Blood Flows

The man at the clinic put the needle into my arm so gently that it didn’t even feel like a pinch. He is a soft spoken man. He doesn’t wear a uniform as you might expect of an employee of the NHS working in a walk-in clinic. The way he speaks to you, you think he remembers you.

He’s pulled my blood before; he just might recognise me.

When you analyse the conversation you’ve had as he fills two vials with your blood, you realise it could have been the first time he’s ever seen you. You wonder if the questions were designed to keep your mind off the fact that a needle is in your arm.

You compliment him on his technique. He counters the compliment by telling you that you have good veins.

You wonder at the definition of ‘good veins’. That ‘good veins’ are veins from which blood is easily drawn. Never mind that your veins are lined with cholesterol.

Despite the angelic diet and rigorous exercise*.

I’ve assumed the man who pulls blood is gay. He’s so gentle. He’s so soft spoken. His frame is slight. I have nothing on which to base my assumption, and it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s just a meaningless conclusion from idle observation.

Every time I leave his ‘office’ he tells me to be sure to come back.

Where else would I go to get my blood taken?

On my way home I think about my previous post as I step on fallen leaves. I see a leaf that is red with intertwined dark-yellow-bordering-on-orange.

A blood orange! That leaf is exactly like a blood orange.

I get all excited by the spontaneous simile that has presented itself to me.

Perhaps because I’m looking at leaves and thinking of colours, I wonder if I can describe the colour of my eyes. Each leaf I cast a look upon fails the colour test. My eyes are green. That’s what I’ve always said, anyway. That’s what my driver’s license says. That’s what my mom used to tell me. But none of the leaves I pass are near the colour of my eyes. I notice some moss on the bark of a tree and think that the green of my eyes is probably closer to a dark coloured green moss than to a leaf. I decide that when I am at home I will have to look in the mirror to better analyse my eye colour.

Because I have had to get my blood taken, I’m working from home today. I’ve decided to take advantage of my prolonged proximity to the kitchen. I’ll be making garbanzo beans. I have to stop at the market and buy some garlic and onion. For the moment I forget about colours.

*Please no advice – other than “take the friggin’ medication” – I’ve don’t it all.

Leaves Turn

This morning while out on the Sunday morning walk with My Man and The Dog, I noticed the trees are finally losing this year's full head of hair.

As if to prove they can co-exist, autumn and winter bandied about uncomfortable cold gusts and serene still. Clouds puffed up in the sky, even so, the sun managed to break through, and I shuffled my feet through varying depths of fallen leaves.

My Man commented that this time of year always reminds him of his father. His father, like me, loves the cold. Before he moved to a warmer climate, autumn was a time to arrange excursions out of New York City and into the wilds of New England. Orange, red, yellow leaves signified winter - cold - was on its way.

Hurrah!

On the final stretch of the walk, I lost myself looking for the right words for the colours of the leaves. I wouldn't have thought it would be so difficult, yet each metaphor fell short. Some of the leaves were the colour of my leather knapsack in high school, or the chamois cloths my father kept in the garage for polishing his car, or like the colour of camels. Others were red like my earrings of coral balls or like the dark red of a ripe pomegranate or the seeds inside. In my head, I compared other leaves to the golden copper of The Dog's paws, chest, muzzle, belly and eyebrows. The orange and yellow leaves were the hardest of all for which to associate colours. Goldfish are too bright. The orange plastic handle of my scissors are a similar orange, but the orange plastic handle of my scissors is hardly universally known. I got excited by the thought of pumpkin orange, but then I thought that the colour of pumpkins - like the colour of camels and pomegranates and the seeds within - can vary from pumpkin to pumpkin, from camel to camel from pomegranate seed to pomegranate seed, and I became discouraged by the failings of metaphor. I firmly supplanted my poetic self with my pragmatic self and decided that if I have to describe autumnal leaves, I should stick with red, yellow, orange and brown. I cynically scoffed the poor substitution a metaphor makes.

Nevertheless, I kept searching for words. From a couple of sidelong glances, I could tell My Man wondered where my thoughts might be. I wasn't to allow an interruption.

The Dog Travels

The woman on the platform at Covent Garden looked down at The Dog then looked at me and asked, “How do you carry her on the escalators?”

Although dogs are permitted on the Tube, they are not allowed to ride the escalators. Something about the danger of their paws getting caught in the joint between two mechanical stairs. It’s a good rule. Dogs should be protected from potential paw traps.

The Dog is too big a dog* for me to think seriously about carrying her up an escalator. Consequently, I have honed my knowledge relating to access options at Underground Stations: which ones have lifts or short flights of stairs.

