Stupid doctor, babies and herring

I just watched an episode of a TV show I've been following. Up until now it was just sort of background noise for cleaning the living room, and something to sort of laugh at. But in this episode someone lost a baby. Everyone was crying (including me, yay) and it was horrible.

I can't watch such things. I can't even think about them. I get too depressed to continue with my day. This might all be too personal for the internet, but I'm using a fake name and I doubt anyone will ever find out who I am anyway. And if they do it's not like it's a secret.

I lost a baby two years ago. I was 22 and had just gotten married when I got pregnant. I was so happy. For some reason I knew right away that I was pregnant. I don't know how. Maybe I just thought I was and turned out to be right.

When I went for a check up, I saw the shape of my little baby on the screen. I remember being excited and asking a thousand questions. My doctor ignored the questions and said “I'm sorry, but I can't find a heart beat.”

I had no idea what that meant. I thought I knew about pregnancies. For some reason I didn't know how often they go wrong. I said “Then what?”

She said “come back in three days, then we'll look again. I'm sorry. I know it's not nice to hear something like that.”

I went to get dressed (how mean is it to get such a message naked from the waist down?), turning that phrase over and over in my head. I did not want to understand it, and made myself believe it mean something else. When I came out she said I should be prepared for the worst. She never said the word “dead” or “abortion”. So I went home telling myself that the worst was something other than dead.

I remember the feeling when I walked home, my hands pressed against my stomach as if I could talk the little thing into staying alive, repeating in my head, again and again, that everything would be fine. I thought maybe she couldn't see the heart because it was covered up by something else. Maybe there were two and that was all. Twins run in my husbands family.

Then there was the second visit, where all I could see on the screen was a messy shape that didn't look like a baby any more. She said I'd have to have “it” “removed”. I still couldn't really understand what it meant. I had to go home and google it, and read about the process of aborting living foetuses before I understood what they were going to do.

I hoped, hoped and hoped that it would just disappear on it's own so I wouldn't have to go through surgery. Of course, all that happened was that I carried a dead baby around before finally going. I cried so much that the anaesthetist couldn't get the needle in my arm for the first four tries.

I don't think I ever managed to mourn. It hurt so much, and all I could think about was the child I would never see, hold, feed, smile at. I'd never hear it's laughter. The surgery was on the day of an exam. I never retook it. I couldn't get myself to hand in the slip from the clinic where people went to get their healthy, living babies removed. I couldn't bear to say the words out loud.

I quit university a few months later. There was just no way I could finish anything without that exam, and retaking it was more than I could handle. I'd been studying for it at the doctors office just before hearing the news I didn't understand.

Well, now I'm a little depressed. I had my beautiful daughter a year later, and seeing her every day has taken away a lot of the pain. But I still can't handle it. Not really. It's more than anyone should have to handle.

I made myself a black bread sandwich with pickled herring for breakfast to cheer myself up. I think I deserve something nice, and the people I was planning to share the herring with wouldn't eat it anyway. I was thinking to serve it a my baby's birthday party. But people would take a bite and leave the rest. And I'd rather just have it myself then. 

Mmh, herring.

Other people

I'm no good with people. Normal people confuse me, and people I understand (there's about three of them that I know of) cause me to go a little more insane every time I see them.

Normal people do things all the time. All kinds of normal-people things. Despite having been exposed to them very often (at least for the past ten years or so), I have yet to figure them out. What is the point of all those little things normal people do?

I mean, body language for a start: Why on earth can't they just stand still with their hands hanging down and speak with mouth-words instead? Why do they need to perform little dances that I have to interpret with my poor, confused head?

They touch a lot, all kinds of friendly pats and handshakes and things. And it's not like they give you a warning, or even ask, no. They just move their arms and touch you, and they expect you to do the same. But if you do it too much or to weirdly, they take offence. Pfft.

They ask you clever questions about your life, designed to get to know you, but they don't hand out the same information unless you ask. And if you haven't prepared a list of questions beforehand, they'll ask all theirs and make you look like the ass, asking “...how about you?” all the freaking time. Like you don't care. And when you forget all the information, they assume you still know it and tell you more things that would only make sense if you could remember who they are.

They don't tell you if they consider themselves your friend (or vice versa). They assume that there is an understanding that you are friends, no matter how confused you are as to why they are still talking to you. Or, just to make it more confusing, they aren't your friends - even after you have made absolutely sure that you know you are friends with them.

Now on the other side there are the people I understand:

If we follow the norm of touching, like for greetings, it's short and awkward. Nobody tries it twice. We don't move about in confusing ways, we just say things. We don't ask all sorts of complicated questions about trivial facts of life, we just say things that are in our heads. We state clearly what the point of our social gathering is, and there is no doubt as to what anyone is expecting.

I love being able to be my weird self, not only without insulting someone, but while actually being allowed to communicate like a normal person, except with a person who isn't so complicatedly normal.

My closest friend is so much like me it's scary. The problem is that she is like me in too many ways. I visited her for several days this month. She lives in Denmark, so it's very rare that I get to see her. I feel sad about that. But maybe it's not as bad as it feels to have the distance. When I have spent time with her, it's impossible for me to act normal for weeks and weeks.

