Had a dolly

... who was sick, sick, sick.

2010-12-12T07:31:00.000+07:00

..it was only in appearance that I sat alone; my own thoughts could not withstand the torrent of words on which for hours past I had let myself be carried along: I went on turning out words and sentences which might have impressed...; to make the game more enjoyable, I even played the parts of the absent others, asking myself fictitious questions so designed that, in answering them, I could show off the brilliance of my banter. Silent as it was, this exercise was a real conversation and not a form of reflection; my solitude was a mental drawing room scene, in which imaginary interlocutors and not myself were in charge of my speech...
(In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust)

Aging.

2010-03-14T08:26:00.000+07:00

I was eight years old when they put me away and I stopped growing. Then it was 2002. That makes me sixteen in life experience, although I have packed a lot in. Living in house full of passionate and articulate siblings and guests broadcasting their intimate thoughts and fantasies and emotional states. Our house is so wild and rambling and even I don't know everyone, every now and then a guest will arrive who fits in well or seems to, and it takes years to realise they didn't actually come with anyone. Sometimes they don't even know where they're from or that they are a guest, and have just assumed someone's room to be theirs. All fine until a return event, when a lot of "But that is MY room." goes on and doors are slammed. We're more careful about that now, but we are beginning to realise a few things. One thing, this house we live in, we did not build.

We are not the first people to live here. We did not make it.

Genetrix bag of tricks.

2010-01-31T20:29:00.002+07:00

We wait. One in four chance that we have the mutation... soon (February? March? April?) our statistics will change we will have a one in a million chance of having the mutation or we will have a one in two chance of having the mutation.

Note: Nothing will actually change. We actually already have it ... or not.

Other than that our blood tests came back with extra gold stars for fabulousness.

We are 0 positive as we suspected, and our thyroid function is perfect,
our cholesterol is very low and in the right ratio and our sugar balance is perfect.

There's just a couple of other blood tests I'm interested in.

Stage fright.

2009-12-05T18:18:00.002+07:00

Stage fright, yes, I have pills for that.

Genetrix fills my glory box with wedding rice and science gives me a useless foreshadowing.

Useless to know there's no cure for death, and nevertheless there's a waiting list.

Life runs on irony.

2009-11-08T19:43:00.001+07:00

So many types of sick, sick, sick.

After all these years, and all this work, to be so mortal and have achieved so little.

We heart Max.

2009-10-04T20:43:00.002+07:00

The main focus of our attention has been United States of Tara, the incredible opportunity is has given us to continue on our program (heh) of coming out.

This event has been overwhelming in many ways, expanding our ideas about what might be possible in terms of our goal to live in this world with honesty.

Still a problem.

2009-07-03T19:35:00.001+07:00

Time doesn't help much.

Francesca W.

2009-05-21T16:27:00.001+07:00

Miss Woodman... my god.

Also a cottage, Mary Ann's.

Also castles aplenty.

Recognition, language, music, mores.

the year of Pia

2009-01-16T20:35:00.001+07:00

Yes, it's true. After years of negotiation and amends and apologies and diplomacy and even a hostage situation or two, we've decided 2009 is the year for Pia to reclaim her right to access to this body. As anyone reading this who knows Pia will well understand we are cautious.

However, there is no cause to be concerned. Trouble (who was once known as Jody) is very strong, and s/he and Just Jo together are more than a match for Pia, should it ever come to an actual contest. We hope that what will happen will be a gradual easing into sharing the body with Pia and cooperating and co-consiousness and all that other healthy stuff.

Vigour.

2009-01-16T15:45:00.002+07:00

Hybrid vigour is good, and we're strong.

Pia's return looks to be interesting.

We're ready.

Other news: pertaining to shapparelle tea, oatmeal, sugar and flour.

Roz

2008-06-19T17:08:00.001+07:00

I don't understand sometimes why I couldn't have had my own life. Is it overpopulation - are there so many souls to be born that we just must learn to share bodies to save the planet?

Roz.

Trouble with Spikol.

2008-05-26T12:17:00.000+07:00

We love her.

well, it probably is d.

2008-05-10T12:44:00.002+07:00

So it's been weeks now and we've done all things we know sometimes help and nothing has helped.

(depression)

Drugs don't work for us.
The only way out is through.

It's strange but it often seems to be that we only call it by that name when it's leaving.
If things go true to form for us, in a few days we'll be feeling a good deal better.

Term off is go.

2008-05-06T17:34:00.001+07:00

All is good re the term off.

Talent

2008-05-06T17:33:00.000+07:00

Born with a talent for almost everything my life is an apology for squandering.

Milk.

2008-04-21T13:35:00.001+07:00

It seems we are still (some of us) mildly intolerant of milk.
How can a PERSONALITY affect such a thing, it defies logic. Nevertheless only a fool would deny her own senses and experiences and we have TESTED ourselves repeatedly. It simply must be so.

Skink suggests train whistle causation analogy.
(ie. the whistle blows because the train is coming)
To this Manny suggests that either way it's a good idea to get off the damn tracks.

Did you know?

2008-04-17T20:07:00.000+07:00

It's true.
Wearing a bra is associated with 12,500 times the relative risk for breast cancer.

T is for tea.

2008-04-05T09:50:00.002+07:00

We are considering taking a term off bellydance altogether and crosstraining - trying to get some other muscles really strong. Just an instinct that we might need to take a break from the constant use of the muscles we use to bellydance to let others develop. It's an instinct spinning a little theory at the moment. We'll see. It would have to be worth it to lose the joy of dancing for Calypso. She'd have to agree.

In other health news things are good.

