Notes from Saturdays

I doubt if anyone avoids cliches as intensely as I do but here it is: A cliche post. I also think people who try to avoid cliches are the biggest cliches of all.  I've been bleeding for exactly 30 days. At this point I can be described as withered, grey and slow. It could always be worse of course. I could be pregnant. Other possibilities are still on the table. I've tried to paint the pain a few times. It usually ends up looking like a big tangle of red and black lines crumpled and stuffed in the lower abdomen and spreading through the femurs like growing pains. It's a stretching kind of pain in the legs, you feel you are being pulled and torn, to no use. There's no growth, just punishment. In the abdomen it feels like a hard black knot the size of a fist. I feel it's about to burst. & I want it to burst so I'm relieved but I'm also scared it might shred my insides. You don't have much analytical and biological wisdom handy when you are awakened by ...

Thursday morning: I only have one coffee a day. Can't risk needing more so what I feel in shortage of caffeine I make up for with rage and anxiety. Nothing puts you to sleep faster than a clear schedule.  I keep my inbox clear, even if by compulsive clicking. So I notice the arrival of every little yellow envelope.  Mike's departure's arrived at about 10:30. Compulsive click: a vaguely familiar smiling face to the left of the screen and a short paragraph that brings some random images into focus: Mike was part of our team... 2 years ago... brain tumor surgery... call from his mother... a memorial service will be held... link to givealittle.com. I don't have any clear memories of Mike. He left soon after I joined. But he was 34 and now he's lying in a metal drawer, cold and pale, no longer smiling. The little happy profile picture -because we all look happy on our first day at work- looks outrageously insensitive. I don't know where this strange sorrow fits so I ...

I live half a life. I wonder if I will then live twice as long or die halfway through. Haven't figured that part out but I know sure enough that I'm only living half portion. Well it's quite obvious; I only ever do half of what i want to/meant to do, like I always plan to go to gym 5 days a week but only do 2. I only say half of what I wish to say, like when Bob from Geophysics tells me about his sports teams and I wish to say "Bob, I really don't give a damn. No one does!". But instead i fill my water bottle and produce varieties of "what a shame! How cool!" I eat cake only 1/4 of the times I want to, and of that only half taste like what I expected. Half of my clothes are unworn, 1/5 of the shoes unwalked and even fewer danced. I watch twice the TV I should and read 1/4 of what I plan. On top of all this I dream 3-4 times more intensely than I ever live. That must surely use up some of my allowance.  Half of the gifts I think of giving I never buy....

On Wednesday, like every other day, the alarm went off at 6 am. I didn't hear it.  At 6:08 I finally sat up in bed in the grey early morning light that was pushing through the fat crack in the heavy grey curtain & groaned "when are we finally gonna die?" I must have seen the sunrise over the bridge, maybe heard some music on the radio, I don't recall morning commutes. I dragged my preheated cup to level 5 & pressed the machine for the less awful coffee with full-cream milk. I work 11 hours. I do take grudgingly long lunch breaks. I sometimes think if I sink deep enough into whatever I'm reading they will simply forget me.  By 2:30 I already had the lead in the staring contest against my computer screen when I felt the corner of my left eye drop a little bit, then the right, then both my eye lids hung a touch more heavily. I looked down at my hands & noticed 10 or 11 new sun spots appearing on each. In mild disbelief while checking the date on my watch ...

  We went for a walk this afternoon. Ever since lockdown we all have to walk, every day, rain or shine. The solution to world obesity may be the enforcement of the law of 3 mandatory big meals every day, followed by dessert. Walking is supposed to clear your head. Mine start with an idea, a mere possibility to entertain the imagination. Soon it spirals out of control; the threats become realities and the arguments between me & the people in my head get so serious the next day I can't stand their physical actual presence.  The inside of my Thought Quarters is like a carefully organised pantry: Shelves full of small colourless jars each containing a small glass cylinder filled with a thought, usually in various shades of tinted grey. There's quite a wide range: yellowish betrayals, grey demotions, upcoming failures in shades of dusty burgundy, potential deaths and losses all in blacks of various strength, rows and rows of conspiracy theories in foggy midnight blue, a few dus...

So I was dragged into another site visit yesterday.  My all time favorites are those where I have totally missed the design phase, had no idea the project existed on the face of the earth until the person responsible -who knows all about it- either drops dead or finds something better to do -it's always the latter. In such cases I quickly review whatever I can find on the job, go to site, try my best to look the least dumb, blabber some questionable advice which I will later contradict via email from the office. My feelings on such assignments oscillate between self-loathing and stress-induced nausea. This particular day however I had other thoughts running in the background. As we stood around, all 11 of us from various trades staring at the mysterious floor above, I wondered what I looked like to these men. The only woman on site, the quietest, the furthest in the huddle -social distancing was on the H&S induction. I wondered if their thoughts reached conclusions such as...