I woke up yesterday to excrutiating back pain that shot from my coccyx to my neck that woke me up with a start, but rendered me immobile for several minutes. I managed to stir my body from semi-conscious purgatory to writhe and moan, finding no comfort in the foetal or stretching out. Dragging myself into the loungeroom, I bent myself backwards over the arm-rest of my bright purple sofa – CRACKCRACKCRACK! - the pain in my back immediately made its way into my stomach, and I called Jerkface – he needed to take The Kid to school and me to the hospital.
What is it about going to a medical centre or hospital that makes whatever agonising pain you were feeling go away that teeny-tiny bit so you feel like a guilty hypochondriac with neon arrow-lights shining down on you, screaming “IDIOT” in bright orange like an unholy, shameful aura? Whatever it is, I felt it. My heart felt heavier as I scanned Accident and Emergency; there were mangled men, wounded women, delirious delinquents, and most of them were alone. It was then that the doctor was called over, who decided to cut the shit and ask me relevant questions about my admission, rather than where I was born (I was asked twice) and if I was a citizen (twice). Yes Doctor, I’m in pain. Yes Doctor, I’ve pooped in the last 48 hours. Yes Doctor, I’ve eaten in the last 23 years. I think it was that last one that had me shown to a bed. With great urgency, at that.
I felt I had no business being there, wasting valuable resources in the way of staff and supply – my demand felt ridiculous. I felt someone else could’ve used my bed, my urine jar, my gown with one arse-tie that was missing a corresponding one so my back-end was feeling a draught from every which-way. I felt stupid and weak, until I doubled over in what felt like my stomach twisting.
Despite the tattoos and piercings I’ve had over the years, I have never had a good working relationship with needles for blood collection. While I have the utmost faith in both public and private healthcare systems and even more for those qualified to collect blood, it’s become apparent over the years that my veins have fear of their own – every time I’ve ever had to have a cannula inserted into my veins, they’ve hidden like cockroaches when the light goes on. This time, I was jabbed seven (7) times over two arms and the back of my right hand in an attempt to find a vein. All seven (7) times, their attempts were unsuccessful. The nurses and doctors did, however, manage to burst four (4) of my veins, leaving me to look like a jonesing smack addict writhing in agony and covered in bruises. Fantastic. Despite the glorified bliss of a horse-drawn (non)existence so loosely documented by William S. Burroughs, I knew there was another reason I didn’t pursue a junky life.
Later, I was wheeled into X-Ray, where I was left to wait alongside an elderly gentleman who occasionally forgot who he was, where he was, and who everyone was. Including his faithful and terrified wife, who never left his side. Before we found ourselves next to each other awaiting our turn with the x-rays, he drifted in and out of sleep, snoring like a tranquilised boar. Funnily enough, whenever he woke up and his wife had nodded off, he’d grab her head and shake it around a bit, just to ask who she/everyone was.
X-Ray in every hospital is a funny place to be. They ask you to remove all jewellery, as they say it could interfere with your health and/or scan. You say you have non-negotiable jewellery like piercings, they shrug. They say it’s a harmless procedure, but they run like the wind behind what looks like bulletproof glass windows to peek in at you laying there, pathetic, so they don’t get exposed to radiation. Important to note also – they’re always run by one x-ray “specialist” who’s got an over-inflated ego because he/she is surrounded by medical students who are nervous, clumsy, and so goddamned cute like an abandoned puppy in a skip bin that you can’t help but be sympathetic and help them out when they can’t figure out left from right.
Six hours later, I was well over it. As surprisingly efficient as this particular hospital was, I wasn’t prepared to lose any more time for inconclusive tests. I called for the doctor, who was tending to an emo kid who got some waterproof mascara in his eye. She said that was fine, my blood tests were all within normal limits, my x-rays were showing up fine, and all she had to do was draw up my discharge letter. She asked that I keep my robe on, as she had one more test her boss wanted her to perform – something about fingers and KY Jelly and making sure that nothing was blocking my innards…
Ultrasound? Yeah, she did mention that before. Sure, why not? I’d wait around for that.
She came in with a box of tissues, industrial-sized KY Jelly, and gloves on. I was to lay on the tissue she laid down at the edge of my bed with my knickers down and facing away from her. The rest was a bit of a blur, but it sounded eerily similar to a veteran cop reading Miranda Rights to a career criminal he’d arrested one too many times on Law & Order, whilst thinking about what to order for lunch. The words “non-invasive compared to” and “not as bad as you think” came up, but I was busy trying to channel ALF’s “No Problem!” attitude despite my bed’s obvious butt-overhang.
It wasn’t exactly an in-and-out procedure… more like an in-out-a-bit-pad-around-in-a-bit-more-out-a-bit-more-turn-in-as-far-as-I-can-without-looking-like-I-enjoy-it-then-all-the-way-out procedure. I’m not going to argue with a doctor when she’s closer to accessing my giblets than anybody has ever been, ever. It only took about a minute, and I was left with the box of tissues to wipe myself down like the scum I am.
Good news: I don’t have prostate cancer.
Bad news: I didn’t get so much as a kiss on the back of the neck, or an encouraging tap on the fanny for a colonic job well done. Team work makes the dream work, you know.
Good news: I think Doctor still respects me.
Bad news: I may have first-stage Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I’ve been ordered to do a C14 Urea Breath Test for Helicobacter Pylori, and get a referral to see a Gastroenterologist. Best case scenario is Coeliac Disease (gluten-free, aka DELICIOUS-FREE), worse case is IBS.
Despite the buzzwords, both are quite manageable and nowhere near as bad as they sound. It’s almost as if you have to become ill as a rite of passage to get well. My diet got its overhaul from crap to quite healthy when I started this job in November last year, preventative and conscious-driven (avoid She-Wang!), but it’s been headache after headache since I found out I was lactose intolerant and cut the dairy completely out of my diet (yay, Soy.) in April. Sorry, I digress.
I was ordered to have an ECG to double-check my heartstrings:
“Your heart rate’s a bit on the upper range, but your blood pressure’s fine. Maybe today was a bit of a scare. Hahaha!”
Well, Nurse. Not five minutes ago, I was made to wipe myself down after having your good doctor fist me when I thought I was going to have an ultrasound. I’d say that qualifies as a bit of a scare, ya.
Finally, Doctor came back with my discharge letter and four sachets of Movicol. Movicol is a hard-core diuretic to flush out my system. Yayyyy. I am to go on four days of this (anti)shit. She did the Miranda Rights-esque talk again, and said the Ultrasound will wait until I return if I should need to because that would have been too invasive, and I've been through enough.
... riiiight.
With that, I said my thanks and left.
I returned to work the next day where our kind Naturopaths decided to lovingly call me Lil’ Smacky for the bruises. I floated in and out of awareness (thanks, Endone), working toward the end of the day where I had the second round of Prolotherapy on my foot to go... surprise, I wasn’t really feeling fearful of needles this time around.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
Sosued
I can remember the days when I called a jihad on nightclubs – the music was far too loud to engage in decent conversation, it’s far too dark to figure out where walls end and hidden stairwells begin, and it’s far too crowded and sweaty to figure out if you’re standing in spilt beer or piss. As far as I was concerned back then, there was no reason for me to ever find myself in a club – if you wanted to find me, you looked in bars and pubs close to public transport, and if I wasn’t with Misha or Nailpolishneurosis, I was alone.
Some things never change. Some are slightly altered.
