A very boring week. Because I write about those now too. Apparently.

Because it is school holidays, the children had their annual visit with their grandparents and Bingley and I sat on the couch and wondered at the silence. For a very short period of time anyway before trying to fill it. I still had to work all week, and weekend, but we managed to do some other things too.

The first night we went and saw The Hobbit and drank slushies that gave me headspin and ate popcorn until I couldn't feel my lips. It was good and I enjoyed the Hobbit very much. I am thinking of taking the Elfling for an encore as I think she'd like it but it may be yet just a little scary. We'll see. Plus the idea of a night out with just her is appealing.

After the movie we walked around Southbank for a while and sat down at a Spanish bar to eat tapas. Fun ambience and a jug of tasty Sangria mixed with the sultry night as we people watched and the bougainvilea bower swayed listlessly in what was left of the breeze. After dinner, having eaten too much, we wandered through the park to the beach where hundreds of others were still swimming and I peeled off my shoes and pulled up my jeans and waded in tipsily, wanting nothing more than to dive right in. The only thing that stopped me was that my underwear was sheer, otherwise I would have jumped. Bingley was much more sensible than I though and promised we would come back the next night.

So Monday, after work, when I was overtired and overworked and underpaid, I got changed into my riding gear, we snapped our new $10 LED torches to our bikes and we rode all the way to the city, across the Goodwill Bridge and back down into Southbank to the pools. Unlike every other day of this new year, it was actually blowing quite a bit, with the wind racing along the river and losing all of her heat. Remembering the strong pull of desire from the previous night however I forced myself to strip off my slightly sweaty clothes down to my bikini and jump into the water that was actually blissfully warm. Lapping at shoulders as we bobbed around watching the city lights and listening to the sounds of everyone else splashing. The wind as it blew across the surface raising gooseflesh and causing me to shiver so much that it was not quite as long as expected before we were back on our bikes and riding home in the night.

Bingley and I have never ridden our bikes together in Brisbane before and it was a revelation. Wide, well maintained bike paths that snaked under and over bridges that seem so much bigger when you're whooshing past on your own steam. On arriving home my knees and shoulders hurt, but the grin of self satisfaction and spontaneity and doing something fun and active was elixir enough to fall peacefully to sleep not long after.

Wednesday night I stopped at Ikea on the way home and bought a new bookshelf. It was very big and heavy and getting it into the car I used all of my grade 10 Physics to actually lever it in without breaking something. We then had the fun of sitting on the floor and putting it together, which is probably the real reason we own so much Ikea furniture - it's just a really big lego set.

Thursday we went out for dinner at a Lebanese restaurant. It was ok.

Friday we had a big fight. I cried. We made up. I slept badly.

Saturday we woke up and the sun was shining and my room was full of light. I was snuggled up in my blankets as the airconditioning rumbled through the vents. After finally climbing out of bed and into the shower, we made our way to GoMA to the new APT exhibit.

Side note - I am lucky that I was brought up in a family that appreciated art and took the time to take children to museums and galleries and to explain it as well. Some art doesn't need explaining. Some art is just pretty and nice to look at, but art that speaks to you other than just being pretty - learning to appreciate that is a true gift.

Anyway, the Asia/Pacific triennial art exhibit at the Queensland Art Gallery is one of my favourite things to experience. The last exhibit in 2010 was spectacular and there were pieces there that made my heart hurt. Some that made my eyes sting and some that pulled my stomach out of my chest .I loved it. Loved experiencing it. Loved visiting it on my own. Loved taking others with me to experience it. The stag of globes still rates as one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. So of course my expectations were high, and I take disappointment badly.

I was not disappointed.

From the first moment of walking in, I knew I would not be disappointed. Some things of course I just glanced over politely, missing, or not caring about their meaning. Others had me spellbound, sitting and watching, sometimes nose right up to the glass or the paint or the wood, just to see every last tiny detail. To try and work out how as well as what and why.

Here are some of my favourites, and reasons why you should go too.

I liked these. I empathise.

This is techinically spectacular and utterly unnerving. So incredibly beautiful and so ugly at the same time. My phone has done nothing to capture the beauty of the colours or the technique. 

