Night Flight

Interesting flight to Darwin last night.

I'd been randomly allocated a window seat. After I'd herded onto the plane and found it, a couple about my age, fifty plus, were in the process of appropriating the window seat to store a large flat framed, bubble wrapped piece. Suppose they couldn't believe their luck on a packed flight. Seemed a tad miffed, I thought, to relinquish the floorspace they'd used and stow the item in the overhead locker. The woman - thin lips, tan leather jacket, skinny jeans, menopausal black dyed concave bob - had removed her knee high boots. In black socked feet, she unfurled herself, distractedly stood, and slotted her piece in the locker. Oddly, she ignored me and sat down again.

"Perhaps you'd like to move over?" I inquired politely, thinking they could both just shift over one.
"No, I'm staying right here, thank you very much!" 

Bit aggro. Think she thought I was going to boot her out of her allocated seat.  She was shaking her head, glaring at something indeterminate. Her partner, a grey loose-jowled man, chin sunk on his chest, just stared at the seat ahead. Perhaps he was jammed in. Thin-lips was determinedly having that aisle seat. I didn't care except I'd had a soaring blood sugar all day, probably a rebound from my near-death gastro in the previous 36 hours. Now I was dying of thirst - a diabetic thing - and knew I'd need a pee at some time during the flight.

"Well, I'll have to climb over you." I was sing-song, smiling, indulging a couple of children.

At this, something clicked and they clambered out. Bit of a struggle for him, clinging to the seat in front and shuffling sideways.

"And you'll have to forgive me climbing over you during the night," I belled, beaming, shuffling into my seat. "Old bladder, ha ha."

During the night? Who was I kidding? I thought, sitting heavily on my crossed seat-belt before wresting it out.  It was 3 a.m.

Amazing how much urine one's bladder can hold, in extremis, despite considerable discomfort. Once in, I could not get out. Had there been an emergency, perhaps a crash, with assistance from flight attendants, the blob next to me could perhaps have been induced  to prise himself out. He reeked of a few too many at the bar prior to take-off.  He was in an inert Can't Be Fucked, alcohol induced torpor.

Glad I'd relieved myself of those last few drops back at the airport toilets.

The armrest between me and my companion was raised and he'd taken the opportunity to ease himself about a quarter onto my seat.  Hmm. What to do?

"Would you like the armrest down?" I carolled, clicking it into position under a roll of his flesh.  He rested his arm over it, as one does, and I was okay.  Still had one completely to myself on the window side.

Beyond him Thin-lips had assumed the position: facing her husband, legs drawn up towards her chest.  Quite flexy, I thought.

Blob inclined himself towards her, in so doing, resting his back fat right over my arm.

I was irate, and perhaps more irrational than usual. It was 3.45 a.m.  I'd had no sleep since 9.30 the previous a.m., and prior to that I'd been on a drip in the ER for five hours following 18 hours of explosive gastro.

I swore under my breath.  That achieving nothing, I whimpered for an instant, pinioned as I was between back fat and the aeroplane wall.  Hmm.  What to do?

Tapped him on the arm.  He blinked awake and slowly turned to gawp at me.

"Excuse me?  Is she your wife?"  No more sing-song.  Assertive now, I nodded towards Thin-lips.

He registered the question; cogs creaking round.

"Yes."

"Well, would you mind leaning on her instead of me?  These days I don't even let my husband get this close."

He gawped some more, bemused perhaps.  Maybe he thought he was having an alcohol induced dream.  At this stage, ready for sleep or what passes for it on a plane, I'd pulled my orange hood up over my head, my bespectacled 55 year old face was peering at him, and around my neck I had, due to air pressure, an over-inflated blue neck support pillow.  He obeyed anyway.

Unfortunately, when he dropped into deeper sleep it was no holds barred.  He rolled over 'in bed' onto me, to mouth-breathe into my face.

Confession:  I can't even bear this with my old man and consequently we sleep, in our queen bed, in our little compartments, our heads separated by a pillow (affectionately known as 'the barrier') standing on its side.

Drunk, Blob was comatose.  I pulled my hood around my face, cleaved to what remained of my $300 seat and the side of the plane and prayed for a swift flight.

Me at Highpoint.