I really do owe my ex-boyfriend (the “thespian” who can’t let Ice and one mildly successful acting stint 15+ years ago go) a thankyou, as the gentlemen who run Sosueme have become some of my dearest friends in Sydney. With several successful nights under their belt, I have seen their joy as well as their stress. I remember arriving in town at 3pm on the afternoon of the very first Sosueme – I rocked up to Clubhaus and was promptly left alone to wait for one of their girlfriends. Luckily, we were well-acquainted and she didn’t have that annoying inherent girlfriend trait of hating every woman who was close to their boyfriends. We ate cheesecake, talked about life, then headed to The Fringe around 6pm where I was faced with an unspoken and unexpected maternal obligation to almost force-feed Lady Sosueme, who had a not-so-secret eating disorder and addiction to binge drinking. Whew.
I’ve never been much of a social butterfly so found myself behind the scenes, helping out. Crashing at Clubhaus at about 5am, I woke up at 9am and had the other maternal non-surprise task of waking the dead so they could get all their staging gear returned by 11.30am. Aside from the foray into club management, the boys all have a hand in The Religion (one is the manager, two are musicians, and one is a long-time friend, collaborator, theatre actor) and are all individually intelligent, ambitious and oblivious of the hilarity that comes from moments of ego. It’s almost like watching Entourage, but the main character is rotated. They are friends, and my help was voluntary – a favour to friends who were very much aware that the bulk of the support shown had its limits. Nobody wants to deal with the bullshit you can’t see if there’s sex, drugs, and disco balls around. Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting anything from it aside from a thankyou in the way of free drinks and lunch.
Now I’m on Sosueme’s payroll as the VIP doorbitch. I think Blogger can only handle highlights, so.
As queried in previous comments, I (thankfully) have no say in who comes in or goes. If they’re on the list and are wearing their armbands, I let them in. When they start to get sloppy, that’s where I start up. The Sosueme before this, I had a radio direct to the front door and security. I didn’t get one this time because the last one was peaceful and well-organised. That, and those radios are useless.
The VIP room – even when empty - is cramped. I was prepared for a busy evening knowing that the room was accidentally double-booked with a goodbye party and a quarter-life bash. What I wasn’t expecting was a DJ double-booking AND another birthday party… the birthday party OF DOOM! This BPOD belonged to a poor(?) Birthday Girl who walked into a karmic blitzkrieg, the ghost of promiscuity past – in amongst the undulating flesh-wave of triple-booking, seven (7) previous lovers had attended, and all seven (7) had buddied up to exchange stories about Birthday Girl.
HA.
HA.
HA.
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHA.
Even without the ghosts and double-bookings, unless you’re there to pull strings or hold everything together, I think almost everyone starts to turn into a gremlin after midnight. There’s been time to have that five-too-many bevvies, chugged down with whatever little self-respect you had to begin with. Chivalry, etiquette, common decency, and basic vocabulary all give way to bullying, verbal abuse, physical abuse, leaning against walls, and lazy eyes. The beautiful get ugly and I swing between delight and depression.
People get fucking stupid when they hear “VIP”. They don’t care so much when it’s “Private Function.” I had several non-banded Actually, just writing about the evening is starting to piss me off again, so here are some lowlights.
“Armband or not, I don’t give a fuck. It’s over capacity, and once you walk out you cannot come back in. I’m now under Fringe orders, not Sosueme orders. Deal with it, or deal with security.”
That didn’t go down too well with the crowd. During the enforced exodus, I had a drink thrown at me and a woman call me a bitch when I tried to push her away from the wall candle she was nodding off dangerously close to. I had a “DONYOUKNUHOOAHHAMMMM” suit tell me that he owned the bar (lie), and that because I wasn’t listening to him (there wasn’t even a request or coherent dialogue, to my knowledge), he was going to piss on me. He got as far as leaning his forehead against the wall and half-undid his zipper before security booted him out.
Then there was Drunky. I saw Drunky several hours before, grinding against the smoke machine and making drunky-eyes in my general direction. Now here he was, in all his drunky glory. Sonofabitch. He stumbled down the stairs. He either grinned or vomitted a little into his mouth, then stood up straight and weaved his way towards me. Somewhere in the weaving, he seemed to realise that he was obviously stinking drunk and decided to change his tactic from trying to romance his way in to just shouldercharging his 6’ frame through me.
It’s amazing how my sober 4’10” can feel like a brick wall when his 6’ is quivering, drunken (but impressively pert!) mancan.
“Armband?”
“Ngughhhh.”
“Sorry mate, that’s a stamp. Armband’s an armband. Private function.”
“Nguggggggghhhhhh. Come on, Love.”
“Take it up with the guys at the front door or fuck off. You’re pissed as a fart and I’ve the right mind to call security.”
“Ngugh! Cunting cunt!”
“Fuck off.”
A mate of mine, Guy, tried to extract Drunky. Drunky reacted by punching him in the head and attempting to punch me. Security (bless, timing!) found him and threw him out. I later overheard Guy lean over to one of the Sosueme Gents and yell something about Drunky giving me a hard time.
“What, Miss Q? Fuck, she’ll chew him up and spit him out. She’s alright – she’s a fucking bulldog, man.”
Yeah!
VIP was eventually closed at 3am, so I had an hour to drink and socialise, which is what I did. I got to say goodbye to Kim, who was leaving to join the Circe de Soleil to be a carney, and extend my congrats and happy birthdays to Hutch and Birthday Girl. I danced for a bit (funny how these things find their way onto Facebook), and spent the rest of my hour sitting with a friend and laughing at the terrifyingly trashed dancers who had broken their “Off” switches, with big thanks to amphetamines. Apparently, if you haven’t shelved, you haven’t lived.
.
I stepped outside for a smoke, and found myself surrounded by couples alternating between making out and feeling each other’s faces. I assured the couple closest to me that there were no visible pustules on their faces, then decreed a jihad on public affection.
I was well over the evening. I helped a Sosueme Guy and Fringe staff clean up after closing time, then we went back to Clubhaus at 5am where I took position on my favourite blue sofa until 9am.
Lighting a fag in the Clubhaus courtyard after a much-needed shower, I rang my ex-husband to see how things were with The Kid. He handed the phone over to her, and my heart ached as she stuttered with excitement, telling me how she and Daddy met Grandma at the airport with a bunch of flowers (returning from a work stint in India, bless outsourcing), and that Daddy was going to take her to see “Surf’s Up” at the movies.
“I love you, Mummy.”
“I love you too, Monkey.”
“Kbye!”
I ended the call with my ex-husband, stepped out of the courtyard into the alley where none of the terraces had windows, and cried.
Sosueme’s once a month, and as much as I love seeing my friends and telling arseholes to piss off, motherhood is easily the best decision I’ve ever made. A few hours of idiots is fine for decent tax-free money in hand, but that’s it for me - I’m happy where I am.
In other news, I am in the process of organizing a photoshoot with a new photographer. His angle is capturing the personality and character of the model, and his current portfolio is wicked – there’s a lot of playfulness in the shoots. I guess women can be playful... I’m more socially inept than playful, and my goofiness or “playfulness” comes out of a neurotic desire to fill awkward silences, so I don’t know about that theme. Woooo, creative control.
Some things never change. Some are slightly altered.
I really do owe my ex-boyfriend (the “thespian” who can’t let Ice and one mildly successful acting stint 15+ years ago go) a thankyou, as the gentlemen who run Sosueme have become some of my dearest friends in Sydney. With several successful nights under their belt, I have seen their joy as well as their stress. I remember arriving in town at 3pm on the afternoon of the very first Sosueme – I rocked up to Clubhaus and was promptly left alone to wait for one of their girlfriends. Luckily, we were well-acquainted and she didn’t have that annoying inherent girlfriend trait of hating every woman who was close to their boyfriends. We ate cheesecake, talked about life, then headed to The Fringe around 6pm where I was faced with an unspoken and unexpected maternal obligation to almost force-feed Lady Sosueme, who had a not-so-secret eating disorder and addiction to binge drinking. Whew.
