Scar Tissue

It's been a shade under a year, but if you saw the scars that fleck my left side, you might think I've had them forever.
I haven't.
I've had them ever since I was unlucky enough to be t-boned on the driver's side on a dark and rainy night but lucky enough to live. Arriving on the accident scene too late to see me, the state of my blood-splattered car had Sean seriously doubting that I had.

I had left work early, but not very early, probably just a half hour or so, because I'd had a headache. Had I toughed it out at work, I would have missed my own brush with death. Sean was already in bed because he had an early meeting the next day. It was early June, and if it hadn't been raining, I might have had the top down on my Beetle convertible. But it was raining, so top was up, as were my windows, and the air conditioning was on.

It was elevenish at night and I was about halfway home when some jerk in a cube van sped through a red light and hit me, hard. He was so big and quick that my little car didn't stand a chance - I got shoved right through the intersection for several meters and ended up jumping a curb and finally released from the van's front grille, my car (I called her Emma) landed on a traffic island.

When I came to, I couldn't fathom where I was. I knew I was in my car, and there'd been an accident. I felt pain in a vague and persistent way. There was smoke, and a smell. Acrid. I spit glass and blood out of my mouth but the taste and the grit remained. I saw long grass on either side of me and had no idea where I was, and couldn't work out how I'd gotten there. I saw the tail lights of the van who'd hit me drive away.

When I came to the second time, my instinct was to get the hell out. I unbuckled, felt around blindly for my purse, and tried unsuccessfully to open my door. I realized dimly that my window was completely missing, and even that some of the missing pieces were now sticking out jaggedly from my arm. I tried to reach to open the door from the outside but my body responded with shooting pain enough to paralyze me.  A man with an umbrella, who as far as I was concerned had just appeared out of nowhere, told me not to move.  Another man was on his cell phone, talking to a 911 operator. A third man was telling me he was a first responder, and asking if he could help.

I felt an almost overwhelming sense of embarrassment over all the attention, and if I had been even remotely ambulatory, I might have just called a cab and disappeared. I remember wishing someone could just call my husband, and let him take care of everything. Instead they called an ambulance, and the cops, and the fire department, who arrived in that order.

A medic climbed over my gym bag in the passenger seat to put a neck brace on me and ask me questions about which body parts hurt the most: head, back, neck, chest, knee. As I named them and concentrated on them, I grew enormously worried. My heart felt like a huge weight was sitting on it and I found it hard to breathe. She found it hard to believe that I had neglected to mention my arm, which was hosting half a window but losing a lot of blood. And it did hurt, hurt quite a lot actually, but I could see why it hurt, so it didn't concern me a whole lot. It made sense. My heart worried me considerably more.

The medic reassured me that the smell was just from the airbag deploying.

The airbag!

I had registered the limp balloon spread over my lap but had no recollection of it inflating. Supposedly it was the airbag's punch to my face that made me lose consciousness in the first place. It also gave me a bloody nose and a black eye, but I have no memory of it hitting me whatsoever.

The medic held me upright and did what she could to stop various parts of me from bleeding so profusely while the firefighters got to work cutting me out of my car. The noise was jarring (and made me remember that I'd left work with a headache 30 minutes and a lifetime ago). Finally they pulled me out of the wreck and onto a backboard. The paramedics cut the clothes off me as the ambulance rushed me to the hospital, and the universe unmercifully kept me completely conscious for this humiliation, though barely.

I still have those clothes, somewhere. For insurance purposes, they told me, though the crappy no-fault insurance in Quebec has paid for little, and so far not for the ruined clothes that they themselves sent me the claim forms for.

The emergency room was a rush and a blur and the only thing I could think of was that I had not been in that hospital since I had watched Rory die in it nearly three years previous. A nurse very gently and carefully removed a necklace I was wearing. I went for several rounds of xrays and tests. The doctors scratched my face up something awful because I was covered head to toe in glass fragments, some the consistency of dust, and it got on their gloves, so they hurt me with every touch. They fed me info, in french and broken english, and I apparently responded back in french and broken english but retained nothing. I wanted to cry but wouldn't.

Pinned to the backboard, I was helpless and scared. My heart ached, literally.