Vitamin G

2008-02-19T13:55:00.002+07:00

We're under the influence, it's a sickness, it's grief.
We're eating fruit and taking fish oil.
Some of the worst afflicted are from Hinchinbrook house and half those girls are sea creatures (mermaids? silkies? dugongs?) and when we were down in Old Whaling Town (Albany) we saw "Dog Rock" (go look Ren, it's all here sweet pea) and they said "That's obviously a seal. White people are so stupid." and then we saw that yes it was a seal.
In the supermarket they found the food they like in a jar - dried herring in oil. They ate these very quickly. Hence the fish oil. They seem to need a lot of fish oil. They have been grieving hard. And then there was the Cow God dream.
At last that's clarified.
I don't care any more for my own selfish desires (I'm Trouble, hi) I don't care to maintain my position. If it makes them happy for us to follow these restrictions then that's okay. I'm not going to fight them any more. I don't really ~care~ the same way I just have words. And what's the point of using them against others if you don't need to. So I won't. It helps that Mannie and Just Jo have said okay, okay, okay, okay, at last okay. We don't have a time line. We're just all trying to get through this.
So that's us.
Physical revelation (this blog is Sick, Sick, Sick) about our NotSoAwfulAsWeFeared Pain - you know, the one that we found out is (hurray!) nothing to do with organs or cancer or anything else terrible like that but is basically a mixed message a nervous error. That still HURTS, btw.
Well we have found another possible strategy to do with posture.
Intellectually lots of us (Just Jo, Thea, Francesca) have long agreed that the concealment of breast development (ie. hunched shoulders etc.) in young girls can damage their posture and while we knew this and have been trying for years to correct it (and suceeding in lots of ways) we didn't realise that the initial impulse - that led us to poor posture - is still with us and we didn't realise that this is the way our other pain is going to eventually go away. We did a Feldenkries class (we're very happy about it - the teacher is lovely and it's a great technique) and perhaps something in that class made us more observant because we noticed it a couple of days later at a gentle standing exercise class when we were doing the puppet exercise (hanging from a string) and felt our spine re-align slightly and that's when we had the physical revelation that the actual drive to conceal breasts (which was so strong in us for lots of reasons - some of us being boys, some of us being shy, some of us having already had some various disturbing sexual experiences and many of us not ready to grow up at all and frightened of puberty, and many of us frightened of the teasing and cruelty that was standard etc. etc.) - that drive was still with us and I'm a big carrier of it (I'm Trouble) and so I really need to be the one to address it. I'll add it to my list, right on top of EVERYTHING ELSE because it's just so important I realise.
There's two ways to get the discs aligned properly and only one way is right - the right way is to open my pectoral muscles and pull my shoulders (up first then curling back) right back and then drop them as low as I can. It feels weird. That's because it's not our habit. That weird feeling will change very quickly.
Apparently.
I'm going to write at Trouble at Work now.

Eight Worldly Winds

2007-12-18T06:33:00.001+07:00

1. Attachment to getting and keeping material things.

2. Aversion to not getting material things or being separated from them.

3. Attachment to praise, hearing nice words, and feeling encouraged.

4. Aversion to getting blamed, ridiculed, and criticized.

5. Attachment to having a good reputation.

6. Aversion to having a bad reputation.

7. Attachment to sense pleasures in general.

8. Aversion to unpleasant experiences.

52 beats a minute

2007-10-31T10:57:00.001+07:00

That's my heart rate after a short rest following a good cool-down, after an hour and a half of circuit training.

Fit as a fiddle.

New link & maybe a new focus?

2007-10-29T13:52:00.000+07:00

I just added a new link to our links here.

We've been reading a lot about crap science, diets, weight loss and health lately.
It's a nasty jungle out there.

Here's someone sensible.

Relentless self improvement...

2007-09-30T19:02:00.000+07:00

.... sure is relentless around here.

There's some progress in terms of our Food Pact Mark 2.
Angelata might post about that at Put the Kettle On.

Our fitness level is amazing right now - and knees are more than healed it is better than it was five years ago. The Something Awful Pain is still with us, but the exercises do help and it does get easier to live with - we have our mantra to it which is all about how there is actually nothing happenning here, so muscles, you can relax after all, yes that is an interesting sensation that feels remarkably like hideous pain signifying something horrible but (yay!) it is merely hideous pain signifying nothing. Which is so much better.

Soon we'll be hiking again - it's only finding the time that's stopping us.

I wonder if I'll ever enjoy cycling?
You know what they say about riding a bike?
Well, it's true, but we know that it's not the body that remembers.
At least for us, riding a bike is not a skill in our shared drive.

Sick Dolly Trouble (actually I feel great!)

Bye!

Ms Bloom says yes.

2007-08-27T11:39:00.000+07:00

We're very well - our knee is better than it has been for years and our current dance schedule is perfect: we're teaching dance three times a week and studying circuit training, tai chi and jazz/fusion dance once a week each. Each of these sessions are one an a half hours long, mostly evenings, but tai chi on a morning and one bellydance on a morning, nicely spaced throughout the week and with one fantastic three hour long dance session which starts with us teaching bellydance then is immediately followed by our beautiful dance teacher's dance class.

We can take pilates and there's a pool bus to Bigsplat once a week too, if we have time, so far we haven't had time, but perhaps this week?

We're trying to up the number of meals catering to the many vegan, vegetarian, vegan + honey + free range eggs, no dairy or red meat, etc. dietary preferences here at Polly HQ. I think that the key to this is for us to think of it in terms of meals rather than the old way (we broke up the week into different days for different food preferences) as we are trying to include frequent short spans of fronting for everyone who wants to, every day, in the hope that all people of polly who want to be out here living this life are out here often enough for the shifts to be less physically painful, and to try to maintain/establish meaningful connections to our collective friends and gray. Also, in a wholly unexpected development, some dungeon have turned vegan, including Gruesome. With dungeon's powerful political clout now divided on these issues, perhaps it is time for vegans to have more time out.

