After installing the new Office 2007, the other day, I opened Publisher and started doing some work. I put some photos in and then was greeted with this:

At least someone at microsoft has a sense of humour.

Thwack-squeeeeak

There are few sounds more satisfying that the thwack-sqeeeeak of a mouse-trap going off.

After finishing that post last night, I was thinking of just staying in my own bed, but as I walked to turn off the light it ran in front of me. I took my stuff to Sister's room, had a shot of vodka, and went to bed at 430am.

Today I've been cleaning. I set traps around my room and the loungeroom and at around 6pm I heard that beautiful sound: thwack-squeeeeak!

That'll learn em.

Things that go bump in the night

I am not a tidy person. I am not a dirty person either, mind you, but I am not tidy. I seem to have inherited Pop’s “but I might need this for a rainy day” attitude and his penchant for organised chaos.

There’s something about a family of mice taking up residence in one’s bedroom to make you seriously reconsider your standards of tidiness.

Yesterday I was lying in bed, working on an assignment on my laptop, when a movement by the door caught my eye. I looked up in time to see the tail-end of a mouse dive under the ottoman that sits outside my door. “Daaaaaaaaaaaddddddddd!!!!!” I called, in a totally undignified manner, “there’s a mouse in the house!” Dad came strolling into the back room with a grin on his face. He didn’t have to speak; I could read his mind.

We moved the ottoman and were greeted with a small pile of mouse poo in the corner. This was not a good sign. Suddenly, the mouse ran sideways behind a row of three bookshelves. Dad went into the kitchen and returned armed with two plastic bags, a roll of paper towel and an eggflip. I rolled my eyes. We stuffed the paper towel between the wall and the shelf and the moved the middle of three shelves out. After shining a torch behind the remaining two and ascertaining the mouse’s whereabouts, we formed a barricade and then moved the (extremely heavy) bookshelf. The mouse was hiding in a little cavern underneath the bottom shelf. “I have an idea”, Dad said, stepping over piece of wood of the barricade. He returned with the vacuum cleaner. He gunned the vacuum and poked it into the cavern. It soon became apparent that the mouse was no longer there, so we looked around the family room; I was half expecting him to jump out at me at any second.

We soon gave up and put the bookshelves back in their places against the wall; Dad returned to the computer, I cleaned my room.

If the story ended there, it would have been a good story. But this, my friends, is more than that. This morning I was lying in a half-asleep stupor, debating whether to get up and say hello to Sister, who had come home to spend the day with us, when I heard the now familiar pitter-patter of little feet across the carpet. I got out of bed and groggily greeted my family: “the little fucker is back”. We set up a trap (Dad had gone out and bought a half dozen that morning) with a piece of cabanossi (which is infinitely more aromatic than cheese) and I helped Sister with something on her computer. I went back into my room for a piece of paper and checked the trap. It was empty. It seemed I was dealing with an above-average mouse, so Dad suggested I use peanut butter, a bait that has never failed him before. I asked him why he didn’t suggest this in the first place instead of cabanossi but he said that was beside the point. Five minutes later I went back into the room get something and saw, to my absolute delight, the dead and mangled body of the mouse in the trap.

Now, if the story ended here, it would have been a great story. But this, my friends, is more than that. Confident that my rodent problem was eradicated, I went about my day with not a care in the world. Tonight, as I lay down to read a novel before bed, I heard that haunting sound. Somewhere, a mouse was walking in my room. I lay there concentrating on the sound, trying to work out where it was coming from. I realised, with growing hysteria, that it was from under my bed. I heard a tearing noise and felt the bed shudder ever so slightly. This is a big problem because the base of the ensemble already has a huge tear in it, so this meant that the mouse was quite literally in my bed. “If the little fucker wakes me up with this thing,” I told Dad as he loaded a mousetrap for me, “I will not be impressed”.

While reading, I tend to lay very still, so soon I heard the pitter patter sound. I was waiting with growing impatience for the clack sound that traps make when they go off but it never came. I heard it walking, I heard it rustling, I even heard it squeak a few times, but no clack. As I lay there, I would constantly see shadows move and jump. (As a side note to the story, I have good reason to believe that I am the jumpiest in existance. I jump at everything. I even jump when I’m expecting the thing for which I am jumping.) I felt a funny sensation on my neck, a kind of tickling, followed by a small, sharp poking. Then I saw a movement in front of me. Thinking, quite naturally, that the mouse had bit my neck and ran away, I shouted at the top of my lungs and flung my limbs around in blind panic, entangling myself in the sheets and pulling a muscle in my right calf.

After having a cigarette, and smoking it very quickly at that, I decided to sit down and write this post in an effort to let the adrenaline dissipate before retiring for the evening in Sister’s bed.

Tomorrow I will tear this room apart until I find every last mouse or, at the very least, remove any nooks and crannies in which said mice may choose to nest.

Labour of love

After the disastrous “cornflake cookie incident”, I was wary as I entered the kitchen on Wednesday afternoon. Although it was only four in the afternoon, the sky was dark and the mood sombre. It was the first ANZAC day since Pop died. I decided making some Anzac cookies may cheer me up a little. They are, after all, my second favourite cookie.

After the debacle of the cornflake cookies turning into a giant mess of siamese-dodecatuplet cookies, I resolved to follow the recipe to the letter. I got my ingredients ready before I began, taking careful inventory of what was needed. Flour, check. Oats, check. Caster sugar, check. Golden syrup, check. Butter, check. Bicarb soda, check. Boiling water, check. Desiccated coconut, no check.

This was not a good sign; one of the vital ingredients wasn’t there. Dad suggested making them without it but I argued him down, reminding him what happened last time I flippantly used that attitude. He relented and went out to the shops to buy me a pack of desiccated coconut. Being ANZAC day, many of the shops were shut; those that were open were low on supplies of desiccated coconut, oats and golden syrup because it seems everyone else had the same idea as me. Anyone who has tried to buy one of these key ingredients on April 25 knows what I’m talking about.

Dad returned, the bag coconut under his arm, and we set about preparing the cookies. I was making a full batch of 30 cookies with my lactose-free ingredients. Dad made a half-batch of 15 with his own butter.