I’ve never been much of a social butterfly so found myself behind the scenes, helping out. Crashing at Clubhaus at about 5am, I woke up at 9am and had the other maternal non-surprise task of waking the dead so they could get all their staging gear returned by 11.30am. Aside from the foray into club management, the boys all have a hand in The Religion (one is the manager, two are musicians, and one is a long-time friend, collaborator, theatre actor) and are all individually intelligent, ambitious and oblivious of the hilarity that comes from moments of ego. It’s almost like watching Entourage, but the main character is rotated. They are friends, and my help was voluntary – a favour to friends who were very much aware that the bulk of the support shown had its limits. Nobody wants to deal with the bullshit you can’t see if there’s sex, drugs, and disco balls around. Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting anything from it aside from a thankyou in the way of free drinks and lunch.
Now I’m on Sosueme’s payroll as the VIP doorbitch. I think Blogger can only handle highlights, so.
As queried in previous comments, I (thankfully) have no say in who comes in or goes. If they’re on the list and are wearing their armbands, I let them in. When they start to get sloppy, that’s where I start up. The Sosueme before this, I had a radio direct to the front door and security. I didn’t get one this time because the last one was peaceful and well-organised. That, and those radios are useless.
The VIP room – even when empty - is cramped. I was prepared for a busy evening knowing that the room was accidentally double-booked with a goodbye party and a quarter-life bash. What I wasn’t expecting was a DJ double-booking AND another birthday party… the birthday party OF DOOM! This BPOD belonged to a poor(?) Birthday Girl who walked into a karmic blitzkrieg, the ghost of promiscuity past – in amongst the undulating flesh-wave of triple-booking, seven (7) previous lovers had attended, and all seven (7) had buddied up to exchange stories about Birthday Girl.
HA.
HA.
HA.
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHA.
Even without the ghosts and double-bookings, unless you’re there to pull strings or hold everything together, I think almost everyone starts to turn into a gremlin after midnight. There’s been time to have that five-too-many bevvies, chugged down with whatever little self-respect you had to begin with. Chivalry, etiquette, common decency, and basic vocabulary all give way to bullying, verbal abuse, physical abuse, leaning against walls, and lazy eyes. The beautiful get ugly and I swing between delight and depression.
People get fucking stupid when they hear “VIP”. They don’t care so much when it’s “Private Function.” I had several non-banded Actually, just writing about the evening is starting to piss me off again, so here are some lowlights.
“Armband or not, I don’t give a fuck. It’s over capacity, and once you walk out you cannot come back in. I’m now under Fringe orders, not Sosueme orders. Deal with it, or deal with security.”
That didn’t go down too well with the crowd. During the enforced exodus, I had a drink thrown at me and a woman call me a bitch when I tried to push her away from the wall candle she was nodding off dangerously close to. I had a “DONYOUKNUHOOAHHAMMMM” suit tell me that he owned the bar (lie), and that because I wasn’t listening to him (there wasn’t even a request or coherent dialogue, to my knowledge), he was going to piss on me. He got as far as leaning his forehead against the wall and half-undid his zipper before security booted him out.
Then there was Drunky. I saw Drunky several hours before, grinding against the smoke machine and making drunky-eyes in my general direction. Now here he was, in all his drunky glory. Sonofabitch. He stumbled down the stairs. He either grinned or vomitted a little into his mouth, then stood up straight and weaved his way towards me. Somewhere in the weaving, he seemed to realise that he was obviously stinking drunk and decided to change his tactic from trying to romance his way in to just shouldercharging his 6’ frame through me.
It’s amazing how my sober 4’10” can feel like a brick wall when his 6’ is quivering, drunken (but impressively pert!) mancan.
“Armband?”
“Ngughhhh.”
“Sorry mate, that’s a stamp. Armband’s an armband. Private function.”
“Nguggggggghhhhhh. Come on, Love.”
“Take it up with the guys at the front door or fuck off. You’re pissed as a fart and I’ve the right mind to call security.”
“Ngugh! Cunting cunt!”
“Fuck off.”
A mate of mine, Guy, tried to extract Drunky. Drunky reacted by punching him in the head and attempting to punch me. Security (bless, timing!) found him and threw him out. I later overheard Guy lean over to one of the Sosueme Gents and yell something about Drunky giving me a hard time.
“What, Miss Q? Fuck, she’ll chew him up and spit him out. She’s alright – she’s a fucking bulldog, man.”
Yeah!
VIP was eventually closed at 3am, so I had an hour to drink and socialise, which is what I did. I got to say goodbye to Kim, who was leaving to join the Circe de Soleil to be a carney, and extend my congrats and happy birthdays to Hutch and Birthday Girl. I danced for a bit (funny how these things find their way onto Facebook), and spent the rest of my hour sitting with a friend and laughing at the terrifyingly trashed dancers who had broken their “Off” switches, with big thanks to amphetamines. Apparently, if you haven’t shelved, you haven’t lived.
.
I stepped outside for a smoke, and found myself surrounded by couples alternating between making out and feeling each other’s faces. I assured the couple closest to me that there were no visible pustules on their faces, then decreed a jihad on public affection.
I was well over the evening. I helped a Sosueme Guy and Fringe staff clean up after closing time, then we went back to Clubhaus at 5am where I took position on my favourite blue sofa until 9am.
Lighting a fag in the Clubhaus courtyard after a much-needed shower, I rang my ex-husband to see how things were with The Kid. He handed the phone over to her, and my heart ached as she stuttered with excitement, telling me how she and Daddy met Grandma at the airport with a bunch of flowers (returning from a work stint in India, bless outsourcing), and that Daddy was going to take her to see “Surf’s Up” at the movies.
“I love you, Mummy.”
“I love you too, Monkey.”
“Kbye!”
I ended the call with my ex-husband, stepped out of the courtyard into the alley where none of the terraces had windows, and cried.
Sosueme’s once a month, and as much as I love seeing my friends and telling arseholes to piss off, motherhood is easily the best decision I’ve ever made. A few hours of idiots is fine for decent tax-free money in hand, but that’s it for me - I’m happy where I am.
In other news, I am in the process of organizing a photoshoot with a new photographer. His angle is capturing the personality and character of the model, and his current portfolio is wicked – there’s a lot of playfulness in the shoots. I guess women can be playful... I’m more socially inept than playful, and my goofiness or “playfulness” comes out of a neurotic desire to fill awkward silences, so I don’t know about that theme. Woooo, creative control.
Prolotherafuckthathurts
So. I have a massive lateral tear in my right ankle that is just flat-out refusing to regenerate, so I've succumbed to prolotherapy. It's 1/2 glucose, 1/2 saline and supposed to help with the healing process... I fell off the bike on the 19th of July and my ankle still buckles after about two steps in a pair of sensible heels. Balls to that.
1. It hurts. It will for the next 24-48 hours, and once home, I'm not supposed to move it.
2. My ankle is swollen with the solution - it looks like there's a cock growing in my foot.
Cockfoot is pained and sad. :(
Good news: Should have time to write about stuff.
1. It hurts. It will for the next 24-48 hours, and once home, I'm not supposed to move it.
2. My ankle is swollen with the solution - it looks like there's a cock growing in my foot.
Cockfoot is pained and sad. :(
Good news: Should have time to write about stuff.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Bangs
Well.
That’s more than enough of a grieving period, I think. Perhaps it’s too mechanical and impersonal, but I firmly stand behind setting a time-limit on mourning – we only live once and it’s a waste of my time to be feeling sorry for myself. Surprise, the world hasn’t ended.
