Jane part 2.
The floor carries the wieght of the room.
The 3 couches are arranged in a semi-circle, facing the stereo that plays a static percussion somewhat resemblign the latest radio hits. There is a total of 10 people in the lounge - 8 'clients' and 2 nurses. By definition one is a 'music therapis', but Jane discounts his qualifications as he only ever seems to play for himself. It's the same old South American finger-plucking show-offs repeated again, again, ...and again. In a way Jane finds it somewhat comforting: even those in the position of caring for her and her fellow 'clients' have their own broken beats and scratched records.
The 2nd nurse is a fun-loving superman. He is bying across the top edge of the couch he entered the room upon - a flying entrance with arms open-wide and a wild look in his eyes that tells much of the circumstance under which he chose his profession. More telling than Dr. 'music therapist' Jim's repitious, 6 string guitar solo symphanies.
Lea sits on Jane's direct left. Lea speaks not a word (the narrator is plagued with the Australian double-negative). She's on probation from the ICU and hasn't communicated a verbal word of the English language for 2 days straight. Jane understands her alternative form of communication; grunts, screams, holes in the plaster. 80% of communication is body language. Jane has learnt this from her Grandpa's bookcase.
Oh the truths that can be told from Alan Pease, Orson Wells, and other lesser known authors on human nature and it's exploits!
Jane considers the possibility that neglected bookcases built over the entirity of a life now passed hold more truth than the definition of 'fact' in the most up-to-date dictionary. Jane relishes on the delicious knowledge that the english word 'awful' once held the meaning of 'awe-inspiring'; a complete contradiction on it's current usage as a negative adjective meaning terrible. She's in awe. She loves it.
In her current state of mind she doesn't have much else.
Still on Jane's left, beside Lea, is Tahls (short for Tahlia). Tahls has bandages bound so thick on both emaciated arms that she looks like a michelin-man built over stilts. Tahls has her knees tucked under her chin and rocks back and forth while sidscreetly shoving a pair of scissors underneath one of the bandages. Somehow neither 'nurse' notice this, yet every 'client' in the room seems to instinctively know it's time to avert their eyes. Later they'll walk passed Tahls' room and smile sheepishly at her magazine collages. It's not too hard to put two and two together. Maybe the staff too find it easier to play a game of sheepish ignorance dressed in lamb-ish naevity.
Ignorance, it seems, is one of the requirements for survival on a psychiatric ward. Jane thinks so, and Jane should know.
-----------
I was not high, but relaxed and thinking freely:
Slight trepidation
Anxious animation
Spread the compass flat,
and turn:
Spin the bottle, slip
and learn the
earth and the edge
of the world.
-----------------
04-01-2008 (or was it the 05-01?)
The world is our compass.
The cars always just miss (it seems), they keep to the left; and as always, if the world was tipped upside down it'd be just so very right.
---------------------
EARLIER THIS WEEK:
Green Gecko climbs the traffic light, his flat round-tipped fingers defying gravity. He reaches the camouflage green, and there he stalls a bit to survey the crossing cars and lumbering lorries.
The warmth of the flourescent electricals enters the roaming reptile through the tips of his sticky feet, and pulses up beyond the peripherals into his restless beating chest. His temperature builds and the bustling view beneath him blurs; the cosy heat bringing all-day summer-swimming sleep. He feels like the tired eyes of a full stomach after the die-down of excitement on Christmas Day.
A pedestrian below presses the button for the crossing signal. When the little green man appears, the entire post that Gecko's traffic light sits upon begins to vibrate, like heavy bass beating through a surround sound system. The buzz is broken and authentic like listening to and feeling your way through your father's old vinyl records.
The pedestrian, and the crowd that had gathered behind him, get half-way across the white-striped tar before red flashes again; and Green Gecko scurries back down the post. He overtakes the unphased shuffle of feet and disappears into a rustle of fallen leaves mulching the roadside shrubbery.
It's funny how hard it is to evade life.
(...The cars always just miss, it seems, they keep to the left. And if the world was tipped on it's head it would be oh so right...)
----------------------------------------
On a more mundane journalistic note:
I begin work on Saturday. I got off my lazy arse earlier this week (well, hardly, as I applied over the magic of the tinternet), and applied for swim teaching work. I only applied to two pools, as I am somehow still unfamiliar with the suburban geographics of Brisbane, and thus don't know how far everything is from the city centre. Both pools got back to me, and are vying for my swim-instuctor expertise. My head grew 2 centimetres :P.
So much to say, but I'll get there eventually. I swear my commentary on my two weeks as a corporate cog will still eventuate, so too something lengthy and nostalgic on my stay in Auckland. I'm in a funny place at the moment. Let's leave it at that.
It's nothing negative. Fuck, far from it!
I'm also happy today as I randomly met a fellow vegan/social reformist, and she's adding me to her mailing list for related events in and around Brisbane. Apparently her and her friends hold a stall down at a market in West End, and I must go as a few weeks ago another somebody told me there's a great little beading stall there too. Reckons I could sell some stuff there. Which would be nice. Noice. Not too unusual, and not too different, but satisfying nonetheless. :)
I also have another piece of prose, but I'm posting it up in Myspazz and Mazebook, so that those without the privelege of linkage to my live-journalage have something to read.
