My Life in the Slow Lane

It’s a scary thought to think that right now I am living in the proverbial Best Years Of My Life™. Even though I’m twenty-five-and-a-half, I certainly don’t feel like the Grown Up™ that I am supposed to be, and I certainly don’t feel like the Grown Up that my parents appeared to be at this age. I look back at photos of my parents from back then, circa 1979, and cannot believe that I am, in a way, at the same point in my life that they were back then, given that in many ways I really don’t feel it at all.

Twenty years ago, as a child, I poured over the same photographs—they were only ten years old at that point—and seeing my parents’ twenty-something faces smiling back at me I thought to myself that they were just the same as the parents I knew, only slightly younger and presented in colours slightly faded. But they were Grown Ups, that was for sure.

But nonetheless, here I am, Grown Up™ (at least on paper), and living life smack bang in the middle of the Best Years Of My Life™:

I’m halfway through a degree at university. Although at this time of year (and again in November) I am generally loathe to talk highly of academia in any way, shape or form, I am really enjoying it at uni. Currently I have two 2000 word essays due within the next three weeks: the first about the assimilation “experiment” in relation to Indigenous Australians, the second about the ways that the Catholic Church prescribes heterosexuality and gender roles in society. Both topics I’m interested in and passionate about, particularly the second one, but it’s a lot of work!! I also have a 100 question multiple choice exam for psychology to study for. Terrifying.

I’ve got a job I love. It is very stressful lately, I grant you, because we are undergoing a process of Quality Improvement which entails us filling out 17 evidence-based competencies. This, in turn, involves us wanking on about how we do or do not meet said competencies. It’s necessary, yes, but a very stressful endeavour for all involved. Ada, my manager (so named because she bears an uncanny resemblance to Ada Nicodemou), and I have been pulling out our hair and smoking out our lungs trying to get it done on time. It’s due today (being the end of the month). It’s not done. It will be handed in, late, on Monday. We both worked late on Friday, including locking ourselves out of the office at around 5pm when we went for a smoke break.

I have a cat I adore. It seems the slippery slope has been slipped, and the cat is now, for all intents and purposes, mine and Janek’s. I was explaining the situation to my grandfather, by far the most morally upstanding man I know, and he pointed out that what is important here is that as far as she is concerned, she is ours (or, as he put it, we are hers). This means I can now take her to the vet to get her claws clipped with a clear conscience. More about her incredible cuteness at another time. Probably with photographs.

And finally, though by no means least(ly), I have a boyfriend I love. It’ll be a year in six days. Wow. Things are great; nothing much to report really, but then no news is good news. Or so they say, whoever “they” are.

So that’s me. I look back at the faded faces of my twenty-something-year-old parents in those photos from 1979, but I don’t feel as Grown Up as they appeared at the time.

After an interesting New Years Eve, Janek and I returned to reality.

Janek moved out of The Family Home, to a new place a mere two doors down the road from me. It’s like living together only without the actual living together part. Which is great because I’ve found that if I don’t get some space to myself I get really antsy and things get a little unpleasant.

I’ve been insanely busy at work lately too. I’m working on a casual basis with one day as “core duties” and one day for a special project. Between the special project and another big project that’s part of my “core duties”, I’m swamped. I could comfortably work five days a week at this point and still have stuff left over.

I’m waiting for March to come so that things can settle down a little when uni starts. It’s going to be a hectic week: one and a half days at work, three half days and one full day at uni. It’s a little daunting but the amazing thing is that just twelve months ago I never would have thought such a schedule was possible for me! My health is picking up, I can work a full day, study, all that kinda stuff, my only problem is the pain that hasn’t gone away.

So that’s life up to now…

I always try to sleep in on the day of an exam. I like to think that I am more well-rested after a good sleep in; whether or not it is the case or not, I don’t know. Today I woke up at 11:50am. My exam is at 3pm, so I have heaps of time, but I feel very… floaty… today.

Last night my back was quite sore so I took some of my beloved pain killers and went to bed at about midnight and was almost floating away on a cloud of blissful sleep when I was hit with a sudden, and very violent, case of hiccups. I lay in bed, quietly convulsing violently, for a little while hoping that it would go away but alas it didn’t.

I went into the kitchen in search of vinegar.