She makes me forget all my normal-tactics. We sit down together and speak about something strange, often “how to tell if a normal person is your friend or hates you” or “I think I might be a norse god, because where else would they be?” and with those conversations still fresh in my mind, I get paranoid and weird around the people that know me as pretty normal.

Just two days ago I went to church (if you are an American reading this: not that kind of church), where I think I have a few “good friends” or at least “people who smile at me”. I entered the door, looking forward to seeing everyone. That's how I want to feel about it, happy. But then I realised that I was in a group of three hundred people, none of whom would think it would be logical if I turned out to be the actual Fenrir wolf.

And the worst part is that the part of me pretending to be normal turns against me in those moments going “What? Why would that be logical? Are you insane? You aren't even into Asa-stuff!!”

I started hyperventilating, pressing the wrong buttons on the lift, making weird faces at people, walking funny (I can't walk straight when I'm nervous) and drinking a large cup of hot coffee too quickly just so I could hide my face behind something. I got red as a tomato every time people spoke to me, somehow certain that they could sense the fact that I am actually really weird, and started stuttering. Now I don't know if it will be weird when I go next sunday and am back to normal-normal.

The problem is that I can't avoid all normal people. And I don't want to avoid the people who get me. So pretending-to-be-normal me and is-probably-actually-a-norse-god me will just have to work out their differences, I guess. I just wish they'd leave me alone while they do so.  

Death to everyone

I've been in a really horrible mood for days. Usually, writing takes my mind off it, but I'm beginning to get distracted. 

The only thing that has been cheering me up has been laughing about the following:

A few months ago, I tried to stay off sugar for a week, just to see if I could do it. I could. I even lost 1,5 kilos despite eating a LOT of butter to keep away from sweets. But I did not enjoy myself. Not at all. I knew I could turn into a really healthy, slim, pretty person if I just stayed off it for a few months, maybe forever. 

I went online and found blogs and articles about how bad sugar is for you. I mean, it apparently costs your body vitamins to digest refined sugar. It's addictive, messes with your system and makes you fat. Life with no sugar is just more natural.

I was very inspired by all of this, and was imagining my new, healthy life. But then the thought hit me:

I AM GOING TO DIE

Because I am. Life is just too short. I will be dead soon. Maybe not soon-soon, but if you look at the big perspective for a second, we're all as good as gone. And when I die, I want to still remember the taste of chocolate. I want to know what it feels like to eat so much of it that my head starts buzzing. 

In fact, if at all possible, I'll stuff my mouth full of chocolate when I'm just about to go. 

And now the thing that makes me smile; I imagine all these tofu-lovers. These people that spend their days meditating and learning yoga in order to make themselves healthy from the sole of their sandal clad feet to the top of their long haired heads. They are going to die too. They might die a little older, a little prettier, a little less smelly than me. But they will die. And when they die, they will have no idea what a steak tastes like, or chocolate. 

I imagine going to one of their meeting places and shouting "You are all going to die!! You are going to die! You will die!!" while laughing like a maniac. I imagine their annoyed confusion, their tired, patient sighs, and I smile a little more. Look, hippie, you have about eighty more years to live, at most. By the time you are a hundred, you will be very, very ready to die.

You'll be bored. And you will have no memory of chocolate. And you are going to die. 

Good morning!

Somewhere out there, a person googled something picturey and came up with my fat unicorns.

Apart from the ridiculous amount of funny I find this (OK, enough with the bad English, it's not that funny) it makes me feel guilty about not posting anything new for a week. How weird is that? I'm not even really talking to anyone here, my audience is as sporadic as can be. And besides, I'm posting an entire novel in daily little pieces here, what more can internet-people (which in this case means my own head) demand of me?

I was woken up at 5.30 and sang a stupid song over and over till 6:30. Then my baby fell back asleep, and I got up and cooked mung bean curry. Very delicious, but a little silly to have it for breakfast.

What is it about babies' expression when they wake up before their normal time? Any parent, sibling or baby sitter will know which one I'm talking about. Like ”WOW! I'm awake! Awesome!! Yay me!!!”

Okay, my tablet broke down half way through this (so much for no mould) and I made it really long for no reason, so you probably can't see it. But it's an illustration anyway, and I wasted two hours of my life trying to make it, and it still turned out ugly. Now I have to go give my tiny friend (her face is less square shaped mess and more pretty irl) some mung bean curry.

Maybe I'll keep track of meals by writing stupid blog posts about them always. Clever.  

FAT SPACE UNICORNS!!!1!

I went to the basement and found my tablet. It's been down there for two years or more and it's pretty astounding that it hasn't somehow corroded or molded (to mold? Isn't that a word? When something is covered in a hairy growing mass of fungi?). Oh I see, I'm suddenly being all American. Moulded would bee the British spelling. Not that it really matters since I am neither. 

Anyway, anything else that's been down there for more than a month has ended up black and slimy in no time.

The basement itself is so creepy that I don't go down there, even to save my lovely, lovely shoes after my husband put them down there to make more space upstairs. It was a strange mixture of energy and courage that got me down there the other day, and the smell kept me from touching the box that contains my shoes.