I’m doorbitching at The Fringe this Friday night and I intend on remaining awake and sober for the evening. Last time I committed myself to security, I spent my energies knocking back VIP access to a drunk member of some “huge” Melbourne band, and half of Craig Wing’s self-important entourage. Yes indeedy-do, they really do use “DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!” and resort to calling me all sorts of derogatory and depressingly base names. It’s actually far easier to deal with The Kid throwing a tantrum, but it’s nice to exercise my mettle amongst pompous arseholes. Anyway. After the fracii, I promptly passed over security duties to part-owner of the club night and had myself a lovely little nap next to the VIP room DJ. Not my finest moment, but cut me some slack – I’d been up since 5.30am to tend to a grizzly Kid, and came straight from work.
I must admit, the fun is in knocking back the ugly beautiful. Perhaps I’m betraying some sort of socialite etiquette by not recognizing the Who’s Who of Sydneytown’s elite, but I revel in those that think they are above the rules of this particular club night’s VIP rules – no armband, no entry. Come on – I spend 29-30 days of the month feeling socially inept and awkward! If I’m given the chance to be an openly hostile (door)bitch, then I’m going to bloody well take it. It’s no-tax-cash-in-hand-guilt-free fun.
You’d best bet that I’m going to be relentless this month – I’ve got to work off that surplus negative energy, yo.
That’s more than enough of a grieving period, I think. Perhaps it’s too mechanical and impersonal, but I firmly stand behind setting a time-limit on mourning – we only live once and it’s a waste of my time to be feeling sorry for myself. Surprise, the world hasn’t ended.
I’m doorbitching at The Fringe this Friday night and I intend on remaining awake and sober for the evening. Last time I committed myself to security, I spent my energies knocking back VIP access to a drunk member of some “huge” Melbourne band, and half of Craig Wing’s self-important entourage. Yes indeedy-do, they really do use “DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!” and resort to calling me all sorts of derogatory and depressingly base names. It’s actually far easier to deal with The Kid throwing a tantrum, but it’s nice to exercise my mettle amongst pompous arseholes. Anyway. After the fracii, I promptly passed over security duties to part-owner of the club night and had myself a lovely little nap next to the VIP room DJ. Not my finest moment, but cut me some slack – I’d been up since 5.30am to tend to a grizzly Kid, and came straight from work.
I must admit, the fun is in knocking back the ugly beautiful. Perhaps I’m betraying some sort of socialite etiquette by not recognizing the Who’s Who of Sydneytown’s elite, but I revel in those that think they are above the rules of this particular club night’s VIP rules – no armband, no entry. Come on – I spend 29-30 days of the month feeling socially inept and awkward! If I’m given the chance to be an openly hostile (door)bitch, then I’m going to bloody well take it. It’s no-tax-cash-in-hand-guilt-free fun.
You’d best bet that I’m going to be relentless this month – I’ve got to work off that surplus negative energy, yo.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Snow
I never had a problem with Doug. In fact, I quite liked his gruff and aloof disposition both in and away from the lab. One of the best veterinarians in his field, he had a “don’t give a fuck” attitude to maintaining his beard as well as maintaining relations with both colleagues and laboratory staff. His tasteless t-shirt gags at corporate Christmas parties never failed to amuse, and I regret that I was no longer working for the company when he decided to wear flesh-coloured bike-pants and successfully offended the Medical Liaison officer with his shimmying.
The last time I saw him was at his beloved wife’s funeral. Lynne was his One, and when you saw them together, it all made sense. They had a unique passion for animal welfare, conservation, and their story is one that I would consider a fairytale. He came from England to America’s deep south, where the accents were as thick as mud, as were the antideluvian ideals of a society that couldn’t keep up with the rest of the world. He was there for only a short while, requested specifically to do equine check-ups on an old man’s stud. That old man’s daughter was Lynne, and she was taken by Doug. Now, Doug being Doug, he had no idea and went back to England to do his thing.
A couple of months later, he answered the door to find Lynne, who had come to England for him. She eventually proposed after many threats to and as soon as he accepted, she threatened to leave him if he ever shaved his beard. He never did, and cried inconsolably throughout his 15-minute eulogy. They had devoted their lives to each other and traveled the world enjoying the fruits of their labour together.
My time with her was brief, but I had dined with them often. My connection was my ex-mother-in-law who I consider my own, and my ex-sister-in-law who has since become a veterinarian in her own right with unwavering support from both Doug and Lynne. I nearly always forgot that Lynne was nearly-completely deaf in one ear and nearly always sat on that side of her so we’d end up laughing and yelling at each other. I loved the incredibly racist all-(white)American memorabilia and old advertisements she had littered around the house; while she herself didn’t believe in it, that was her heritage and she was mighty proud of where she came from. I have a bit of an obsession with golliwogs and love all things inflammatory to current social graces, so it was almost inevitable that we’d get on like a house on fire.
I remember the first time I had visited their home. A massive painting of a regal-looking Rottweiler graced the main wall of their home, and Lynne proudly told me its story. I was looking at Doug’s very first loyal companion, aptly named Winnie Mandela.
“She was a black bitch who didn’t take any shit from anyone!”
I remember Lynne’s raucous laugh and my discomfort at not really knowing how to react, especially as I was greeted shortly afterwards by the painter’s muse, hobbling but still quite energetic for an old dog. Unfortunately, Winnie died of cancer after a long and brutal struggle that had seen her spend the last few years of her life an amputee.
I had never seen Doug so upset, and it broke my heart. My current employer saw absolutely no problem in giving me the day off to attend Lynne’s funeral, and I am so thankful. His beautiful angel, the light of his life, his one and only, she succumbed to Multiple Sclerosis after an 11-year battle and it was no surprise that the church was packed to the rafters. During those 11 years, he wasn’t able to hug her because the pain in her body was excruciating. After falling down the stairs one night, he carried her upstairs to their bedroom to rest and recover. She never woke up, passing peacefully in her sleep from a massive brain haemorrhage.
I found myself feeling not only incredibly sad, but also incredibly angry at some of the people who attended Lynne’s funeral. Despite the Who’s Who of medical and veterinary science attending, there were a few there who have taken great pleasure in making fun of him behind his back. Many had turned down his many personal invitations to have lunch or dinner at his home with Lynne for no reason but to enjoy each other’s company. He was nearly always aloof, abrupt and awkward, sure – but when he was with Lynne, that gave way to a caring husband and host who did everything he could to make sure that everybody was entertained, well-fed, and comfortable.
When my ex-mother-in-law dropped The Kid off on Saturday afternoon, she gave me a bag full of cigarettes. Being the only smoker he knew other than Lynne, he thought that I should have them so they didn’t go to waste, that Lynne looked forward to me coming over because she had someone to smoke with. I felt a bit morbid accepting them, but what do you do?
We should all be so lucky to find a happiness like theirs.
The last time I saw him was at his beloved wife’s funeral. Lynne was his One, and when you saw them together, it all made sense. They had a unique passion for animal welfare, conservation, and their story is one that I would consider a fairytale. He came from England to America’s deep south, where the accents were as thick as mud, as were the antideluvian ideals of a society that couldn’t keep up with the rest of the world. He was there for only a short while, requested specifically to do equine check-ups on an old man’s stud. That old man’s daughter was Lynne, and she was taken by Doug. Now, Doug being Doug, he had no idea and went back to England to do his thing.
A couple of months later, he answered the door to find Lynne, who had come to England for him. She eventually proposed after many threats to and as soon as he accepted, she threatened to leave him if he ever shaved his beard. He never did, and cried inconsolably throughout his 15-minute eulogy. They had devoted their lives to each other and traveled the world enjoying the fruits of their labour together.
My time with her was brief, but I had dined with them often. My connection was my ex-mother-in-law who I consider my own, and my ex-sister-in-law who has since become a veterinarian in her own right with unwavering support from both Doug and Lynne. I nearly always forgot that Lynne was nearly-completely deaf in one ear and nearly always sat on that side of her so we’d end up laughing and yelling at each other. I loved the incredibly racist all-(white)American memorabilia and old advertisements she had littered around the house; while she herself didn’t believe in it, that was her heritage and she was mighty proud of where she came from. I have a bit of an obsession with golliwogs and love all things inflammatory to current social graces, so it was almost inevitable that we’d get on like a house on fire.
