Random Impertinent Thoughts

**Disclaimer: This is a total fluff piece. It is completely devoid of anything educational, inspirational, or helpful to anyone.

Scene: Early morning. Traffic has just started to break the silent pre-dawn. The wind gently rustles the leaves of the autumnal tree lined avenue. A lone figure stands erect in the darkness of a chilly kitchen.

I will wait until everyone has left the house and then I will get it. I remember where it is kept and I know where the ammunition is. Then go into the bathroom and get into the bath and pull the shower curtain. Don’t want splatter all over the room. Then I will have to summon the courage (some might say the cowardness) to unlatch the safety and put the thing to my head. Do I put the cold barrel in my mouth or do I stick it in my ear? I’ve heard of people missing and ending up as vegetables rather than dead. I want to die.

Also, I may have peed myself a little.

Scene: A few days before. The same man sitting in front of a coffee table, a half glass of amber liquid at his elbow. He is reading from a colourful book.

Boy, is this good stuff… according to “The Psychopathic God”
byR.G.L.Waite, Hitler was obsessed with maschochism and coprophilic
thoughts….He carried a whip, but he was only observed to use it on
himself, especially when frustrated by women. Of the seven women
suspected to have relations with little Adolf, six committed suicide, or
seriously tried to do so. His niece, Geli Raubal shot herself with
Hitler’s own gun. Supposedly he was pressuring her to commit such
perversions, that she would rather die ( note that the History channel hinted that Hitler liked Geli to squat over his face and urinate on him) .There are also hints of
autoerotic asphyxiation, not to mention lots of black leather and shiny
boots. It is well established that he only had one testicle, and was
frequently described as having very feminine gestures. He seems to be
both obsessed with sex and incapable of intercourse.
He refused to dance.
As for homosexuality, his best friend, and prison roommate, Rudolf
Hess, was known as “Fraulein Anna” to a select few, and some think that
the famous flight to England was the result of a lover’s spat. All I
can say, as an old hippie, was that a fat joint and a B.J. might have
saved the world a whole lot of trouble……Steve w.

Scene:  darkness. Night sweats have woken the man. His thoughts turn to – black-and-white thinking, catastrophizing, emotional reasoning, discounting the positive, faulty comparisons and false expectations.

Inchoate – An inchoate offense, inchoate offence, or inchoate crime is the crime of preparing for or seeking to commit another crime. The most common example of an inchoate offense is conspiracy. “Inchoate offense” has been defined as “Conduct deemed criminal without actual harm being done, provided that the harm that would have occurred is one the law tries to prevent.

Scene: Skip the night and the same man is now in the lightening drawing room to the front of the house as the early morning sun streams through the break in the curtains.

So, back to me. I hear the sounds of the neighbourhood as I hold the cold metal to my head. They seem amplified; as if by making this decision I have somehow enhanced my senses. My urine certainly smells bad. My whole body smells as if it is rotting from the inside. I remember from my

My work explores the relationship between acquired synesthesia and life as perfomance.

With influences as diverse as Nietzsche and Andy Warhol, new tensions are created from both explicit and implicit layers.

Ever since I was a student I have been fascinated by the ephemeral nature of meaning. What starts out as hope soon becomes debased into a dialectic of greed, leaving only a sense of what could have been and the possibility of a new reality.

As spatial forms become transformed through boundaried and personal practice, the viewer is left with an impression of the possibilities of our era.

Nahhh!!!

My work explores the relationship between emerging sexualities and emotional memories.

With influences as diverse as Kierkegaard and Frida Kahlo, new tensions are generated from both traditional and modern layers.

Ever since I was a teenager I have been fascinated by the theoretical limits of the human condition. What starts out as hope soon becomes corrupted into a tragedy of temptation, leaving only a sense of what could have been and the possibility of a new reality.

As spatial forms become transformed through emergent and personal practice, the viewer is left with an insight into the edges of our era.

Scene: Later

Bone chilling cold. He stands, gazing out of the window. The man who stares back at him has the face of a stranger. The face was aged; lines running across the forehead and down the sides of already plumped jowls. The eyes were narrow, pinpoints in the reflected glass. He thought “they make such a fuss of the little things – a trait of small countries full of under achievers.”  He thinks to himself as he turns away “if you were a gesture you would be a shrug”

Scene: a year earlier.

She was heavily insulated against the cold, face swaddled in a red tartan scarf; she sucked in great breaths of air and exhaled – her breath like water laden exhaust smoke on a frosty morning. She waved at me and, momentarily, I forgot the nature of my relationship to her. Had I dreamt the intimate sharing of details of the best-left-unsaid or did we just sit, voiceless, in that room? I started to walk away when her high, thin, reedy voice cut through the still air

“Help me – please help me “

It had always been a tempestuous relationship. She, as a tow headed seven year old had worshipped him but as she matured that turned into a kind of Mexican standoff where they alternated between mutual admiration and mutual hatred.  It is said that fathers and daughters a like this. He hoped that the other part of the myth was also true – that the bond was never broken.