This allows me to take The Dog to St. James Park or Kensington Gardens or Hyde Park or Wimbledon Common, or, even, to work via Covent Garden or Russell Square – both central London stations serviced by lifts.

When the woman asked me how I carried The Dog on the escalators, I answered honestly, “I don’t.”

“I know the stations with lifts or steps.” I added by way of explanation.

Her face, which had contorted with the righteousness of an animal lover in the face of potential animal cruelty, softened somewhat and put itself into an expression that seemed to utter, “I see. Well, that’s ok, then.”

She turned away, and I appreciated I had just escaped an undeserved scolding.

*42 Kilos.

Excuses Excuse

I reference demons. What specifically are they?

Low self-esteem manifested in an unhealthy relationship with food.
Ups peppered with inexplicable downs.
Hating oneself.
Punishing oneself.
Hearing a voice in your head telling you how crap you are; you recognise the voice as yours, but it’s so removed from you it appears To be someone else, a different you, a hostile you.
Wishing you would disappear.
Wishing you could die.
Hiding in your closet.
Overeating.
Overeating and puking.
Eating a healthy amount and puking.
Not eating.
Overeating.
Hearing the voice in your head.
Hating yourself.
Hiding in your closet.
Wishing you could disappear.
Forever.

You get the picture.

Experts say that overzealously controlling one’s food consumption is a mechanism to regain a semblance of jurisdiction over one’s own self. Someone who was robbed of control, helpless, victimised, is likely to mete out justice through the strict apportioning of food to oneself.

Experts say that a child who has been sexually abused wishes to deflect attention from herself. A sexually abused child wants to blend into the woodwork. A sexually abused child wants to avoid being sexually abused again and again by disappearing. How does a young girl make herself disappear? She makes herself unattractive. How does a young girl make herself unattractive? She overeats. She craves the anonymity she unconsciously believes resides in excess flesh.

I don’t know if I buy all that.

I also cannot certify that my “demons” are the direct result of having been sexually abused. Young people struggle.

Don’t they?

Teenagers and young adults struggle with themselves. Who’s to say my inexplicable downs weren’t just the normal result of awkward early-adult angst?

Whatever the real origin of past demons, I have an excuse: “I was sexually abused as a child.” My excuse has become something of a joke between My Man and me. Any character flaw, any oversight (whoops, I forgot to pick up the cleaning!) has an excuse: “I was sexually abused as a child.”

It's the best excuse ever.

Strange White Light and Crazy Man Sightings

This morning, I stood at a bus stop where I often wait, and, when it is this early (and dark), I look for the next approaching bus first in the reflection of the shops a couple of blocks up the road. Sometimes I play a game with myself: how accurately can I identify a vehicle by it's reflection. The headlights of a truck are similar to the headlights of a TFL bus. Sometimes the reflection of a minivan is very close to what you would imagine a taxi would be. I've gotten good at this game; I can generally even distinguish between a in-service TFL bus and a not-in-service TFL bus - from reflection alone.

This morning, a bus came, but it wasn’t the one I wanted.

I continued to gaze at the shop windows where the vehicular impressions appear. An interesting image flickered by. It was a bright, white, single light. I would have normally categorised it as belonging to a motorcycle, but it was far too high ... the height of a truck's headlights, but single. And the way it moved was odd - jerky - lacking the consistency of a machine.

A couple of minutes later I saw the origin of the single, white light. Someone running on the pavement opposite wore a type of miner's (or caver's) light. I wondered to myself what this guy was doing.

What kind of miner would be running down Fulham Road at 5:30 in the morning?

As the miner approached, I realised he wasn't a miner afterall, but an actual runner.

This loping man made me chuckle. He looked ridiculous like a horned monster with a headlight in lieu of horns.*

After he passed there was complete and total silence. Not even the sound of traffic somewhere in the distance. It was beautiful. I imagined that there must be at least 1/2 million alarms all going off at the same time but muffled by 1/2 a million rooms in 1/2 a million buildings in this city of some 7 or 8 or 9 million. I couldn't hear those alarms. I couldn't hear the whirr of motors running, cars waiting idle at stoplights outside my line of sight, but within earshot. They simply weren't there. All noise was muffled by the cold, the dark, the early hour. Again, it was beautiful.

My bus came.

This morning I was headed to Marble Arch. A couple of weeks back, My Man and I were heading the same direction at the same time, and we took this journey together. I would have normally gotten off the bus one stop earlier, but My Man convinced me that the difference of distance to my final destination between one stop and the other was negligible. Plus, we’d get to spend a few more minutes together before starting the slog that work life is beginning to become.