Lots of love, fairy frollicking, and gecko grazing,
Kelly-Rae. xoxo <3 ****
(by the way, i'm starting to get overly shitty with this internet connection at 'Cloud 9' Backpackers, as I've now had to re-write and re-post this a THIRD time. So if there are any spelling or grammatical errors I should by now be hanging my head in merciless shame.... :(!!!! )
The 3 couches are arranged in a semi-circle, facing the stereo that plays a static percussion somewhat resemblign the latest radio hits. There is a total of 10 people in the lounge - 8 'clients' and 2 nurses. By definition one is a 'music therapis', but Jane discounts his qualifications as he only ever seems to play for himself. It's the same old South American finger-plucking show-offs repeated again, again, ...and again. In a way Jane finds it somewhat comforting: even those in the position of caring for her and her fellow 'clients' have their own broken beats and scratched records.
The 2nd nurse is a fun-loving superman. He is bying across the top edge of the couch he entered the room upon - a flying entrance with arms open-wide and a wild look in his eyes that tells much of the circumstance under which he chose his profession. More telling than Dr. 'music therapist' Jim's repitious, 6 string guitar solo symphanies.
Lea sits on Jane's direct left. Lea speaks not a word (the narrator is plagued with the Australian double-negative). She's on probation from the ICU and hasn't communicated a verbal word of the English language for 2 days straight. Jane understands her alternative form of communication; grunts, screams, holes in the plaster. 80% of communication is body language. Jane has learnt this from her Grandpa's bookcase.
Oh the truths that can be told from Alan Pease, Orson Wells, and other lesser known authors on human nature and it's exploits!
Jane considers the possibility that neglected bookcases built over the entirity of a life now passed hold more truth than the definition of 'fact' in the most up-to-date dictionary. Jane relishes on the delicious knowledge that the english word 'awful' once held the meaning of 'awe-inspiring'; a complete contradiction on it's current usage as a negative adjective meaning terrible. She's in awe. She loves it.
In her current state of mind she doesn't have much else.
Still on Jane's left, beside Lea, is Tahls (short for Tahlia). Tahls has bandages bound so thick on both emaciated arms that she looks like a michelin-man built over stilts. Tahls has her knees tucked under her chin and rocks back and forth while sidscreetly shoving a pair of scissors underneath one of the bandages. Somehow neither 'nurse' notice this, yet every 'client' in the room seems to instinctively know it's time to avert their eyes. Later they'll walk passed Tahls' room and smile sheepishly at her magazine collages. It's not too hard to put two and two together. Maybe the staff too find it easier to play a game of sheepish ignorance dressed in lamb-ish naevity.
Ignorance, it seems, is one of the requirements for survival on a psychiatric ward. Jane thinks so, and Jane should know.
-----------
I was not high, but relaxed and thinking freely:
Slight trepidation
Anxious animation
Spread the compass flat,
and turn:
Spin the bottle, slip
and learn the
earth and the edge
of the world.
-----------------
04-01-2008 (or was it the 05-01?)
The world is our compass.
The cars always just miss (it seems), they keep to the left; and as always, if the world was tipped upside down it'd be just so very right.
---------------------
EARLIER THIS WEEK:
Green Gecko climbs the traffic light, his flat round-tipped fingers defying gravity. He reaches the camouflage green, and there he stalls a bit to survey the crossing cars and lumbering lorries.
The warmth of the flourescent electricals enters the roaming reptile through the tips of his sticky feet, and pulses up beyond the peripherals into his restless beating chest. His temperature builds and the bustling view beneath him blurs; the cosy heat bringing all-day summer-swimming sleep. He feels like the tired eyes of a full stomach after the die-down of excitement on Christmas Day.
A pedestrian below presses the button for the crossing signal. When the little green man appears, the entire post that Gecko's traffic light sits upon begins to vibrate, like heavy bass beating through a surround sound system. The buzz is broken and authentic like listening to and feeling your way through your father's old vinyl records.
The pedestrian, and the crowd that had gathered behind him, get half-way across the white-striped tar before red flashes again; and Green Gecko scurries back down the post. He overtakes the unphased shuffle of feet and disappears into a rustle of fallen leaves mulching the roadside shrubbery.
It's funny how hard it is to evade life.
(...The cars always just miss, it seems, they keep to the left. And if the world was tipped on it's head it would be oh so right...)
----------------------------------------
On a more mundane journalistic note:
I begin work on Saturday. I got off my lazy arse earlier this week (well, hardly, as I applied over the magic of the tinternet), and applied for swim teaching work. I only applied to two pools, as I am somehow still unfamiliar with the suburban geographics of Brisbane, and thus don't know how far everything is from the city centre. Both pools got back to me, and are vying for my swim-instuctor expertise. My head grew 2 centimetres :P.
So much to say, but I'll get there eventually. I swear my commentary on my two weeks as a corporate cog will still eventuate, so too something lengthy and nostalgic on my stay in Auckland. I'm in a funny place at the moment. Let's leave it at that.
It's nothing negative. Fuck, far from it!
I'm also happy today as I randomly met a fellow vegan/social reformist, and she's adding me to her mailing list for related events in and around Brisbane. Apparently her and her friends hold a stall down at a market in West End, and I must go as a few weeks ago another somebody told me there's a great little beading stall there too. Reckons I could sell some stuff there. Which would be nice. Noice. Not too unusual, and not too different, but satisfying nonetheless. :)
I also have another piece of prose, but I'm posting it up in Myspazz and Mazebook, so that those without the privelege of linkage to my live-journalage have something to read.
Lots of love, fairy frollicking, and gecko grazing,
Kelly-Rae. xoxo <3 ****
(by the way, i'm starting to get overly shitty with this internet connection at 'Cloud 9' Backpackers, as I've now had to re-write and re-post this a THIRD time. So if there are any spelling or grammatical errors I should by now be hanging my head in merciless shame.... :(!!!! )