The exercises that our Xian gave us seem to have reduced the "Something Awful" pain and the experience is much less upsetting now we understand it as basically an error of nervous judgement (hah!) rather than a symptom of something scary. When we feel the pain we know that it doesn't indicate any actual damage is occurring and that is comforting, though it is still rather painful sometimes. Not today.

*beams*

Grasping sparrow tail.

2007-07-23T20:09:00.000+07:00

We have been doing Tai Chi.

Chinese medicine.

2007-07-13T12:47:00.001+07:00

The pain that we so fervantly feared was Something Awful has been diagnosed as a pinched nerve and on the trip "back east" we had six acupunture treatments - three for our knee and three for the Something Awful pain. Our knee is so much better than it was before the injury - both knees are excellent now and there has been a lot of celebratory running up of stairs.

The Something Awful pain is less of a bother now that we know it doesn't actually mean much - it is misplaced pain - a mistake. It is not telilng us anything real. And it's much less now, after acupuncture, and I have exercises for it that are working well.

I (Trouble) love our Chinese doctor. He's not allowed to call himself a doctor, but he is much more like a true healer than any western doctor I know. We adore him. After all, he is Mr Takes The Pain Away.

Hah.

Hospital dream.

2007-05-22T21:48:00.000+07:00

I've been dreaming of an operation - white coats, scalpel, a tumour. It's been a little frightening. ("I am a sick man, I think there is something wrong with my liver...")

One more day of work, then we have a break. We need to rest. This has been a damaging time for us. Young Trouble wants the things we wanted a long time ago, wants to make her/his own way, wants to work. We have tried to give her/him the chance, but we're glad it is over for now. I don't know what to do about this. We try to fit so many lives into this lifespan, so many friendships and ways of living. It is too much, sometimes. I don't know how to arrange things so that we have enough time. I feel so angry about the time we waste because we can't be truthful - lately every untruth just screams to us 'waste of time', but we don't have a choice about it - truth about ourselves is not really a possibility unless we want to spend every waking second explaining ourselves. We sometimes feel paranoid that people know we are different (and multiple) and that they work extra hard to impose their ideas about us being a single person as a result. Surely ordinary (non-multiple) people don't have their single nature constantly imposed on them, relentlessly, do they? I wonder if men who inhabit the bodies of women, or women who inhabit the bodies of men have a similar experience of wondering why IT ALWAYS COMES UP - it's just never Not Mentioned. It's always THERE. And we're always having to lie and resent the time that lying takes in our crowded life.

The end.

Rat a tat tat.

2007-04-07T22:11:00.000+07:00

We are doing okay.

Three.

A busy multiple.

2007-03-22T21:45:00.001+07:00

Is a happy multiple.

Or so it seems.

Everyone is out and about doing stuff.

Quote of the day.

2007-03-18T13:29:00.000+07:00

In a lot of places on the internet, everyone's a psychology expert because their mother's cousin's father's dog's former owner's hairdresser knew someone who had it, or because they watched the "MPD" episodes of "Melrose Place" or whatever. The whiny bitchy carping little shits aren't much affected by facts or logic, so it's best to leave them alone to masturbate with their Psych 101 textbooks and hope they get a paper cut or something.

~Y. (no, I'm not feeling very patient today. Why do you ask.)

Y from sethrenn system. Thanks.

Nearly two.

2007-03-06T21:59:00.000+07:00

Not long and it will be two, it's already half way.

(This post is in code.)

We're okay. You?

I talk too much!

2007-02-10T21:04:00.000+07:00

Look, other than a bit of de-personalisation for Thea, I think we're doing well. We almost told Noel last night. Soon, we will. He's a genuine person despite having spent a decade in a world of insincerity, so that must mean something. He deserves a chance to know. Some people seem to earn it just by their sheer powers of observation.

Last year was really, really challenging. I'd always thought this (birthday-birthday) year would be a good one. A number I latched onto, I guess. It must have sounded grown up without being OLD. Well, there's still some time left.

Something we won't talk about - one month now.
Something we WILL talk about - having left our job - two weeks now.

We watched Capote last night, nice timing having recently read "In Cold Blood" late last year. What a beautiful movie. It was such a natural, fresh creative work and I loved meeting the character of Harper Lee. It seemed to just ~add~ to the original work without any cost to it. That's how it should be.

Maybe I need a movie and books place.

Missing. Grace.

2007-02-07T22:03:00.000+07:00

Well, we probably could have handled the last 10 or so days with more grace. We're feeling much better - very glad to be away from that workplace and okay about possible future directions. You?

Don't even bother knocking.

2007-01-30T08:44:00.000+07:00

Gray's at work. I've locked the front door. I don't want to talk to anyone. I am having my third day of rest. It's good. I need it. Leave me be, world. Leave me be.

Late night after Monday One.

2007-01-29T23:39:00.000+07:00

Everything seems numbered. This is Day 19 of A Secret Plan. This is Monday One (of the Mondays after I have finished Work). This is Day Two (now Three) of Having Quit Work.

Soon I will have more numbers to reduce the dizzying possibilities. Dance schedules and Art Classes. And then more numbers, with which to measure myself.

A is for God Awful.

2007-01-25T06:47:00.000+07:00

So, underneath all the anxiety and strange feelings and anger - there are three more days at work - so much I wish I'd done - I wish I'd completely re-organised the filing system for example - I think my fears are mainly that it won't end. That somehow it will go on. All that anguish and unfairness and callous stupidity. And of course it will.
My mother said something kind to us on the telephone. We'd lamented the repetition, fearing it was us. You know - as in 'the only thing all your dysfunctional relationships have in common is YOU' slap-in-the-face school of wisdom. And Mum said that there were many things in common between my old workplace anguish and this latest bout of workplace anguish that had nothing to do with me, and that those factors in a workplace inevitably lead to unreasonable expectations and blame. There's some truth in that.
But why does it have to be so?
How could I have got out of there with some grace?
Have I got out with some grace?