I sifted the flour lovingly into the spotless stainless steel love-nest. I sang a gentle tune of hope and joy to the rolled oats as they joined the flour in their new silver home. The coconut was regaled with praise as it too joined its friends in the bowl. I mixed them together with a smile, reassuring the dry ingredients that they would soon find the love of their wet-ingredient partners. I put a small saucepan on the stove and lit the gas. I gently measured the butter and golden syrup and swirled them together, their golden bodies intertwining tenderly as I stirred. Once melted, I introduced the bicarb and hot water to the golden mixture. In an orgasm of frothy excitement the two climaxed in foamy bliss.

Returning to the dry ingredients, I combined the hot golden liquid of love and passion. I mixed the lot together tenderly with a wooden spoon. I made teaspoon sized balls of the mixture with my hands, caressing the dough adoringly. I placed them on the lubricated oven tray and then inserted them into the warm cavern of heat and life.

And the little fuckers still turned into one gigantic Franken-cookie.

This morning, as Mum was leaving, I told her I was going to make another batch of Anzac cookies. A worried look washed over her face. “Maybe you should wait till I get home, sweetie, so I can help you” she said, anxiously. “No way. I am going to make a decent batch of cookies, even if I have to kill us all in the process.”

The language of hatred

If a writer can use language to paint a textured portrait of love and happiness, then it follows that the reverse is also true. Language, like art, can be used to convey hatred and malice. Take the swastika for example. It is simply eight black lines, but their particular arrangement speaks of a hatred and evil far beyond its humble physical presence. The same eight lines, arranged differently, and in a different context, could be used to convey just about anything. It all depends on the context and form.

Words are exactly the same. The word fag has always intrigued me. On paper, it’s just three simple letters; spoken, it’s three simple sounds. F, A and G can be used in other contexts to mean just about anything. The word can be ugly or friendly; the phrase “you’re such a fag” can be used as a friendly jab by Lala or Liz when I do something particularly gay or it can be used by the insecure school yard bully as a vitriolic taunt. So powerful is language that it can boost your spirits or reduce your self-esteem in one fell swoop. On paper, the phrasedoesn’t always belie its own subtext; that depends on what happens around it.

I’ve had a few negative comments in my 10 months of blogging, but I’ve never been so thoroughly disgusted at a comment until I read a comment on Ryan’s post about Mikey’s accident yesterday. Here’s an excerpt of the hateful attack directed at them:

Your so called boyfriend got what he deserved and soon will be in hell with all the fags before him. You still have a chance to seek help and change your sinful ways. Seek the Lord and he shall set you free ... For those of you who have deluded yourselves into thinking that the story of Sodom isn't really talking about homosexuals, read the following: the people of Sodom and Gomorrah had completely turned away from God, and whenever that happens, homosexuality abounds ... Anybody who thinks that today is any different than those days needs to attend San Francisco's annual gay rights parade, stand along the parade route, and hold a sign that says "GOD HATES FAGS."

When I read that I was totally gobsmacked. Leaving aside the content of the comment for a moment (we’ll get to that in a minute), I don’t understand how anyone could say such repulsive things to someone after their boyfriend has been in a terrible accident, even if they were true. Whether it was written in a hasty fit of self-righteousness or it was a deliberate act to hurt Ryan, it just goes to show that you can use language for evil just as easily (perhapsmoreso) than for good.

I guess I also don’t understand the motivation. If it was her wish to save his soul from hell, then she certainly went about it the wrong way and at the most inopportune time. What is such a fundamentalist christian even doing at a gay blog anyway? Looking for someone to save? Looking for trouble to stir up? There is a particular website, which I refuse to name or link to because they don't deserve the traffic, devoted to promoting this kind of drivel. They are the ones who madeplacards and picketed Matthew Shepard's funeral. They make me sick.

After confronting the author of that comment, Ryan received a second comment:

Big words from a little fag call me what you will I know I am going to heaven and your faggot ass will burn in hell. Asking all the fag lovers that flock to this site for prayer in saving your boyfriend. God has deaf ears when it comes from fags or fag supporters. Shame on all of you turn your heart over and let God cleanse your soul or you will rot in hell with all the fags.

And now, the content. I don’t understand how these ‘christians’ (and I use the term incredibly loosely and with a small C—they don’t deserve the respect of a capital letter) can march under the banner of Jesus and the Bible and use the word fag; it’s totally beyond me. What happened to “the greatest of these [commandments] is love”? These people base their hatred on the Bible which, like any other written work, can be interpreted in different ways. If you have love and happiness in your heart, it is a book of hope and joy; if you are full of hatred and (self?)loathing, it can become a powerful weapon.

I’m not saying that I do not believe in the Bible, nor am I saying that I do not believe in God, nor in ‘good Christians’. I don’t talk about my religious and spiritual beliefs on this blog, but thatdoesn’t mean they aren ’t there. I am a proud Christian. I believe in God, Jesus, the Bible, redemption and sacrifice, the whole bit. I even believe in the Church. I do not, however, believe the Bible should ever, ever, be used as a weapon. Does my being gay mean I have to forfeit my membership card? I don’t believe that for a second. I can think of a half dozen verses to throw at the troll that wrote that comment but I’m not going to bother; it won’t get anyone anywhere.

“So faith, hope, love abide, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Cor 13:13

“If anyone says ‘I love God’, and hates his brother, he is a liar;
for he who does not love his bother whom he has seen,
cannot love God whom he has not seen.” 1 John 4:20

I despair at the state of the world when people use their own sacred text to justify such evil acts.

The language of love

Being a linguistics student and a writer, I am fascinated by language. Like a painter uses paints and brushes to create a rich portrait, a writer use language to create a rich and vivid portrait of life, full of texture and colour. In the same way that visual artists use different media and techniques to create different artworks, writers use words and language in different way to create their literary art. The same utterance, rendered in different ways, can create meaning: te amo mi amor is sensual and romantic, I love you is simple and honest, luv ya babe is friendly and bold.