I remember the first time I had visited their home. A massive painting of a regal-looking Rottweiler graced the main wall of their home, and Lynne proudly told me its story. I was looking at Doug’s very first loyal companion, aptly named Winnie Mandela.
“She was a black bitch who didn’t take any shit from anyone!”
I remember Lynne’s raucous laugh and my discomfort at not really knowing how to react, especially as I was greeted shortly afterwards by the painter’s muse, hobbling but still quite energetic for an old dog. Unfortunately, Winnie died of cancer after a long and brutal struggle that had seen her spend the last few years of her life an amputee.
I had never seen Doug so upset, and it broke my heart. My current employer saw absolutely no problem in giving me the day off to attend Lynne’s funeral, and I am so thankful. His beautiful angel, the light of his life, his one and only, she succumbed to Multiple Sclerosis after an 11-year battle and it was no surprise that the church was packed to the rafters. During those 11 years, he wasn’t able to hug her because the pain in her body was excruciating. After falling down the stairs one night, he carried her upstairs to their bedroom to rest and recover. She never woke up, passing peacefully in her sleep from a massive brain haemorrhage.
I found myself feeling not only incredibly sad, but also incredibly angry at some of the people who attended Lynne’s funeral. Despite the Who’s Who of medical and veterinary science attending, there were a few there who have taken great pleasure in making fun of him behind his back. Many had turned down his many personal invitations to have lunch or dinner at his home with Lynne for no reason but to enjoy each other’s company. He was nearly always aloof, abrupt and awkward, sure – but when he was with Lynne, that gave way to a caring husband and host who did everything he could to make sure that everybody was entertained, well-fed, and comfortable.
When my ex-mother-in-law dropped The Kid off on Saturday afternoon, she gave me a bag full of cigarettes. Being the only smoker he knew other than Lynne, he thought that I should have them so they didn’t go to waste, that Lynne looked forward to me coming over because she had someone to smoke with. I felt a bit morbid accepting them, but what do you do?
We should all be so lucky to find a happiness like theirs.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
No joie here.
My boyfriend ceremoniously dumped me at lunchtime today. He says he can't be there for me emotionally, as he's going through his own thing. He says he's far too independent and he believes it's unfair to make us both unhappy.
Great. I dated myself.
The last time I was dumped was in Grade 8, by Manuel Garcia. I remember the knot in my stomach as I walked up to him on the train and pretty much threw a note at him asking him to go out with me. He read it aloud with his mates and said no. I was shattered.
These things happen, and I'll get over it. Maybe it's a bit of karmic justice that has been long overdue, but it still hurts.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Well, sheeit.
Can I just ask what it is about public corporate bathrooms that compels the anonymous few to either:
1) Piss all over the floor;
2) Shit all around and up the inside of the toilet bowl;
3) Clog the toilet with toilet paper using all the toilet paper in that cubicle;
4) Soak the entire sink area with soapy water so that anyone who leans forward gets their clothes wet in a way that makes them look like they've urinated all over themselves, or;
5) Use ALL the handtowels and throw them all over the floor.
Perhaps they're assuming that our autistic children patients are responsible, but a lot of these facilities are inaccessible without adult supervision. Hmm.
1) Piss all over the floor;
2) Shit all around and up the inside of the toilet bowl;
3) Clog the toilet with toilet paper using all the toilet paper in that cubicle;
4) Soak the entire sink area with soapy water so that anyone who leans forward gets their clothes wet in a way that makes them look like they've urinated all over themselves, or;
5) Use ALL the handtowels and throw them all over the floor.
Perhaps they're assuming that our autistic children patients are responsible, but a lot of these facilities are inaccessible without adult supervision. Hmm.
Monday, September 10, 2007
The 'Fern
Looking out the window, I couldn’t help but wonder what it was about me going out that turned the weather to shit. I buried my neck even deeper in my jacket and waited anxiously for the train to stop at Redfern Station. I had already left home quite late after farting around the house with The Kid before she went off in a butterfly-and-glitter flurry to spend the night at Grandma’s.
The one and only time I had stopped at Redfern Station before this was to switch trains after a nauseating ride spent watching a zit on the back of a hairy man’s neck erupt like a fleshy Etna. I remember thinking how ridiculous double-level train carriages were, and pitying a starved pigeon hobbling across the platform on a nub and a stump. Suffice it to say that wasn’t the cheeriest day I’ve had in Sydney but even with a horrible memory, it’s obscure stuff like that I seem to remember. The queer sticks in my mind.
It’s a marvellous culture study on trains, especially these fandangled Sydney ones; the pretty waif-thin white girls and mascara’d emo boys disappear as you get closer to town on the North Shore to City via Strathfield line, and are quickly replaced by packrats with mullets and girls who look like they could chew me up and spit me out. Older couples who’ve been married for fifty years and are still holding hands everywhere they go are replaced by women committed to the Single Parent Pension lifestyle, where the more kids you birth get you more cash. Of course, that's an over-generalised and highly ignorant statement... but I like getting my point across in extremes. Perhaps I'm bitter because of the Jesus-fact that, because I walk around looking sad, I’m rarely bothered?
Who the fuck knows.
Balancing my oversized overnight bag and brolly in a public phone booth was a task in itself, but I ham-handedly mashed Spider’s number so I could let him know that I had arrived. He said he would be two minutes, and that he’d meet me outside the station. I was there to pick up two things: one of the last Smash N’ Grab 7”’s, and Spider’s old pre-paid knock-around mobile phone. I needed one to tie me over while I paid off a mammoth phone bill on my Telstra-plan PDA. By the by, Telstra are the biggest wallet-rapists on the face of this Earth! The face! Of this Earth!
As I walked out onto the path, I was greeted by an old Aboriginal woman who looked a sorry sight. She reeked of alcohol, was missing most of her front teeth, and wore ragged clothes that look like they’ve spent most of their life abandoned on the side of a highway. She asked me if I could spare any change, and I said no – I honestly didn’t, having used all the shrapnel I had to buy my train ticket, and I think handing her a bobby pin and the back of an earring would’ve been more than a tad patronizing.
Even with my problem of not making/maintaining eye-contact, I didn’t want to look away from this lady when I turned her down. It was probably her most popular reaction to her request, and I felt like I owed her better than that. She smiled her toothless smile, looked into my eyes and not only said thank you, but also wished me a good day. I took a few steps before I stopped and turned around.
“I don’t have any cash but I do have a spare smoke if you’d like one.”
“Yes please, ma’am.”
I ignored the “ma’am” part and lit her smoke for her. Asking her how long she’d been out there in front of Redfern Station, she said she had been there for three solid hours and had only managed to make around five dollars. She said that it was okay, even better now that she had a smoke. I watched as a middle-aged man in a well-tailored suit skirted around her as if she were diseased, and shook my head in disdain when a loafy highschool senior ho (fo sho) dressed in this season’s rags told her to fuck off.
“They only see what they want to see, mate.”
“Fuckin' oath. Thanks for the smoke, Sister.”
“No worries.”
I gave her my lighter with the rest of my pack of smokes, then wished her all the very best as I picked up my bag and walked toward the moving mural that was my buddy (and fellow SWD mod), Spider.
The one and only time I had stopped at Redfern Station before this was to switch trains after a nauseating ride spent watching a zit on the back of a hairy man’s neck erupt like a fleshy Etna. I remember thinking how ridiculous double-level train carriages were, and pitying a starved pigeon hobbling across the platform on a nub and a stump. Suffice it to say that wasn’t the cheeriest day I’ve had in Sydney but even with a horrible memory, it’s obscure stuff like that I seem to remember. The queer sticks in my mind.