I'm in the changing room in Target, Highpoint - I've hit the fashion heights, clearly.  There's a discarded coat-hanger on the bench and a used  tissue on the floor.

I've stripped down  to my socks and undies on the bottom.  I'm keeping my top pulled securely down over my trunk lest my abdomen escape from the top of my knickers.  I don't want to see it.  I've selected five pairs of pants to try on.  It's an interesting exercise being in one of those rooms with the reveal-all mirrors.  I try to avoid looking at myself above my hip line.  Muffin tops would be putting it politely.  Think I've got the opposite of body dysmorphia.  I go about my life thinking I look okay, and then I see the reality in Target when I'm trying to have a nice shop.

One by one I struggle into these enormous pants - my size - and one by one I drop them into a heap on the floor.  The pants look crap but I quite like my asymmetrical haircut. Haven't seen it from this angle before,  Not bad at all.  It compensates a little for the disappointing elephant-crutch duds.  I've worked up a sweat at this stage and check my blood glucose in case I'm having a hypo rather than a menopausal flush.  I'm okay, but I've had enough of Target.

I abandon the trouser shopping.  After all, I'm supposed to be buying a present for my old man's birthday.

I'm in Big W next, opportunistically buying a bra.  Well, they've got my style and size.  This presents a problem though.  I want to browse the rest of the store but I'm not carrying a shopping basket so I must carry this enormous black bra with its massive moulded d-cups.  Try to tuck it inconspicuously under my bag but to no avail.  This bra has a life of its own.  If it had wheels I could have ridden around in it.

Run the gauntlet of Level 3 - yes, madam is having a nice day, but no, she's not interested in boxing lessons, nor organic cosmetics - and decide to buy a USB from Dick Smith.

Next stop, Just Jeans.  Really must get something for the old man.  The alarm goes off as I try to enter the store.  I fling out my arms, as one does, as the assistant rushes over to accost me.  I rifle through my bag.  The USB is the culprit.  I'm asked for the receipt, which I proffer.  Good to know they're all looking out for each other at Highpoint.  Nothing to see here, I think, given a small crowd has gathered behind me to gawk as we swing various items through the sensor.  They're rewarded with a viewing of my incredible living bra.  The shop assistant kindly peels off the metal label from the packaging of the USB and I'm in.

Now I'm having another hotflush/hypo special combo.  Surreptitiously check my blood sugar again before resuming my jeans shopping.  All good.

Despite my earlier trouser disappointment I'm tempted by the two pairs for $100 offer.  Pair for me and a pair for the old man.  He's easy to buy for.  Thirty-four inch waist.  He works out; has hardly changed shape in 32 years.  I have a moment of euphoria in the changing room when I find a pair of jeans that fit - albeit below the muffin top line.

So I pay for the jeans and head for the exit and WTF?  I'm bleeping again.  The assistant rushes over and now the d-cups are once again being passed back and forth through the sensor.  That's what you get for being environmentally friendly and bringing your own carry bag.  But once again, it's the USB.  The shop assistant obliges with a pair of scissors and liberates the USB from its attention seeking plastic packaging and sod the guy in Dick Smith who didn't de-magnetise it, or whatever he was supposed to do.

Back for more tomorrow.  The old man's pants didn't fit.

Brief update on daughter, Didi.

It's my niece's birthday lunch today; a chance to catch up with the young relatives. 

The venue is about three k away so the old man and I plan to cycle there, rather than have to worry about driving and the rest.

Daughter has been living away from home now for about six weeks.  It's all good.  Can't be bothered detailing it at this point, given I've got about five minutes to spend writing.

Surprised to get this text message from my daughter, who lives about four k away in the other direction from the venue.

"I don't want to drive.  How will I get there? K [housemate] isn't home.  [Presumably Didi would have cadged a lift.]  Could dad maybe drop me off at Sydney Rd then go home and get his bike? Or can T [brother] drive me?"

Well, dad isn't up for a ten k round trip at this stage on a Saturday, sorry Didi.  Catch a tram.

She's still our baby girl.

Visit to the eye specialist.

I’m sitting in the ophthalmologist’s waiting room, rugged up against winter outside; bag on my lap; umbrella gripped between my knees.  Gloves off; book out.  (I’m rereading The Secret River.  Should link to it to get more hits on my blog.)

