Belonging

Today, as I walked through the Uni campus carrying my dog's head in a chiller bag, I started to understand somewhat why some people think I'm a bit weird.
I loved my dog and I'm sad to part with her. It seems natural to me to want to keep a part of her. Skulls are beautiful things, the shape and the structure is stunningly beautiful. To turn her skull into an ornament to keep as a memento seems perfectly rational. The process of getting the clean, white, polished skull however is quite gruesome and a tad disturbing. I haven't reveled in the process. I cried my eyes out as I held her frozen body while my husband (bless him) hacked her head off with a meat cleaver. I was quite rattled as I left the home this morning carrying a small chiller bag with a dog's head in it.
One of the joys of my new job has been returning to a world of science in which my pragmatic nature is accepted without hesitation. When I asked my colleagues how one would go about stripping the flesh from a skull they instantly offered several suggestions, none of them being that I seek psychiatric help. In fact, the mortuary manager offered to do a large part of the process for me. Hence the chiller bag and the walk across campus to the medical school.
When I asked the mortuary manager's advice on my project he instantly told me exactly what I had to do and then offered to do it for me. He is going to remove the skin and flesh then boil the skull in hydroxide to break down the connective tissue. I will be left with some cleaning to do, then the bleaching. He said once I had the skull as I wanted, to bring it back and he will coat it with a preservative varnish. He did not once ask me why I wanted to do this.
Acceptance and a sense of belonging is an inherent need in humans. When you belong to a subculture, like Goth, you make a conscious decision to live outside the norm. But belonging to a subculture means that even your rebellion is orthodox. We still want to belong.
I don't associate with many other Goths; my husband is my main source of comfort. At a dinner party some time ago I asked if anyone thought Tim Burton had modeled Sweeny Todd's look on David Vanian. I was met with blank stares. It was an uncomfortable reminder that my friends aren't Goths, that I don't quite belong there. My life the past year has been very much a reminder that I am different. The women I met at the gym, the other mothers at school that I got to know – many of them I like very much – but I don't think I could ask their opinion on the new Bauhaus album. My isolation has been on many levels. So to go to work and confront a bunch of people I hardly know with the question of how to strip a skull and be met with nothing but suggestions and offers of help is a multiple joy. Firstly that they can help me in my quest, but also that they don't judge me and possibly even understand why I want to do this. I belong in that environment.
My little dog belongs with me; I don't want to leave her in the ground of a random rental home in Blandberra. I will keep her skull with me and I will treasure it forever.

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Mollie

On Friday night when I got home from work my little dog was collapsed on the floor. She seemed to be unconscious so I grabbed the phone and hoped the vet was still working. He was about to go home, but I exclaimed "she's just gone into a fit!" so he said "bring her straight over". I picked up her spasming little body and she went limp, I put her in the car on the seat next to me and was I probably breaking the speed limit before I got to the end of the driveway. About halfway to the clinic she sat up, looked around then looked at me as if to say "are we going somewhere?".
The vet met us at the door and smiled "so she got better then?" he asked. He had the green dream and syringe ready, which he quickly put out of sight. He checked her over, couldn't really find anything wrong. He explained that when dogs get old they can develop a form of false epilepsy, that the excitement of me coming home may have been enough to trigger her into a fit. We discussed options and I took her home.
The husband and I had a reservation at a posh restaurant and we considered canceling, but it had been so long since we had been out somewhere nice that I insisted we go.
When we got home little Mollie wasn't at the door as usual. She wasn't in her bed; we searched around the house then grabbed torches and headed into the back yard. The husband eventually found her, hidden behind some pots. I put my hand on her, she was still warm but wasn't breathing. The husband grabbed her and started hitting her on the chest and yelling "Mollie! Come on Mollie!" but she was definitely gone.
We bundled her into a garbage bag and put her in the bottom drawer of the freezer, lit some candles and opened a bottle of sparkling shiraz. We made a toast to Mollie: she was deaf, blind, senile, incontinent, smelly, annoying, constantly underfoot, stubborn and difficult to groom. We loved her. We were going to the big city the next day so I was ready to put her in my suitcase and take her home, bury her with my other dog. But the husband pointed out that we couldn't a) travel with a dead dog in our luggage and b) turn up on somebody's doorstep and say "Hi, we're here to bury our dog".
So she's still in the freezer until I decide what to do.
So now we can open cupboards or the fridge without having to move a small dog, we can walk across a room without tripping over, there are no puddles in the hallway and no disgusting smells in the lounge room. There's also no little dog on my lap when I'm watching telly. I miss the scrofulous little mutt.