It’s a marvellous culture study on trains, especially these fandangled Sydney ones; the pretty waif-thin white girls and mascara’d emo boys disappear as you get closer to town on the North Shore to City via Strathfield line, and are quickly replaced by packrats with mullets and girls who look like they could chew me up and spit me out. Older couples who’ve been married for fifty years and are still holding hands everywhere they go are replaced by women committed to the Single Parent Pension lifestyle, where the more kids you birth get you more cash. Of course, that's an over-generalised and highly ignorant statement... but I like getting my point across in extremes. Perhaps I'm bitter because of the Jesus-fact that, because I walk around looking sad, I’m rarely bothered?
Who the fuck knows.
Anyway!
Alighting at Redfern Station, it’s noticeably cleaner than I remember from all those years ago. It still smelled like terminally ill cat and fart, but that seems to be a prerequisite for all Sydney train stations that have existed without maintenance any longer than two years -- you learn to either enjoy it or tolerate it, depending on how much you use public transport.Balancing my oversized overnight bag and brolly in a public phone booth was a task in itself, but I ham-handedly mashed Spider’s number so I could let him know that I had arrived. He said he would be two minutes, and that he’d meet me outside the station. I was there to pick up two things: one of the last Smash N’ Grab 7”’s, and Spider’s old pre-paid knock-around mobile phone. I needed one to tie me over while I paid off a mammoth phone bill on my Telstra-plan PDA. By the by, Telstra are the biggest wallet-rapists on the face of this Earth! The face! Of this Earth!
As I walked out onto the path, I was greeted by an old Aboriginal woman who looked a sorry sight. She reeked of alcohol, was missing most of her front teeth, and wore ragged clothes that look like they’ve spent most of their life abandoned on the side of a highway. She asked me if I could spare any change, and I said no – I honestly didn’t, having used all the shrapnel I had to buy my train ticket, and I think handing her a bobby pin and the back of an earring would’ve been more than a tad patronizing.
Even with my problem of not making/maintaining eye-contact, I didn’t want to look away from this lady when I turned her down. It was probably her most popular reaction to her request, and I felt like I owed her better than that. She smiled her toothless smile, looked into my eyes and not only said thank you, but also wished me a good day. I took a few steps before I stopped and turned around.
“I don’t have any cash but I do have a spare smoke if you’d like one.”
“Yes please, ma’am.”
I ignored the “ma’am” part and lit her smoke for her. Asking her how long she’d been out there in front of Redfern Station, she said she had been there for three solid hours and had only managed to make around five dollars. She said that it was okay, even better now that she had a smoke. I watched as a middle-aged man in a well-tailored suit skirted around her as if she were diseased, and shook my head in disdain when a loafy highschool senior ho (fo sho) dressed in this season’s rags told her to fuck off.
“They only see what they want to see, mate.”
“Fuckin' oath. Thanks for the smoke, Sister.”
“No worries.”
I gave her my lighter with the rest of my pack of smokes, then wished her all the very best as I picked up my bag and walked toward the moving mural that was my buddy (and fellow SWD mod), Spider.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
JesusFreak
I found myself walking half my trip home after dropping The Kid off with an over-zealous but harmless Jesus, who wore an APEC-ish fluro-yellow shirt. Whether it was a uniform for anything in particular is anyone’s guess, but ‘tis the season to be clearly visible at all times, lest the wrong person with a suit whispers into his lapel…
He didn’t have anything in particular to report, just wanted to know what my name was and how things were going. While I normally would’ve been quite abrasive, I’d woken up this morning with a non-denominational chirpiness and figure I’d engage in conversation. Of course, I was just a swift kick away from removing his face in the event he tried any unsavoury shenanigans, but that’s a bit of a well-conditioned fear of everything. Pre-emptive strike?
So. We were walking down the street when he said that he’d seen me walking before and that I always look sad. While that actually surprised me, I told him that that wasn’t the case. I went further to ask him what he’d think if he saw people walking down the street grinning like Cheshire cats for no apparent reason, and he just laughed. It was a bit of an eager laugh – which I wasn’t expecting – so I laughed harder and faker than usual. It was awkward.
We crossed the bridge together and he even stopped with me when I ran into an old friend I used to drink with, and waited patiently and quietly for all of 2 minutes while I did the catch-up chat. I thought that was weird enough, seeing as we hadn’t discussed anything personal and were barely acquaintances, let alone stop-worthy. Suffice it to say that I did not introduce him to my friend; I actually never got Jesus’ name but he got mine even if he got it wrong. Anyway, We weren’t mid-sentence or mid-point, so what the shit? Is it weird that I think that’s weird?
I secretly thanked real-Jesus that it was Market Day in the street mall, as it gave me an excuse to stop and start and chat with the stall owners I regularly buy my fresh and *organic produce from. The conversation went thusly:
“Okay, I have to do some grocery shopping now.”
“Okay.”
“See you later.”
“Great!”
“What?”
“Nah.”
Umm. What the hell just happened?! I can’t help but feel less enlightened for the experience, not to mention that little bit more creeped out about Jesus.
*Organic’s the way of the future, yo; nobody wants a daughter so full of pesticides / hormones that she grows She-Wang. Seriously.
He didn’t have anything in particular to report, just wanted to know what my name was and how things were going. While I normally would’ve been quite abrasive, I’d woken up this morning with a non-denominational chirpiness and figure I’d engage in conversation. Of course, I was just a swift kick away from removing his face in the event he tried any unsavoury shenanigans, but that’s a bit of a well-conditioned fear of everything. Pre-emptive strike?
So. We were walking down the street when he said that he’d seen me walking before and that I always look sad. While that actually surprised me, I told him that that wasn’t the case. I went further to ask him what he’d think if he saw people walking down the street grinning like Cheshire cats for no apparent reason, and he just laughed. It was a bit of an eager laugh – which I wasn’t expecting – so I laughed harder and faker than usual. It was awkward.
We crossed the bridge together and he even stopped with me when I ran into an old friend I used to drink with, and waited patiently and quietly for all of 2 minutes while I did the catch-up chat. I thought that was weird enough, seeing as we hadn’t discussed anything personal and were barely acquaintances, let alone stop-worthy. Suffice it to say that I did not introduce him to my friend; I actually never got Jesus’ name but he got mine even if he got it wrong. Anyway, We weren’t mid-sentence or mid-point, so what the shit? Is it weird that I think that’s weird?
I secretly thanked real-Jesus that it was Market Day in the street mall, as it gave me an excuse to stop and start and chat with the stall owners I regularly buy my fresh and *organic produce from. The conversation went thusly:
“Okay, I have to do some grocery shopping now.”
“Okay.”
“See you later.”
“Great!”
“What?”
“Nah.”
Umm. What the hell just happened?! I can’t help but feel less enlightened for the experience, not to mention that little bit more creeped out about Jesus.
*Organic’s the way of the future, yo; nobody wants a daughter so full of pesticides / hormones that she grows She-Wang. Seriously.
Monday, September 3, 2007
M/Tks!
There’s a lady at work that’s driving me absolutely up the wall. Ahhh! I swear that unless something Earth-shattering happens with this lady in the future, this will be the one and only whinge-fest dedicated to her. I’d also like to point out that I am admittedly an office dork and enjoy my fun. When it’s appropriate. On the defensive, I’m not picking on this lady… if you don’t have anything nice to say – blog it.
It seems to be a common problem these days; younger staff members who outrank older staff members. I didn’t think I had a problem with it – I respect all staff members and would consider myself a consummate professional in my current position. I know I scored this job on a wing and a prayer and take pride in my work, appearance, and behaviour especially whilst on the clock. I make sure that all tasks are completed in an efficient time-frame, and accuracy is something that comes with the territory, what with Medicare and NATA-esque audits at random. I’m a mess personally, but a bit anal-retentive at work. Justifiably so, as my end-shift is particularly prickly.