Insert 'insert witty title here' here.

2007-01-23T11:30:00.000+07:00

So, just jo says thea should have posted her angst here, but the whole system's a giant muddle anyway. I think it's time we re-designed EVERYTHING. And while we're at it individual icons would be good, and a place to put book and movie and TV reviews. I think we need everything in ONE place, but lots of room for individual expression. Unfortunately, we will squabble over every single detail so it just isn't going to happen. Also, we have no episodic memory. What???
I'm Shell, and here's Just Jo too.
Hi.
Hi.
I can't really see the advantage of changing things again. We haven't really managed to stick to the old plan, what makes you think a new plan is going to help?
I want peacocks.
Yeah. Me too.

Now with twice the angst.

2007-01-21T21:38:00.000+07:00

I see my A is for Angst post got printed twice.
Maybe I'll fix that.
Maybe I won't.
I like to keep a little suspense going for you, noble readers.

A is for...

2007-01-21T11:36:00.001+07:00

It's crap being multiple sometimes.

The hardest thing for some of us is the relentless patter of little realisations; everyone with its own character; all variations on a theme: the bigger realisation that we can pretty much forget about being known for who we really are or even known in any kind of meaningful way as individuals.

That's so painful it makes me (thea) want to die because I may as well be dead, I say, bitterly to my empty cup, nobody knows me anyway and nobody ever will see me as I truly am.
Of course that's not absolutely true, but it's true enough to ache, constantly.
There, at last, some angst of the sort this journal was MADE for.

A is for...

2007-01-21T11:36:00.000+07:00

Aubergine Misognyny.

2007-01-20T05:52:00.000+07:00

The guy on the phone yesterday (some scam. they've latched onto one of my volunteers, who is only 18, and usually a very sensible lad but gave them his full name, too polite for his own good, etc.) called me a "fucking whore bitch tramp".

It's been a long time since anyone has done anything like that.

Insults have been snide and sidelong, but I don't think I've been called 'whore' or 'tramp' for a long time. At the protests, sure, insults were vicious and frequent - but rarely unexpected.

A car full of army guys in Hometown once yelled out abuse like that at me, as I was getting out of "The Monster" (what a car!) at 318 Stanley St, when it was a wobbly old Queenslander and not a block of flats. I was with Joakim. I still remember my face burning and my stumbling apology (cultural cringe?) to my lover, see .... he is not from here, see, he is from OVERSEAS, you know, from a civilised country... where they don't yell at random women from cars ... perhaps that is what I was thinking... what I remember feeling is ~ ashamed.

Likewise yesterday, on the telephone, hung up. In an empty room, I looked out of the windows and then made myself a cup of tea, and I felt so very ashamed. The insults ringing in my ears, I went to the bathroom and washed my face.
Did you know that after ringing in your ears a few times "fucking whore bitch tramp" can sound a bit like "fucking aubergine".

Sick, sick, quick.

2007-01-18T13:33:00.000+07:00

Aargh.
It is such a harrowing time for us right now. So many polly people jumping about. Gray's interview yesterday - no answer yet - everything so uncertain.
No idea what version of rule Polly HQ will be under - this depends on that depends on this and so on like a demented ad for a certain lower middle-class/working class respectable women's clothing store.
Ugh.

Prom night.

2007-01-16T20:06:00.000+07:00

Gray has twirled around in five different outfits so far.

We're okay. Just a bit confused about the future.
We're all so much kinder to each other now than ever before.
So there's nothing to fear really.
We'll take care of each other.
This time.

Day Five.

2007-01-15T21:31:00.000+07:00

Day Five of the small not-a-resolution thingy we're doing is going well.
Might talk about it at some point.
Might not.

I don't want to hear about your big decisions.

2007-01-11T08:06:00.000+07:00

This post is in code.

1. the number three
2. the number one

's okay.

How are you?

Train. Bell.

2007-01-03T15:06:00.000+07:00

27 - 3 = 24
Then what???
Trouble's been a good front, I guess. Pretty stable, if a little unfriendly. S/he likes packing lunches the night before. S/he likes numbers. S/he likes making the till balance. S/he's been good. Like most dungeon, she likes being the biggest kid in the pool. Calypso too.
For years we've skated around the idea of Pia returning. Sometimes when writing S. (our novel) we felt her presence in a character. The dream of fish and bean sprouts up on the coast where it's hot, in the shack.... she liked the sound of that. The isolation, the madness, the slight desperation.
Is it our choice? Or is that just a story we tell each other?
Just as a child might believe that the train come because the bell rings.

Crazy.

2007-01-03T15:01:00.000+07:00

We quit because we wanted it to stop. But it doesn't stop.

Multiple marriage.

2007-01-02T15:26:00.000+07:00

It is so hard to watch him only wanting some of us.*

*ie. not me.

Happy New Year from Had a Dolly.

2006-12-31T21:35:00.000+07:00

So we're listening to some Bob Marley, waiting for the girls to arrive.

It's been such a good day - rearranging things, cleaning.
It's all so optimistic.

Happy New Year.

Who feels it knows it Lord.. weep no more.

2006-12-31T21:33:00.000+07:00

Oh, time will tell. You think you're in heaven but you're living in hell.

Dad's record collection (ours, now) arrived with all our other stuff.

Third level angst.

2006-12-19T08:53:00.000+07:00

Why is it so difficult to put the misery and angst here?
I come here, and it gets shy.
Song sung blue?

Mannie has been making an orange and almond cake. How bridal.
The oven has broken. It was cheap and nasty anyway.
Unfortunate timing vis a vis the cake.