We walked together toward the tube station where he would continue his journey.

As we passed a McDonalds …

Or is it Burger King?

The Man suggested we look in the window to see if the crazy man was there.

“There he is. He’s there everyday.”

Since that spousal commute a couple of weeks ago, when I come this way, I follow the same route. I look into the Mcdonalds (or Burger King) for the man My Man labeled as "the crazy man".

The Crazy Man is a brown man (much like My Man) with a bald head and an rusty-orange, cabled sweater. Everyday that I have seen him he has worn the same thing. He sits with two cups in front of him. It's his eyes that make him look crazy. You cannot tell if they are open or closed.

I liked having this glimpse into My Man's mind as he travels from one spot to another. I don't normally think of him as making this kind of observation, filing it away, and sharing it.

Of course he does.

I suppose I knew it; but didn't feel it.

*I often look ridiculous. This is not meant as damning.

Fat Man Climbs Fence

I am obsessed by vampires.

This obsession isn't really like me. I was never a part of the dark and Gothic scene. For Christ's sake, I wore pink to the 9:30 Club (the original site) in the heyday of punk's influence on the venue. A cutting-edge friend had brought me along to see an upcoming LA band called The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. That night the lead singer would announce that he had discovered his first haemorrhoid; generous with his discovery, he'd pull down his trousers, and spread his butt cheeks for the audience. I would stand slack-jawed in my pink sweater, wishing I'd had a better sense of what to where when.

How uncool.

I never got into Anne Rice's novels. On the contrary, I snootily dismissed them as rubbish (along the same lines as Dan Brown's literary masterpieces).

I never wore all black (including eye-liner) and listened exclusively to heavy metal or smoked clove cigarettes while drinking coffee in underground establishments.

I am, and have been since adolescence, predominantly and perhaps sadly, mainstream.

My current obsession has, therefore, caught me unaware.

When I'm flossing my teeth, I wonder to myself: do vampires floss? Do they go to the dentist? Would there be special vampire dentists or would a regular dentist do?

I go to the loo and I wonder: do vampires shit?

I doubt it.

Do vampires pee? If they do pee, is their urine red-stained by all the blood they consume?

I sit in the uncommonly, glorious October sunshine on a bench on a platform along a train line. I am not thinking about the meetings I have just concluded or the resulting actions; nor am I thinking of the afternoon or tomorrow or what might come.

I'm thinking about the vampires and the television show that has me addicted.

A man - a businessman - joins me on my bench. I move my bag to make more room. He acknowledges my gesture. "Have to sit in the sun whilst we have it." he says. I smile and nod in agreement, but inside my head I'm thinking, "You're obviously no vampire; seeking out the sun like you do."

I chastise myself for being so single-minded. I shake my head in dismay at the thought of my train of thought during my earlier business meetings in which I assessed each participant on their vampire-ness. "None of them would have made good vampires" was my conclusion.

I can't account for my obsession; at least not without some effort.

I have finished all episodes and will have to wait until June 2010 to see more. I hope my fixation subsides.

Professional Prays

I had never given the old church on Brompton Road much notice. I'd seen it innumerable times from the window of the bus that sometimes takes me to work. I vaguely recall some mild curiosity about it, years ago; a curiosity stifled by familiarity.

That old church.

I remember I saw a wedding party gathering on its steps on a sunny summer day. A proper English wedding where the ladies wore hats as the red, double-decker buses and black-box English taxis drove by. I think it was that occasion when I realised the old church on Brompton Road was a Catholic church. The death knell for my curiosity.

Everyone knows Henry pilfered or destroyed all the good Catholic stuff.

The old church's historical significance was, in my mind, demeaned by its denomination.

ABF* had been in London for almost a week; her trip was coming to an end and she had still not been to St. Pauls or Westminster Abbey.** She seemed to be growing desperate to visit an old place of worship. That's what Europe is all about: old churches, cathedrals, cloisters, monasteries and abbeys.

We just happened to be on foot and passing the old church; we were on our way to the V&A where I wanted to show ABF the display of fashion through the ages. ABF paused in front of the old church.

“Let’s go in.”

“Sure.” I half-heartedly followed ABF into the old church.

A Catholic church like any other: airy space, high ceilings, muted light and incense.

We meandered mostly in silence. On a couple of occasions we dared to whisper a ‘look at this’ or ‘look at that’. One of the things interesting enough for us to comment on was the notification of the different languages spoken in each confessional booth. With so many nationalities, London’s confessional booths require idiomatic labelling.

Or the church is optimistic.

