basement quashed

your body is great at detecting invaders,
but cancer isn't an invader. you grew it.

I was just sitting outside "smoking" my e-cigarette (vanilla mmm, but with no nicotine, just flavouring) and watching my kitty Munchy luxuriously sun himself (I am so jealous that cats can make lolling about on concrete seem comfortable). Suddenly he spied something up the driveway and jumped up, on alert. I looked over and saw my other kitty, Guppy, come racing up the path as though a million soul-eating devils were after her (and maybe there were; I am sure she can perceive things that I cannot). She came to a halt in front of him and they touched noses before she went to jump up through the window to go inside.

As she leapt, Munchy took a swipe at her hindquarters with his forepaw and missed. I was reminded of something I had read that said if you have two cats that sometimes playfight, as they seem compelled to do, you should put a bell on the more aggressive cat so that the more submissive one can hear him coming and be ready. IF ONLY 'TWERE SO SIMPLE. Munchy, the more aggressive cat, is of course going to be the more active and daring; more likely to climb precarious treelimbs and wiggle into tiny nooks and thereby lose his collar and thence the bell. I just can't keep a collar on him.

Today I have off work, hooray. Oh how I shall treasure my short time of three day work weeks! My boss asked me yesterday if he could increase my hours to full time. I would prefer four days, or a nine day fortnight, to full time, I said. He is going to get back to me, but I am almost sure he will want full time from me. This just means I must finish my program for full registration as a psychologist before the increase in work commences. So today, day off, is to be spent finishing writing up my research project report on online counselling. I can surely get this done today. As soon as I finish this entry, then make some breakfast, then put some laundry on.

Last night during supervision I was writing furious notes as my supervisor outlined her treatment plan for Anorexia and Bulimia, as I have had a sudden influx of young women with eating disorders at work. I filled three pages as she spoke for a ceaseless half hour.
"Jess," she eventually said, "your poor hand. Do you type faster than you write?"
"Yes, of course, by a million miles."
"You should sit at the computer then, to take your notes." How reasonable of her!
"Um, no," I howevered, "I find that I writing by hand lodges information more firmly in my brain. I used to take my laptop to lectures at Uni until I realised I didn't retain as much when I typed my notes as when I scrawled them fervently." (I may not have actually said "scrawled them fervently" but whatevs.)
"Wow, how interesting," she said. She seemed intrigued, and we talked briefly about possible explanations and implications.

I felt mildly guilty, as I don't even know if what I'd said was true. It seemed like it would be true, but really I think I was just comfortable sitting on the couch and writing by hand. Seriously I do not know why I sometimes come out with these silly lies. It would have been so much easier to simply say, "Nah, I'm happy here."

I do it with friends, with family, and have for years. An unfortunate throwback to the entire lives I used to compulsively fabricate as an adolescent, mayhap. Usually, with people I know super well, when I catch myself doing it I'll say pretty soon afterwards, "by the way, that wasn't true at all," and we'll laugh etc. So it's not a huge problem, I just would like to know what the fuck is up with it.

In conclusion I think I will attempt to keep a log of when it happens, along with my thoughts around why then, there, with that person... and eventually uncover the deep-seated, firmly lodged personality flaw that is undoubtedly lurking in my bowels motivating this behaviour, and potentially others as well. In my quest for utter perfection as a human being.

Yep.

Things to do once I've finished my degree, TUESDAY!

• Buy that $240 skirt I SIMPLY MUST HAVE IT despite its $240ness.
• Breed my prettie crowntail fighters so they have lots of prettie crowntail fighter babies.
• Go to Ikea to buy a cabinet to build a superduper penthouse for my rattie Bean.
  • Find Bean a rattie friend!
    • I'm watching him try to haul a whole slice of bread into his cage. OMG THE CUTENESS
• FIND SOMEWHERE TO LIVE that isn't $300 a week for just little old me. and my million pets. I would like to stay in or near Coorparoo, or a not-frightfully-expensive inner West somewhere. Or anywhere near public transport, I guess.
• Visit Cairns for Sarah-bear's birthday.
• Learn to drive! Maybe.
• Make a new webdesign site.
• Dye my hair some outgrageously funn colour.
• Go to Lab4 & Critical Mass & Earthcore & Cat Empire! yay!
• Get stoned and have zombie boardgame & movie night with bird_e and as many people we can con into coming. yay X 8sideways!

