A little chalk poem

This very short poem, chalked on the pavement, won me third prize in the Mayhem Pavement Poetry competition yesterday:


Unfortunately  
vodka
cannot erase
you from
my brain
as easily
as rain
breathes
a half-
chalked
poem
back into
nothingness

I won a book of poetry.  Not bad for a quick ten minutes' chalking!  Admittedly the last line was one I had written previously, but not found a home for, so recycled it for this purpose.  It worked well for the medium. Yay poems!

Twenty years is a long time

Today is 20 years since my father passed away.  I was 14, he was 49.  It's a long time.  There are a lot of things in my life, and in the world in general, that he has missed out on.

We are having a memorial this weekend to finally inter his ashes - he's been on the shelf and in the shed for 20 years, poor guy!  It's funny, I don't miss him constantly, it's not like a pain or an ache, but more like a sensitive muscle that just twinges every now and then if I think about it or move the wrong way...

He would have been a great Granddad. He would have been a menace on Facebook.

Anyway, in the spirit of remembrance, here's an unfinished piece I wrote a couple of years back about the day he died.

The end of the chapter

It’s winter.  The air in her bedroom is cold, but R is warm, sandwiched between several layers of duvet and the womb of her waterbed (don’t hassle her, it’s the ‘90s, they were cool then).  It’s morning, early, but not too early, quiet but for the click-click-click of the dog’s claws on the wooden floor of the hallway.  He wants to go outside and R can hear him but she doesn’t move just yet.  It’s the last Friday of the school holidays (dogs have no respect for weekends and holidays) so she’s savouring her lie-in.  One arm snakes out from beneath the covers to grab her current bedroom book (she has three on the go – one for the bedroom, one for the living room and one for the bathroom) and flick on the bedside light.  She is quickly drawn back into the world she reluctantly left the previous night, when her eyelids could no longer resist the beckoning advances of her cheeks.

Time - argh!

I have so many draft posts in my folder it's crazy - and no time to finish them!  Fear not loyal readers (ha!) I will be diligent and set aside some time soon to complete and schedule some posts.

In the meantime, a wee gem from my 5 (and a half) year old:

Kid: Mummy, do you know what icecream tastes like when it's all melted?
Me: Um, milkshake?
Kid: No Mummy, plain milkshake.  But good try.

Nauseous or nauseated - and does it matter?

Readers of my blog will know that I'm a logophile - I love words. I'm also passionate about grammar, punctuation and syntax.  Many people glaze over at this point, but I'm certainly not alone, as evidenced by the numerous grammar debates, jokes and memes cropping up all over the internet. (If you've never watched one of the Jack's Films Your Grammar Sucks videos, you are missing out!)

What I'm not yet sure about is how much of a purist I am. While I, like many others, nearly wept at the announcement that the Oxford Dictionary was adding to the definition of "literally" to allow it to also mean "Used for emphasis while not being literally true", I do accept that common usage changes over time, and sticking rigidly to archaic conventions is unnecessary. In saying that, the day that "would of" or "yous" gets added into common usage is the day I stop speaking English.

Working at a University I am particularly careful about my grammar, even in emails and informal documents, and can spend hours (ok, maybe minutes) deciding whether to use "forums" or "fora" as the plural.  There are also all kinds of debates about this on internet. Even so, there are times I come across something I haven't previously heard of and then it gives me pause - if I have been using a word incorrectly for 30-odd years, and most other people use it incorrectly without obfuscating their meaning, is correct use of the word necessary?

A Short History of my Vagina

Time! It is not currently my friend.  Working full-time with a 45 minute commute, looking after a five year old, trying to do my masters, writing for the student magazine, editing my ex-husband's book and carrying on a new and wonderful LDR all suck up the majority of my time.  But I will be back in gear soon!

In the meantime, please feel free to check out my latest published work!  It's called "A Short History of my Vagina".  Go on, you know you want to...

http://www.waikato.ac.nz/fass/mayhem/issue1/OnyxLily-AShortHistoryofmyVagina.shtml

The Incredible Immunity Girl

The Kid never gets sick.  Except, you know, cancer, but even then, she wasn't actually ill with it.