A man dressed in a well fitting banker’s style (pin stripe) suit attracted my attention. He had come in after ABF and me, yet had passed us with a clipped and purposeful gait. He approached a pew, occupied a space, knelt on a knee, and prayed to some minor god (I assumed minor because he wasn’t at the main alter, but rather at one of those ‘minor’ alters that surround the central nave.)

I watched him and wondered if he’d lost millions in the financial crisis (we were still heavily in the midst of it when the ABF came to visit). I wondered if he were praying for redemption or at least a percentage return on his investments. Then I felt badly for my shallow thoughts and thought he might have at home a dying of something wife.

As I conjectured about the immediate cause for his expression of faith, the man wrapped it up: he stood up, dusted off his knees and returned to his clipped gait.

He trotted off to yet another minor alter and repeated the routine.

This is serious. Wash, rinse, repeat.

*American Best Friend
**She had been on a previous visit so there was no strong sense of urgency.

Karma Stinks

I had already made up my mind: I wasn't going to go to the gym. Instead, I decided, I would ease into the workday. I propped up my pillows and checked my emails (personal). I made some porridge and ate it in front of BBC's Breakfast show. Not for the first time I thought about how poorly the Breakfast show compares to any of its US colleagues. I've always been partial to The Today Show. Only because I grew up with Tom Brokaw and Jane Pauley and later Bryant Gumble. I lost track of the morning show personalities after that.

It's not that the US versions of morning news programmes are more substantive, they just seem to be better produced. Breakfast gets B-listers like Michael Bolton or Sir Cliff and the Shadows.

What the?

I don't know who The Today Show gets these days, but when I watch the BBC in the mornings I find myself asking, "Why am I watching this?"

After I turned off the television, my getting-ready-for-work routine (cleaning my teeth, showering, dressing) continued just like any other morning. When I was ready to go, I realised I wasn't really ready to go. I looked down at The Dog. She looked up at me.

"Ah, come on then."

I decided I would take her up to the park.

I can spare 40 minutes.

After a game of ball, careful to keep my to-be-seen-by-the-customer work outfit clean, I called The Dog to come and turned my back on her to collect the lead and pooh bags. When I turned back, she was still a good distance away and in the unmistakable position that signified I would need to use one of those bags after all. By the time I reached the general area she had been fouling, she had finished and moved on. For as much as I scanned the vicinity, I couldn't find her shit.

God damn it. These friggin leaves!

I gave it my best before I gave up.

On the train to my customer's site, I recognised the distinctive odour of dog crap.

NO.

I looked around the relatively empty train. All was clear.

I looked at the sole of one shoe. All clear.

I looked at the sole of the other.

God damn it!

From train station to customer site I shuffled along, trying to scrape the dog shit from my shoe before reaching my destination.

So much for carpe diem.

I Rock

The comments and questions that have followed my posts that touch on sexual abuse have made me reflect on the state of Me.

There is almost nothing I hate worse than being misunderstood; the most heated arguments between My Man and me happen when I think he's not "gotten me" and I dig in my heals to explain and explain again in an effort to make him see The Light (I'm right!) , which of course is annoying, from his point of view.

Hate me for something I am or have done, and I can take it. But form an opinion of me because you think I am something I'm not or have done something I haven't and it will drive me crazy. Simply and innocently misunderstand me and I will suffer from a maniacal urge to better explain myself.

Then why on earth do you blog?

I resisted the immediate impulse to reply in depth to the various queries ...

What would I post in the future?

... and decided I would have to write something about the current me, even though that's the end of the story, so that I could put your minds at rest and you could read future posts about the guilt ridden little girl or the teenager struggling with the aftermath of something she didn't remember, free from worry about today's me.

That was a mouthful of a sentence.

I began to think about what I'd write to put your minds at ease, a thought process that demanded a greater degree of pro-active self-examination than I normally practice. The result: a delightful, possibly corny, revelation.

I'm happy!

Happy is not the total sum of the revelation. I have always been a happy, joke-making sort of person. My jolly demeanour, however, has been blemished over the years by periods self doubt and loathing. Such periods have recurred with enough frequency that I had resigned myself to accepting myself as a bit off-balance. My self-definition was marked by contradictions: confident with low self-esteem; intelligent, bright, funny, yet awkward, stupid, and worthless. I had learnt to manage these contradictions; I had accepted myself.

That's just me.

As I picked over myself to present my current self to you I discovered that I am not just happy. I am balanced and confident and exceedingly sane. That might sound boring to some, but I have had my share of the alternative.

Thank you for making me look longer and think deeper about myself. If you hadn’t, I might not have realized just how true the following is: No need to worry about me; I fucking rock.