Scene: an indeterminate time earlier – restored and retrieved from the brain

She left me. There was a note on the kitchen table that read ‘I have left you. When you read this I will be thousands of miles away. I am not going to tell you where I am going and I don’t want you to try and find me. We are finished. I can no longer bear to be in the same room as you. In the last six months I have told you that unless you stopped drinking this would happen. You haven’t, and it has. Goodbye.’

I put the note back in the toast rack that served as our filing system. Alongside the telephone and insurance bills. The constant reminders of our life together. My first thought was a tall glass of ice-cold vodka and tomato juice from the refrigerator. Maybe Estella was right but I quickly pushed that to a part of my mind that also held memories of my father and dead daughter. Our dead daughter.

I put on my reflective sunglasses in preparedness to venturing outside. Someone once said that if a person is doing that to repel the outside world, imagine what is going on inside their head. I detest smart people like that. People who are what I call superficially secure in their christian-values worlds.

The little shit seat kicker sitting behind me – running his fucking little; toy car up and down – up and down the window sill – his parents oblivious  or not caring. I could lean over the seat and poke his fucking little eye out with my plastic fork which I have removed all but one tine. I feel better already.

They lay in the darkened bedroom together, bodies stretched out on the narrow single bed, staring at the roof. There was a torch but they had no use for it tonight as they lay there plotting. Tomorrow, as they made their way to school, he would turn onto the track about half way to the front gates. The track was dark but offered a shortcut. They would time it so they were behind him. They now conspired together to get the words right. The words that would burn themselves into his brain. The words that they would repeat as they left school to go home so that he could hear them in all their unpleasantness. They giggled and twined their fingers together as they conspired to kill a soul.

It could be a prison yard – barricaded from the street by mechanical arms – the dark interior poorly illuminated by a barely functioning fluorescent light which flickers – on/off, on – off. Dark, brooding figures fork little bunches, handing around bottles, joints, pipes. A family waddles down the ramp that connects the underground park to the mall. Hormone disfigured bodies, breasts impossibly large on a 10 year old girl, the overdeveloped shoulders as if she was a short put thrower. Her eyes swollen and blackened but not from makeup but some vague internal deficiency that will only be discovered when she has breed another generation of her ilk. She is destined to become like her over4sized and 13 year senior mother.

“Jayden. Yoise won’t come back here again if youse keep on behaving like that ‘ – she screeches as she backhands the girl.

Inside the mall an enormous women squats on a stool which looks on the verge of collapsing – hair dyed blonde so many times it looks like hot steel. She is admiring a $1080 ring on her pudgy finger while her mullet headed partner or ‘friend” sporting the ubiquitous Holden t-shirt mentally calculates whether last night’s blow job was worth this.

I am reliably informed that many of these people make some effort to look attractive to each other until they are married (usually involving at least ten grands worth of rings and maybe another 25 in wedding arrangements and then they let themselves go.)

He sweeps into the room, eyes narrowed, cocky swagger, hands already going through their routine. A quick look around and he has summarised who is with and who is against him. He barks out a command as he discards his jacket to some underling who hangs it up. It better be crease free and untainted by smoke when he wants it back.

Veronica cowers in the corner where she hopes she will go unnoticed. God forbid if he decides to ask her anything. She would be paralyzed by fear, Could not, would not, be forced to answer.

He is now centre stage sand delivers his messages in a machine gun burst of names and verbs. There are no pleases or thank you’s for this man. “What do you want?”

They came from the island of Great Britain to the continent of Australia mostly as convicts or indentured labourers. Poor, uneducated, uncouth peoples who populated this vast country and rapidly took it from the indigenous peoples. Hundreds of years later that generation has gradually turned the soils to produce the best wines and foods in the world (although to attain this greatness the immigrants looked to more recent immigrations from Italy, Greece, Germany and latterly Asia). But they still have not left behind that convict culture. The hotel where I wrote this from has about a page of unprecedented rules for anyone who is ‘obnoxious, drunk, uncouth, or a smoker”. The elaborate punishments are not only the obligatory fines, but banishment from this and any other like establishment(‘we will inform all other hoteliers in Australia as to who you are  and you can guarantee that you will not be accommodated”) Oh – by-the-way – give a false name is a punishable offence as well.

Even the language is derived from prison. Slang, code words, abbreviations are almost unintelligible to the traveller. Salvo (salvation army shop), servo (service station), garbo ( refuse/ recycling engineer), Kangaroos loose in the top paddock : Intellectually inadequate (“he’s got kangaroos loose in the top paddock”), Nipper : young surf lifesaver, Sheepshagger : A New Zealander.

