diary of a glass of red wine

She didn't really like me. So I sat there, watching. The three of them. To my Italian eyes, they all look similar. They are fairly well dressed. I wouldn't say that they were bad looking at all. My redness swirled around the glass and settled. They talked about the usual - life, work, death and men. It was like an old record, turning round and round again playing the same old tune. The single one moaned about being single, another moaned about the foreign lover being foreign, and the one with a partner complained he was too needy. I wondered why couldn't they ever be happy? Is it really that hard to be human? Do they have nothing to talk about other than complaints? The most annoying thing is, they don't seem to do anything about it! OK ok, to be fair, one of them did say she was going to write a letter to her boss to complain. I mean, why can't they accept the way things are and be content? Wrinkles are a natural. Boobs sag! There will always be people better, prettier, wittier. It's life! Yet, I know I'm red and I don't try to make myself any other colour. I know that meat brings out the best in me. I don't try to force myself to go with fish! People need to find like minded people and spend time together. It's just like wines are meant to be drunk. Different people will like different wines. It's not fair to compare a Savignon Blanc with a Muscat. But if a red doesn't leave the cellar because it is in a seafood restaurant, it surely needs to go to a steak house instead. It's pointless just sitting on the shelf, hoping someone would read your label. She just sits and writes dribble online. And I'm the one without the cerebral activity?! She lifted the glass. A part of me disappeared in between her lips. I felt her eye brows gathered, the most slightest of a wince. I suppose, out of politeness, she smiled to her companions. Doesn't like red wine, no wonder she can't find a man! She needs a sophisticated man to teach her what is important in life! Sigh... at least she didn't pretend that she liked me, but offered me to her companions instead.

A diminutive octogenarian visits her husband every day. He is blind. He is deaf. He is severely demented. He does not recognise her. At best, he introduces her as “an old friend”. At his worst, he hits her because she is poisoning him. She walks backwards. Both of her hands hold onto his, guiding him to the toilet, the dinning room, to his bed. As I watch her, I wonder, “what do you see in him?” If relationships are based on one personality connecting with another, is this a freak of nature? I assume the past that they shared, is like a pair of x ray vision glasses. It pierces through the mask of dementia to reveal the good soul. They are expensive nowadays. The price of “self” had rocketed and there is no sign of the market slowing down. The reserve bank of religion tries to raise the interest rates on sex, drugs and morals but it doesn’t work. Perhaps there is more awareness of the subprime crisis on commitment now. I liquidised the investment on relationships to the hedged fund of a career. The assets of self esteem from the hedge fund of a career are subject to a huge performance fee paid for by time and effort. I tried several managed fund of good upright Christian boys. They sought my meagre self as money worthwhile to pursue for business. So I put down my assets for them to manage. I understand it has been known as a safe and profitable investment strategy that often yields fruitful lifelong relationships. However, I find it strangely unsatisfying. At my own cost, I pulled out of these early. Finally, for one as reclusive as me, I retreated to the ultra conservative term investment of the internet. I gathered that I would not find a reasonable return of a soul mate but I suppose at least I won’t run into a loss. Although, I guess, subconsciously, I am still hoping for some sort of return… Now, if anyone understands what I’ve just written here, I salute you and will happily throw you a drink, even if it is just on facebook J

dribbling thoughts

A young professional enters the Viaduct. Loud pulsating music accompanied by taut slim bodies on the dance floor. Fountains of beer, liquor release the tension of the working week. His male pheromones mix with the sweat scented curves of a particular leggy blonde. Touch becomes the language of the lonely. The universal expression of the crowd swallows the couple. At the other end of the city, a young man sits on the edge of the bridge. He stands. The voices continue their endless pursuit. He has no where to hide. His neighbours spread vicious rumours of him being a paedophile. He can hear them, even now, miles away from the neighbourhood. Street signs warn pedestrians that he is on leave from the hospital. Doctors tell him he’s getting better. Nurses tell him to stop drug seeking. He does not speak the language of this world. He jumps. In 2 bedroom brick unit, a woman turns on the computer. She logs onto “trademe”. She types “for sale, baby’s boots, never worn*”. In the trendy suburb of Mount Eden, a group of young Christians sits around a café. They talk and laugh. Each speak of their experience of what God had done in their lives this week. Many mini sermons are exchanged but no one actually heard. Words are exchanged but no feelings shared. All superficialities of care conveyed but do any of them actually know each other? He stretches out his wrinkled sun kissed hand, searching for the strangely unfamiliar chubby arm of a likely foreigner. Muffled sounds of a foreign tongue drift into his deaf ears. He follows the guide of the hand and stands up. He does not know where he is, not that it matters very much to him anyway. He has been fed strangely tasteless mush which stopped his stomach growling. He sometimes descends into an whirlwind of fear, for he cannot find the life he had led amongst his memories anymore. In a time where aging is forbidden, he is now obsolete. Each event is unrelated linked only by the neuronal activity of a particular psychiatric registrar. It is strange how invisible sodium ions jumping in, potassium flowing out of a piece of fatty membrane, generated this passage. Everything has changed. Nothing is different. “Really?” “Really.” Really.

bloody asians!

I have a run of Asians on the ward at the moment. It's interesting as they evoke both different and similar reactions from me as the non Asian patients. There is this Korean man. He overdosed because of money problems. I asked him, as a general screen for dementia and his level of functioning, "so normally, during the day, what do you do?" He replied, "I sit around, go for walks". To clarify if there were risks of self cares associated, I asked, "do you do some housework or cook? Had there been any problems with leaving hot tap on, or the stove on?" He replied, in his high, thin, wiry voice, "Those are women jobs. And my wife hasn't been feeding me properly. She hasn't been doing my laundry either"...ooookkkkkk... I thought, I’m SO glad I’m not a Korean woman! But I am no feminist. So to be fair, I have to write down this one. I can only say this because I am a Chinese person of the female sex. Anyone else making such comments, I am bound to leap up and strangle him/ her, or at least pin them to the wall with my piercing brown slanty little Asian eyes! So, Asian women. Known somatisers - that is, if they were depressed, they were likely to say, "i have a headache" but tell you so many times, YOU would start getting the headache. The following conversation occurred on Friday, between myself and a Chinese woman with a psychotic illness. She is probably also suffering from depression which she expresses by incessant complaints of either heart burn/ rumbling stomach/ loose bowels/ constipation/ going too frequently/ not going enough.. On admission, I wrote up her drug chart. She was on EVERY antiacide EVER made! So I asked her, "Mrs X, you are on an aweful lot of medications for your stomach!" She replied, "I have a really bad stomach problem doctor, none of these medications help". I said "gosh that's an aweful lot of medication to take with no effect, why do you keep taking them?" "I don't doctor. I only take them when I feel I need them, doctor. As you know doctor, us Asians are very sensitive to side effects. I avoid pills as much as possible". "But you have discomfort from your gut everyday!" "Yes doctor, the medicines don't work". "But you don't take them!". "No doctor, please give me something that works..." sigh...if i EVER get that way, PLEASE put me down!