Gray is distressed, and I'm making sympathetic noises, but really, I don't care much.
It's just a broken oven and a (possibly) ruined cake.
It's not that sad.
We still have hotplates. I can cook the cake on top of the stove if I must, surely. Isn't there a method - like a boiled fruit cake? It's just a batter. There must be other ways to cook it.

I can't think about cake now.
I'm too unhappy.
This has all (knee, heartache, job) been rather hard.

Excuse me, has anyone seen my raison d'etre?

2006-12-06T15:29:00.000+07:00

This blog was always subtitled (in my mind, at least) 'misery and angst'.

us: We've been through a few circles of hell these last few weeks.
cries from the wilderness: Dante and Virgil can no longer travel together.
us: We've had a lot of stress at work.
cries from the wilderness: There is nothing behind the curtain.
us: Some of us have gone through some heartache.
cries from the wilderness: crows took it and now it is gone.
us: We have resigned from our job.
~
us: oh, it seems the wilderness is silent on that one.

We just got a call from a shopkeeper in Littlesplat. The grapevine is fast around here. A job offer is always good news. For a few moments Trouble 's spirits rose...
Trouble (making fun of the cries from the wilderness): they fluttered up like a moth almost done dying...

Two lists.

2006-11-11T08:08:00.000+07:00

1. Jargon.
2. Us and them.
3. Smart and stupid.

1. Projection.
2. It's a character piece. Alas, all the characters are the same.
3. There is no audience.

Captain's choice.

2006-10-23T16:09:00.000+07:00

This post is in code.

To de-code this code all you need to know is this;

but if you also know this;

you'll have even more insight into this situation.

Disconnected.

2006-10-16T16:02:00.000+07:00

We avoided calling a really good friend of ours when we visited Hometown, our beautiful friend Doctor Josephine. Long time readers may recall her visit to The Mountain - do I have any long time readers here? She's dear to us, but we were feeling so stretched and for us, and maybe, you too, social contact, relationships - it's all work. It's never fun, it's never easy. It's always work. We don't ~get~ anything from social contact in terms of energy.

There's nobody we feel drawn to because they make us feel good or something. That just doesn't happen for us. When we are tired or anxious or depressed 'people' are even harder than usual. So why don't we live in a mountain cave? Well, I don't know. Love?

There's people here we're avoiding, too. Conflicts we don't want to get involved in, and fear. We're feeling so fragile right now. So many of us. And the things we really want to talk about are all so volatile.

Even though, I'm shell, overall, I think we're going through a really bad time, I am really glad about the way we (as polly) seem to be dealing with each other. We've made so much progress there. I think we do really well there now. It was weird how supportive we all were of each other on our trip away. That was good. Partly because nobody really can act like they're the only one here any more. It just doesn't fly. It isn't convincing anyone, and to do it, you need to believe it. I can't believe I did it! I did it. Last of us. I'm surprised at myself, looking back. I couldn't do it now. I don't think anyone of us could now, now we seem to truly know. That's got to be worth something - so many of us, and we're knitting ourselves a little loyalty at last.

It's a kind of tingle.

2006-10-08T13:13:00.000+07:00

It doesn't feel like a needle. It doesn't hurt. It's just a kind of tingle. And it works.

Sickness and health.

2006-09-10T10:38:00.000+07:00

Things have been relatively calm for the last couple of days, after an eventful couple of weeks. We went to Citysplat, met our Mum, family, saw dolphins in the river rounding up the fish. Mum came back with us to Bugsplat. It's been a week since she left, and in less that a week, we leave for Hometown. It's working out well in some ways that there was less pressure for it to be okay with Mum while she was here since we'll be meeting her soon anyway and there's less pressure about meeting her soon because she's just seen us after all, so. Neat how that all works out.

Work has been okay, I believe, for Miss Trouble. She is happy about having a break from it. And glad that our big move (to the new building) has been delayed until we come back. And glad that the board isn't (yet) hostile to us. Things have been difficult for lots of Hinchinbrook and their relationship with Gray, but that has settled down just a little.

Mainly, we are suffering from the pain and depression to do with our knee. It's a very steady pattern now of okay mornings, then pain in the afternoons intensifying all evening until we go to bed. Not such a lot of fun. And not much recovery happenning. We've had a month of no medication (except very occasional pain relief) and now we're trying a set of herbal and nutritional medications - anti-inflammatory, salts to try to relieve water retention in the knee and lots of minerals and vitamins that we might need for muscle growth/cartilege healing. I don't know. It's worth a try, and we can't handle the anti-inflammatory "ibrupon" and the suggestion that we take ANOTHER pill to treat our digestive response to ibrupon just seemed so typically western that we lost confidence altogether in that approach. While we have lost confidence in Western Medicine's medication we haven't lost confidence in the idea of surgery - that seems increasingly likely for us. There's a waiting list. I think we're going to put ourselves on it. If we heal naturally in the mean time, great, but maybe it's time to get a place in the queue.

That's where we're at. You?

With his bag and his hat.

2006-08-22T21:20:00.000+07:00

This is the place we thought we'd write our worst.
It's been a tricky couple of months.
Right now though, we're okay.
It just seems right to say that here - we're okay.

Rhythm of pain.

2006-08-19T14:01:00.000+07:00

It's usually good in the morning. The pain begins in the early afternoon. That's always a shock, even though it's been the same every day for the last four weeks. It evens out until evening and then intensifies until bed.

Correction # 1.

2006-08-08T11:50:00.000+07:00

I should note - I think we do in fact love Mia.
She's easy to love.
And, apparently, she has muffins!

Not what I meant at all.

2006-08-08T10:44:00.000+07:00

We're finding it hard to work out what we're doing here - whether to write at Tricks or here, why we're writing anything anyway, and whether we spend too much time online hurting ourselves. What are we here for, exactly? Don't answer that.