Sean had arrived to the accident scene to see my crumpled car cut wide open, and was directed to the hospital where he was now waiting in a little room with some folks who were waiting for a loved one to die. He was not comforted by this.

When they finally let him in between procedures, I was not looking my best what with the shards of glass still hanging out of me and the blood soaked hair and the lack of clothes or dignity, but his relief and determination above all to appear cheery were palpable. I had to ask him to step back as he had put his face so close to mine that I couldn't even focus on it.

Someone came to whisk me away for yet another round of xrays and asked Sean along to help keep me on my side while they checked out the bruising and swelling of my heart. They pulled and pushed my gurney all over the hospital until nausea overcame me and the nurses had to flip the backboard on its side so I could vomit into a kidney shaped bowl without choking to death. I apologized through heaves but it didn't make me feel any better.

The whole ordeal is pretty hazy, except for the part where they vigorously cleaned out my wounds. That was abrasive, shocking, and worlds beyond painful. Some of the gashes were really deep but don't you worry because they have special tools for sticking in there and retrieving all matter of detritus. It was hell. Police attempted to get a statement from me somewhere in there, while I was still in the "emergency" part of my care where I was rambling quite a bit but not quite what you would call coherent.

I don't remember much. My memory is full of holes, not just of the accident, but of the few days after it. Concussion will do that to you.

I do remember the trip to the car graveyard to retrieve my things several days later. My car was flecked with blood, in strange and faraway places. A box of wedding invitations that I'd been working on had spilled its contents all over the place, and I later found myself scrambling with my one arm to remake them in a hurry. A hat that I'd completely forgotten I'd been wearing was crumpled and bloodied under the dash. It was the first and only time I'd worn it. I said goodbye to the corpse of my car, sad that Emma was gone just 11 months after I'd bought her, and grateful that she'd saved my life. I should have died in that crash, the cops and firefighters told me that incredulously, but those little Beetles are a hell of a lot sturdier than they look, and she allowed me to live.

I was sore, deeply sore, for days or weeks afterward, and covered in the kind of deep bruises that only things intended to save your life can inflict. I had dental surgery to recover my broken smile in time for my mother's wedding just 3 weeks later, and did enough physio to dance at my sister's wedding 6 weeks after that. It was rough, and in some ways it still is.

I still have pain, of course. I may not fully recover but I am well enough to live my life, and there's a huge amount of wonder and gratitude at that.
I still have glass underneath my skin. Once in a while something will sparkle, and it'll be a tiny fragment working its way out.
My insurance tells me my scars are worth cash but so far I haven't cashed them in. It seems kind of degrading to have them assessed for a dollar value.

Sean replaced my car for me. I had bought Emma because she was to be the last of her kind. I could not imagine driving anything else, so Sean scoured the country and found me Ruby, my third Beetle, and she was there waiting for me when I finally got up the courage to get back behind the wheel.

Like I said, it's been almost a year. I'm still not over it. Perhaps the most lasting effect has been my fear. Sean drove me around for the first bit, and though he would have been willing to rearrange his whole life in order to do it permanently, I knew that wasn't really a good option. For the first month or so, I would drive to work a complete mess and then vomit in the parking lot. But as a therapist, I knew that I couldn't allow the fear to overcome me, so I persisted, and though I still get nervous if a car gets too close or if there are less than optimal conditions, I get to where I'm going, even if I avoid that certain intersection at night and continue to harbour anger toward cube vans.

Life is full of little miracles, and the fact that I am here to tell you that is one of them.
I am lucky. Absurdly lucky in so many ways.

 (Yes, Ruby is wearing eyelashes, thank you for noticing!)