The Exerciser was in there, making a light midnight snack (of fried vegetables and snags). I waltzed past him, to the pantry, grabbed the bottle of white vinegar and took a swig. He screwed up his face. “Dude!” he said, “what are you doing!?” By way of reply, I hiccupped loudly. “I’m—hic—stopping these fuck—hic—ing hiccups. Apparently.” He looked at me with a look that conveyed perfectly the disdain he no doubt felt, and finally said “Riiiiiiight….” at length. “No seriously,” I said, taking a second swig of vinegar, “it—hic—works. Truly.” He didn’t look like he believed me, and to be honest I was starting to join him. “You need some soft drink,” he counselled, “make you burp.” “Oh—hic—yeh?” I asked, “I haven’t—hic—heard that one—hic. I know about th—hic—e one where you drink—hic—a cup of water and hold your—hic—breath.” I filled up a glass and did just that, drank it while holding my breath. I put the glass on the sink as The Exerciser watched me with mild fascination. “Wait for it…” he said. But nothing came. Hiccups gone. I went back to bed. It was 1:30am.

And that, my friends, is the end of my story. Not very insightful, I know, but a good way to fill in time before I head over to my exam. Now if I could only get over this fucking cough that I seem to have picked up somewhere, then it’d all be fine!

I’m back boys and girls. I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last post. Well, actually I can. The last three weeks have been insane. The first two were incredibly shitty, even as bad weeks go (especially as bad weeks go), but the worst part was that it was (mostly) my own fault. The last week, on the other hand, has been great. Just busy. But great. I have two essays due in the next week and a half, two assignments, a huge project at work and I just don’t have time to scratch myself anymore. Janek has been quite understanding, considering he has barely seen me in the last week, and that when he has seen me it’s either been a quick hello as I’m walking to the library and we bump into each other, or he has been relegated to the other end of the bed as I work. Frankly I don’t know whether to be glad about his level of restraint, or upset at the fact that, quite evidently, I am resistible. But enough about that…

I have a job. I won’t go into too many details but it’s a one-day-a-week position, it’s stuff I’ve (mostly) already done before on a voluntary basis, and the pay is really good considering I have no formal experience whatsoever.

Anyway. The Optimist does sleaze. Yes folks you read that right: The Optimist was working behind the bar at the sleaze ball. When he told me this, after I stopped laughing, I told him what to expect because I didn’t want the poor boy to be too shocked when he got there. The next day he was in the kitchen so I asked him how he found it. He replied “Oh yeh it was fine. I’d had it talked up to me so I wasn’t too shocked or anything. I was ok except for a sixty year old woman showing me her vagina!” It turns out the woman came up to him and said “do you want to see where I keep my sunnies?” before flashing him. Sure enough, her sunnies were on (or perhaps in, I’m not sure) her vagina. He visibly shuddered at this. He’s so cute.

I have three funny stories, all involving The Optimist, which I will probably write about in the near future (unless I decide not to, of course, because two of them involve alcohol-fuelled, incriminating behaviour, one of which involves me). Anyway I really really should get back to work (or, to be more precise, start working for the day) before Janek arrives, so I will write more later.

Case #1, the English student.
In the first lecture of an English literature subject, while discussing the content of the course, the lecturer made reference to several films and novels that we would be studying. She told us that there would be film screenings of the films to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to see the films and that while attendance at the film screenings wasn’t mandatory, watching the film in one way or another was. As she began a new sentence a student shot her hand up. “Yes?” the lecturer asked. “Do we have to read the books too?” The lecturer rolled her eyes.

Case #2: the history student.
During class last week we were discussing ways in which fashion and dress can signify power, authority, status, class and the like. We were asked to go around the room and give an example of this… Examples included police uniforms to denote authority, the crowns and jewels that monarchs wear to denote status, and one particular empress (whose name escapes me now) who had notoriously long finger nails to denote the fact that she didn’t have to concern herself with menial work. The tutor pointed out that in these cases it is common for “common people” to copy the fashions of their “betters”, so as to emulate their status and success. “Oh, like Chinese foot binding,” one girl asserted. The tutor begged her pardon and asked her to elaborate. “Well, originally, it was only the upper classes who bound their feet, as a symbol that they didn’t need to work. Now the normal people are doing it too because they want to emulate the upper classes, only they actually have to work with the bound feet.” The tutor, I’m sure, was speechless.

Case #3: the history professor who learnt something new.
In history the other day, the lecturer mentioned a group called the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom, or WILF for short. When she said the word “wilf” aloud, the entire auditorium burst into laughter. “What?” she demanded, “What’s so funny about wilf?” The auditorium erupted again. “You know I feel very nervous when people laugh and I don’t get the joke, someone please tell me what’s so funny!” she implored. I called her name and she asked me if I would care to enlighten her; I said I would tell her in the break. “Is it horribly rude?” she asked. I nodded. “Oh good!” she said.