It’s a busy Melbourne practice.  The waiting area is L-shaped. Two busy receptionists field a constant stream of patients.  An elderly woman, flanked by two assistants, hobbles by.  “You’ll be okay, mum,” says one of them, a woman about my age, like she’s said it a few times already.  She’s guiding her mother by one elbow and reassuring her a bit too loudly. “You’ve just had a little bleed.”

I’m immediately imagining my not too distant future; daughter leading me, perhaps a little impatiently, when I suffer ‘the little bleed’; or the ‘Falling Curtain’ or “Failing Sight.  Having already experienced the first two Fs one must watch for, Flashes and Floaters, I’m living in Flagrant Fear.

I reread the same line in my book.  Try not to think about it. 

Next, a doctor instructs an orthoptist - his assistant.

“Where can I put Mrs M?" she asks him.  "Just a cataract check?”  As if that’s nothing.

“Room three’s free.”  He sounds mildly fed up and detached on this Friday afternoon. He swings a door open to confirm the room’s availability.

The orthoptist leads a seventy-something woman with a well cut silver bob and seats her in the room.  “Yes, that’s right, just click whenever you see the stars.”  Orthoptist is a young Sybil Fawlty now, singing the instructions, but not really there.  She leaves the door open to attend elsewhere.  There’s something awful about this elderly woman’s exposure to the busy waiting room.  Try not to look at her perched on a stool, using the mouse. Think of my own mother.  She’d be freaking out if someone left her alone with a computer, let alone with the prospect of loss of vision.

Force my eyes back to The Secret River.

It’s my second visit to this doctor.  I’d needed a change from my previous ophthalmologist who I'd tolerated for several years.  Apart from his supercilious attitude, his hand stank as though he hadn’t washed it all day.  Doctors, even if they are just looking at eyes through whatever that little device is, should wash their hands regularly.  Or wear gloves. 

I made the change to this new doctor after a recent eye emergency.  My retina had partially detached from my right eye, causing a terrifying ‘visual disturbance’.  Cracks in my vision; looking through a shattered window.  What larks.  (That’s how Pip and Joe Gargery talk to each other in Great Expectations.  Do yourself a favour.  Read it.  Brilliant.  But I digress.)  Don’t want to sound cavalier about my eyesight.  I’ve worn specs since my mid teens and my vision has gradually deteriorated to the extent where I’m just this side of legally blind.  Throw in diabetic retinopathy, the legacy of thirty years of Type 1 diabetes and now this scrawl of a floater on my right eye ball.  The point is that I’m apprehensive, no, scared, sitting with my book, reading the same line over and over without comprehension.

Could do with a little compassion, or someone with basic interpersonal skills.  Instead, I got the doctor.

Hearing him calling my name in the waiting area around the corner, I close my book and gather up my bits.

“That’s me,”  I announce.  Rush over.

This doctor looks unremarkable. Late thirties, tall, round-shouldered, dark blue suit pants, white and tan striped business shirt, short wavy fading brown hair; wearing specs with another pair hanging around his neck.  It’s the mildly fed up doctor from earlier.  I hadn’t recognized him from my previous visit – despite having made notes, as I tend to.

“Put your things over there.” Ushering me into a room, he indicates a green leather two-seater couch. I do.

“Take a seat.” Expressionless voice.  He gestures at a chair.  I sit.  “Thanks for coming in earlier,” he intones. The appointment that I’d made five months previously had been changed the day before.  “Do you work?”

“It’s my day off, but I’ve been working all morning anyway.” Who cares? Certainly not Mr Personality.

Silence.  Hmm. So, we’re playing that game, I think.  None of that small talk that oils the wheels of human discourse.  He’s reading the display on his monitor.  Checking my file, I suppose.  Or Twitter?  I can’t see the screen from my disadvantage point.  He types very slowly with two index fingers.  Still he doesn’t speak.  It seems I am not there.  I try to find comfort in the silence.  I don’t.  It continues for about four long, awkward minutes.

With all due respect to his straight ‘A’ HSC score – he’s HSC vintage – and his years of academic excellence to achieve such career heights, what a shiny arsed wanker.

He stands.  He speaks.