I want to briefly discuss the idea of how language is used to create meaning by using one of my favourite blogs as an example (I trust the authors won’t object). The blog is Boys are Ugly But So Cute, the authors are boyfriends Mikey and Ryan.

I have to admit that when I started reading their blog some months ago, their use of language made my skin creep. I naively wrote their writing off as being sub-standard. As I have kept reading and following their lives I have reflected, with deep shame, that my judgement of their use of language was extremely elitist and totally wrong. What a fool I was! I can't appologise enough to you both for my arrogance. Yes, they sometimes miss out punctuation and they often mix up homophones (words that sound the same, such as their, there and they’re), but I would assert that rather than being “wrong”, it adds to the rich texture of their writing. This was posted on the 23rd of March:

Back inside I found Mikey I ask him you call them yet with his sad eyes he said no I was just fixing 2 I told him then when u call them u tell them u will take the job. He said what? I said you heard me tell them you will take it. He ask 4 real YES MIKEY 4 REAL! I know I already told babe but I want 2 say it on here I Love You more than life and my Dad is right you took a chance 4 me and now I will 4 u. I believe in you and I know we will be just fine. So people we are moving 2 Florida in about a month. Yes I am scared to death but I knoe it's the right thing 2 do and we will be fine.

Instead of wasting time (like I do) on technicalities, Mikey and Ryan write from the heart. Their love for each other flows out of their fingers into their keyboard and touches the hearts of their readers. I can only hope that my writing does the same.

This week, Mikey was in a terrible bike accident and is now in hospital in a coma while his Ryan keeps a vigil by his bedside. Ryan has written briefly about the accident:

I need 2 make this quick but I need your prayers more now than I ever have before. Friday evening Mikey went out with my Dad & Brother riding the quad runners and there was an accident. Mikey was hurt real bad they had 2 fly him 2 the hospital. I can't say anymore than that right now I need 2 get back with him they made me come home last night 2 sleep and shower. So please pray 4 him and I will update u as soon as I can.

If you pray, pray for them. If you don’t pray, think of them.
If you don’t read their blog, perhaps it’s time you start.
Such expressive writing like theirs is hard to find and doesn’t come often.
Love like this doesn’t happen often.

My prayers are with you Ryan and Mikey.

Easy-going?

The other day a friend, whom I greatly admire, said to me “you get worked up too much about things”. This got me thinking.

I’ve always prided myself on being easy-going; easy going people don’t get worked up unnecessarily, right? It seems that while I am myself easy going in many ways, I get impatient when others are equally easy going.

One of my pet hates is when people don’t do what they say they will do. In fact, I often take it personally when someone says they will do something for me and then don’t (usually through no fault of their own). It shits me to the point of distraction. Is this the action of an easy-going person? When this kind of thing happens I sit there fuming silently to myself and get, as my friend said, totally worked up. The person in question invariably apologises and explains that they had ran out of phone credit, had been working non-stop, had been ill or any number of other totally understandable reasons. Boy do I feel like the fucking arsehole afterwards.

What about my own (in)actions? My health being as “fluctuatory” as it is, I have been known to miss appointments and commitments. Does that make me a hypocrite? Could it be that the people who annoy me so are simply as equally easy-going as I? My mother constantly gets upset with me when I stay with Lala and Cal because I genuinely forget, or am unable, to call her as promised for whatever reason (some more “legitimate” than others). When I stay with them I always leave my departure date open-ended for as long as possible to avoid nasty situations of “you said you’d be coming home on Monday and now you’re telling me you want to stay till Wednesday”. Even with this open-ended system, I still upset her somehow because she usually assumes the standard holiday period will be one or two weeks. When I decide to stay for three or four she feels I am going back on my unspoken word.

Does this prevent me from getting worked up when I am in my mother’s position? Nope.

Does my friend’s pointing this out to me mean I will try to be more easy-going all the time, and not just when it suits me? Yep.

Sick cycle carousel, part 2

Part one: Sick cycle carousel.

After the watershed night on the beach, and the ensuing unpleasantness, life picked up. It was my rock-bottom. There was nowhere else to go but up.

2002
2002 was, predictably, difficult. My health improved slightly one month then bombed the next. I was dealing with losing my best friend so dramatically (and publicly) and with the rest of my friends dispersing to their various tertiary institutions. The loss of everyday-friends was very depressing.

22 February, 2002
Luke was born that February. I remember the first day I saw him. I slunk out of the car, tired and down, and went into the house. His parents brought him out and handed him around, each getting their turn to hold the baby like a pass-the-parcel. When the music stopped and it was my turn I held him and looked down at his tiny face. Although he was asleep he gripped his tiny little hand around my thumb. I realised as I stood there holding him, that he was so vulnerable, at that point in time he was depending on me for his safety. I was struck by how much I loved this little life in my hands, after only knowing of him for nine months (and knowing him in person for all of ten minutes). I saw the miracle of God’s creation in Luke. I knew it would all be ok.

I wish I could say that from that moment on, life become rosier and more palatable. But it didn’t, at least not in a Hollywood-ending fashion. School continued and I attended when I could, battling exhaustion and an acute lack of motivation. The depression abated after some time (it was more a case of becoming hardened and numb than any actual healing), and I started to smile now and then. I graduated from high school in September, accompanied by Lynne and my family. Many teachers said “it’s about bloody time” as they said their congratulations. I sat the HSC exams and got a university entrance rank of about 72. It was proportional to the amount of effort I put into studying, so I was happy with it.

2003
I had no clue as to what I wanted to do with myself after high school; the last four years had been consumed with finishing it so I hadn’t given a lot of thought to what to do once I got to that point. Without any clear aspiration to tertiary study I chose to take a year off from education (a “gap year”) and concentrate on getting better. My health picked up fairly dramatically in 2003, to the point where the fatigue wasn’t crushing anymore, but more of an ever-present, mild nuisance. I travelled down to Sydney once a fortnight to stay with Grandma, who looked after Luke on Mondays and Tuesdays and I visited Tía and my cousins often. I travelled to Melbourne for a week to stay with new friends who were involved in an ME/CFS charity and met many new people. Some of them were taking a somewhat experimental medication and they told me about it. I started taking this on the first of September, the first day of spring, and have been taking it ever since. The new medication took hold and I started to notice improvement. Spending so much time with Luke and my cousins staved off the depression until it was a mere bad-dreamlike memory. I was still taking anti-depressants, petrified of what would happen if I stopped.