anyway. back to my last ever assignment:

This disorder has been found to be relatively resistant to treatment, which is thought to be due to the ego syntonic nature of its characteristics. The traits which are targeted for change are so pervasive and unconscious that the patient usually does not see them as a problem, and instead will place the blame on external sources. As a result of this, patients rarely present voluntarily for treatment, instead usually being treated involuntarily, having been referred by an employer, family member or, most often, the courts. They therefore generally lack motivation to change as well as insight into the need to change. Further, psychotherapy is based on a therapeutic alliance with the therapist, in which an empathic and trusting interpersonal connection is critical. Such a relationship is difficult to establish with a patient who is dishonest, lacking in empathy and exhibits only shallow affect and intimacy. Thus few psychotherapies have been found to be effective in treating the disorder.

GUESS WHICH DISORDER, THE WINNAR GETS A PREYEZE.

I have been thinking so much.

My next relationship will be quite normal and healthy, I think. Involving not moving in or getting married within the first week, not desperate or obsessive, not so sweep away romantic, so gorged on each other we waste away from the rest of life, etc.

ah. but can I help myself? I have sweep-away-romantic, obsessive tendencies, and am attracted to, seem to attract, others with them also.

It would be much easier to go back to my super-independent, prefers to be alone/never gets lonely old self. What happened to her?

Well. Today I am going up to top-of-mountain Atherton to have devonshire coffee over a crater-lake. hurrah!

Also. Love my pretty black kittens so much I want to be one too:



or at least have eyes that glow and shoot people blind.

I had two lectures in a row in the same theatre yesterday, so after the first one ended and everyone swarmed towards the two tiny doors at the front I sat and waited for the next one to begin. There is a ten-minute gap between classes. The girl behind me did the same. Ten minutes later a handful of people had drifted in one by one and were waiting. Five minutes into what was supposed to have been a sociology lecture the girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder and whispered "This is SY1001, isn't it?" I had tilted my head back to look at her upside down but still managed to nod. After another five minutes I took out my timetable to check, because lecturers are never late, but the lecture was there. The right theatre, the right time. I sat and stared at the timetable for another five minutes until I noticed that this particular lecture was only scheduled for week 19, when the rest were scheduled for weeks 8-21. I turned around and shouted (which, for me, involves talking above a mumble) "does anyone have a timetable?" No one did. So I told them there was no lecture and walked out, feeling REALLY STUPID, but that's okay because everyone else there was stupid too, and at least I thought to PRINT OUT A TIMETABLE.



The other week/month Lila was vomiting all over the place. As soon as she ate she'd puke a billion times, and instead of jumping all over me and attempting to rip my face off every time I went outside she'd just lie there for an hour & then docilely amble over & put her head on my foot. So I took her to the vet. The vet probed her in 50 different ways & said he couldn't feel any obstructions & had she had all her shots? Has she eaten anything strange? "She eats everything strange," I said, she eats EVERYTHING. I PICK TICKS OFF HER AND THROW THEM AWAY AND SHE FUCKING EATS THEM. And then I remembered that two days before, she'd picked up a huge chunk of plastic wrap while I was walking her and swallowed it whole. So he was all "well take her home & don't feed her & if she's still sick tomorrow we'll have to gut her which is heapsnexpensive." And then I forgot my PIN while paying by EFTPOS, but anyway she got better. The next day she ate a whole dead decomposing stinky WORMY BIRD, FEATHERS, FEET, BEAK & ALL.

