Day: September 10, 2004

The smell of rain is invading my room. There’s a word for it. James told me once. I can enjoy the fresh air without a clinical name though. The wash of cars going past and sending waves throught he puddles is calming. I’m not worried about running late, though I should be. For the past three hours I’ve been waiting for Ian and Ethan to show up. I have my tranchcoat laid out against the weather. As if to spite all conventions, I’ve even put on socks.

This week starts the Fringe. Today, in fact and I’m blowing it off for Victorias party. I’m not sure how certain folk will feel about that. It’s going to be sordid, darlings. Divorce is alway smessy.

Damn this bloody hang-up. I’m caught. Trapped by my own pathetic useless brain today. I need to go out and get things done but I can’t manage to leave the house. I’ve reached the front door three times so far and each time I stop, my hand on the handle, unable to turn the knob. Futily, I run inventory in my head. Coat, shoes, hat, keys, bankcard, phonebook, pen for writing, I know where I’m going, I know what bus to take, I know.. I know I’m not turning the damned knob is what I’m knowing. Judge and jury are bearing witness and I am condemned. It’s not exactly fear, but an inability. I was left alone too much last year. I turned, went weird. I’m aware that as soon as I’m at least a block away, the anxiety will drain as if I’m a jog upended.

I’m slowly breaking myself of this, but not damned well fast enough. Left alone far too much. Solitary, trapped in an empty house without the busfare for escape, without anyone to leave with. The few times I went out, I was punished for leaving when I got back. It’s left a behaviour. I was taught strong. I can help this, I can work on it. I refuse to be a girl with her eyes blank and red. I’m looking for answers to this what confronts me. I’m calling people to find someone who can rescue me. It’s been a few months since I haven’t been able to break past. There must be a word. A term for my failing. I want to know what it is so I can lashingly mock myself with it. Reach into myself armed with knowledge and shatter the block of stone sitting there that leaves me immobile.

Don’t tell me that I’m an idiot, I know it already, just tell me you’ll come over and help me leave the house.

This is for the students. Written by a teacher and worth a read. Go cringe and laugh. The run-down of proffessorial pain in thirteen points.

Bonus:  A medical doctor has recreated the experience of schizophrenia.  A closely researched recreation of visual and aural hallucinations, based on interviews of real schizophrenics has been plugged into a computer. Viewed as a hospital ward, in first person, it’s apparently a disturbing set-up. Voices, shifts in perception and hallucination. I want to try. 

When the disaster hits, when Minerva looks down and grants us our earthquakes, our floods, our crashing and knashing of meat and teeth, I would like to think you would find me. I would like to think you would walk over cracked pavement, climbing over rubble to find me. I would like to think that in among the sprayed jets of water flashing into the cloudy sky you would be there, wondering where I was.