2004
2004 was similar. My health remained at a fairly static level of not-quite-fixed-yet. I still didn’t know what to do at university so I extended my gap year by another 12 months. I continued to see Luke every two or three months and became involved with an ME/CFS charity group, joining the management committee in May.

2005
During 2005 my health took a dive. I became more exhausted and worn down and began noticing pain in my legs and back. I continued working for the Society and seeing Luke occasionally, usually once a month. As my health declined I was revisited by depression. It was often quite mild, certainly nowhere near as bad as it was in high school, but it did occasionally get bad. One night it did get to that low point and I cut myself again with a razor blade in the shower. This lasted for a week and ended when I saw the bloody cuts while getting dressed. It shocked and repulsed me. I couldn’t do this to Luke. I haven’t done anything like that since. I still have these scars on my arm, a constant reminder of that dark time. The pain became steadily worse and completely confounded Dr KHS. I asked him for stronger pain killers but he was reluctant to give them to me, since I was only 21.

I battled constantly with misconceptions. The FAL didn’t get the realities of my condition. I always put on a brave face and smiled at family get togethers. I resented their lack of faith in my word, they believed what they saw, not what I told them.

October long weekend, 2005
Cal and Lala took me to the north coast holiday house over the Labour Day weekend. I left my tablets at Tía’s, which meant that after the first day I began getting withdrawals. I could barely walk from the pain, barely stay awake for the exhaustion and ended up spending the whole weekend in bed or on the lounge. Cal and Lala took excellent care of me, bringing me tablets (over the counter pain killers) and breakfast in bed. It took two weeks to get back to “normal” after that.

November 2005
I continued popping pills and eventually bought the walking stick in November. It served the dual purpose of supporting my pained legs by taking weight off them (and allowing them a chance to rest to some extent) and reducing pain as I walked. It also gave me something to lean on when I was exhausted and walking like a zombie. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

January 2006
2006 came with little fanfare. I was staying at Tía’s one week in January when I got a phone call from Sister. She had found a new uni degree and was going to transfer. She was so excited about it and it was infectious. I started thinking that I would like to go to uni too. I started looking at mature age entry requirements and found out about the course at UNSW. I enrolled and got a place and began my tertiary career.

In early January, I came out to Liz, Lala and Cal in quick succession. I was so happy to finally be honest with them. My friendship with Liz, which had been on the backburner for the past year or so, became stronger and closer than ever. The acceptance of these three, whom I love and respect more than anyone else, buoyed my mood. I was finally happy.

March 2006
The course was one day a week but it took a lot out of me, especially considering that I live on the opposite end of Sydney from the campus. After the first two weeks I decided that I couldn’t do all the travel in one day, it took me days to recover from it, so I asked Pop if I could stay with him one night a week to break things up a bit. He happily obliged. My health slowly picked up. I was still exhausted and worn down but I managed. I enjoyed my evenings with Pop and I know he enjoyed my staying with him. It broke up the monotony of life for us both. Towards the end of winter, Dr KHS finally relented and agreed to give me a new medication that would block the pain signals in my brain. It began working quickly and I was relatively pain free (certainly less pain than I had experienced in a long time) but the effects wore off after a few weeks. The dosage was adjusted and while the pain has not gone away, it has lessened.

August – September 2006
The pharmacy that sells me one of my medications messed up my order, so I was without an important medication for 3 weeks. Like the Labour Day weekend debacle, these weeks were spent largely in bed. I bounced back fairly quickly. Perhaps this means that I am getting somewhere? I was still involved with the Society although I had less time to give them because of my school commitments. I decided to resign from the committee in November, so that I could concentrate fully on my school work in 2007.

November – December 2006
Pop went into hospital in mid November. I knew what was coming, but I did not get depressed. I grieved the loss before it happened, and then felt guilty for thinking that way. I visited him at least every second day until the end. My health suffered, from all the walking and all the worrying. My world changed on the 3rd of December, the day after Liz's birthday. I lost my hero. I was half expecting to go into a deep depression when he died, but I didn’t. After the initial period of being numb I started to grieve with such intensity that I didn’t know what hit me. This, of course, affected my health and I spent a good deal of time in bed during December. Christmas was a sombre affair; my legs ached and I was exhausted. But I enjoyed it, and drank a toast to Pop at 1pm on Christmas Day (a family tradition).

2007
The rest is, as they say, history. 2007 brought entry to Sydney Uni and an increase in the pain signal-blocking drug. I was also prescribed a high strength anti-inflammatory drug which works wonders. Despite the odd pang of grief for Pop, I am happy. I am still in a lot of pain on a daily basis and I still feel run down a lot of the time but I am happy. I am content.

The night before Pop died, Dad said to him “Tomorrow will be a better day, Dad.”
“Yes,” Pop replied, “it will”.

And it still is.

Sick cycle carousel

This time of year marks the eighth anniversary of contracting ME/CFS. I don’t know an exact date because it crept up on me, but it was around this time in 1999. Every year at this time I reflect on my life from that point, on my history of depression and illness and the progress (or lack thereof, as the case may be) of my life. Like all good histories, this is a long and complex story. I have tried to edit it down as much as possible, but I couldn’t get it any shorter. I’ve divided it into two posts, each describing life on either side of a watershed moment in December 2001. It’s a disturbing story in many ways, but ultimately the ending is happy.

1997
The story actually starts two years before the official starting date. In 1997, I had a bad bout of what I thought at the time was the flu, but what in fact was an acute case of glandular fever. I was in bed for a week or so with a fever and all manner of unpleasant symptoms. At around this time my friend Calla was very sick with ME/CFS. I would dutifully visit her every Wednesday after sport, sit on her bed with her and chat for a few hours and then go home. I felt I understood what she was going through; I had no idea.