Everything I say about it becomes false upon closer examination so I can't even trust my own judgement. See this post as an experiment. Most likely at the end of it I shall say;
"That's not what I meant at all."

It's been years and years now and still so easily misunderstood. It's always so astonishing and strange. It always hurts fresh. I never, ever get used to it. I don't know whether I have a limit. I don't know if there is a point at which I'll say this hurts too fucking much and I can't do it any more. I guess I'll know when I get there.

Cast into sharp relief it was, yesterday, as Mia chanced to meet us online. Mia who has met us. Mia who was an online friendship at first - we were introduced to each other via our blogs and then emails and then, we met in person. She came here, with Stephen, for summer. For New Year together. It seems wildly unfair that those few rather tense days together, of good manners and shared meals, have as much and sometimes more power than years and years of love, but it seems that they do. They had the power to transform us both to each other. No longer were we creatures of the written word, and unlike other transformations I've experienced with online friends, it couldn't be undone. Once I could push myself, my cheeks and nose and chin, through the text, through the screen, rub up against a beloved cheek, claim a kiss quick before dissapearing back to my continent. I remember my darling A. so close to me, I would swear I heard her breath. Yet even such a great love as that, in the height of its power could only bring us to the same level of belief in each other that I already have so effortlessly with Mia. Who I like very much but do not love and with whom I have no years and years.
Effortless it was, a few days in a house together. What is that compared to what I went through with people I loved at DP? Why is it that those few days make a foundation for Mia and me, give us a bit of earth to stand on? Why is it that without those few days it is so viciously simple for online friends to rewrite each other? I have felt my history dissolving against my will, to a predictable swill of black on white or white on black and blah blah blah and in a stroke of belief or disbelief or in a lashing of spite, suddenly I'm not real any more. Except that I am. Real. And right here.

Not falling apart.

2006-07-26T14:37:00.000+07:00

My life isn't falling apart.
It just ~feels~ like it.

Pain is a test I'm failing.

The whole world's at tricks.

2006-07-23T00:33:00.000+07:00

You can read the post that was here at Tricks of Memory. If you'd like to.

We're trying to distinguish Tricks and Had a dolly from each other. Just part of our ongoing project to give all of us a space to write in which we feel comfortable. Foolish time-wasting? Probably.

Thank you. In point form.

2006-07-19T21:41:00.000+07:00

Here's some good news in point form from Had a Dolly HQ.

Our knee is feeling much better. We have physiotherapy at the Bigsplat Hospital tomorrow and then probably a swim, followed by lunch at a favourite place Basaltica which is out on a pretty road out of Bigsplat and maybe a bit of shopping. There is Birthday Money to buy a pretty top with.
Writing this huge report for Trouble about how impossible it all is has been really helpful. It seems solvable now.
Nadia is buying us (birthday gift) a ticket for a dance workshop this Saturday.
Someone thinks we're pretty. We can just tell. It's nice.
There's been some really nice comments on our jourals.
We really appreciate it.
Thank you.

Really.
*beams*

Little discontentments.

2006-07-16T09:46:00.000+07:00

We're worrying a bit about work, and Trouble. The board meeting was awful. Our knee is much better today than it was yesterday, but it was ~awful~ yesterday. We're doing okay. Angelata's been having a hard time with Gray but you know, that's not new.

We're okay.
Given what we've been going through lately, we're doing okay.

Angelata & Gray, awkward as usual.

2006-07-13T15:57:00.000+07:00

Trouble flaps about like a dinner party hostess.
Angelata can't say anything straight. It's always got a twist.
Gray can't ever refuse the bait.
They take two seconds in each other's company before it's on.
How are these two ever going to be okay?

It's Calypso.

2006-07-07T20:29:00.000+07:00

It's Calypso.
That's who draws people to us who aren't right for us.
:/
How do we untangle this?

Grin too widely and make nervous jokes.

2006-07-05T19:11:00.000+07:00

Following my nose I found a website that must be run by some or one of the Army and that made me happy because:

1. We like them a lot.
2. They seem to be doing okay.

(note: I've disabled the comments on this one.)

I miss Zaphod's Other Head. I think it sucks that we can't (yet) fix it. I think it sucks that it imploded one too many times and that it is now a shadow of its former self and that everyone (me too) there grins too widely and makes nervous jokes. I still think that's admirable under the circumstances. To grin too widely and make nervous jokes. It's sometimes all we can do.

I don't know for sure. I think that's okay.

Trouble is, we like it.

2006-07-03T16:48:00.000+07:00

All us angsty, moody, brooding, pedantic, intellectual, arrogant and alienating castle types have been sternly told off by Trouble. The trouble is, of course, that we like it. She is right about everything. Everything. I surrender. Do you?

Oh god yes, we too are fools.

She took us to hospital again. Dealt with all the physiotherapy pain. Then we went swimming in the new (heated, hooray) pool at Bigsplat. First laps since Marulla Swimming Pool, on banks of the mighty Big River, were Trouble was ('the biggest kid in the pool' and) making her first forays in 'the world'; working as a waitress at The Palace, and teaching (with Calypso) bellydance at Red Bush Island.

The hinchinbrook girls liked the time travel deep blue. The way we connect to every other time we've swum to that blue. They like the water too, though it's not the sea.

Calypso and Trouble did the hydrotherapy exercises - lots of movements impossible in air are possible in water, they found. They were beaming the whole time. Trouble bought ten passes. We kept quiet all day. She did just fine without us.

More knee.

2006-07-02T07:46:00.000+07:00

It hurts. It's scary. It makes me cry.
What if I can't dance again?
(said Calypso)
Physiotherapy tomorrow.
(said Trouble)

Abandonment issues, I guess.