And the newspapers are full of it. Debra Buckskin ( beat up her ‘colored footballer husband (and its only Australian rules when we talk about football) ; Madelaine Pulver (18) vicim of a bomb hoax without any seemingly obvious relationship to the vicim or the victims family )  Judy Moran (gangland killer mum who is now behind bars for life; Angelika Gavare (murders an old lady to get the proceeds form her house after parts of the dead women’s body are found bagged up – she quotes – “old people are always wandering off – she probably wandered off, got lost and died) ; and finally the driver of as car that kills a gang member in prison now fears for his life that he will be murdered on orders from the prison inmate.

The little shit seat kicker sitting behind me – running his fucking little; toy car up and down – up and down the window sill – his parents oblivious  or not caring. I could lean over the seat and poke his fucking little eye out with my plastic fork which I have removed all but one tine.  But hey! Each to his own. He has every right to amuse himself on this incredibly boring and lengthy flight. I might even offer him my complimentary pottle of ice cream. .

It was an older part of the city. The hill rose sharply from the end of the main street and twisted and turned to the historic lookout, which overlooked the city and harbour. The roads were lined by turn of the century wooden villa’s, mostly now occupied by the affluent young who flocked to the city to make their reputations, and hopefully, fortunes. The streets were narrow but the local council allowed on street parking which made them virtually un-navigatible. A perfect place for a fire.

Jason strolled through the mall looking at the human detritus sprawled against the surrounding walls. Filth. The word echoed through his head and seemed to reverberate throughout the mall. Mother had yelled that word. “You and your father are nothing but filth. He’s gone, thank God! Get out of my sight, you foul boy. Go.” She usually did this when she was deep in her cups, which was more often than not these days. He had long given up the pretence of either school or job. She seldom asked anymore where he was going or had been. He pretty much had the run of the house. He could be home at 7pm or 4am and she was usually unconscious. Either in her bed and if she hadn’t made that an armchair, a floor, the bath. She was a menace driving and Jason took her for her weekly trips to the liquor store, doctor, and supermarket.

A bulky youth jostled Jason and then glared at him. “What you looking at white boy?” Jason averted his eyes but the youth persisted. “Speak up – you little white shit.” Jason could hear the rising noise as people anticipated a fight. He muttered something but that would not satisfy his tormentor. Next minute Jason was lying on the ground, blood streaming from his mouth. Then the dull pain of a boot in his stomach and groin. He rolled himself into a ball and the attack stopped. The crowd moved onto the next trouble spot of the evening.

Jason next felt a hand helping him to his feet.

“You all right son?” He looked into the eyes of a very red-faced policeman. Jason momentarily forgot his discomfort as an unreasonable fear seized him.

“Iiiimmmm a-aa-all-l-l-r-ig.” Jason stuttered out.

“I saw the commotion from up the mall but I couldn’t get here in time. I know the chap and I’ll catch up with him later on. Do you want to press charges”

“N-n-n”-n-no n-n-n-no

Jason couldn’t wait to get away but the policeman seemed to want to make sure that he was all right before he let him go.

Later that night. Jason, bloody mouth caked dry, approaches the large cream villa by way of the alley shaded from the streetlight by a large spreading pohutakawa tree. He takes off his haversack and removes the tool. Using his

screwdriver he forces the sidedoor and enters the laundry. Here tenants have not only their laundry but also discarded boxes, wrapping paper, old sacks, fuel for lawnmowers. Jason listens for any sounds of above him as he quickly sets his device.

He lights the mantle, which is already impregnated with candle oil. He had tried kerosene but the smell clung to his hands and clothing. This will burn slowly and allow him to get away from the scene. The mantle leads to a  Beehive, Handypack ‘New Thicker, Longer Match-Contents 250 Matches’ matchbox which contains the crumbled heads of a dozen or so matches and two Lucifer firelighters. This will flare and set alight the rubbish that Jason has stacked over the device. Within a few minutes the laundry will be a blazing ball of fire. Quickly this will set alight the cladding and within a few more minutes the whole building will be alight. Once the fire gets to the lawnmower petrol there will be no stopping it. Jason manages to get across the block, up the grass bank and then into the next row of houses before he can hear the smoke alarms screaming. Far away, the first sirens from the fire engines can be heard but Jason knows by the time they get here it will be too late. There will be no stopping it.

Jason scrambles out of the building, over the road and up a flight of stairs to the adjoining street and enters another building. As he draws the door closed behind him he hears the sounds of the approaching engines, and his mounting excitement has turned his careful planning into an action replay of the mall scene. He fumbles, drops his matches and then the incidenary device falls out of his grip and the mantle comes out of the second matchbox. When he opens it, it is upside down and the broken up matchheads and parts of firelighter spill out. He scurries out of the basement and joins the watching crowd.