I was slowly training Practice Management (Worker’s Compensation, Basic Accounts, Practitioner Liaison, Medical and Dental Insurance, et al) until my Practice Manager (aka CrazyLegs) tripped over her husband skiing down a slope in Falls’ Creek, but some of my regular duties take responsibility for the entire day’s and entire practice’s actions. End Of Day banking, sterilisation, notarising grievances, logging births and deaths, immunisation, DVAs and Bulk-Bills (being private practice, the latter are mainly ex-staff, staff, family, associates, and friends) are the non-bane of my existence, and even the more mundane tasks like changing the linen and making sure the practice is in order (like checking that there aren’t any acupuncture needles laying about / cleaning everything the child with Scarlet Fever licked) allows me to collect my thoughts and wind down from work and ease into the evening-shift of motherhood. I wouldn’t have it any other way, as I enjoy a full-plate.
Actually, I lie.
This woman, M/Tks (which stands for Many Thanks, apparently) is a complete shitface.
After 6mo of full-time INTENSIVE training (3mo more than everyone else!), she somehow still manages to turn everything she touches in the practice into balls. She’s now a casual, but I still dread the days she’s on – I hit the ground running on those days, and spend the greater part of my shift undoing her “work”. The worst thing is, everything we handle in the practice runs on a Chain Of Custody process, and guess who has to explain the errors to each practitioner (including the practice partners and my two superiors) at the end of each night? Yep, me. Do you think I can make sense of half the mistakes this woman makes? No. Does it make me look like an idiot? Yes.
I can handle mistakes, but only for so long. When you repeat the same mistake numerous times, or ignore common-sensical procedure like looking in a tray clearly marked “Mail” if you’re looking for outgoing mail, rather than ring Australia Post, then it pops over to the unfunny side of dumb. Giving someone long-winded directions to the premises so obscure that they end up in an industrial alleyway on the other side of town looking for a building that looks like it might have at least FOUR (4) “toileting” facilities on each floor… I cringe every time I see her open her mouth.
Personal gripe: Her catch-phrases are “Spit chips!”, “Wacky-doo”, and “Derrrrrrrrrrrrr!”, “Silly Sausage!” and talks about really personal issues at random… even moreso than myself! She likes to tell people about the one time she went swimming in the ocean and was stung by jellyfish, and likes to whisper to patients as if they were close friends. She also (and I am positive some of you will love this!) blames her mistakes on her being both blonde AND female. Which is quite possibly the stupidest, irritable, and most transgressional excuse for women and blondes alike. Honestly, what a shitface.
And her attitude! Oh, sweet Jesus on a crabstick! She’s saccharine to the practitioners, but a total bitchfacewhorebag to anyone significantly younger than her (myself and most of the naturopaths who work in the Dispensary who practice elsewhere), and anyone close to her age. Which leaves Flock Of Seagulls (late 30s) as the only person to not have to deal with M/Tks’… M/Tks-ness. I can handle mistakes if they’re rectified, or at least explained to me in a way that isn’t sarcastic or condescending, but that seems to be the only way she can talk to me. I’m not the only person this happens to, but it’s been pointed out to me by one of the partners that I’ve been copping it the most. I was oblivious to it up until recently, chalking it up to her being bitter at technology evolving in the time she was raising her five now-adult children. After doing some quick abacus-work in my head, she’s had approximately ten years to work it off and get back in the game. Go figure.
Her messages are also incredibly cryptic, almost like a semi-retarded l337-speak… M/Tks, as I mentioned before, means “Many Thanks”. Apparently. “Late” can be anything from “L8” to “Lte” to “Lat”, and “Patients” is clearly supposed to be abbreviated as “Ptts”, but that’s only IF she hasn’t misspelt it as “Patience”. She also has trouble with her spelling, but that’s forgivable – we have so many practitioners writing scripts for so many different ailments and requests for tests that sound fictional. The Therapeutic Goods Administration like to confuse all with announcements of prescription drugs that are being introduced and removed from pharmaceutical shelves with names that differ greatly in chemical make-up but only differ in product name by a couple of letters.
She says she has problems at home. Everybody does. She was told not to bring her issues into the workplace, but we almost have to exit the building to make room for the gigantic chip on her shoulder. I’ve even gone so far to avoid conflict as to request to have her report directly to Flock Of Seagulls instead of me, as she has a much sunnier disposition compared to me and has a harder time getting the irrits.
This resulted in FOS giggling to me that M/Tks was terrified of me. She has every reason to be. I know that there are a lot of people that operate on a different frequency, and that’s fine. M/Tks is an over-ripe, half-gnawed cumquat, and I’m a short-tempered co-worker with even less ptts than I had to start with.
It seems to be a common problem these days; younger staff members who outrank older staff members. I didn’t think I had a problem with it – I respect all staff members and would consider myself a consummate professional in my current position. I know I scored this job on a wing and a prayer and take pride in my work, appearance, and behaviour especially whilst on the clock. I make sure that all tasks are completed in an efficient time-frame, and accuracy is something that comes with the territory, what with Medicare and NATA-esque audits at random. I’m a mess personally, but a bit anal-retentive at work. Justifiably so, as my end-shift is particularly prickly.
I was slowly training Practice Management (Worker’s Compensation, Basic Accounts, Practitioner Liaison, Medical and Dental Insurance, et al) until my Practice Manager (aka CrazyLegs) tripped over her husband skiing down a slope in Falls’ Creek, but some of my regular duties take responsibility for the entire day’s and entire practice’s actions. End Of Day banking, sterilisation, notarising grievances, logging births and deaths, immunisation, DVAs and Bulk-Bills (being private practice, the latter are mainly ex-staff, staff, family, associates, and friends) are the non-bane of my existence, and even the more mundane tasks like changing the linen and making sure the practice is in order (like checking that there aren’t any acupuncture needles laying about / cleaning everything the child with Scarlet Fever licked) allows me to collect my thoughts and wind down from work and ease into the evening-shift of motherhood. I wouldn’t have it any other way, as I enjoy a full-plate.
Actually, I lie.
This woman, M/Tks (which stands for Many Thanks, apparently) is a complete shitface.
After 6mo of full-time INTENSIVE training (3mo more than everyone else!), she somehow still manages to turn everything she touches in the practice into balls. She’s now a casual, but I still dread the days she’s on – I hit the ground running on those days, and spend the greater part of my shift undoing her “work”. The worst thing is, everything we handle in the practice runs on a Chain Of Custody process, and guess who has to explain the errors to each practitioner (including the practice partners and my two superiors) at the end of each night? Yep, me. Do you think I can make sense of half the mistakes this woman makes? No. Does it make me look like an idiot? Yes.
I can handle mistakes, but only for so long. When you repeat the same mistake numerous times, or ignore common-sensical procedure like looking in a tray clearly marked “Mail” if you’re looking for outgoing mail, rather than ring Australia Post, then it pops over to the unfunny side of dumb. Giving someone long-winded directions to the premises so obscure that they end up in an industrial alleyway on the other side of town looking for a building that looks like it might have at least FOUR (4) “toileting” facilities on each floor… I cringe every time I see her open her mouth.
Personal gripe: Her catch-phrases are “Spit chips!”, “Wacky-doo”, and “Derrrrrrrrrrrrr!”, “Silly Sausage!” and talks about really personal issues at random… even moreso than myself! She likes to tell people about the one time she went swimming in the ocean and was stung by jellyfish, and likes to whisper to patients as if they were close friends. She also (and I am positive some of you will love this!) blames her mistakes on her being both blonde AND female. Which is quite possibly the stupidest, irritable, and most transgressional excuse for women and blondes alike. Honestly, what a shitface.