Autumn 1999
Around the middle of autumn 1999, I noticed that I was getting tired all the time, feeling run down and I had the odd pain in my legs. Dr KHS was dismissive: growing pains and flu he said. “Rest up and it’ll all be ok” he told me. I rested up. It wasn’t ok. I took weeks off school at a time. Upon my return, my friends were overjoyed to see me. At that time depression was another major problem I had. Looking back, I think it was partly unrequited love for a girl I was in love with and who treated me like dirt, and partly chemical. I never told my parents about the depression.

July 1999
In July, I crashed in a fairly spectacular fashion after a church weekend. Again I was feeling tired and rundown. I didn’t have any pain, but I did have headaches, dizziness and general malaise. Blood tests were ordered by Dr KHS, who was confident that a few weeks of rest would fix my troubles. Blood tests revealed that I had had glandular fever two years earlier, so he ordered strict rest while at home and minimal exertion at school. I was allowed to attend every second or third day and didn’t have to participate in sport. I sat the school certificate exams in November and passed, by the skin of my teeth, despite attending only a third of the classes. I couldn’t visit Calla as much and I reflected sombrely that I was now beginning to understand how she had felt all this time. I learnt that you can never truly know this illness unless you live it.

I met many new friends during the church weekend. The only friendship that has endured is my friendship with Liz, whom I now consider my best friend. When I first met her I thought she was a little strange but that quirkiness quickly grew on me. Liz has never known me without this illness; she didn’t expect me to get better and go back to the way I was. She accepted me the way I was, and for that I love her fiercely.

2000
As it was becoming increasingly clear that I was not getting any better with rest, Dr KHS diagnosed me with post viral fatigue syndrome. This is medal jargon for we don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you syndrome. I am ashamed to admit I was happy in a way. I wanted some attention for once and now I had it. After discussions with the principal, it was decided that I should attend school part-time, doing half the subjects of my cohort. Although my symptoms continued to fluctuate, 2000 was an ok year. My depression subsided and was promptly forgotten about. The crushing fatigue continued in waves and my memory problems developed. Peripheral friendships became strained, but my best friend Lynne’s devotion to me never wavered. A new member joined our little group, after being kicked out of his former group (such is schoolyard politics). We quickly became close.

2001
This year brought change. My subject load consisted of year 11 subjects with another cohort. My health continued to fluctuate between states in which I was barely-functioning and not-really-functioning and I was diagnosed with ME/Chronic fatigue syndrome. My friendship with the boy grew stronger and after he got his driver’s license he would come around to visit me when I was sick in bed. He’d sit on the end of my bed while I lay there, barely able to move for the exhaustion, and chat. We were close; he was kind to me. Slowly I started falling for him.

As my symptoms ebbed and flowed, so too did my depression. I became increasingly depressed at the pitiful state of my life. I was confused about my feelings for this boy and fed up with being stuck in bed so much. It got to the point where my happiness depended on his presence. When I was sick in bed and he came to visit, my mood would instantly brighten, only to take a dive when he left. This all came to a head in May when he promised he would come over and then changed his plans at the last minute. I sat in bed, crying, and took a pocket knife to my wrists. I wasn’t trying to commit suicide, although I thought about that daily; I was trying to purge myself of these thoughts and feelings I hated.

After having reconciled, I expected things to get better but he continued to disappoint me. In hindsight, his actions were perfectly justified and without malice; it was my perception of reality, warped by depression, which led me to be disappointed. I knew my depression and constant thoughts of suicide (something which I kept well hidden from my parents and friends, in general) were spiralling out of control. I was very ill, often in bed or, if I was at school, I walked like a zombie. I was still cutting myself regularly. I knew something needed to be done but I didn’t know what. I was only 17. I called my friend Brian’s mother, whom I knew from the church youth group, and asked her if she would be at church on Sunday. She said yes and I told her I needed to talk to her about something.

June long weekend, 2001
I was exhausted that day but I went to church because I needed to tell Kathy my truths. After the service she caught my eye and smiled a smile which said “ok Dan, what’s on your mind?” I walked towards her and she led me outside with her. We sat on the ground and she said nothing, waiting for me to begin. I told her everything. She nodded sagely as I told my story of exhaustion, depression and dependence on the boy. She drove me home and held my hand as I told my parents about the depression and the cutting. Dr KHS started me on anti-depressants and my moods slowly evened out. I had a psychological evaluation the next week (I was diagnosed with moderate depression) and went to see a counsellor. The counsellor was, for the most part, totally useless. I didn’t feel it was getting anywhere so I stopped going. I started smoking as a way to deal with stress and depression.

December 2001
The watershed of my depression, illness, and life in general came in December 2001. I went to Byron Bay for schoolies with my group of friends, even though I was still one year from graduating. On the first night everyone who was over 18 went out, leaving me, the boy and his girlfriend alone in the house. They snuggled on the lounge and watched TV and I seethed quietly, my depression and jealousy bubbling away below the surface. I took a full bottle of vodka to the beach and downed three quarters of it in the space of half an hour. That night, after being “rescued” from the beach, I told him I loved him (I was convinced it was platonic, but now I know better) and that I hated him when he let me down all the time.

He didn’t speak to me again after that week.

Part two.

Change

The following is a piece of writing by someone I've never met but someone whom I nonetheless have a great deal of respect for. It was posted on my friend Lou's blog (the reading of which is what "inspired" me to post it myself), however I do not consider it stealing in any way, shape or form since I originally read it when it was pinned on the peg-board in her parents' toilet (which, by way of explanation so that they don't sound like complete lunatics, contains cartoons, jokes, photos and the like to make one's stay more enjoyable while on the shitter).

Autobiography in Five Chapters.
-- Portia Nelson.

1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost... I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in... it's a habit
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It's my fault.
I get out immediately

4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.

So simple and yet it takes us mere mortals (or, at the very least, this mere mortal) so long to get the hint.

Debunking conversion therapy

Yesterday I went over to Liz's Nana's place to network her computer to Liz's aunt M's computer so they could share broadband. They each live one half of a duplex so it was a simple case of running a crossover cable under M's floor, across the garage and then under Nana's floor to the study.