“Just going to put some drops in your eyes.”  His voice is rehearsed-modulated, fake; someone humouring a tedious patient at the end of a long shift.  Hands me a tissue and I’m terribly grateful.  “Look up at the ceiling.  Just some local anaesthetic. And another one.  Keep your eyes closed for a few minutes.”  He leaves me alone in the room with the door open.  Now I’m exposed to the waiting room, sitting there like a pillock with its eyes closed, imagining everyone gawping at me.  Mere paranoia.  When five minutes later I dare to open my eyes, I glance out into an empty waiting area.  An old man ambles carefully past.  He’s looking at the ground ahead of him.

A fairly standard eye examination ensues.  Chin on the papered chin rest; forehead pressed against a papered metal bar; look straight ahead, to your left, to your right, at the ceiling, at the ground, at my right ear, my left ear.  A blinding bar of light repeatedly passes painfully across my vision. I fight against my instincts; try not to flinch as I stare at the sun.

“No change at this stage,” he drawls, finally, back to staring at the computer screen.  Probably has too much eye contact, given his job, and thus he avoids it during any other interactions.

“Keep your sugar levels under control.”  Easy for him to say.  “Cholesterol.  Blood pressure.  Probably looking at laser surgery somewhere along the track.”  I try not to care.

He picks up a recording device and dictates a letter into it, still staring at the monitor.  It seems I’ve left the room again but I’m still there.  Listening in like some naughty kid in the principal’s office, I know that the letter contains two paragraphs, has been cc-ed to my GP and endocrinologist and that my case will be reviewed four to six monthly.  I didn’t catch the other medical jargon.  This is all the time my $80 consultation will buy me.  At least my endocrinologist waits until I’ve left the room before dictating her letter.

He’s both efficient and ludicrous.  While sitting there I wonder what would happen in my own teaching job if I was arrogant and had poor communication skills.  Somehow, he, and many other doctors I’ve encountered in the last forty or so years - with a couple of brilliant exceptions - are above having to lower themselves to my plebeian level; having to be nice.

But on the positive side, his hand doesn’t smell.  I can tick that box.

Back for more in four months.

She's leaving home.

 A pink flamingo, about a metre high, stands on my right. on its two shiny black legs and little black webbed feet.  It’s looking back over its plumed tin torso.  Its beak looks like a mini banana.  Beyond that is a box filled with newspaper wrapped crockery.  Further behind, and filling the usually sparsely stacked shelves of my workroom are pots, a kettle, a second-hand microwave oven and who knows what else.  My spare room has temporarily become the repository of my daughter’s ‘glory box’.  She’s not getting married.  She’s just stockpiling prior to moving out.

For me, it’s bitter-sweet. 

Yep.  She’s leaving home.  My baby girl.  My Didi.  The second of my two adult children.  She’s twenty-three.  As with everything in my children’s lives, her imminent departure – she leaves in about six weeks - is both a signifier and an opportunity for vicarious enjoyment.  There’s one thing about my daughter:  she lets me share – especially if I’m carrying my credit card.

I first moved out of home at eighteen.  My sister, her friend and I moved into a tiny two up two down terrace in Fitzroy in 1974.  This was pre-gentrification, pre-uber cool bohemian Fitzroy.  No phone.  No mod cons.  No heating.  (Quite third world actually if some of the places I’ve stayed in in Vietnam are any indication.)  Just our single beds, taken from home and a bean bag each: two black and one yellow.  We rented a black and white TV.  Any other furniture came from the op shop.  I upholstered an old bridge chair in brown and red corduroy patchwork.  (It’s on my right just by the flamingo.  Good investment.  Probably paid fifty cents for it.)  I was a student cycling up the road to what was then Melbourne State College.  Also had the mandatory VW. 

Was a big shock for my mum when the pair of us moved out.  She'd taken my eleven year old sister back 'home' to England for the school holidays.  She’d left us alone with my father, who was inclined to rage and sulk.  He was insufferable without my mum’s calming presence so my sister and I left.  He didn’t try to stop us and he couldn’t if he had.  (As a parent, I can’t imagine how she coped on her return to discover her eighteen and nineteen year old girls had left home.)