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Microtomes and Madness

Well, I'm into my second week of my new life as a biologist. So far I have dissected a couple of pigeon eyes, embedded them in paraffin and attempted to section them on a microtome. The first two parts of the process I think I have under control, but the microtome is doing my head in. Who would have thought handling a 10μm thin slice of wax could be so difficult? Just looking at the damn thing makes it either curl up and collapse or crumble into a thousand pieces. I guess I shouldn't beat myself up too much, I am new to this gig, but I get so frustrated with myself when I am faced with my own ineptitude. I expect to be good at something instantly and when I'm not I go through the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief:
Denial (there must be something wrong with the machine),
Anger (you idiot! Get it right!),
Bargaining (OK, if you get this right you can have cake for afternoon tea)
Depression (I am so useless, I can't do anything!)
Acceptance (I'm not infallible, I need help)
Eventually I got one of my supervisors to have a go and she couldn't get it to work either, it was a bad prep – so not my fault.
Otherwise I have been pre-occupied with the Uni's Body Donation Program, i.e. compiling paperwork and forms for people who wish to leave their bodies to science. A weird concept, ultimately valuable, but weird. I wonder if I'm the right person for the job. I certainly wouldn't donate my body, or that of my child, for a bunch of med students to chop up; but then I wouldn't hesitate to donate organs. I understand the importance of such donations – med students and surgical trainees need to learn – but it just doesn't sit right with me. I can't understand or explain it - it is illogical. A dead body is just a hunk of flesh isn't it? But if my beautiful little girl died there is no way on Earth I would allow a bunch of spotty, over privileged, pretentious twerps to slice her up. This is one of those instances where my ethics and my ideals are totally over-ridden by my heart. Perhaps even in death the parental protective instinct is just too strong.
But, apart from ethical dilemmas, work itself goes well. I am happy.

This morning I had to drive the girl to school; the husband (who usually takes her) had an early meeting. I didn't arrive on campus until 9:10am – all of the parking near my building was taken. I drove from car park to car park for over 20 minutes before I found a spot. The car park I found was staff parking, but it also had a large sign saying "changed parking conditions". I pondered on the meaning of this cryptic sign. Was the "changed conditions" the mud that has resulted from that day's downpour? Or was it something less obvious? I figured if I got a parking ticket I could contest it on the grounds of their vagueness. I parked, stepped out of the car into the rain and trudged off in what I thought was the direction of my building. I walked for about 15 minutes before I ended up back at the same car park. At the moment I realised where I was I also realised, or perhaps allowed myself to admit, that Blandberra IS in the Twilight Zone. You try to go in a straight line, but end up going in circles. Nothing makes sense. At 9:50am I made it into my lab, soaking wet, frustrated and confused as to why my umbrella was no longer in my car and convinced that the city I live in does not conform to the laws of physics. A Dark City indeed.
The husband and I experienced similar dis-orientation whilst in Italy last year on our honeymoon. After a few days in fabulous Venice we became convinced that during the night all of the buildings shuffled themselves around. No matter how carefully we plotted our course, what landmarks we noted (turn left at the beggar with the funny hat) we were never able to retrace our steps to find that cute shop/bar/pizza place we had spotted the previous day. That, of course, is the only time ANYONE will ever compare the mysterious and stunningly beautiful city of Venice to the life-sucking, vacuous city of Blandberra.
So I sit here, glass of wine at my side, typing my little self-indulgent blog, while the husband cleans the kitchen, and I think that being a working mother isn't that bad when you have the support of your husband and your job doesn't suck.
I may have, at the risk of typing too soon, the best of both worlds. Read more!

Eyes and Hamburgers

Great things are afoot! I am about to become gainfully employed. I have been offered a job in a research group at one of the universities that is involved with the anatomy and diseases of the eye.They study all manner of eyes – birds, fish, rodents, primates…of course the only way to study said eyeballs are to remove them from the animal. OK, I won't have to kill anything and what's the difference between digging an eyeball out of a pigeon and skinning a chicken leg before cooking it for dinner? I have no problem with removing the eyes from dead animals…but can I dig an eyeball out of a dead human? I THINK I can, I'm almost sure I can, but I guess I won't know until I actually try. Of course the idea of working in a mortuary goes with the whole Goth thing and I don't have a problem with it at all; but can I stick a scalpel in somebody's eye socket and dig out their eye? It's a weird one. Anyway, I damn well better be able to because I've accepted the job and will probably be starting next week.

This means the girl goes into after school care, I will no longer have the luxury of going to the gym whenever I feel like it and going for coffee with the girls afterwards, no more sleeping until 8am then coming home for a nap after dropping the girl at school. But – I will get my brain back online and in full use, I will be able to pay off my credit card, get the brakes done on my car, get my hair and nails done whenever I want (as long as it's on a Saturday). It's mostly good. I'm looking forward to it and the husband is now on a mission to find every song ever written about eyes.

Last weekend we hired a little Toyota corolla and drove to central Victoria to attend my cousin's 21st birthday party. What a lark! It was great to catch up with family I haven't seen for ages, mildly embarrassing when a cousin from the other side of the country who I have only met once turned out to have the same hair-do as me (I thought I was unique!!) and the husband and I got terribly inebriated and ran around like idiots until 4am. Not our smartest move. The 6-hour drive is bad enough, combine it with a hangover and a small child who talks non-stop the whole way and you have something akin to living hell. We were so bad we didn't change the CD until we were an hour away from home.