The first thing we had to do was work out where the two studies were from under the house. We were looking for the phone connection into Nana's study; Liz, M, Liz's dad (Geoff) and I all stood under Nana's house, scratching our heads, trying to work out why the bathroom pipes were in the wrong place and why the phone connection wasn't where it should have been. Several minutes and one eureka moment later, we found it in the corner where we originally thought the bathroom was. Geoff drilled through the floor and poked the cable through while Liz pulled it through the floor. At this point we realised the cable hadn't been tested so we looped it back up to the house from under the floor, through the front door and back to the study. The cable worked so we carried on. The cable was poked through a gap in the floor to the garage and after much production involving coat hangers and precarious balancing on footstools (on Liz's part) we got the cable under Nana's house. The cable made its way through Nana's floor with ease and we hooked it all together.

The long cable that ran the length of the houses was a blue CAT-5 straight-through cable. This means that it cannot be used to connect two computers without a router. To get past this obstacle, Geoff bought a cross-over connector that would turn two straight cables into a cross-over. The blue cable connected into the little cross-over connector, which in turn connected into a yellow straight cable. Proof that two wrongs do indeed make a right.

The computers connected, it was a simple matter of configuring them so they would talk to each other. They didn't. Even after much cajoling, they would not make friends with each other. We took a coffee break to regroup and come up with a solution. After a process of elimination it was decided that the connector must be to blame since we knew that the cables both worked.

Clutching at straws, I thought it might be an idea to plug move the connector down to M's computer. No go. Ready to give up, I plugged the blue cable right into Nana's computer, more to make it tidy than for any actual technological reasons. Liz and I left Nana's study and went down to M's study to tidy up the mess we had made in our unsuccessful attempts at networking. I glanced at the screen and noticed the little red X that used to hover over the icon was gone. I excitedly send an email to Nana and we ran upstairs. Nana's computer had no little red X either. The computers were talking! Mission accomplished.

It turns out the blue cable was in fact a cross-over cable to begin with. By using the cross-over connector with the cross-over cable we ended up making a straight cable.

The moral of the story: you shouldn't try to make things straight. It won't help anybody.

Tales of the (rusty) iron chef

I want to preface this post by saying that I am an excellent cook. I have inherited my Grandmother's uncanny ability to be able to bung some left-overs into a fry pan, sprinkle it all with paprika and assorted herbs and spices, and end up with a culinary extravaganza at short notice. I can scramble eggs at ten paces and cook perfectly fluffy rice simply using the power of my mind. I can prepare a scrumptious steak, medium-rare, and serve it with a garden salad and home-made dressing with one hand behind my back. I generally don't need to measure; I can add a splash of a liquid ingredient and know how many cups it is just by estimating. I know how much salt is needed intuitively, without tasting. Suffice it to say that I am fucking awesome in the kitchen. I just want that to be known and understood by all.

That said, I shall continue with my missive.

It would appear however, in light of recent events, that this inherited, natural flair for cooking is firmly rooted in the savoury arena and does not venture too far into the sweet arena. As soon as sugar becomes involved in a recipe, everything begins to go pear-shaped quite quickly. Generally this doesn't phase me too much; I much prefer savoury food to sweet foods anyway. The exception to this rule is that I love my cookies, especially home-made cookies. Apart from being considerably cheaper when home-made, the ones I make are also conveniently dairy-free (and thus promote a diarear-free state of being for my poor digestive system). I even have a recipe from Dad's Grandma for a biscuit recipe she invented, called Hokey-Pokies, which is a kind of golden syrup shortbread (in a very round-about way). I've tried several times to make these biscuits since getting my hands on the coveted family recipe and have failed miserably each and every time. The funny thing is that each time I failed, I fucked it up in a new and interesting way which I probably couldn't replicate if I tried.

But this story is not about Hokey-Pokies. It's about my favourite type of cookie of all time, Cornflake cookies, and how I so utterly fucked up the simple task of baking a simple batch of my favourite cookies on Friday.

In hindsight I can see that it was doomed from the start when I didn't check if I had all the ingredients before starting. I put 250g of butter into the bowl (I even measured it) and then got the canister of caster sugar to add a cup to the butter. Here was the first problem: only 1/3 cup of caster sugar in the container. "Not a problem", I thought, "I can just use normal sugar. It'll be a bit crunchy but still totally edible." So in went the table sugar and I creamed it all together. Next I sifted the flour over the creamed butter. I glanced at the recipe and realised, my heart sinking, that I should have added the 2 eggs and vanilla essence before I added the flour. Second problem. "Oh well, not much I can do now." So I added the eggs and vanilla and then went in search of baking powder.

Baking powder is one of those rare substances that exists in any given pantry either in excess or not at all; you either have five or six tins of the stuff or none at all. Tomato paste, baked beans and salt are similar substances. They are substances which you always buy "just in case you don't have any", even though you probably already have five tins/bottles of the stuff at home anyway. If you decide not to purchase any then chances are you will find yourself baking-powder free upon your return from supermarket.

Obviously, we had no baking powder. Third problem. "Fuck it", I thought, "I've come this far; there's no turning back now! Bicarb will have to do." In went the bicarb. After being stirred I ferreted around in the pantry for some sultanas. Fourth problem. In the end, Dad and I sat there picking sultanas out of a pack of party nuts. I added the sultanas and cornflakes to the mixture and gave it all a good stir.

Mum bought some new analon cookie sheets some time ago because their predecessors (no doubt manufactured before the word "teflon" was a household word) were so disgusting stained and blackened that we didn't feel comfortable eating anything cooked upon them. The new ones are flawless in their non-stick abilities; however they are not so flawless in their overall design. Of the four edges of the rectangular sheet, only three have ridges to stop the contents sliding off. Presumably the reason for this is that one can then shimmy their baked cookies onto the cooling wire easily; since there is no stickage, you just have to tilt the tray and everything skedaddles south with gravity, parachuting over the non-ridged edge onto the waiting wire cooling racks. This is all very well in theory. The number of meat pies that I have heated on these trays that have fallen on the floor because I hadn't held the tray dead level would indicate otherwise.