String theory. I followed each line to its completion. I loved the wobbles. String theory needs wobbles.

The yellow room 

Black and white. Texture and light. I was wearing a red dress and the reflected light from me gave the painting colour. I was profoundly moved by it.

Terrible picture of a stunning series by Michael Cook. Amazing.

This is a photograph taken of the sky in a mirror. The mirror is made from polished meteorite. When I realised what I was looking at my heart jumped a little. So spectacularly beautiful and so simple - seeing the sky from the sky. 

Large installation piece of cities that raise to they sky. Worth looking at close up to see all the little details. 

I usually am not much interested in the short cinema offerings at these exhibitions and wander out after a polite few minutes of trying to look interested. This one was not like that. 9 minutes that sucked the breath from my chest. I know it won't affect everyone like that, but it's worth sitting down for just to appreciate the cinematography. 

Whimsical Japanese print. Ethereal.

Farsi. I love that the room bent the more I looked at it to become a 3 dimensional thing. 

I am not sure why this moved me so much. It's massive and it is beautiful. Part of a larger series by an Indigenous artist. One of the bags reminded me of the Giants in the BFG. They seemed perfect for snatching up little children. 

One of those spectacularly beautiful wow creations that you don't need to be a critic to enjoy. I wanted to visit there in the clouds this temple. Live there. Home of the air nomads. 

Parade of the tiny glass animals. Intricate, refractory and flowing like water. 

Menacing shapes in the art gallery over the water. I loved the reflections and the menace and the beauty all mixed in together.

Cattleya

I woke, unable to remember if conservation of energy was the first or second law of thermodynamics. It raced around in my belly, sending spirals of nausea in a complicated intricate loop before Bingley sleepily reminded me that it probably didn't matter either way. I lay in bed for a bit longer, thinking over the study of the day before, sticking it down again as if it were peeling off the walls of memory in long curly strips. I watched the dawn shadows on the ceiling and walls and the sun rose in the lightly grey morning, the curtains soft white and whispering as the house breathed in and out.

I feel overwhelmed but somehow at peace. There is no more that I can learn, no more space on the walls and so my job now is to keep all those recalcitrant, hand drawn diagrams stuck using more and more glue every hour that goes by until I'm sticky and gritty and tired.

I climbed out of bed later than I intended and poured a glass of water, sipping it slowly in the kitchen, the cool morning breeze tickling my bare belly above my pyjamas that were falling off my hips. At Bingley's insistence I cut a wedge of red papaya and scooped out the glistening seeds and carried it onto the new boards of the verandah and sat on the ground. The papaya was only just ripe, orange red and firm but releasing juice between teeth and over wrist. I scooped the flesh and watched the sky. Breathed the fresh, slightly damp air as it snaked up the hill and across my clavicle, teasing the unkempt hair and tickling it across the angle of my jaw.

The tension slowly uncoiled, the wound spring losing the obvious strain; the ache in my shoulders from holding my muscles so tight receded. I relaxed back into the wall and watched the birds fly in and out of the trees, listened to the hum of traffic unseen below and the helicopter across the sky. I saw with a tiny leap in my heart the beautiful purple orchids that have burst into bloom in my tree and took it as an omen.

The orchids belonged to my grandparents and I've had them for 12 years. How I have not killed them I am unsure, but they live still and they flower when they want, unaffected by season or care or attention. And somehow always when I need them most, when I need my grandmother's voice in my ear. Sometimes she encourages me. Often she admonishes me. Sometimes she talks about something completely unrelated. But I love that she's still there, keeping me sane.

I had a moment last night, in the lamplight with glowing skin and tumbled hair, breathing slightly unsteadily as I moved, of wondering at the sanity of repeating the branches of the external carotid artery in rhythm. Of finding the humour at an inopportune moment and spasming with laughter as I traced the path of the opthalmic branch of the internal carotid artery across Bingley's eyebrow. Leaning forward to kiss his nose as I giggled before arching my back and repeating Superior Thyroid, Ascending Pharyngeal, Lingual, Facial, Occipital, Preauricular, Maxillary, Superficial Temporal as my hair tickled my back.