Sometimes I feel bad about it - the other working parents I talk with are always commiserating about the constant stream of bugs their kids pick up from daycare and/or school - coughs, runny noses, tummy bugs, chicken pox, hand foot and mouth - and how many days they end up having to take off or work partly from home.  I nod along sympathetically, but I can't really join in because The Kid has had maybe one day off from daycare, and one day off from school since she first started at nursery just before her first birthday.

Chicken pox swept through her daycare five or six times while she was there, and her best buddy got it.  The two of them were always hanging out head-to-head, so if she was going to get it, she should have got it that time.  But nope, nothing.  I'm vacillating between getting her vaccinated for the pox, and hoping she just has some sort of natural immunity...

The Kid has a book called "The Incredible Book-Eating Boy" by Oliver Jeffers (which I highly recommend) in which the eponymous character throws up (too many books).  I had to explain to her what throwing up was, because she has never done it!  Actually, that's not quite true. Just before she turned one, we got home after work/nursery one evening and as I got her out of her car seat she threw up straight down my cleavage.  She wouldn't eat that evening, threw up once more (smiling and happy all the while) and by the next day she was fine.  I, on the other hand, spent the next week flitting between bed and bathroom, more ill than I've been in my life. Thanks Kid.

When she was at Preschool she was often upset that she never got one of the coveted iceblocks (ice lollies), which were kept in the freezer for first aid purposes (fevers, tummy bugs etc - it's amazing what flavoured frozen water can cure!)  Once when I was haranguing The Kid to wash her hands after going to the toilet, and said to her "If you don't wash your hands you'll get sick, and you don't want to get sick, do you?" she replied "Yes I do, because then I'll get an iceblock at Preschool!"  Possibly not the effect they were aiming for.  The day she got stung by a wasp on an outing was possibly her best day ever because on returning to centre she convinced a teacher that a wasp sting was iceblock worthy.  When I came to pick her up she came running up to me and said "Guess what Mummy? I got stung by a mosquito and I got to have a WHOLE iceblock!"  She was clearly traumatised.

The Kid certainly doesn't get her immune system from me. I was always getting ear infections and sore throats as a child, although it improved immeasurably once I had my tonsils removed, at age 7.  At 14 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called sarcoidosis of the larynx and spent the next 15 years on steroids to control it.  That is inactive now, but has morphed into another autoimmune condition called uveitis, which affects my right eye.  Uveitis can be one-off, recur sporadically or be chronic.  Mine is chronic (yay, me!)

The Kid's Dad is obviously responsible for her robust health.  He has never been in hospital as a patient, not even when he made his first entrance to the world. He often complains that since meeting me he has spent more time in hospitals than he ever thought possible. I like to introduce people to new experiences... ;)

I do count my lucky stars, touch wood and many other cliches that I have such a healthy child.  It certainly makes the life of a working parent much easier. Speaking of cliches, "famous last words" and "tempting fate" are suddenly coming to mind... ;)

Those down days

I have never suffered from persistent depression.  I know many people who have, and do, and struggle with it on a daily basis.  I think my mental health is generally pretty good.  But every now and then I have one of those down days where my head feels like it's full of marshmallows and cotton wool, my eyes struggle to stay open, there are tears lurking fully formed in my tear ducts and a permanent lump in my throat.  Any small thing is likely to make me cry.  The day seems too hard to do.  Too hard to be.

On these days I would really like to find a smallish cubbyhole, climb in, close the door and shut the world out for the day.

It usually lasts only a day, so I know I'm lucky.  And I've never been so down that I've been in danger of harming myself, or anyone else for that matter.

Today is one of those days.

Getting comfortable in my skin again...