Needle and The Damage Done

Forgive me father for I have sinned.
It's been about 3 weeks since my last tattoo.
I mark the time not only because it's always been too long since my last tattoo, but because Canadian Blood Services requires 6 months between a tattoo and a donation.
I'm a card-carrying blood donor, and I used to be a regular donor, because I believed that this was part of good citizenship.
Apparently, though, there is no great need for blood in Canada.
We're fine.
Sure the blood donation clinics appear to be recruiting new donors constantly, and even send out blood mobiles so you can donate on the go. Because you might be thinking about potentially saving someone's life, but then decide the drive down the block is just too much. They claim that the greatest threat to our blood supply is the shortage of blood. There aren't enough new donors, and there isn't enough commitment among existing donors.
And yet.
I was a willing donor, albeit a difficult one.
Admittedly, I am one of those people who is hard to stick.
A regular hospital nurse probably can't get a needle in my vein, at least not in under a dozen tries, which is mercifully as many as they're willing to attempt before calling a more experienced technician from the lab.
I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry that my veins are not as cooperative as they should be.
Because of my hard-to-prickness, needles don't really make me flinch anymore. I don't enjoy them, and I come out covered in bruises, but I can take it.
Apparently the nurses at the donation centre cannot.
They have basically told me not to bother coming back.
I make their job hard.
According to them, the blood flows so readily in this country that they can turn away willing volunteers. I sort of thought that if I'm ready to be jabbed, they should be willing to do the jabbing. No?
Must be nice.
I only hope they're right, and not just lazy.

The sad thing is, mine is not the only blood they're turning away.
They also have a lifetime ban for all gay men, regardless of risk factors or relationship status.
They're banned just for having sex with other men, which is not only discriminatory, but also completely ignorant. Science unanimously agrees that the ban is without merit, every unit is tested for HIV anyway, and the fastest growing population segment in terms of new HIV cases is women, according to Canadian AIDS Society. Should we ban them too?

Well, this one already is.
It's fine.
You're probably not planning on getting chemo or having a car accident any time soon anyway.

 

The number you have reached is not in service.

I'm not a Luddite, I'm worse. I'm lazy.
I'll adopt new technology, but reluctantly, after a lot of foot-dragging and complaining for no reason. I want to keep my old crap forever, one, because I have an inherent distaste for technological obsolescence and two, because I have an inherent dislike for learning new tricks.
I am an old dog.
So when my blackberry, which was reliable and fuchsia, two of my favourite qualities in electronics, started to be not so reliable, I made some excuses for it initially.
I asked Sean to follow up texts with emails.
I told friends to expect up to 3-hour delays, so if something was time-sensitive, to just go ahead and drop a note in the mailbox and that way I'd be sure to get it.
And to be fair, I do spend a fair bit of time in a concrete box, which I hear is not optimal for reception.
And also, I knew how to set the alarm. I knew how to retrieve voicemails (whether I actually do this or not is none of your business). I had developed a pretty quick way of texting on the tiny little key pad and had the thumb callus to prove it.
Do I want a new phone?
No, I do not.
Mine still pretty much works almost most of the time.
And if it wasn't for the fact that my business card has "crisis" in the title, that might have been okay. My blackberry and I might have been buddies for 7 more years, or until one of us died, or until we were released from our cell phone provider's contract, which is more binding than any marriage.

I did it.
I traded her in.
I brought home a gigantic tablet-pretending-to-be-a-phone and despite the fact that I don't know how to use it, cannot even pick up a phone call with more than 50% accuracy, I do kind of love it.
Not wanting to just throw away a phone that's still got some life (not to mention some fuchsia) left in her, I put my old phone up for sale on Kijiji, thinking that someone might at least want it for the battery or the charger.

I did not expect to meet Larry David.
Well, okay, I did not actually meet Larry David, but I did meet his doppelganger.
Not-Larry David, as it turns out, has a real hard on for Blackberrys.
He's had his since the dark ages, like 5 years ago at least! His is still reliable-ish enough, but it isn't just his personal cell phone usage that has made him a fan. There's also the experiments he conducts in his backyard.

Not-Larry David builds trebuchets.
And if you know anything about men, give them a trebuchet, and they will launch shit with it. Like, all kinds of shit. Blackberrys, for example. And apples. And watermelons.

He takes a Blackberry, zips it in a baggie, and then stuffs it in a watermelon.
He does the same with an iphone.

Then he catapults them both up to 400 feet.

The blackberry, he tells me, fares much better.
Much, much better.

And I am inclined to believe him.
My blackberry survived 2 baths, and I'm talking total immersion, several feet worth of ker-plunk, as well as a semi-permanent residency in my nephew's mouth the first year of his life.

