children. Forcing me to ask myself if I actually want to have a baby, now that I have almost missed my chance; the typical human response of wanting something only when you can no longer have it. (I have reviewed and found my decision to remain childless acceptable.)

Despite the warning signs, that first unexpectedly heavy period took me completely by surprise. Cramps that made me bend over in pain, clutching my belly; clots like pieces of liver, wet and slippery, sliding into the toilet with the bright red rush of blood. I wondered if maybe I needed to go to the hospital, I was hemorrhaging, I was dying. I asked advice of friends on the internet, I googled, I learned the word perimenopause. (They make sure to tell you what will happen when you first start bleeding, but no one really talks about what happens when you first start to stop.) I mentioned it to my doctor, who told me I was too young for menopause. My body begs to differ.

I can only hope that this process will be swift, that the menstrual goddesses will relent and be kind to me in the ending as they were kind in the beginning, because they sure are being cunts right now. For the past few months, my uterus has contracted and expelled dark fist-sized clots of uterine lining like pumpkin flesh and seeds being scraped clean with a dull spoon and then ripped out by handfuls. For the first time in my life, I have had to buy super absorbent tampons and overnight maxipads with wings. I have bled through denim. I have stained the sheets. I have had post-period spotting of up to a week. I have had headaches for four days that no amount or kind of drug can cure. I will miss you, blood-friend, but let's make this quick, okay?

So this is undeniably it: the beginning of the end. It's a strange thing to come to terms with. The girl with the bouquet of white roses is inside me still, but so is the dried-up old woman with jowls and saggy breasts and laugh-lines. I can see her there, just around the corner. Blood and life and death.