So I dolloped (yes, that is the technical term) the batter onto the trays and lovingly placed them in the already-preheated oven at 180 degrees. I set a timer for 15 minutes and went for a smoke, confident that this time would be the time in which the curse of the sweet recipes would be broken.

They say pride comes before a fall. "They", whoever they are, are often right.

After my cigarette (all of 3 minutes later) I peeked into the oven and was horrified by what I saw. Rather than hold their dollopesque shape, the cookies had slumped down, flattened out and bled into each other. Rather than being 12 distinct cookie-shaped cookies, I was faced with a single uber-cookie that was the exact same size as the cookie sheet. But remember that I said these new whiz-bang cookie sheets only have three ridged edges? I gulped, took a deep breath, and bent slightly so I could see beneath the top shelf. I looked at the side of the oven and discovered, much to my chagrin, that the batter had cascaded over the edge of the cookie sheet like some kind of butter-cornflake-sultana waterfall, leaving bits of itself down the wall of the oven and on the wire rack beneath it. The cookies on the tray on the second rack met the same fate, cascading over the abyss onto the oven floor. "Oh well, I can just cut it up and I'll still have my cookies, only they'll be a little more square now."

After the fifteen minutes were up, I opened the oven and carefully removed the two trays, being careful not to slop any molten cookie-batter on my bare feet. I had the cooling racks in place on the kitchen bench, so I tilted the cookie sheet on a 45 degree angle and waited patiently for them to shimmy themselves down with gravity. After half a minute I was convinced it wasn't going to happen, so I lay the tray flat and hoed into the siamese-dodecatuplet cookies with an egg slice, cutting it into twelve more-or-less equally sized square frankencookies. They were approximately 20 microns thick; if it wasn't for the cornflakes they wouldn't have any substance to them whatsoever.

At this point, Mum walked into the kitchen to check on my process (read: to gauge how much of a mess I'd made and consequently how much nagging would be required for me to clean up after myself). "They're a little sad aren't they?" she asked, laughing quietly. "They are not sad. They just underwent massive separation surgery from being conjoined dodecatuplets, thank you very much, so you could be a little more compassionate. You're witnessing a miracle here!" I said, hoping my feigned indignation would mask my total embarrassment. "What did you do wrong?" Dad asked, entering the scene. "Nothing! Why do you all assume I did something wrong!? I followed the recipe precisely", I insisted. "Well, precisely except that there wasn't enough caster sugar so I had to use table sugar as well, and there was no baking powder so I used bicarb. Oh and I added the flour before the eggs although I should have done that the other way round. That's all. Apart from that, everything was done according to the recipe, so don't come in here and throw me such wild allegations!"

Dad smiled his irritating Cheshire cat grim.
Mum laughed silently, shaking her head.
I bowed my head in shame.

Breaking gay misconceptions through theatre 1001

"There's a movie I want you to see, Mum."
"Oh yes, what is it?"
"It's called Latter Days, it's about a guy who is dared to seduce a Mormon missionary but ends up falling for the guy."
"Oh, ok."
"It's a little like that movie How to loose a guy in ten days, you know there's a bet and then the guy falls for the mark and the bets off but the whole thing has gone too far. It's really good. Sad, but good."
"Well today is the day for sad movies. We'll watch it after three."

Since coming out to her, I've been on the look out for a gay themed movie in which the gay guys weren't HIV positive or promiscuous. The reason for these criteria is that I want to dispel Mum's misconceptions that all gay men are sluts and that they all eventually contract HIV/AIDS. I had my work cut out for me but, thanks to my new gay-movie-guru Kate, I have a few titles up my sleeve. Latter days is the first module in Breaking gay misconceptions through theatre 1001. (Check out the link for a great review)

Admittedly, the movie does contain both promiscuity and an HIV positive character. The great thing about it was that it smashed the stereotypes; the HIV positive character was energetic, the promiscuous character fell for someone and saw the "error of his ways". The religious angle was particularly appropriate given the "Sister situation" and the suicide attempt was appropriate given my history.

So after our 3pm Good Friday prayers (every Good Friday we pray a special prayer at 3pm) we sat down to watch the movie. Before it started, Mum asked Dad if he'd like to join us. He was in the kitchen, making himself a cup of tea, and he asked what it was about. I told him the one-line synopsis I gave Mum. I think I saw him rolling his eyes but I can't be sure because I could only see his profile. Ultimately, Mum and Dad sat down on the lounge and I lay down in bed in my room and we started the movie. No one batted an eyelid during the first naked man-to-man blowjob scene. They laughed in all the right places. And I'm not talking nervous laughter; this was real laughter at the jokes. Even the sex scene was not awkward (at least not for me anyway).

I expected Mum to cry. When I first saw it I was beside myself, blubbering away as I watched, and I'm not a movie-crier! Mum, on the other hand, is a movie-crier. But not a tear. That was odd.

After the movie, I asked her what she thought. She wasn't raving about it, but then I wasn't expecting a rave review. Her only comment was "I hate the way that homosexuals are portrayed as promiscuous". This is exactly what I wanted. It appears I may have suffered from a misconception of my own in that I misconceived her misconceptions. How's that for dizzying logic.

All in all, the new education program is going well. I couldn't have wished for much more.

Dear Pop,

I'm not quite sure why I'm writing to you. Especially since I have no tangible way to send it you, not beyond the confidence that you know what's going on anyway. If that's true then there's not much point writing to you, is there? You already know my secrets, my desires, my truth. The truth is, Pop, I'm writing this letter more for me than you. I'm hoping it's going to provide the catharsis I need.