An interesting thing occurred: At Gundagai we stopped at McDonalds for lunch. Now I hate the evil empire, I refused to buy their food until I became a parent and they started serving salad and real coffee. It became a place we could go for a special treat for the child and I could eat lunch in peace while she ran amok on the playground. We have indulged maybe half a dozen times over the 5 years of her life. But I had never eaten a McDonalds burger, and I did so on Sunday. It was tasty, in a weird plasticy, artificial sort of way. The texture was weird, not like food – more like some sort of artificial polymer and what is with the colour of the stuff I assumed to be cheese? It looked like it had ethidium bromide in it. Does it actually glow under UV light? Anyway, I viewed it as an interesting anthropological experiment and didn't dwell on it for too long. Here's the interesting thing – I was driving along yesterday and suddenly I was overwhelmed by a craving for a McDonalds burger and I think if there had been a Maccas nearby I would have driven in, the craving was THAT strong.
How do they do that? What is IN those things? It's weird and disturbing. I hate them even more now. Insidious, malevolent, amoral, evil bastards.

In other news, I'm still sick. Moving into week three of my illness and into my second lot of antibiotics. Hopefully I will be fully recovered before I start work. Read more!

Classrooms

This morning we had "home reader orientation" at school. Today is the first day the girl brings home a home reader, the parents needed to be educated as to what to do with them. Don't we just help the kid read them?? Apparently this idea is old fashioned and potentially dangerous in terms of the childs development. Well, pardon me.
So we arrived at 8:30am, after scraping the first frost of the season off the car window (goodby vegie patch), and sat in the tiny little chairs that had been arranged into a semi-circle for us. We were handed a sheet of text that was coded, and a pencil. I didn't get a pencil and I was reminded of the torture of my school days when I was inevitably overlooked. We were asked to try to decode the text. Yeah, ok I get it: to a child learning to read all text is code that they are trying to decipher. Point taken. But no, we actually had to attempt to decode it. I sat there, head throbbing, coughing and feeling generally shite from the illness that currently afflicts me, and refused to participate (another flashback). One of the girly-swat fathers worked it out and proudly announced to the "class" what it was. I was on the verge of telling them all to stick their patronising bullshit up their arse but I didn't want to have to do detention after school so I kept quiet. We were subjected to 45 minutes of this type of condescending crap before they got to the bit about how we deal with the readers, how we fill in the comments box each night and what is expected of the child. The informative bit took about 10 minutes, we were then given a handout that said all the same things. Could they have just sent the damned note home with the reader and let us work it out? It made most of the parents in attendance late for work, it kept me out of bed and was basically a big waste of time. Yes I know that how my child is treated and responds while she is initially learning to read will set up a pattern for the rest of her life and could mean the difference between her being somebody who reads for pleasure instead of just because she has to, but give me a fucken break! I resent being treated like an idiot, I resent being treated like a 5 year old and even more I resent the arrogance of the teachers who impose this crap on us.
I came home and slept for four hours, I feel a bit better now, I think I am through the worst of it. The husband has been utterly gorgeous: fussing over me, taking over all the domestic stuff when he gets home from work, insisting that I rest. That's what marriage is all about - to have somebody there to look after you when you need it. He is a good husband. He is, as I type this, on his way home from work and will stop to do the shopping and get chicken and chips for dinner. What bliss. Read more!

A poem of sorts

At the airport I smile at his ridiculous car.
He looks tired, but I don't say it, I'm tired too.
My suitcase in the boot, my hand on his shoulder, we drive away.
The headlights flicker - an electrical fault making it's presence known.
I feel a pang of guilt for making him drive such an old and problematic car, but I smile and say "I'll fix it tomorrow".
The dogs bark and wag a celebration for the returning hero.
Familiarity and comfort wrap around me and I begin to relax.
My heart is here. Read more!

Earth Hour

At 7:30pm on Saturday night we decided to participate in Earth Hour, at 8pm. After 25 minutes of peeling about 20 cubic metres of plastic off all our new candles, stabbing myself in the process, we had everything ready.
I used my kitchen blow torch to melt out old candles and melt the new (finally, a use for the damned thing!) into our multitude of holders and a few pewter goblets. We placed candles in each room and then commenced turning off the lights.
The first protest was from the 5 year old, who is scared of the dark, so she was allowed to keep her night light on.
The second protest was from the husband who insisted that the stereo was an essential appliance so the music remained.
The third protest was from the teenager who wanted to microwave his dinner - well I guess food is essential. So then finally I said "stuff it, I’m putting on a DVD!", microwaved my dinner then sat down to watch "Dexter".
An hour later we put a couple of lights on, then the electric heater and I sat and pondered on what we had achieved: we had generated a shopping bag full of (non-recycleable) rubbish from the candle wrappers, I was injured (small wound on my thumb), the teenager had used light from the fridge while cooking his dinner so the fridge would have been working overtime with the door wide open and we burned maybe $15 worth of candles.
I think we get a point for attempting to participate, but overall no points for accomplishment or dedication. Yeah well, we’re Goths - not hippies.
p.s. We recycle, compost, grow some of our own vegies and recycle grey water so we ain’t all bad. Read more!