It is said that arsonists derive something akin to sexual pleasure from watching the results of their handiwork. For Jason the pleasure is hearing the voices fill his head, then fade. As they go he is filled with a sense of peace. A peace where mother only smiles benignly and holds out her hands to her son, a proud smile on her face. “My boy. I am so proud. Look at what you do. You make your old mother so proud.”  This is Jason’s twelfth fire in as many months.

It had first come to him when he was listening to a Beatles song. ‘Fixing a hole where the rain gets in to stop my mind from wandering.’ It just triggered something in Jason. He had read that about Charlie Manson. ‘Helter Skelter’ it had been. The devils music his mother said. She favoured Sinatra and that preposterous Dean Martin with his drinking schtick. So he thought the lyrics through and they just translated into ‘make fires’.

The first one had been clumsy, but he kept getting better and better. There was still the occasional mistake. Mostly when he got very nervous. Like the second one tonight. That, in itself, was a little unusual because he generally became very calm. Almost cold. Icy calm.

After the fire Jason makes his way back to the car which he had carefully parked, legally, outside the fire station. The fire station was next to the supermarket and a major theatre and hotel, so cars came and went. One could be very anonymous. Jason slowly drove away, heading for the city lookout, high on the top of Mt Overview.

Minutes later he was looking out over the city. The spread of light, the neon signs flashing their hypnotic images, the streams of cars departing the city, and there, to the right, the scene of his latest triumph. Jason happily drove down the winding path from the lookout. Rounding the first curve he swerved to avoid an upcoming car. Somehow the right front wheel of his care left the road. He slammed on the brakes before realising his mistake and the car bumped into something, jumped into the air, and then came to a rest, half way over the bank. In fact it was like a cartoon. Here he was in a car, balanced on the edge of a cliff that dropped fifty feet to a gully. And to make matters worse Jason could smell petrol. Petrol, not kerosene, of which he had a plentiful supply of in his car boot. A flash in the rear vision mirror made Jason look up and to his horror he saw flames licking the very same boot. The car that he had swerved to avoid had stopped and the driver was running towards Jason, yelling for him to stay put.

Jason struggled out of his seat harness and put all his weight into the driver’s door. As he did the car slid further toward the edge of the drop. The other driver increased his yelling and now his arms were waving. Jason scrambled out of the car and managed to get his feet onto the bonnet. If he could now get himself upright he could leap onto solid ground. Behind him he could hear the roar as the flames took hold of what was stored in the boot. The other driver was yelling at him to jump and Jason nearly made it. As he took the final step that would get him to freedom, he hesitated. As he hesitated the car slid and Jason, car, and pyrotechnics slid with it in a fireball that exploded half way down the cliff.

For sale: three wedding dresses and four bridesmaid dresses. Only used once. Slight staining on two.  Also assorted accessories for weddings. Ph

Frank was furious. Furious with the stupid, stupid father of the bride. She stormed down the path with his sniggering and laughter still ringing in her ears. How dare he laugh at her. He had laughed first at her name.

“What sort of a name is that? Frank is a boy’s name. “

Actually she was named after Frank Vargas – the famous French female crime-writer. So there mister smarty pants form the sticks. Obviously you missed the brain gene.

Then he had laughed at her suggestion that he adorn the bridal car (actually a rental from a low budget out-of- town Hicksville outfit), with bridal ribbons. He had looked at the article as she pushed them into his hand and then dropped them onto a nearby seat and guffawed in that awful accent.

He looked at her. She was passably attractive in a willowy, doll-like, foreign way. She was tall. Very tall. Taller than him and rail thin. Her complexion made her look the tinniest bit like a doll and her tight raspberry blond curls added to that imagery. She seemed to speak out the side of her mouth but her voice had a slight hardness to it. Not shrill – but the same final effect. You wanted to be out of her company. He saw her as a gazelle – but one that could bite.

She was only trying to help. Frank knew that all her friends welcomed her “little intrusions” into their lives. Frank enriched their existences’. She had a knack of making everything just right. Why just the other week her other “best friend” Janey, had said to her in confidence that what Frank had done for her wedding arrangements was just “hokey”. That meant good – right?

Frank thought of what she had done for N. The poor girl. But she did come from that backward country across the ditch. New Zealand. She had heard they all lived on farms and did disgusting things with sheep. A little bit of sick slid into the back of Franks mouthy Imagine! Sheep! Yuck! Well N had gone out and bought a ‘frock’ for her wedding but the poor girl didn’t have a clue. Frank had three perfectly good wedding dresses just lying idle in her closet and she knew that for as little as $3000 Australian dollars she could make one that would just suit the little beach wedding that N had planned. And she could talk her into upgrading that ring. A girl just had to get the best deal on rings. A minimum of $20,000 A dollars. A minimum of $30,000 on the wedding. The whole nine yards. Frank, herself had topped her first wedding by making Alistar fork out $43,455 for her second crowning. He just loved her so much. Why everybody loved Frank.