When the break came she walked up to me and asked why the acronym had resulted in peals of laughter from the audience. I asked her if she’d ever heard the term MILF before. Unsurprisingly, being that she is probably around the sixty-years-of-age mark, she hadn’t. “Well,” I began, choosing my words carefully, “I guess the term applies to an attractive older woman, the mother of a mate for instance, and she would be a MILF because she’s a ‘mother I’d like to—” I faltered, slightly, but then decided I’d come this far with the explanation I may as well go the whole way and say the word, “—fuck’.” She laughed and said she’d have to ask her kids, who are about my age, about it when she saw them next. “It applies to men too,” I added, “a DILF.” “Well don’t you learn something new everyday?” she said, chuckling.

My apologies for the lack of posts; I’ve been spending most of my spare time with Janek lately, so I haven’t had a lot of time to blog, and most of the things we’ve been doing I can’t really blog about anyway. But, nonetheless, here I am.

Uni started this week. My first lecture was on Monday at midday, on the other side of campus from where I live. I woke at 7 am: first strike against the day. Janek was going to drop in to pick up something he left here so I sent him a text, telling him he could come over early. He arrived at about 8.30 am: first tick for the day. He had to leave soon after, however, to get to a meeting at 11: second strike. By a quarter to midday, I was ready for the lecture—ready to absorb information and engage in the intellectual life of university. I walked towards the university, crossed the footbridge, and then stopped. The whole area was cordoned off. I couldn’t get into the uni: third strike. I was freezing: fourth strike.

I asked some questions of the person who appeared to be in charge. She told me that some very corrosive chemicals had been discovered in the Pharmacy Building, so four of the surrounding buildings had been evacuated, and Science Rd had been closed. This meant that to get to my lecture I would have to walk around the boundary of the university to get in through another entrance: fifth strike.

First day—five strikes and two ticks. I went home, back to bed.

It’s been a strange week. Sometimes, when people ask you “How was your week?” you can answer quickly, confidently, “My week has been great thanks, and yours?” or “Fucked. Shithouse. Don’t ask.” This week has not been one of those weeks. This week has been the kind of week where, when asked “How was your week?”, you have to consider your answer before speaking, weighing up the good and bad of the week before giving an answer. This week I have felt overwhelmingly that I am juggling all these glass balls are up in the air, watching them hovering, threatening to come crashing down at any moment as I cling on and try to cope.

Ball #1: pain
This week I have managed the dubious achievement of having every part of my body in pain at some stage. Last Thursday, where this missive begins, I fell down the fucking stairs. I had ducked upstairs to go to the toilet and in my haste, as I was quite literally going to wet myself if I didn’t go to the toilet that instant, I left my stick in my bedroom and took the stairs on my own. On the sixth step from the bottom I misjudged the distance and placed my foot right on the edge of the step, my centre of gravity on the wrong side of that edge. Down I tumbled. My arms instinctively reached out to break my fall: one gripped the banister tighter as I slithered down the stairs, the other went to my side, attempting to act like a brake against the carpet. Both had little effect. As I slid down the stairs I started laughing, maniacally, thinking about the spectacle I must look.

On Monday I had a killer migraine, on the fucking train no less, that saw me lying down across the long seat all the way to the city. I got a taxi home, took a caffergot (100mg of caffeine… just like a punch in the heart) and a sedative and collapsed into bed. Then I puked. I slept for four hours, waking at 8pm, in time for a very nutritious dinner of just-add-water-style noodles, before going to bed shortly after.

And then there’s the perpetual, and totally inexplicable, pain in my back and legs. While it is true that my legs have bothered me considerably less of late, they are still painful on the odd occasion. This fact would be greeted joyously if it weren’t for my back’s total overcompensation in the pain department. What’s worse is that it’s so fucking inconsistent. On Tuesday night it hurt so much that I had tears in my eyes, on the verge of a full-on cry, and no amount of any drug would do anything to dull the pain. Wednesday, on the other hand, was pretty much pain free. Today was pretty good too, still sore but bearable. WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT!?

Ball #2: depression
That segues nicely into the second ball, depression and its associated fun extras. As the back situation trundles forth into the land of the unknown, depression is creeping back into my life, ever so slowly. It is not the big bad blanket of despair that once it was; it’s a little more subtle than that. I have very little motivation to get work done, something I cannot afford to do since my workable time is so limited with my fucking back dictating when I can and cannot work. I often feel an overwhelming feeling of helplessness, which is then replaced by an overwhelming irritability in which I can’t fucking stand anyone’s shit and really only want to talk to or otherwise communicate with a handful of close friends.

