chapter eleven.

i think it'd be a valid question if somebody asked me what i do with my days. i don't work, i don't volunteer, i don't see many people. where does the time go? well i've found that time doesn't go anywhere, yet i get older and more bitter. or younger and more easily impressed. it all depends on the day. some days i wake up and the sun is shining and there are little birds chirping and i just want to stay in and cower down on a couch and nurse my wounds. or make new ones. i have quite a few scars and always one of two semi-bleeding wounds. i do that to myself, and i don't expect to be judged for it. so-called experts say it's a form of masochism - and they've even conceptually linked it to anorexia, given that they're allegedly both about control over your body and about not being good enough and punishing oneself. whatever. i started with the sharp corner of a plastic ruler when in eight grade. i got into it enough to start bleeding, and then a girl saw a few drops of blood and she screamed like those dumb actresses do in bad crime drama tv shows, and i was escorted to the nurse's office and at least it allowed me to determine that i didn't like the attention, even though i like the feeling of the cut and the moisture squirting from within.

it's the kind of hobby one has to keep in check. i quickly found out long sleeves and long pants would be much easier to live in for me. simpler than answering questions from the cafeteria lady and the bus driver. once again, would you fucking mind your own fucking business? weirdos. a few too many people see the marks, and tell the right person, and you've landed yourself a nice hospital visit. and then you'll have to justify your private life to strangers in white blouses. with a bit of luck, they'll give you a blue blouse that you can keep because they took all your clothes away. at least the blouse is blue. and at least they can't keep you forever, especially if you suddenly become gentle as a lamb (i've never personally met a lamb, but expect they are rather sweet; i'd never eat lamb, in any case). and guess what? i hate doctors and i hate hospitals. so as long as they don't pump too much shit up my veins, i can play the game and look at them all with bright pitiful eyes that scream "what have i done to deserve this?". the look didn't work for my mother or father way back when, but it has worked with many men i've met since leaving them, and even on quite a few women. it's all in the timing and the expected sincerity. eventually when you're nice and non violent and you give them the answers they prechew for you, they let you go.

i had a boyfriend - no, rather a lover - once who was mostly attracted to me mostly because of my scars and wounds. he would lick the lines, from paler to most recent. he would get turned on just by seeing my forearms (not something i can say of just any man). he was into sharp things too, but he didn't enjoy pain as much. and so naturally (well it seemed very natural at the time) we integrated knives and razor blades into our sex routine (which then became a non-routine...). he'd just knick the skin. or he'd run a razor blade from my little toe to my pinky, all along the side of my leg, torso and arm, so gently that even though he broke the skin, only a few tiny drops of blood would appear every few inches along the way. or he'd make patterns. i have a few nice stars on my lower back that date from that era. he'd go deeper then, for the sake of art - no point having a nicely shaped scar star if it's just going to vanish after healing. we ended it one night, when he admitted that he was married. sorry bucko, you might have been the most fucked up delicious lover ever, but i don't do married men. he was rather shocked. something about how strange it was to find principles in a girl like me. a girl like me? that's a good one. especially coming from some depraved cheater. things got a bit tense. no, not a bit. we got into an argument, and the argument led to a full-fledged fight. we'd just had sex, and there were a few knives and a few pokers of various shapes lying around, and things got ugly. he'd forgotten one thing, though: i can take pain, in a way that he couldn't. he stabbed through my arm, and i flinched, but i didn't waiver or faint. i retaliated. with a skewer in the genitals. oh the look on his face. and then i left rather quickly, while he was cursing and throwing things in my general direction. glasses, clothes, pillows - there isn't much stuff lying around in a cheap motel room to throw at the former lover you used to cut open, once she returned the favor. i never heard from him again. but that might have something to do with the fact that i changed my phone number, and i'd never given him my address. or my real name for that matter. i'm like that - if i haven't been officially dating someone for at least five or six months, they get a fantasy name. that way if things end badly, they can't track me down. and since i don't introduce anybody to family (i.e. the sister) or friends, well i usually never get caught.

for some reason i now feel like discussing staplers. they remind me of when i worked in office jobs, little crappy thankless jobs with bosses who earn five times your salary and treat you like shit because guess what making money makes them right, every time, and your lowly position and your feminine gender and your young age make you, quite simply, wrong. what do you know anyway. it has seemed to me over the years like a lot of people - men, let's face it - could not really handle staplers. and those are men who handle the livelihood of dozens of people, often enough, and who design circuits and who invest millions. i've met more than one who had absolutely no clue how to replenish the staples and who showed some sense in coming to me with a desperate puppy look before throwing the damn thing away - clearly it has been filled in the stapler factory and no more magical staples may come out of it? i've even had one boss who would simply take the common, next-to-the-printer stapler if his was empty. and then, when both ended up empty, he'd put them in his outbound tray, for me to magically fill them, like only i know how. i filled them and put them in his inbox. and i thought less of him ever after. which had no impact on our respective salaries, mind you.

huh, what do you know, my stapler urge has passed, and i've expressed all that i could or would on that topic for the moment. i wish i had a song about staplers. i don't. but it's been a while since i broke into a song. oh, what the hell, here's something stupid in frenglish i learned from a friend a long time ago, who claimed it was a song he had learned at camp. it always makes me laugh, and that's not bad.

i went yesterday on the bord des états
with my porte-manteau and my unbrella
jumping dans le gros char
j'arrivai en retard
j'm'assis sur le back-seat pis je m'allume un cigare
à travers la window j'ai voulu embrasser
ma jeune fiancée, but the train goes away
but the train goes away, je la reverrai plus loin
j'embrassai une grosse vache qui watchai passer le train.
meuh.

i'm sorry to say this would translate to something like: i went yesterday to the states, with my suitcase and umbrella. i jumped in the big car, i was late, i sat ont he back seat and lit a cigare. through the window i wanted to kiss my young fiancée but the train left. i'll see her later. i kissed a big cow that was watching the train pass. mooo.

it's stupid, i know. probably why i like it.