2006-06-28T07:31:00.000+07:00

There was a phone message at work that a volunteer (Angela) took and erased (why do they do that? they could just leave it on the machine) and got wrong.
She told me;
"You had a call from Zena. She said she was sorry you were sick and hoped you'd get better soon."
And our stupid little heart leapt.
Like a foolish little frog.
And then Thea reminded us that there's no way for Zena (our childhood best friend) to know we are sick, not that she would ever call, and suggested that the message taker misheard Zil's name. Oh, Zil. Yes, that makes sense. Zil ~would~ call and wish us well. Of course. Not Zena, then.
You tell me:
Did we appreciate Zil calling or did we, at least fleetingly, hate her for not being Zena?
Be careful of us right now.
We are fickle and vindictive.
Our heart aches for what we can't have.

What does a knee mean?

2006-06-26T21:24:00.000+07:00

Some one told me sometime, at a party, that lower back pain meant that a person felt unsupported. There's a whole alternative orthodoxy (fortunately still in chaos) about this - interpreting illness in terms of What It Really Means. I don't despise it in the least, though of course, I laugh at attempts to 'scientizzze' it. Just as I laugh at the serious photographs of homeopaths IN WHITE COATS!!

Oh please.
You may as well wear a pointy black hat.

But that's a rant all of Spinner's own, and she won't be here to respond to the consequences.
(She'll be busy at her place, with her black cat, stirring some amphibious innards and bergamot to some ghastly purpose...)

It's all superstition. That doesn't mean I'm not superstitious. I am.

And the idea that lower back pain has a connection to either feeling unsupported or; simply; being unsupported; had the unmistakable ring of truth about it for me. True for me.

spinner: that's so disgusting it just might work...

(she's talking about the bergamot)

Yama has read Louise Hayes. She knows about these ideas. I wonder what is said about knees. What do they mean?

Alan the bottom.

2006-06-26T09:34:00.000+07:00

We all wish to be cherished, not just by our loved ones (as Alan The Bottom recently pointed out *giggle* I mean, Alain de Botton) but by 'the world'.

Quick, quick, quick.

2006-06-24T16:21:00.000+07:00

The doctor was nice. Confusing, but nice.

The comfrey-comfort team were great. We do feel loved. It's just that - this is really hard. We can't put much weight at all on our leg, and the pain is very distressing. We can't use the stairs, We can't drive. We have a lot of difficulty getting in and out of the car. The crutches fall over a lot, and it's hard to pick them up. It's hard to get in and out of the shower. It's hard to get in and out of the bathroom. It's hard to sit on a chair. Our knee hurts a lot.

Things we're grateful for:

1. Socialised medicine.

Our hospital visit free, our painkillers and anti-inflammatories less than $10 (US $7), our physiotherapy free, our doctor's consultation free, our x-rays free. And the staff were kind and thorough and the grounds of the hospital were beautiful. We paid a $20 deposit on the crutches but the splint (a very comfortable padded waterproof wonder of velcro technology - and, purple!) is mine to keep as it's not hygenic to reuse them.

2. Bellydance.

Yes, bellydance. See, we can stand on our good leg for a long, long time. We can touch our toes, we can haul our splinted leg onto the bed and bend down easily to pick up knickers and socks and find shoes. We can twist our body around and adapt to having one leg in a splint much easier than had we not spent the last few years as slaves to the dance.

3. Gray.

Is trying his best. It's difficult for us both. I really hate to ask for help doing my laundry.

Sick, sick, sick.

2006-06-22T21:22:00.000+07:00

Things are limping along. In more ways than one.
How I long to be free.

Zil visits. She seems to have a clearance code.

2006-06-18T16:45:00.000+07:00

In our earthly life, here in Bugsplat, and before, on that mighty river, or on the mountain; in these places we have lived, living 'a social life' has always been work to us. The ideas that so many people express of say - visiting a friend for a cup of tea (*giggles at the absurdity* "to cheer oneself up!!") or 'talking it over with a friend' remind us of our difference.

When we are weak, we avoid people, because people require strength. Part of it is the chore of passing ourselves off as one person rather than the raucous, identity-fluid band we are. Part of it is the chore of policing our current diplomatic policies. Every person we know has a policy. We write them in seconds. They are under constant review. These policies do not recognise any perceived entitlement from the person under review. The formation of these policies is fundamentally a kind of risk algebra. Just as we do not verbalise the algebra of bellydance or kicking a can or sitting in a chair we do not verbalise the algebra of our social diplomacy. We may merely observe it and try to understand its logic. In that sense, it is 'the machine'. We notice that in large groups we may quickly hit the lowest common denominator (smile and nod) of diplomacy but the machine is not predictable.

Zil, a bellydance student of Calypso, seems to have some kind of clearance with the machine that very few people ever have. It is strange how little work it is to talk with her.

Living and dying.

2006-06-12T21:36:00.000+07:00

"All living and dying things like these dogs and me coming and going without any duration or self substance, O God, and therefore we can't possibly exist. How strange, how worthy, how good for us! What a horror it would have been if the world was real, because if the world was real, it would be immortal."

-- Jack Kerouac, "The Dharma Bums"

Arrival

2006-06-11T12:11:00.000+07:00

It's been a tumultuous few weeks here in Bugsplat. And I'm finally feeling a sense of perspective, of arrival to the present moment, having the ability to look back. I'm scared of my self, and my life, and my heart.

Thea wept.

2006-06-11T11:39:00.000+07:00

What the fuck has happenned to me?
Did I fail to notice something inexorable?

Snapshot.

2006-06-09T16:22:00.000+07:00

It's a bit too teeensy weeensy to see but in the screen snapshot below; taken from journal of the lovely lysergians at a quarter past five, Friday the 9th of May, Bugsplat Timezone; the Google Ad's generated, presumably by content, say:

Meet Polly LaBarre - at InnoTown Innovation Conference, Norway, 29-31 May, 2006
(aw, shucks, we missed it!)
And apparently there is a huge selection and great deals on everything Pocket Polly.