When she thought of N’s father the red mist descended. She would just go out and decorate that car herself. Damn him and damn his eyes.

Best man jumps off Glenelg Jetty to save woman

• Doug Robertson, Police Reporter
• From: AdelaideNow
• November 29, 2010 11:36AM

The best-dressed mystery rescuers were on the jetty having their wedding party photographs taken when the woman, 55, fell into the water about 6pm.

The bride, who was a trained nurse, began CPR after the best man, who jumped into the water in his wedding suit, pulled the unconscious woman from the shallow water to the beach.

Surf lifesavers say that, without their intervention, the woman might have died.

The woman had stopped breathing, with the bride starting CPR on the beach while others called lifesavers who were nearby.

Surf Life Saving SA volunteers arrived to assist before SA Ambulance officers took over.

Surf Life Saving SA state manager Shane Daw said the injured woman was with another female about the same age before falling from the jetty.

And now look what had happened. That N! She always ends up the centre of attention. It should be about me! Here I am standing, in isolation on the stupid pier while N and J and A are interviewed by TV. Because she saved someone’s life. Jeez! If I was a nurse and wasn’t afraid to get my good dress wet and knew how to do CPR I would have been in that water as quick as a flash. But no! It’s all about here. ‘Superbride” to the rescue. I ask you. What have I done wrong?

“I know. I’ll talk to her. Yeah! Talk to N. Find out what makes her tick. Get up close and personal.

Hey N!”

“ have you ever heard of the  Dunning-Kruger effect?

“No! Why?”

“Well it just explains some things I have been thinking about “

“So what is this  DunKrug thingy?”

“ .The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which “people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast, the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people.”

“ Wow. Does that mean that you think I think I am smarter than you? I am only trying to help. Why is it that I always end up getting hated by everyone when all I want to do is make your life better? Like mine. See – I am happy.”

“Maybe. Maybe not so much.”

“ I mean there are some real idiots in this world. For example.  When my husband and I arrived at our local Ford dealer to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver’s side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I
instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked. ‘Hey,’ I announced to the Fitter/Mechanic, ‘its open!’ His reply, ‘I know. I already did that side.’ It just makes you think. Some people have to be prodded and poked”

“Are you implying that I am dummer than a guy who can’t carry out a simple task?”

“No! Heaven forbid friend. I just see that sometimes you need a little push. A friendly hand to the small of your back”

“Hello. My name is George, oh! But most of my good friends call me Theo” he said, extending his hand.

She placed her teacup back onto the table.  Theo took her hand and admired the feel of her thin, delicate fingers intertwined in his own.

“Janine,” she said, “and what a beautiful thing to say George.”

“Janine,” Theo said, “you have the most beautiful hands. You must be the most beautiful woman here.”

She smiled at him. “Why thank you – George “.

Her teeth were whiter than the porcelain that held her tea. She withdrew her hand and picked up the teacup again and sipped lightly.

“I moved here about a month ago. I’ve been wondering who you are,” George said, gently settling into a chair nearby. He leaned his cane against the table and wondered if they were her natural teeth or dentures. George decided it felt better if he thought they were her own teeth.

“I noticed when you arrived,” Janine said, wiping a small smudge of lipstick from the teacup. She thought to herself that George or Theo was one of the better dressed men there. Today, he was wearing navy blue slacks (with a sharp crease – she like that), black loafers (and they were freshly shined – she liked that even better), a cream colored dress shirt (slightly stained and frayed around the collar and where was the cravat or tie?), and a tan-colored sweater vest (rather plain but then he was an elderly gentleman). His thinning gray hair was brushed away from his face. His left eye was cloudy and grey. His right eye was a faded shade of blue.

“That’s wonderful,” he said, grinning. “I noticed you as well. How long have you lived here?”

“About five years,” Janine said.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

“It’s a long story but the short version is I fell and I broke my hip,” she said, slowly swiveling the wheelchair around to face him.

George would liked to have heard the longer version but time had become very flexible lately. “That’s unfortunate, though that clearly has not affected how you move yourself… or other people.”

“You’re charming,” she said, smiling coyly at him and flashing those teeth again. “And you? What has brought you to the Hillcrest Nursing Home?”

“About six months ago, I had a stroke,” he murmured. After a pause, he said, “I can’t move around quite like I used to yet but I am told that I will make a full recovery. Be back to how I used to be. Fit as a buck rat.”