So now my cell phone is off having a glamorous second life as a test dummy.
My new phone is pretty cool. You can draw on it, talk to it, and take hand-written notation. It also knows way too much about me for me to ever throw it away, or give it to a Not-Larry David type. I think it knows this. This is not just a smart phone - it's a smart aleck phone. It corrects me. It suggests that it knows better what I'd like to eat than I do. It's constantly telling me a better way to get home. It gives me conflicting weather reports. It's the kind of smart that makes me feel like I'm living in a world foretold by Isaac Asimov. And it will probably never seen the inside of a watermelon,

The Winter That Would Not Die.

The weather network has issued a winter storm warning for tomorrow, this despite the fact that it's actually spring, and has been for several weeks.

What does it mean when the meteorologists can't even accurately predict the seasons any more?

Don't Look Back in Anger

The worst thing about having a blog is that you've put all your junk out there and now it's impossible to take it back. Not that I want to. Well okay, I sort of want to. You'd think the bits featuring ex-lovers would be the most distasteful to me, but I cringe more at bad writing than at bad judgement in who I fuck.

Jesus.

This thing goes back 9 years. 9 freakin years! Some of the things I wrote about are disturbing, but what is most disturbing is that some of the things I wrote about are completely unfamiliar to me. I have no memory of this mundane stuff, and it would have been completely lost had I not written it down. I also suffer from revisionist's history, and the temptation to delete delete delete is strong. I am resisting, barely.

I believe in the whole "my history has made me who I am" bullocks. No really, I do. It's all good, but I think it's better in broad strokes than the gritty details.

In a way I feel like an archaeologist, sifting through another lifetime. It hardly feels like mine. Reading about such ancient history is a bit like masturbating with your left hand.

But it's cool in a way, to know that I used to have a bumblebee jar, and that I used to love my ex-husband. I have written records of these things for where my memory has blanked, or balked.

Someone I met through blogging recently noted that I was very unlike the person she first started reading about so many years ago. She's right. Most of the best parts of my life are less than 9 years old. I've had to rebuild my life, and although the construction is new, I think the foundation is pretty much the same. I have not been static. I hope never to be. I hope in 9 years from now I'll have had less drama but just as much reinvention.



The best thing about having a blog, incidentally, is reading comments. Unfortunately, being nearly completely e-tarded, I lost the vast majority of comments when I converted from one platform to another, and anything collected on haloscan did not follow. That aggrieves me more than I can express because I value the discourse, and the community that was fostered through blogging. I still have a few left though, and it's almost mind-blowing to realize what a long history I've had with people I've shared such intimacy with yet never actually met. Maybe it's time to give the old goat a makeover, but I'm not ready to let go. Looking back, I can only conclude that writing here has been a valuable and enriching part of my life. And if, at times, it also makes me want to die of embarrassment, well, what else are diaries for?

Did you read Half the Sky?
If you haven't, you should.
If you have, I bet you still remember every single word.
It's one of those books that stays with you.
It's been several years since I read it and I remain deeply moved and impacted by it.
Today I am watching the documentary feature that is just as horrifying and inspiring and awful yet necessary to watch.
You don't watch a rape centre in Sierra Leone deal with literally thousands of victims, over half of whom are between the ages of 12-17, and a quarter of whom are under 12 - the youngest just two and a half months, and not come away a slightly different person. Less than 1% of these cases result in charges\convictions, in part because on the law books, you can only rape a woman - rape does not legally exist for those under 14, even though it happens every single day, and 90% of young rape victims wind up with sexually transmitted infections. Rape is a shame on the victim, not the perpetrator. Your heart will be broken. You will be filled with rage
And that's just the unit in Sierra Leone.
Wait until you meet the courageous women of Cambodia, the girls who are bought and sold as children, trafficked into brothels, held as sex slaves until they are no longer useful. When you see a little girl have her eye gouged out by a brothel owner but forced to continue seeing clients while still bleeding (and they're so drunk they don't care) and then recount barely surviving an abortion yet still have forgiveness in her heart...it's not even comprehensible. These girls, even rescued from the brothels, are still rejected by their families for being "bad". It is often their families who sold them in the first place.
And it goes on.
The aim of the book and of this film is to highlight the oppression of women right now, embarrassingly in the 21st century, to show the violence and discrimination that is gender-based, directed expressly toward women because they are women. There are victims here, but there are also heroes.

.