The worst part of this ball is that in the last fortnight or so I have had the temptation to cut myself again. It hasn’t been particularly strong, but it is there nonetheless, and that scares the shit out of me. I haven’t picked up a knife or a razor, and very soon after the temptation crosses my mind I dismiss it as ridiculous, but it scares me.

Ball #3: existential angst
As I lay in bed, meditating, with the electric blanket on full and a hot water bottle over my chest, my mind wanders to such questions as “Why me?”, “What have I done to deserve this?”, “When will it end?”, “How will it end?”, “Where is God in all of this?”, “Does He care?”. I can’t feel God anymore. Maybe it’s because I’m a perpetually drug-fucked state, maybe it’s something else, but this is getting very lonely.

Ball #4: school work
Since I have missed so many classes and lectures, I am now a little behind in my subjects. Not only that, I have a 2000 word English essay due in a little over a fortnight. That I haven’t started. With my haphazard ability to walk or sit up comfortably, coupled with my occasional blue-tinted worldview, the likelihood of my writing a winning essay is pretty fucking slim.

Ball #5: I have no time for a breakdown
With all this shit happening, I just don’t have time for this. I have things to do, people to see, places to go, essays to write. I think I need a good hug and a cry. But as I am not one to cry at the drop of a walking stick, this is much easier said than done.

So many people have said that they admire my strength, but I don’t feel particularly strong. I guess I must have some strength or I would have given up long ago, but the truth is that at the moment I don’t have much choice in the matter… I either hang on any way I can or I end it all. And I don’t want to die, I want to live, which actually makes this harder because I really do have no other option. But this isn’t much of a life. If it hasn’t cleared up by the end of the exam period I am considering Drastic Measures. Like demanding an MRI. Or heroin. Somehow I will get through this… I just have no idea how.

Ever had one of those days where you wonder why you bothered leaving the house? While Monday wasn’t totally unproductive, it was a bit of a wasted day. A wet, wasted day.

It began at 7am with Triple J blaring menacingly from my clock radio, followed by the cosy sound of pouring rain pattering outside my window. Such a calming sound, the pitter-patter of rain I mean, at least until you realise that you have to go out into the world of umbrellas, mud splashes, and raging torrents of water careening down gutters towards unsuspecting feet.

By 10am I was at uni, a little damp by that point, but I was ready to face the day head on. I had a small list of things to do: collect my disabilities services card, hire a mail box, sell old text books to the second hand bookshop, buy some of this semester’s texts from same bookshop, go to a meeting about a discussion panel they want to take part in, lodge some forms with Centrelink (for the non-Aussie punters, Centrelink is a little like the US’ Social Security, only less helpful and probably meaner). So simple really: just do each item in turn, cross them off, then go home unscathed.

I arrived at disabilities services and after a short wait got my new green card, no dramas. I arrived at the place where the mail boxes are let out and filled in the form. The guy at the desk then informed me that the woman who organises them was away sick and he couldn’t log into the computer to allocate one for me. He tried calling various IT “help lines” (I use this term very loosely), ultimately to no avail. The bookshop only took two of my books on consignment so I had no cash in the hand. The day was not shaping up well.

On the way to the meeting, I paused briefly under an awning to light a cigarette and noticed my backpack was open. The Centrelink forms were fast becoming sodden and as I stood at the lights on City Road the deluge intensified and I noticed myself becoming very wet. I looked up at the underside of my umbrella just in time for a giant drop of water to hit me square in the eye. The lights went green and I crossed the road, leaking umbrella in one hand and walking stick in the other. Just as I put my foot to the bitumen, a tidal wave rounded the corner and drowned my unsuspecting feet which were (admittedly foolishly) clad only in canvass-top shoes.

I arrived at my meeting and inspected the damage. My shoes were totally sodden through; the white business shirt I wore over the top of a green t-shirt was also soaked. I removed the soaked shoes and peeled the formerly-white-and-now-lime shirt away from my body. The centrelink papers were salvable so I laid them out in front of the air conditioner to dry. My novel was half damp, its pages rippled with moisture. I put the shirt into one plastic bag and the papers and novel into another.

By the time I was on the bus I removed the shoes too because they were making my toes cold. I arrived at Centrelink shoeless and soaking wet. Luckily I wasn’t the only one. When I got home I took stock of my day: got mail box, uncheck, sold old texts, uncheck, bought new texts, check, disabilities card, check, meeting, check, Centrelink, check.