In retrospect, this is awful.  I went on to suffer the most torrid relationship break-up, the emotional pain of which I could never have foreseen.  Because let’s be honest.  I’d moved out of home so I could have sex.  Suppose that’s what drove us all out back in the seventies.  The previous generation got married and pregnant, not necessarily in that order, at the same age.  (Thank god for the pill.)

Twelve months later and six months after my relationship break-up I was huddled on the floor in the bare white passage, just inside the front door.  Rejected again, I was sobbing uncontrollably, my face pressed against that bleak white cold plaster.  Probably banged my head a couple of times for good measure.  Inconsolable.  Ah, the pain of nineteen.  We didn’t take many photos in those days, technology being what it was, so the forty or so photos show us laughing fit to burst, looking gorgeous.  Impossibly young.  As if.  Nineteen seventy five was the worst year of my life.  Of course, there’s no photo of the sobbing head banger by the front door.

I moved back home to recover emotionally and live it up on my twenty dollar a week studentship, rather than spending that pittance on food, rent and petrol.

Daughter Didi is having an entirely different experience of moving.  She’s done lots of the done things already, being the child of relatively permissive try-hard baby boomers.  Moving out now is a positive, natural progression.

I’m missing her already.  But very glad she’s taking the freaking flamingo with her.

Assault

First whole Friday off in my new part-time status saw me cycling into town, doubtless smiling beatifically again, locking up my bike in Swanston Street and unexpectedly wandering down memory lane.

Here's one of the unbidden memories.

About fifteen years ago I was assaulted while I was in town.  I'd been at my regular Friday writing group at the CAE in Degraves Street.  I don't think I can do myself justice by describing what I was wearing that day, but I think I looked good in my 'nineties' over-sized printed shirt tucked into wide long pants, cinched at the waist - hey! I had a waist! - with a wide belt. My straight brown hair was waist length and I was wearing it out.  It was probably glossy in the sunlight; attracting attention.  I offer this vague description of myself, because when I've second-guessed why this assault occurred, like many victims, I've tried to imagine it was something I did, or how I looked, that prompted it.  (I've often thought the perp could have been a former student who finally saw his opportunity.)

A friend and I were having a coffee outside a cafe.  There wasn't the parade of cafe tables lining Degraves Street that you see today; just a few tables and chairs outside the cafe that's almost on Flinders Lane.  It was a sunny, warm day.  I felt relaxed, chatting with my friend.  Loved those writing group sessions.  It was an ordinary Friday, in the days before I'd returned to full-time teaching.  Elbows on the table, holding my cup in both hands, I glanced to my right and noticed a khaki clad skin-head.  He was sauntering along the footpath.  He wore an open frock coat over a singlet and trousers tucked into boots that laced up to his knees.  He looked out of place; menacing.  I noticed all this in an instant; registered it; resumed my conversation.  Seconds later I fell forward onto the table with the force of impact.  It felt like someone carrying a loaded suitcase had turned suddenly and inadvertently slammed the case into the back of my head.  Cups rattled in their saucers as I sprawled across the table, momentarily stunned; head aching already from the blow.  Next thing, my friend's on her feet.  "You bastard!" she shouts in her cultivated Brighton tones.  She shouts it again fiercely, waving a fist.  I look up to see people gawping at me.  I turn my head to the left and see the slowly receding back of this new romantic romper stomper thug.  Evidently, he'd punched me at full force with a closed fist as he'd walked behind me.

I was quick on the mobile phone - a brick.  Called 000 and a couple of police walked up from Flinders Street, passing by the psycho who'd slugged me as they did so.  He hadn't sped up his pace.  I wondered how many other women he'd hit from behind as he strolled around the city that day.  By the time the police got to me and heard what had happened he'd disappeared.

I'm still wary when I sit down at tables in public places but I'm over the nightmares I experienced for a while.  One of the worst things about the experience was the lack of response from the people who witnessed my assault.  Suppose it's the bystander effect.

Cheap thrills on Ebay

Back in the day, when I was a student teacher, I had to fill in a survey.  One of the questions was "What concerns you most at this point in time?"  Had a brief think.  World peace? Poverty? Infant mortality in third world countries?  No.  Whether to get my hair cut or not.  At the time I wrote this trite response I knew what it said about me: vacuous; self-absorbed; typical Baby Boomer.  But hang about.  My hair was seriously Brethren long and it's hard to make a decision like that. What if it looked shit short?  (It didn't, but I grew it back anyway.)