What the shining kettle is a "pocket polly"???

*giggles*

Pocket polly?

2006-06-09T16:17:00.000+07:00

When Viola was a revolutionary.

2006-06-08T07:02:00.000+07:00

What was it Viola said all those years ago, when she was a revolutionary?
She had many political slogans.
"No cause, no cure, no......"
It's lost to me.
Perhaps she will re-member herself and re-mind me.

just jo & thea

2006-06-06T16:08:00.000+07:00

just jo: okay, I just read about it - so, how are you?
thea: not too good
just jo: you are happy ~for~ them, I know
thea: oh I am, I really am, it's just that i don't have that. I don't think I ever will have that. I wish I could hope for it, but it's you I always end up with.
just jo: well i finally love you
thea: and I thank you, but your kind of love is not what I want
just jo: you want what you had with Cherry?
thea: yes. And with, you know.
just jo: yes
thea: but I am happy for them, I really am, so happy. I just feel so alone and so pathetic and such a romantic failure and so ...
just jo: useless? hopeless? ridiculous? pitiful? pathetic? impotent?
thea: stop making me giggle, I'm trying to feel sorry for myself!

Thank you, from me to you.

2006-06-05T19:20:00.000+07:00

Spiraling away, as I tend to do, me, shell, like flaking sliced onions into petals, losing all sense of myself - 'who am I?' I find myself saying, and it's a little clue - "shell" - it's always me who asks that question that particular way and I've been told by my sister/brother selves so many times now (hey did anyone else notice the inclusion of 'brother' there? ) that even I finally get it... and yes, I find it hard to complete thoughts. Everything is a question. I'm a question - I'm the question "who am I exactly?". I'm that very particular confusion. It's not deep or existential: it's a muddle! I'm the muddle headed wombat who wonders who she is, and then remembers her name - "shell". My last name I took from history, and because of the novel they wrote with the name "Shell Sinclair" as the heroine. Thea whispers in my ear: 'don't forget to point out that the novel was written in 1997 '. I wonder, half-heartedly, if she has a point to make, and then... I return to my natural state. Ambivalence. A lack of capacity for surprise. I'm always handy in a terrible situation perhaps because I have no confidence at all in reality and I'm never at all surprised when things Go Horribly Wrong.
:)
There, see, I can attempt humour too.
I find so much about myself when I write here freely.
Which is what this is all about.
And brings me to the beginning again.

From me to you, thank you.
I learnt so much about myself when I wrote to you.
Here it is:

Dear Shandra,

The "one ring to rule them all" journal is "Had a dolly"
It's at sickskettle.blogspot.com

We're trying to find different places for different arrangements of polly.
More and more we/me (I'm shell, francesca and just jo right now) all seem to need room for our collective smoooshing (technical term) selves to write as we are - that reflects our mental processes which are so dissociative.

Sometimes we feel extremely alien - that the desired peer group I sought in dp is not really there and we're still so damn DIFFERENT, but I do realise that most of us feel that way - that our individual expressions of multiplicity are so diverse it's foolish to try to look for much common ground beyond - lots of people, one body, and even that's a bit tricky sometimes!

Wheras Trouble finds kinship online very easily - not that she talks much but she sees role models for herself there and when she fronts she does it in much the same manner/expression as you do when you're Shandra or Terra when Terra, or Sassy when Sassy - there's a confidence in identity that people like us (shell, francesca, hannah, just jo, other diplomat type people) lack. You know, writing to you is really helping me.
I think I'll post this in one of our journals.
So others in my system can read it.
It had better be had a dolly, I guess.

I think we're rambling a bit, sorry.
So.. thank you for your journal which all of us appreciate and which is the favourite of many here (and the first they check!) and definitely a favourite of mine although I do tend towards the angsty reflective style of polly generally, at least lately.
Thank you.
Shell Sinclair.

Truth (control v) telling.

2006-06-04T16:37:00.000+07:00

It's easy to be sincere. But it's hard to know the truth.

We've been working with inks at our Wednesday night art classes. The Chinese brush strokes. An artist must be confident. There's no possibility of painting over it or concealing mistakes. An artist must be able to accept the truth of the ink as it has recorded its life on the page.

I like it.
I like this quote. I took it from an old email that Wes sent me.

"When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with."
November, 1933 from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume One 1931-1934

This is Calypso here.

calypso and trouble too

2006-05-31T20:40:00.000+07:00

Calypso, (is the) mistress of colour, of unreliable hearing.
Trouble, (was) once deaf now (is) sharp as a dog, once spastic and poorly co-ordinated now graceful with perfect posture.

Are they another version of us, left peacock to right peacock?
Asked left peacock, here, to right peacock.

Are they?

Were we the first?
Is this a system that founded on duality?

Asks right peacock to left, knowing that the words will infuriate to the point of lucidity.

Forgive me.
Oh forget it.

It's over a hundred thousand times already.
We're each other's mirror and who can say who's real?

Who can say we're not the same?
(intrudes, uninvited and unwelcome, the ever unassuming: "just jo")

We're not the same.
We're not the same.
We're not the same.

2006-05-30T22:06:00.000+07:00

I remember a moment that might have been a beginning.

Between us.

I first re-remembered it drinking from the tainted chalice: therapy.

Perhaps I was trying to please?

It seems unlikely.

For the more I care the less she cares.

And she was there too.

Just as she was there with me. In that moment.

In that moment that might have been a beginning.

Two peacocks.

2006-05-30T21:56:00.000+07:00

Sickskettle

2006-03-17T13:49:00.000+07:00

Means one who malingers.