As the house was built in 1901 I'm pretty sure the basement was dug out later. Possibly for protection of bombs. (We live in Berlin after all).

The ceiling is extremely low despite the fact that the stairs that go down there are very long and it has a very strange, irregular shape. I don't know if that's what the foundation of something like a big apartment building looks like, but I imagine it is. It would also explain the extreme conditions that rule down there, the smells and the large amounts of various bugs and spiders.

It was a true rush to be down there. And it resulted in this:

17, I believe, but I'm really bad at counting and not forgetting where I was, mortally obese unicorns in a spaceship. You can't really tell it's a spaceship, but I know. And now so do you. Besides, how else would they float? And where else would unicorns live? They have to be space-based creatures. It's the modern life with spaceships and space food that makes them so sad and fat.

That is all.

Oh except that I wanted to explain why I would say something so ridiculous as “a family way” in my silly story: I was actually described that way when my sweet man wanted to excuse my strange behaviour. He's very polite and strange. And I had to get that out of my system at some point.  

I'm really angry today

I'm sure there's a million good reasons and if I told them right they might end up being funny. But instead I'm going to tell the story of my inner voice:

The other day I accidentally commented on my sister's friends post on facebook. It was a stupid comment and very random because I hadn't noticed that it wasn't her post. It's embarrassing because I sort of know who he is. Not because I've met him. No, that would almost be forgiveable. I saw him do silly videos for a major newspaper, which I guess makes him almost semi-famous and in turn makes me some sort of stupid stalker for making a random comment on a really stupid post.

In itself this is not a very interesting story, but I spent several hours in a pitiful little spiral of hate and self-hatred. I have an inner voice that never stops telling me what an idiot I am. It feels like stepping on your own toes while biting you lip, punching your own stomach and blushing furiously at the same time. It's memory is much better than my own and if I manage to go a few days without embarrassing myself, it'll just pull up something really bad I did when I was five.

Like the time I was in an amusement park with my aunt. You had to pay for each ride, and she'd bought us tickets for a crazy house with moving stairs. Inside I started running around like an idiot (despite the fact that I was too scared of the other kids and too physically awkward to be able to do anything fun) and then forgot where my aunt had said she'd be. I was suddenly sure she'd told me she'd be outside, so I ran out. She wasn't outside. I turned around to get back in only to be stopped by the guy at the door. He wanted my ticket. I didn't have one, my aunt was inside and I was feeling very small and stupid. I started crying and was going to explain to him what happened, but by the first sight of my tiny face going all red and whiny he let me back in where I found my aunt and was too busy crying to ever explain to her what had happened.

The look on the man's face as he let me back in has haunted me my entire life, though. It was tired, fed up. A sort of ”just get away from me and stop crying where I can see you” face, and I was always very ashamed of myself to have done something like that. Bothered a man at a door that is.

(I'm 24 years old and blushing at this memory)

Or like the time I said something really stupid. Yeah. That was dumb. Stupid stupid stupid dumb.

I really hate the guy who lives across from me

He keeps staring. The only windows facing mine are his kitchen and bathroom windows. And he's out there all the time, moving his hands below the half-curtains. I really hope he has a cat that lies in the windov a lot.

A while ago I realised that he can see straight into my bedroom from his bathroom. How did I realise this you ask? He stared at me from his bathroom window with the lights on as I was standing in my bedroom one lovely evening.

I shudder at the thought of the 1,5 years of living here where I didn't know that he could see me.

This isn't some sort of freaky staring contest between two weirdos, though. I promise! It all started with the lingerie incident 2,5 years ago...

In hindsight, it was probably a really bad idea to make myself a cup of tea wearing a lovely, see through set of underwear in dark red with all kinds of little sparkly bits and ruffles, but I was really slim and fit at the time, the underwear had been a present and I was still so caught up on how nice I looked in it that I didn't waste a lot of time with thinking.

The kettle was in the window and it was at night. I stood there to wait for the water to boil, vaguely aware that something was wrong. I looked up. The guy was in his window. It took me a few moments to understand that he was looking at me, and another few moments to understand why. By the time my brain caught up with me, the guy had turned off the lights in his kitchen.

I peeked out from behind the wall where I was hiding and looked at his dark windows. He was still standing there, staring at our stupid kettle.

For some really stupid reason, I forgot all about it. I gained a LOT of pregnancy weight, then lost most of it. A year after the lingerie incident, on my way back from the grocery store, he jumped up from the bench he'd been sitting on and ran after me. I'd been eating chips from my way home (celebrating loosing so much weight after gaining it pretty fast?) and was just trying to open the door to the house we share. It's a big house with a lot of apartments, built around a small yard full of trashcans.

Creepy guy: "Hey, could you let me in as well, sweetheart?"

Me: *staring at him with my mouth full of chips*

Him: *joyfully pretending I'm not staring at him and standing very still* "great!"

I did let him in of course. He was very close and I couldn't really avoid it. He's spoken to me a few times since then, always managing to sound creepy.

I've now hung a bedsheet in the window. Whenever I go to the kitchen and notice him staring, I stare back while very purposefully closing the sheet across the window.