Then, another day, I was on the esplanade and I thought I saw some strange girl walking her, which is totally weird because she's a freaky looking mongrel. So I finally realised it was some other dog who just looked like Lila, & I jumped up & ran over & said "what kinda dog is that?" and she smiled patronisingly and said "it's a husky cross rottweiler," like she got asked all the time, because I GET ASKED ALL THE TIME when walking Lila 'cause she looks like a husky & then like a doberman & then like an alsation. Anyway, I said "omfg! I have the same dog!" and she was like "oooo!" and I said "did you get him from Cairns Central?" and she said "No, we got him from the owners 'cause we knew them but they did take the rest to Cairns Central." and I was all "Wow! I have your dog's sister!" So we compared their personalities, and WHY DID I HAVE TO GET THE MANIAC FREAKAZOID ONE? Hers was all quiet and nice. But he looked more like a rottweiler than Lila does, which is uglier, 'cause her face is all pointy and nice.

Chloe is my other dog & she's a big fat border collie & is lovelie & perfect except she likes to attack little kids who pat her, & she once ripped open my neighbour's leg as he dived into the pool, which wasn't her fault 'cause she's a SHEEPDOG & it's INSTINCT for her to chase diving things.



THINGS I REMEMBER FROM BEING SEVEN:
- Getting the newly-painted-pink second-hand bike for my birthday and dad taking me to the football oval to learn to ride it.
- Having the kiddie train carriage behind me jacknife & land on my head & then being rushed to hospital while yelling "no I don't wanna go I wanna ride the train again!"
- Staying out in the playground with my friends after the end-of-lunch bell until our teacher came looking for us and lined us up the front of the classroom and told us to bend over so he could wack us on the butt with his big black-board ruler BUT HE ONLY PRETENDED TO WACK US.
- Mumm giving me my first Enid Blyton book which was "The Enchanted Wood" and since then I'VE READ EVERY SINGLE ONE.
- The evil babysitter who gave us dry toast and water as a snack and let her daughter beat us up and then yelled at us for complaining about it.
- My dad coming home drunk from a policeman's party at which he won a meat platter in a raffle and he left the meat platter out on the porch all night long and when mumm & my sister & I came home from visiting my nanna we found the meat platter there all rotten with flies.
- Going fishing on the ocean with my friend Michelle with the curly white hair & her big brother, & I caught a shark, & the brother said "it's only a baby, throw it back," and I said no! I caught it it's mine! and the rest of the day every time the boat rocked I thought it was the mother shark coming to attack us & save her baby.
- I used to stuff the sandwiches my mumm made me for lunch under my bed, & I came home one day & there was a huge grey rat lying dead at the front door, & dad said "I found that under your bed eating those mouldy sandwiches" & ever since then I've had a fear of rats under my bed so I would never put my feet down in case the rats bit them.

My parents got divorced when I was nine, and I was happy.

GRAMMAR MISTAKES THAT REALLY PISS ME OFF:
- When people say "might of" rather than "might have."
- When people use "whom" just to use it because hardly anyone knows how to use it and they want to seem like they know how to use it. HERE'S A TRICK SO YOU KNOW WHEN TO USE IT, IT'S EASY: Use "who" when it goes with "he," and "whom" when it goes with "him." For example: He is speaking and Who is speaking go together, and To whom am I speaking and To him am I speaking/I am speaking to him go together. GET IT? IT'S NOT THAT HARD IS IT?
- Semi-colons. You can't just eradicate them because you don't know how to use them, and you can't just use them in place of commas for the sake of using them.
- Sarah and I. "AND ME" IS NOT ALWAYS INCORRECT. You wouldn't say "That pie is for I" (well, ghostlight would), so don't say "That pie is for Sarah and I."
- The use of "his or her" over and over and OVER and over. While not a mistake, it's still FUCKING ANNOYING. You can use "their" as an asexual pronoun, despite it being plural, IT'S WIDELY ACCEPTED AND NOW CONSIDERED GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT. EVEN JANE AUSTIN DID IT. There are entire WEBSITES dedicated to it.
- whose and who's. whose is possessive, who's is the same as it's. IT'S A CONTRACTION. WHO'S IS NOT POSSESSIVE.

I'm hungry. Time to go get fish & chips.