“Oh,” she said. “That’s too bad. Not the rat thing but the stroke”

She resumed drinking her tea. He watched her. She was indeed a striking woman. There was an awkward silence

“How have you been spending your time since you’ve been here?” she eventually asked. “Does anyone come to visit you?

“I have a son, but he lives far away.” George looked steadily at her. “I’d like to spend more of my time getting to know you.”

Janine smiled and adjusted the red bow that was tied to the armrest of her wheelchair. “George, ummm Theo. This is a nice place, but like all things good it costs. How do you pay for the rent here?”

George looked at her quizzically before replying, “Medicaid. Why do you ask?”

Janine frowned. “Just wondering,” she murmured. She turned her wheelchair back to the table and took another sip of her tea. She didn’t lift her eyes from the cup afterwards.

George cleared his throat, wondering what had just happened. After taking a deep breath, he said, “Janine, perhaps we could meet for dessert after dinner tonight? I could bring a pastry to your room.”

Janine pushed the teacup towards the center of the table. Before wheeling herself away, she said, “George, no money, no honey.”An Elderly Moment

A hat nod to Welcome Home

Posted by Guest Blogger at Monday, April 12, 2010

by Shaker bekitty, a New Zealand citizen who, until recently, was living with her partner in Knoxville, Tennessee. And she’s found that she’s not all that fond of riding around LA at night while handcuffed.

Welcome Home (the copy)

It all started with Wellington, April 15 NZPA – An occupational therapist who worked four years without a practicing certificate has been censured and fined, but secured permanent name suppression in light of her depression.

The woman, identified in the New Zealand Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal’s decision only as “Ms O” had been registered with the Occupational Therapy Board since 1995.

Oh the ignominy! I know in my heart of hearts that this is my own fault but really coming on top of all the troubles I have had recently, this really is the spoiled icing on the cake.

You see I am travelling to America to visit my daughter and step daughter and because of the troubles I overstayed my welcome the last time and now – this!

It all started innocently enough. Had my own practice, doing well, a bit overweight but a stable home life – children doing well but overseas – and then.  It was the competency thing. The NZ Government suddenly decided that there was too much shenanigans going on with dodgy practitioners who had not had any real training since they left their original course where they got their degrees. So they bought in this scheme where you had to submit a portfolio of all your work each year and submit it when you applied for your annual practicing certificate. This meant a whole lot of meaningless courses and seeing someone for regular supervision. Why did I need this? I have been practicing for ten years – I know what I am doing. However, I needed to do it but I became paralyzed with fear about how I was going to do all the things they wanted of me and then I had the back thing which h meant that I had to have surgery and it was urgent so I went through the private sector which sucked $22556 from my savings so I borrowed from the business and then the accountant worked out that I needed to pay back over $35000 and ——-. Well needless to say I became somewhat panicked by all of this and I must admit I made a big mistake and started to think of easy ways out and I started going to the casino and, well one thing lead to another and I started to find myself at the casino most mornings with a drink in my hand and no real knowledge of how much I had gambled or how much was now on my tab. The accountant felt duty bound to tell my business partner and she decided to sue me and then the police got involved and in the heat if all of this I had forgotten to apply for my annual practicing certificate for four years. So I’m broke, have no business, a shitty bad back which I have to take pain medication for which knocks me out and a serious gambling and drinking problem. Then Fred goes and has a heart attack and then another and then another and all of a sudden I am standing in the crematorium clutching an urn and some insincere woman is saying she is sorry for my loss and I think – I need a holiday. So I go to America and it’s so good to be away from all of this shit that I stay an extra week. Don’t think anything of it and go home but it’s not much better so I decide I will go back got see my daughter again and – well here I am at LAX and things have gone from bad to much, much worse.

I had applied for a US visa in early July of 2007, and was told that I had to submit myself for an interview with an officer of the American Consulate in Auckland, since they didn’t have an office in Dunedin, my home town. No problem – I flew up to Auckland, stayed the night with my friend and turned up for my interview the following morning.

I went in to the consulate and waited my turn to see an official. Ten minutes later, my name was called.

“How long are you planning to stay in the United States?”

“Two years.”

“You won’t be able to do that. The best we can give you is a B1/B2 visa, that will allow you to stay for six months at a time, but you will have to leave United States soil in between those times. And it will get progressively harder for you to gain re-entry into the US each time you re-apply. Who would you be staying with?”

“My daughter and granddaughter. They are dual citizens. Well she is my step daughter actually”

I have always thought of my step daughter as my daughter but have never formally adopted her. Didn’t really think it would ever be an issue.

“Your step-daughter?”

“Yes! I have never adopted.”

“Domestic partnerships of this type aren’t recognized in the US. You would be classified as an alien. You also won’t be allowed to work. I see also that you overstayed your visa last year”

“I am aware of that, yes. But I was stressed at the time and my husband had died and ——-“I trailed off because even to myself I sounded faintly pathetic.