All of the above is by way of an explanation for the empty-headed musings that are to follow.  I concede that there are all sorts of serious issues worth my contemplation but I choose to dwell on domestic minutiae.  Crap really, but it passes the time.

So.  I bought a reasonably expensive washing machine a couple of years ago.  Did my research, courtesy of Choice magazine.  Won't make that mistake again.  This $1200 white monster, this 'top loader with front loader action!!' that we could barely fit  through the laundry door, entangled and twisted my washing to such a degree that it took me half an hour to unravel everything before I could hang it on the line.  To add further joy, it covered everything in chalky lint.  I swear that machine grinned at me as its digital read-out told me to balance my load or put it through its clean cycle.  Became a bit obsessed with this problematic machine.  Rang the customer help line and got advice on all sorts of tricks I could try to optimise my washing pleasure.  Nothing worked.

Given my workload had increased exponentially, decided to cut my losses and get another machine.  And thus began my Ebay fun.  It's illicitly thrilling trying to sell something one knows is a dud.  Advertised it at $500 'still under warranty', because it was.  Had lots of interest, but everyone wanted to know why I was selling it.  So I became an 'empty-nester, downsizing'.  Sounded legit and sort of was, except both kids were still living at home.  Found a buyer who was happy to collect the machine and even ranked me as 'great to do business with!'.  I'd like to think that whoever he bought the machine for found a way to minimise the just-been-through-with-a-tissue effect.  But ultimately, who cares?  Pig in a poke, but at least they got it for $700 less than I had twelve months earlier.

My second trepidatious foray into Ebay trading was to buy a packet of iPhone screen covers for the princely sum of about four dollars.  You'd think I was committing to a Winnebago given the sweat I worked up hovering over the keyboard, deciding whether to press a key.  Can't explain my irrational fear.  Suppose it could have been something to do with my own duplicitous dealing in white goods.  My little packet of six covers arrived promptly and in good order.  It's not the seller's fault that I can never get all the air-bubbles out.

My next Ebay moment came about as a result of my Cinderella syndrome.  I can't resist certain shoes.  They call to me through the window.  In the shop, they looked great on and they felt, well, tolerable.  Convinced myself I must have them and isn't that what credit's for?

So here's me, on my second wear of my 'gorgeous black leather and patent flat lace-ups; Wittner Cosmic Size 39' - still have my vague copy-writing skills - whimpering in pain as I'm cycling home from work.  The problem was the stitching line on the right shoe sat directly on a pressure point on my foot.  On my second hill the pain was so excruciating that despite the cold and risk of detritus on the footpath, I removed the offending shoe and clomped, up and down, one shoe on, one off, all the way home.

And like the washing machine before them, those shoes began to mock me for wanting so desperately to go to the ball.  Offered them gratis to several people, but no takers.  Suppose my slim footed niece, who politely declined, didn't want to look menopausal in her old aunt's shoes.  Couldn't bring myself to drop them off at Savers, given they'd cost me $130 and were barely worn.  So I tried to auction them off on Ebay.  As if.  Clearly there's a method to selling on Ebay but whatever it is, I haven't managed it yet.  Could probably do a course, or something, but I fear that would eliminate the idiotic thrill of the potential  sale.

The starting price for the shoes 'that sadly don't quite fit' was $19.99.  (Tried to elicit sympathy to lure a buyer.)   Suddenly (be still my beating heart) I had one bidder and one watcher.  I started barracking for the bidder, genuinely wanting whoever it was to get a bargain.  Felt some sort of vicarious excitement.  Don't think that's how it's supposed to work.  As it happened $19.99 was the ending price as well. The lucky winner, who'd spotted my shoes among the gazillions on offer, agreed to pay the sum, plus about five dollars postage and handling.  Unfortunately, after I'd queued for a good fifteen minutes in the post office I had to pay eight dollars.  Note to self:  weigh the shoes at the post office next time before you try to sell them.

Hope the successful bidder a. isn't a second-hand dealer; and b. hasn't got a fat right foot. .