Way back in early January 2013 I outlined my plan for a brand new fit and trim me.  So that didn't really happen.  As you'll know if you've read last month's post "The Big News", 2013 was a year of introspection, decision making and finally some big changes.  But I was fairly despondent for a lot of the year while I figure stuff out, so it's probably not a huge surprise that the weight loss and fitness regime fell by the wayside.  It also added to my despondency - despite not really making any changes, I was upset that I seemed to be putting on weight rather than losing it!

So by September/October 2013 I was hovering around about the 70kg mark.  Not overweight for my height (according to my BMI anyway), but near the border.

In early November, when I made some decisions and embarked on major life changes, I also - suddenly and without planning - kicked myself back on the road to being comfortable in my skin.  I am not of the opinion that skinny = happy by any means, and I don't care what anyone else looks like, but for me, being 10kgs heavier than I feel like I should be meant that I really felt uncomfortable in my own body.

Community "Pride"?

Since posting about my experience with the Pink Sofa I have had some interesting conversations about the nature of the gay community. While people have been outraged on my behalf by the way I have been treated by the Sofa administration, and supportive of my quest to get some answers, there have also been a large number of people who have said they are not particularly surprised.

Like in any small community, particularly one made up of people who for years have been marginalised or targets of abuse and bullying because of who they are, fairness and fair-mindedness are not a given, sadly.  While adversity and/or similarities can draw people together, they can also cause division - one personality clash can drive a whole group apart; one personal vendetta can be incredibly divisive. 

I've experienced similar things in the vegan community.  (Yes, I'm a stereotype - a short-haired vegan feminist lesbian!)  When I first went vegan I lived in the UK, and not knowing any other vegans I joined an online forum.  An innocent aside one day about running the Relay for Life, in memory of my granddad who had recently died from cancer, brought the wrath of the vegangelists down upon me. How could I call myself a vegan and yet support a charity that gave money to evil, animal-testing laboratories? Now, whether that point was right or wrong (and veganism has many shades of grey (not like that!) despite what its more extreme proponents might tell you), surely a vegan forum is the place a new vegan should be able to expect support, friendship and guidance, rather than vitriol and finger-pointing?

The dark side of the Pink Sofa

Pink Sofa is a lesbian networking site which is partly an online dating service, but also much more.  One of the features is called "Chit Chat", which is like a mini Facebook where members post statuses or comments that others can then reply to in thread form. The site is international but Chit Chat seems to be primarily used by Australians, New Zealanders and Brits, with a sprinkling of Americans for good measure.  The site is registered in and operated from South Australia.

Let me start by saying I love Pink Sofa. When I was in the depths of my despondency in 2013, figuring out who the hell I was, Pink Sofa was my refuge.  It helped me realise that yes, I was gay, and no, that wasn't a crime, and yes, lots of other women with husbands and child/ren have been and were going through the same things I was going through.  I made some amazing and supportive new friends, some of whom I also met in "real life", and I felt like I had found a safe haven to help me through my "journey" (god it's hard to write about this stuff without sounding like a lame cliché!)

So when they terminated my membership and refused me any further access to the site, it was a huge and devastating shock.

If you've read my post about the Chip Bag Incident from my childhood, you'll know that one of the things that just kills me is being unjustly accused of wrongdoing. So the fact that Pink Sofa has terminated my membership for some supposed breach of its terms and conditions or code of ethics but wont tell me which one or how I breached it makes me a very ugly combination of furious and miserable.  I have cried more than I care to admit.  I have spent long walks on the beach with the dog planning how I could march into the Pink Sofa office and refuse to leave until I get an apology and my membership reinstated.  I have lost sleep. And I'm not going to stop pursing justice.

Let me take you back a few steps...

Loquacity

This is a piece I wrote for a creative writing paper, but I thought it would work quite well on here.

I have an addiction. A semi-secret delight. Hello everyone, my name is R and I’m a logophile.

I have always loved words, and although most of the time I agree that simple is better, there’s nothing I like more than the mouth-filling sweetness of a multi-syllabic expression that captures precisely what I want to say.