Maybe it’s my new lime shirt, but despite more checks than unchecks I still feel like it was a wasted day.

Yesterday I went to the radiology office for the CT scan and the x-rays. It was fairly uneventful and nowhere near as scary as I thought it would be.

After having my name called, I followed a cute blond guy (who would have been named “Rusty” if he were American, or so I thought on the day) through the maze of corridors to the CT room. He asked me where the pain was and I showed him as he uh-huhed and marked it off on a diagram of the body, asking me about the type of pants and underwear I was wearing (I was a little taken aback, but realised soon enough that it was a question of metallic objects ruining scans) and peppered his speech with the word “mate”. By the end of my description there were more green-coloured pain areas than white areas. He had me take my shoes off and empty my pockets before getting onto the bed of the machine, which was blissfully donut-shaped and not at all vaginal in any way, shape or form.

I had my knees bent over a foam prop and my head on a pillow. The bed began to move up and into the donut-hole, until my body had gone through completely, leaving my body on one side and my head on the other, starting up into the internal mechanisms. Lights came on, little buzzers went off, things whirred and beeped and before I knew it Rusty was standing beside the machine telling me I could get up and go to the x-ray. I hopped off the bed, in a totally ungraceful way, and put my shoes back on and collected my things. I was ushered into another room, this one much the same as the CT room, except (unsurprisingly) this one had an x-ray machine.

CT scan, done.

The x-ray technician also asked after my underwear and instructed me to take off my shirt and lie down on the bed of the x-ray machine. Another lesser technician, who was probably a trainee because he either had to ask the other guy what to do, or have it shown to him, came in and started fiddling with knobs and dials. The x-rays, about five in all, were taken quite quickly and I was soon ushered back out into the waiting room to go home. As I stepped outside I thought to myself “well that was painless, why was I so worried!?” The results will be in Monday.

X-ray, done.

Today I had my history exam at 9am. Dad drove me to the uni at about 8, giving me a little under an hour to hunt down an open coffee shop and madly read over exam revision notes before going in. Just as I was about to go in I was hit by a sudden tide of nausea, brought on (somewhat belatedly, I now realise as I write this) from the pain killers I had taken at seven. I felt hot and clammy so I lay down on the cold stone floor until the feeling passed, then hobbled over to the building and found my room. I think I did well on the exam, definitely a pass at any rate, and I am now free.

Exam, done.
First year of uni, done.

I’m feeling much better; the gastro seems to have been shat out long ago and I am now back to “normal”, such as “normal” is for me anyway.

Presently, I am indulging in a little wanton procrastination, when I really should be doing a 2000 word history essay on the Australian History Wars, or doing a linguistics assignment that I haven’t started yet but which is due on Friday. The history essay is a very interesting topic, one that has fascinated me even before I began this course, although I fear the essay doesn’t quite answer the question. At this late stage I just say “fuck it”. As long as I pass.

In other news, there is a very good chance I will be moving out of home next year! The university has a number of terrace houses in Darlington and Forest Lodge (a totally disingenuously named suburb; there are probably no lodges and definitely no forests within its boundaries). It looks like, with the help of the inheritance from Pop’s estate, Dad is prepared to support me next year while I’m 24, until I can qualify for Austudy when I turn 25. We discussed it at length in the car the other day and nutted out several possible scenarios, all with a bare minimum of convincing argument on my part. We haven’t let Mum in on it yet—that is a task for next week when I have more time to argue—but I’m sure once I point out that it will mean better health due to a drastic cut in commuting and the ability to pick up an extra subject with the time saved in transit, that she will (probably begrudgingly) see the merit in the plan.

Speaking of Pop, we have been involved in the somewhat sombre exercise of readying his home for auction, which will happen on the 27th of October. Dad is on holidays at the moment, so he’s been going down every day to clear things out (Mum thinks I am a hoarder, but Pop is the king) and fixing little bits and pieces to get the house ready. I haven’t had a chance to help out because of the drug debacle, gastro and homework but next week I plan on going down to take some photos and old letters for the family history project my cousin Damien and I are working on. It will be a difficult day on the 27th.

And lastly, I was able to attend the mentor training day on Saturday. It was a great day; I met lots of great people and enjoyed myself, despite being on a strict sao and vegemite diet (mandated by Dr Mum) while everyone else enjoyed really yummy looking sandwiches.

So that’s it for now. I think I better get back to the history stuff, before it gets any later and I end up staying up late, again. Hopefully next week I can write the next installment of A history of us.