I miss you so much; I had no idea what grief was like until you were gone. When Grandma died I didn't feel any of this shit. But then I knew you more, deeper perhaps. Because of the Alzheimer's I never really knew my Grandma. I loved her so, you know that now better than anyone, but I didn't grieve the loss of her; I lost her when I was 12. But I always loved her, you know that right? Despite the fact that I was prepared for your death it still took me by surprise. It's like my head saw your frail body, dying in that shitty hospital bed but my heart saw your spirit, alive and stronger than ever. You could have been 22, not 92. I hate to admit it to you but from the day you went into hospital in November I knew what was coming; I knew you weren't long for this world. I suspect you did too. Visiting you in hospital was bittersweet. I wanted--needed--to see you everyday because I knew that soon I wouldn't have the chance. I felt so happy seeing you, just being in your presence, and at the same time so terrible because of the surrounds and what they ultimately meant. There you were, surrounded by sickness, death and shit and you still laughed and joked around when you were lucid. And when you weren't lucid, that day you thought we were in Coolangatta or some other faraway town, I have to admit I had a bit of a chuckle. I know you wouldn't mind, that's why I'm telling you all this. I couldn't tell anyone else that I laughed at you in your lowest hours--it sounds so cold even as I write it--but I don't think you would mind; you laughed at your own expense constantly. I knew you well enough to know that. When I talk about you and talk about these things, I feel self conscious because I don't want what I say to be taken the wrong way. I don't give a fuck if other people understand me or not, only that you'll understand.

I guess you know I'm gay by now. I wish I could have told you. Just between us, I even entertained the idea of telling you. But I thought better of it. Perhaps it was caution at work, perhaps cowardice, I don't know. I think you wouldn't care as long I was getting some. But there was always a niggling fear, like there is with anyone (I'm sure you can imagine what I'm talking about) so I didn't want to rock the boat. I didn't want to lose you when you were still here; I knew I'd loose you soon enough and I didn't want to bring it about earlier at my own hand. I couldn't handle that so I took the safe road. Forgive me, ok?

Have you been reading my blog? I don't know how it works up there. Do you like know everything suddenly? Do you continue learning, like in life? Do you get a choice? Either way, I think I need you to read it. There's a whole section dedicated to you, Pop. No-one else has that honour. Click on the link that says "Pop" on the right side and you'll see everything I've written about you. Actually, before you read my blog, go and learn about the internet. Perhaps in heaven you all have USB ports and you can download the info into your brains? That'd be cool. So absorb it through your USB cable or whatever, however it works up there. I know you'll be interested in it; you always loved knowing the ins and outs of new technology. I tried to explain it to you a few times and I think you got the gist of it, at the very least appreciate it. I knew that you not being able to grasp the entire concept wasn't because you didn't have the faculty for it; it was just a case of not needing to know it. Fuck, even I don't get the whole thing. You did pretty well, I have to admit, but since you're in a position to just totally "get it" now, better than any of use here, do us both a favour and read up. Then read the blog. I'd love to know what you think.

So I've started uni. You left before I had a chance to tell you about my marks in my course last year and well before any offers were made. I got 85% in last year's course and was offered a place to study for a Bachelor of Arts at Sydney. I'm doing two subjects this semester: intro sociology and intro linguistics. Linguistics is cool, really up my alley. Sociology on the other hand is a little tedious. I mean it's interesting, but in the way that documentaries are interesting. You know, like its cool to watch a documentary and learn new things and then never think of it again. But when you constantly have to read about it and write about it, then it gets a bit old. Oh, and I have to get the 7am train on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You always said I shouldn't sleep in so late, so now you've got your way. At least 2/7ths of the time. Go on, gloat away.

My health is very "fluctuatory" these days. I can make up words; you did it all the time. Saves time really, not having to use "propper english". Some days I feel great and others I feel like crap. My legs are tired and sore a lot of the time, but luckily the new medication and a good rest takes the edge off. I truly believe that going to uni is going to strengthen my body, even if I feel like shit in the short-term, because I'll be getting out there and doing stuff. I'm tired a lot these days, you know what that's like I know, and it sux doesn't it? The worst part is that I can't get my mind to shut off and you are all I can think about. Either you, or coming out to sister.

Not that thinking of you is bad, don't misunderstand me, but truth is that this whole grief business is bittersweet. Like take any given memory or situation that we shared, just the two of us, and think about for a second. Like remember when we went for a walk last July? The two of us in our winter jackets, scarves and walking sticks, ambling down the street side by side at a snails pace. Makes me smile at how funny we must have looked. Two little old men, one 92 and one 22, makes me smile every time. But after the smile and the warm feeling washes over me I feel an absence in my heart.

I know you weren't a big emotions guy, well you were but I think if I explained all this to you in person you'd be a little embarrassed. That's what I love about letters, you can be so much more honest than in real-life. I mean we all knew how much you loved Grandma and all of us. You told us so all the time. It broke my heart seeing that tear run down your cheek at Grandma's funeral. You hugged me hello and kissed my cheek goodbye. That's what I miss. That familial closeness. So when I think about the day with the "little old men walk", I smile for the closeness and cry for the distance.

As an abstract concept you are still here with me. I still love you; I always will. No amount of death or distance can take that away from me. Even in some small tangible way you have left vestiges of yourself here; you're on top of my television in a blue frame and on my filing cabinet, being held in place by two butterfly magnets. Your house is full of your life. But as an object (as opposed to a concept) you are gone. It does my head in thinking about it. Like poof, you just went away. Now all we have are relics and memories.

I'm not saying my grief for you is unique, or even the strongest grief that ever existed. It would be nice if it was; it would be a testament to your greatness, to your effect in my life. But, truthfully, I doubt it. I can't even imagine how Dad or my aunts and uncles feel. If this is my pain, what must there's be like? If you have any sway in the matter, help us to move on. Not forget you or "get over you". Just move past wanting the phase of your existence as an object to remain so that we can get to appreciating the phase where you are a concept.

I don't know if I'll write to you again. I guess it depends on how long this whole grief thing lasts. I've thought to myself a few times since you've been gone: "Fuck, I have to ring Pop, it's been ages! I want to tell him about what's been going on!". But, on the other hand, I don't know that dwelling on it too much is healthy. We'll see I guess.

So, that's about it really.

Hooray
(You used to say that instead of "hooroo", remember? It used to crack me up but I don't think you ever got the joke)

love Dan xxoo