And her attitude! Oh, sweet Jesus on a crabstick! She’s saccharine to the practitioners, but a total bitchfacewhorebag to anyone significantly younger than her (myself and most of the naturopaths who work in the Dispensary who practice elsewhere), and anyone close to her age. Which leaves Flock Of Seagulls (late 30s) as the only person to not have to deal with M/Tks’… M/Tks-ness. I can handle mistakes if they’re rectified, or at least explained to me in a way that isn’t sarcastic or condescending, but that seems to be the only way she can talk to me. I’m not the only person this happens to, but it’s been pointed out to me by one of the partners that I’ve been copping it the most. I was oblivious to it up until recently, chalking it up to her being bitter at technology evolving in the time she was raising her five now-adult children. After doing some quick abacus-work in my head, she’s had approximately ten years to work it off and get back in the game. Go figure.
Her messages are also incredibly cryptic, almost like a semi-retarded l337-speak… M/Tks, as I mentioned before, means “Many Thanks”. Apparently. “Late” can be anything from “L8” to “Lte” to “Lat”, and “Patients” is clearly supposed to be abbreviated as “Ptts”, but that’s only IF she hasn’t misspelt it as “Patience”. She also has trouble with her spelling, but that’s forgivable – we have so many practitioners writing scripts for so many different ailments and requests for tests that sound fictional. The Therapeutic Goods Administration like to confuse all with announcements of prescription drugs that are being introduced and removed from pharmaceutical shelves with names that differ greatly in chemical make-up but only differ in product name by a couple of letters.
She says she has problems at home. Everybody does. She was told not to bring her issues into the workplace, but we almost have to exit the building to make room for the gigantic chip on her shoulder. I’ve even gone so far to avoid conflict as to request to have her report directly to Flock Of Seagulls instead of me, as she has a much sunnier disposition compared to me and has a harder time getting the irrits.
This resulted in FOS giggling to me that M/Tks was terrified of me. She has every reason to be. I know that there are a lot of people that operate on a different frequency, and that’s fine. M/Tks is an over-ripe, half-gnawed cumquat, and I’m a short-tempered co-worker with even less ptts than I had to start with.
Therapo
Which do you fear most; judgement or punishment?
That was the question my therapist asked me to go home and ask myself, taking into consideration the long list of things I constantly beat myself up over.
My first thought was that the answer had to be a fear of judgement. I can handle pretty much anything thrown at me, even if it feels like I’m drowning. Punishment doesn’t mean much to me in the sense that I can atone or apologise without sincerity, as I’ve done many times before. Hell, anyone can. It’s hard to work through in my mind let alone on a computer, but when I think about the notion of judgement vs. punishment, judgement feels far more final, permanent. Once someone’s made a judgement on something or someone, it’s difficult to change. Unfortunately, I’m constantly changing and in the process, making mistakes.
As I was running over time (thank Jeebus for Bulk-Billing, a definite perk of working medical) going through my stream-of-consciousness, my therapist stopped me and asked a couple of very valid questions that I had not even factored in: Who is anyone to judge me? Who am I to judge myself? Only God can judge me, etc.
Okay. So I consider myself an Agnostic so didn’t care too much for that last statement she so casually threw in there, but I have a lot to think about with the two questions she asked. I don’t know what anyone else is going through, and in the way she put it, my convoluted perception of everyone watching and caring about how I live my life… well, I felt a bit awful because it was/is nauseatingly self-indulgent. As much as I don’t like having the mirror pointed back at me, she had a point. Damn her and her qualifications from working and studying for so very many years, she had a point. Wench.
All of this is part of a process that we are going through together. We’ve determined that as much as I don’t like to say it aloud, I actually do hate my mother. My end-goal is to forgive her. My first goal is to forgive myself. Part of both is to delve into the things she’s done, the things I’ve done, the motivation behind action and reaction, etc. I’m prone to sabotaging relationships for fear of people getting too close, and am in many ways extremely comfortable with being alone, despite hating the feeling of loneliness. I carry a lot of guilt and shame that hasn’t made sense for a very long time, and I am dedicated to finding a little bit of that inner-peace before I turn my mother’s hate and my hate for her onto my own daughter.
So. While I think about that between sessions, tell me which you fear most if you *had* to choose; judgement or punishment?
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Psychosomatic
I haven’t blogged consistently in over a year. In fact, unless it’s been journaling, letters to friends or lists that are never fully actioned, I haven’t done much writing at all. I can blame that on any number of things, but the truth of the matter is that I have been incredibly uninspired. Perhaps it’s been a case of history repeating itself, but I feel like the lesson in action and consequence has been perpetual and in my hiatus, physically and mentally exhausting. Relationships and finances have taken a battering, and yet, I’m still here. A little frayed around the edges and missing a few people that have helped me figure myself out that little bit more, but that’s life.
During my sojourn, I couldn’t help but peek at a few friends’ personal blogs just to see what was going on in their world. People were mourning, celebrating, hurting, amusing, documenting… existing. Some of these bloggers, I knew personally before they started writing and have effectively shot to pseudo-celebrity status for their words. Some, I had met through blogging. Pretty much all had either attended or were turned down at the door to my open-invite 21st birthday party. I’ve laughed and cried with these people, celebrating additions to families (feline/canine/human) and mourning dear relatives I have never even met. I considered them friends, and had often bridged the gap of geographical distance by either calling, writing, drinking, or dining with them. Some, I would even consider family, in lieu of one that I haven’t been a part of for over ten years.
I suppose this spiritual/emotional/mental/karmic “Prodigal Son” complex I have so deftly manifested in myself has stepped aside for an undeniable sadness that I have felt for just as long; I miss my friends. Some are no longer friends. Some are no longer friends because I pushed them away. For those who I connected with beyond the realms of the Internet, for those I have hurt in one way or another – I am sincerely sorry. You know who you are and I hope you got to know me well enough to know that while I’m not so good with words when it’s really needed, my apology is genuine.
Fear of karma. Fear of being there for a friend. Fear of losing some of the most magnificent characters I’ve ever met (or not met) in my life. Fear of missing out. Fear of losing touch. Fear of fear itself. I’m sick of it. Whether I have something to report or not, I think it’s important that I get back in touch, and I suppose the most meaningful, heartfelt contribution I can make is to write.
During my sojourn, I couldn’t help but peek at a few friends’ personal blogs just to see what was going on in their world. People were mourning, celebrating, hurting, amusing, documenting… existing. Some of these bloggers, I knew personally before they started writing and have effectively shot to pseudo-celebrity status for their words. Some, I had met through blogging. Pretty much all had either attended or were turned down at the door to my open-invite 21st birthday party. I’ve laughed and cried with these people, celebrating additions to families (feline/canine/human) and mourning dear relatives I have never even met. I considered them friends, and had often bridged the gap of geographical distance by either calling, writing, drinking, or dining with them. Some, I would even consider family, in lieu of one that I haven’t been a part of for over ten years.
I suppose this spiritual/emotional/mental/karmic “Prodigal Son” complex I have so deftly manifested in myself has stepped aside for an undeniable sadness that I have felt for just as long; I miss my friends. Some are no longer friends. Some are no longer friends because I pushed them away. For those who I connected with beyond the realms of the Internet, for those I have hurt in one way or another – I am sincerely sorry. You know who you are and I hope you got to know me well enough to know that while I’m not so good with words when it’s really needed, my apology is genuine.
Fear of karma. Fear of being there for a friend. Fear of losing some of the most magnificent characters I’ve ever met (or not met) in my life. Fear of missing out. Fear of losing touch. Fear of fear itself. I’m sick of it. Whether I have something to report or not, I think it’s important that I get back in touch, and I suppose the most meaningful, heartfelt contribution I can make is to write.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
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