The official looked at me over his bifocals and scowled. “

“Where would you be staying? And you realize that this is a serious offence. Is there anything else I should know about your circumstances? Any criminal convictions? Any major health problems that might flare up in the USA?”

“Roswell, New Mexico. She has a job there and I have independent funds. I will not require any US funds. No! Nothing else”. God ! Had I dug myself another deep hole? What about the problem with the board, the embezzlement, the back, the court cases.

“Hmm. Alright. You can go home now. Leave your passport. It will be posted back to you in a few days with our decision.”

“Thank you.”

So I flew back down to Dunedin got my new flash passport (and visa!) a few days later as promised, and less than a month later, we flew to Roswell via Los Angeles

I was interviewed and searched, fingerprinted, eyes lasered on my first visit
Anyway, all went reasonably well, and I was allowed back in, a little more grudgingly each time. Until last week.

My plan was to fly from Dunedin to Wellington to Los Angeles, and then Albuquerque where my daughter would pick me up and we would drive to Roswell. I got as far as LAX.

I got sent for an interview. I’d expected it. No big problem. I’d put aside five hours in LA just in case.

The interview did not go well. I was interviewed by an officer who was grumpy and just wanted her lunch. He also seemed rather confused about where I had come from, a problem that is not atypical of as lot of Americans who either think that we are part of Australia and shag sheep all day.

Henry is on border patrol duty today. Henry is in his late forties and Henry is pissed. He is pissed because he hates this job and he is pissed because everything is going to hell and a handbasket. The television and the radio say that everything is fine in the U S of A. We are over the recession and we are in recovery but all around him Henry sees different.  America’s  reactions to this impasse vary. The business community, for example, shows every sign of being in a state of denial. Confidence surveys reveal a wild optimism almost entirely lacking in evidentiary justification. Most economists agree that economic recovery – where it is happening at all – is occurring at a snail’s pace, and that there is significant risk of a second downturn. When required to focus exclusively on their own firms, most business-people share the experts’ pessimism. But ask them to pronounce on the prospects for the nation as a whole and what can only be described as “magical thinking” takes over.

And don’t get Henry started on other nationalities. He has to deal with them every day. There are the Germans who arrogantly demand to be let through border control first and without any delays. Then the Israelis who think their shit don’t stink. And the bloody cheese eating surrender monkey French who hold their arrogant , aristocratic noses high and pretend that the rest of the world are just too stupid to breath the same air. And now Henry is confronted by this idiot form new Zealand. Henry has a vague idea where that country is- somewhere west of England, but he also knows they have some place that is French called Akroa or some such nonsense. They are probably just like the French, with all those Muslims running around. And this woman has the arrogance to tell him that she has lived in the U S of A for a year before. Thinks she’s practically a citizen. Well wake up and smell the grass Mister French Noo zealandy. You are going to get the Henry treatment. And there is not a thing you can do about it because Homeland security and border control can do anything they damn well like.

He accused me straightaway of living in the US, and didn’t believe me when I said that (a) I was a New Zealand citizen, and had absolutely no plans to become a US citizen, (b) that I wasn’t working, and (c) that I was planning to return to NZ for good in September when the northern summer was ending.

“Are you living in the United States?”

“I suppose so. But – “

“This interview is over. Go and sit over there.”

My heart sank. Ohshitohshitohshit.

I sat down, and pulled out my cellphone. Katrina would be waiting for me in Albuquerque. I had to let her know what had happened.

“Katrina? I’ve just had my interview. I don’t think they’re going to let me back in.”

“WHAAAT?!?”

Then one of the Customs officials saw me and yelled “Put down the phone!”

“I’ve got to go.” And I hung up.

A few minutes later, I was told to go inside a small room. Two customs officials, both women, went with me. One of them told me to stand facing the wall, with my hands at head level, palms flat on the wall. Then she patted me down.
Then they took me to a table and searched my bag. They kept holding up various items and asking me what they were. For example, one of them held up some Panadeine tablets, still in their blisterpack. “What are these?”

“Painkillers. Paracetamol – you call it acetominaphen – and codeine. I use them for chronic back pain.”

“Do you hold a prescription for them?”

“No. They’re an over-the-counter drug in New Zealand.”

“Mam  – Codeine in low concentration with paracetemol/acetaminophen  is a Schedule V drug in the USA. As such it’s OTC in some states and not in others. “

“ What the fuck is OTC?”

“ Mamm – watch your language. We do not tolerate potty mouths in this airport.”

After my bag was searched, they told me to put it over next to the Customs counter. Then they took me to another room, where I was photographed, fingerprinted, and asked some more questions. Then they took me to another cubicle, where I was interrogated as to my intentions in the US and why I should be permitted to stay. In fact, it was more the case that they were looking for reasons to kick me out.