I realise now that my early experiments were not always efficacious, but at the time I couldn’t understand why my mother chuckled quietly at her birthday card addressed “to my beloved mother”, or why my standard four teacher tactfully suggested that four adjectives per noun was a little excessive. By high school though, my verbiage was becoming more accomplished, and I recall the evil delight of making an annoying boy in my class blush by asking him, loudly, whether he masticated.

Queer semantics

I'm a bit of a logophile (ok, a lot of a logophile) and collecting words is one of my hobbies. (I have a thing about that I will post another time).

Several times in my life I have been introduced to brand new vocabularies, notably (for example) during my own medical dramas, and during my daughter's cancer journey.  When I first began dabbling in the online lesbian world (I'm talking about support communities, forums and blogs, not porn, just to be clear!) I discovered a whole new lexicon, with which I'm still coming to terms.

Personally, I now refer to myself as gay.  Old school gay women seem to prefer lesbian, but there's something weird about that word for me.  I will describe myself as a lesbian (and I'm still not sure whether I'm supposed to say "lesbian" or "a lesbian") but it feels uncomfortable, whereas "gay" feels more natural.  I wonder if part of that is that I object to unnecessary gender-specific nouns like 'actress' and 'fireman', and can't see the need for two different words to describe a gay man versus a gay woman.  There is of course the whole spectrum of other gender identities and sexualities - bisexual, asexual, pansexual etc, but I'm not going to venture into that territory just now.

When I first joined Pink Sofa and was setting up my profile, there were a number of options I could tick to define myself, including femme, butch, lipstick, sporty dyke, leather, and androgynous.  Thankfully there was also a 'just me' box, and feeling rather overwhelmed, I ticked that and moved on.

Finding my happy

If you've read my last post, you'll know that 2013 was a pretty big year for me.  In November I came out as gay, and separated from my husband of nine years (although we still currently live in the same house), and then met a wonderful woman, who has completely changed my world.

But the questions I get a lot are - did you know before that you were gay?  Was it a surprise?  How did you figure it out?

These are not easy questions to answer.  I've been seeing a counsellor regularly over the last year, and she has helped me to think about who I am and what I want from life.  In terms of my sexuality, I would say I started trying to define it at around 14.  I have a diary from then (I was never a good ongoing diary-writer, but I had regular bursts of enthusiasm), and in one entry I wrote, in highly sophisticated code "I think I might be a naibsel".  I'll give you a few minutes to crack that...

The big news

In my last post I mentioned some changes in my life.  I've been catching a few people up with the changes in my life in recent weeks, and the conversation goes something like this:

Me: "So, I've separated from my husband..."

Person: "Oh, I'm sorry." (sad sympathetic face)

Me: "No, it's ok actually.  We're staying friends.  It's just that... I'm gay."

Person: "Oh. Right! Well, um, congratulations?" (confused, not sure how to react face)

Me: "And I've met someone.  She's lovely.  I'm really happy."

Person: "Oh! Wow! Great!" (surprised happy face)

It's amazing how the word "Oh" can express so many different emotions.  It's funny how people talk about "coming out" like it's a one time thing.  It would be quite useful if it were - one big announcement so that everyone knows and you don't have to keep having the same conversation over and over again.  A surprising number of people have not been particularly surprised actually.  A gay guy I met at a conference, who was one of the first people I told, said he thought I was gay when he met me.  It was my eyes apparently.  I have lesbian eyes.  Who knew?

Kicking back into gear

I've been thinking about but not actually blogging for almost a year now. I have been thinking about my thesis but not actually doing anything on my thesis for more than six months, since I finished my lit theory paper.

So what have I been doing?  (Aside from working, and being a mother, and commuting, and all the other day to day things?)  I've been doing a lot of soul searching I suppose, for want of a better term. 2013 was a bit of a dark year for me, for a large portion of the year anyway.  I've turned some corners, made some changes and a whole bunch of other generic cliches.

I guess what I'm saying is hi! I'm back!  I know you didn't miss me because no-one reads this blog yet! Hopefully that will change.

I'll use the next few posts to catch you all (ha!) up on my life over the last few months...