I am a complete dork, but one who still has her sense of humour. And thanks to a burst of purple cattleyas, a teensy sense of hope as well.

Air Kerma

I knew it was coming. The perfect storm had been brewing for weeks, and while there had been the occasional histrionic outburst, it had only ever been an opener to the main event. Today, after a tutorial that confirmed that I still have far too much to cram into my head in 5 short days than is humanly possible, I came home in the bubbling, gravid evening with the skies bruised and angry to make dinner.

We have been eating a lot of 15 minute meals lately, simple, boring food that the kids will eat and require minimal effort or brain power. I had a little more time this afternoon so I made boeuf bourguignon. Or casserole. Meat in gravy with a few vegetables.  I did it properly too, flouring the meat, preparing the vegetables, deglazing the pan with yet another half drunk bottle of wine bought to try and understand the mysteries of a glass with dinner.

It smelled fantastic. It simmered down to the perfect gravy consistency. The house smelled of red wine and garlic and beef. Perfect for a stormy afternoon. Warm and filling.

Of course, the kids refused to eat it. The Monkey making gagging noises - she hates "sauce". The Possum tasting the potato with gravy exactly once. The Elfling only ate hers under sufferance and a willingness to show up the others. I teetered on the edge. Reason completely lost and temper frayed. Ego already shattered on one front, pushing precipitously on another.

The Possum had a tantrum about something. He has them often now, his understanding of speech and language and his deficiencies in both culminating in outrage at not being understood. He stood in front of me, then climbed on top of me to put his screaming face in front of mine. He could not speak to tell me what was wrong as his tantrum had reached the state where he was only capable of emitting noise and crying. It escalated as I was incapable of understanding him. I burst into tears, and then became desperate and terrified of exploding. I put him on his bed and shut his door fearful of the way I had lost all sense of reason. I didn't yell or scream or hit, and that scared me more than if I'd done any or all of those things. I was beyond anger.

I started to shake while sobbing. My brain unable to process anything. Leaning forward, my arms holding up my torso as I rocked and sobbed. Barely aware of Bingley beside me. I retched and only just made it to the bathroom to divest the only appreciated meal of the evening into the toilet bowl. I knelt on the cold floor with the tiles digging into my knees and convulsed. My head resting against the lid as I sobbed and vomited and shook. I have never in eight years wished so very much that I could be alone. My mascara stung my eyes and my teeth hurt. Horrible suppressed memories of hyperemesis flashed across my skull making me shake more. The terrifying feeling of my body being separate from myself and losing all control. My body only a vessel for my angst until it was all gone and the familiar aching sensation filled the void.

Emptied, I turned on the shower and put my shuddering self under the spray, as hot as I could before my skin flamed and stung. Scrubbed clean and pink and hollow until the shaking had steadied and only my insides that were quivering. I brushed my teeth in the soft pyjamas I wore when I birthed the Monkey then took a deep breath, walked back into my real life and the bedtime routine. Dressed the Possum, read him his stories. Feigned interest as he counted the tigers in his book before kissing him goodnight and walking out of his room.

Then, pretense expunged, the anger returned. The desperate snotty, tearful anger. Anger at Bingley for every time he smiles condescendingly and tells me "you'll be fine". Anger at those that don't understand. Anger at the fact that I did this to myself by accepting this job and pursuing this path. Anger at the hopelessness. Anger at my brain for not being as youthful and spry as it once was. Anger at ridiculous curricula that don't cover understanding of concepts but expect memorising of tables and formulae that I will never ever use in a clinical setting.

And then, eventually, I stopped crying. It took a while. I used a lot of tissues and I haven't picked them up yet. They're in a damp, snotty pile beside me on the desk. But once I'd stopped snivelling and the fog of despair had lifted a little I was left with the "now what" part of any complete, messy meltdown.

A very large, very tired, very sensible part of me wanted to go curl up in bed. Sleep for a month and wake up in another time and place. But the bigger part, the simultaneously damaging and preserving part of me picked up my bag of study notes and text books and pulled them out. Arranged them on the desk and picked up a highlighter. Made me practice exam questions and leaf through a hefty text book and ask Bingley to give me a pop quiz.

When I say I am going to fail this exam, it is not for dramatic effect - the proportion of persons who fail is actually quite high, and my best case scenario involves failing at least some sections. Acceptance of this fact is very difficult for me to come by, as it feels, rightly or wrongly, that I have so much more to prove; when all I know for certain is that I can prove that this is a very bad idea. There's also the stubborn fact that I've never failed an exam before, and I don't particularly want to. Aside from the ego thing, if/when I fail this, I have to do it again, and more than the study and the cost, it's feeling this way for another 6 months that terrifies me. At least with hyperemesis there was a baby to cuddle at the end.

Louboutins in Luxembourg

Our last full day in Paris started with breakfast in the 6th, wandering ostensibly in the direction of the Jardin Luxembourg. I was sure we were going the wrong way, but Bingley was in charge of directions for the day and so I left it up to him as we wandered through side streets and colourful alleys. After the customary tartine and oeufs we headed down yet another side street while I looked bewildered at Bingley knowing for sure that we were headed in the wrong direction to get to the gardens. In fact I was arguing this point as he gestured to a fabulous window display as a way of distracting me. 

I stopped arguing and instead smiled brilliantly at the display of perfectly finished shoes on display, sitting serenely in the window, their indecent red soles flashing to the keen observer. "Which one would you choose?" asked Bingley as I licked the window, French style, salivating over the perfection of form. "All of them" was my flippant answer, preparing to wander past, not really in the mood for pining over something I couldn't have. 

"You should try them on" said Bingley, opening the door, and that is how I found myself, sitting on the velvet ottoman in Christian Louboutin, admiring dozens of pairs of spectacular shoes while a sales girl looked on bemusedly. No one came to my assistance at first, and I am sure that they assumed that we were yet more gawkers intent on "browsing" as I fingered a pair of shoes and tried not to look at the neat price tags. And to be fair, I wasn't sure we were doing much more than that either, and was waiting to be thrown out Pretty Woman style, however Bingley insisted, stating that he wanted me to have a pair, as my birthday present. 

I was finally approached by the sales assistant who asked if she could help, and in terrible French I told her I wasn't sure what I was after, but that my husband wanted to buy me a pair for my birthday. After that, she was all smiles and soon had a little pile of boxes in size 36.5 sitting beside me. I loved them all, and in an alternate universe where paying hundreds of Euros for a pair of shoes is not laughable (though if it keeps trending as it is, this may be a possibility...) I wanted them all. In the end though, I had narrowed it down into a pair of plain navy pumps that were comfortable and perfect and a pair of black Mary Janes with an impossibly slender heel that Bingley loved. In the end, in spite of the 200E difference, I left the decision with him and then proceeded to grin inanely as we wandered the streets of Paris with a Louboutin carry bag dangling off my arm.

To say I was excited was a shallow echo of the jubilant girl bouncing through the streets of Paris like a 4 year old on Christmas morning. The weather was greyer than it had been for the few days prior but I felt luminescent. We found the Jardin Luxembourg with its majestic paths and flower beds and the spectacular trees and I couldn't help it, even knowing that the white gravel would tear into the red soles I had to try them on again, to wander in Paris, in amongst beautiful Autumn leaves wearing something so elegant and perfectly fitting that it seemed to have been made for my foot alone. 

And as I gazed at the trees and the sky and beamed, I was approached and asked for directions, I was smiled at, and I smiled and smiled. I may not have been a 21 year old etudiant, living off baguettes and beure but an older Jenn, a wiser one with more elegance than the youthful starry eyed one was there instead, tripping along in her Louboutins. 

The rest of the day was spent wandering along Rue Rivoli, through the Marais and ending up again at Trocadero for the best hot chocolate I had in France before tired and happy coming home to our apartment. We went out for dinner that night, and sat on purple velvet chairs, and though I knew that it was tomorrow to be goodbye to a city I love as a soulmate, I knew that we would meet again. And in the meantime, when I am sad, I can unwrap my beautiful shoes, do up the tiny buckles around my tiny ankles and marvel at the wonder that is a perfectly crafted pair of shoes.