At the end of the interrogation, I was told that from my answers and my previous behaviour (coming in and out of the US legally? WTF?) had rendered me inadmissible to the United States, but that his boss would make the final decision. I was also told that there was some computer information that I had been involved in some illegal criminal activities in NZ and that I was on a list. I was then taken to yet another room – this one with a TV and my heart sank as I heard the key turn. I was locked in a room in the bowels of LAX in a country that now treated me as an illegal alien, a criminal, a drug dealer and an immoral person who could not organise my personal affairs and adopt my daughter who I had bought up since she was six months old.

I won’t go into the next bit because to be perfectly frank that is going to cost me a few more thousand inn therapist fees if and when I get back to New Zealand, but while a realize that I have made some mistakes in my – well- more than a few mistakes in my life, this is no way for a country to treat visitors. Sure, I could have been politely informed that I did not meet the entry criteria for a prolonged stay in the USA and they were sorry but –. But to be treated like a criminal by people like Henry who are the face of America is intolerable

A hat nod to Welcome Home

Posted by Guest Blogger at Monday, April 12, 2010

by Shaker bekitty, a New Zealand citizen who, until recently, was living with her partner in Knoxville, Tennessee. And she’s found that she’s not all that fond of riding around LA at night while handcuffed.

“ I once heard a good one that we could use. It goes something like this .          I think it was ‘ Self-trust is the first secret of success. –Ralph Waldo Emerson.’”

“Yeah! And then print it all up in one of those purple folders and distribute with a gimmicky little novelty item.”

I listened with growing incredulity. Two years ago, these people had all been rational, sensible, adult people. They now seemed as if they had been infected with a terrible marketing illness. I had been away from corporate life too long.

“Are you left or right handed?”

I looked at him quizzically (I hoped).

“Left or right handed?” he gasped in an increasingly pressured voice.

“Right”

“Too bad. We could do with some more lefties. We have a Corporate Left Handed Group that meets and brainstorms every second week. Tries to overcome the problem of the lepdidostra in the workplace,” he concluded smugly.

“What?”

“Meets very second Tuesday in the first Conference room. Just after the Gardening with Orchids.”

I was beginning to feel the slightest bit faint headed.

“You would have had that at the last place you worked at the er…..,’ he glanced down at the piece of paper in front of him, “the Health Clinic?”

I tried to remember if I had even spoken to anyone in the ghastly place in the last six weeks of my employment. “We sort of kept ourselves to ourselves,” I ended up saying. I glanced through the Conference Room window and saw the young women who had ushered me into the building that morning. She was sobbing uncontrollably as she hunched over the wooden garden furniture. Someone moved toward her, put their arm around her shoulder, rubbed, and then passed a brown paper bag to her. Within seconds, she was laughing and scarfing down a cookie.

Day Two. I am informed that we have a new patient on the lower floor ward. I can hardly believe what I am hearing when they announce that she is 200 kgs.

“No not 200 lbs, which would be heavy enough. Two hundred kilograms.”

They giggle into their hands as they recount stories of taking similar patients down to the local gas works that has scales used to weigh the heavy coal trucks as they bring fuel for the furnaces.

“We drive them in on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, weigh the lot, drive off, unload them, back the ambulance, weigh it again, and bingo, you’ve got the weight of the fatty.”

I blanch. Where is the political correctness that I know slithers around in the basements of these organisations, waiting to rear up and bite anyone who doesn’t toe the line? I rush off into the ward to see if I can see this monster. I return after a half an hour. How can you hide 200 kgs of fat? I haven’t found her.

Day 14. I lunch with a group of co-workers. I have now managed to mentally remember faces that go with nametags and telephone numbers and job positions. If you want such and such then so and so is your person. All firmly ingrained. But, as I look across the cafeteria table, I see a mismatched nametag with a face. I know it’s mismatched because I have talked to Veronica the day before and she was a Clinical Neuropsychologist who had a master’s degree from a prestigious English University. I know because I talked to her about her Masters thesis and about England. We got on. Now she is Dr Carol Neumann, Senior Registrar. I glance across the room. Here is another person who the day before was an aide. The lowest health position. Now she is wearing all the regalia; the watch, the badge, the little symbol thing. She is a registered health professional. Able to make life and death decisions while she hovers on her professional feet. I shake my head. Surely they wouldn’t so this on a ward of people who are confused, unstable, fragile?

I am in a meeting with a senior member of staff when we come upon a vexating question, which demands the consultation of a young consultant. Female. He, of fifty or more years, is suddenly fuelled with energy as he skips across the corridor and bangs on her office door. His sagging jowls and gut have suddenly and miraculously hardened up and his voice assumes a new trill as he enters the office.

“Just need a quicky,” he blurts out arching his darkened eyebrows and sneering with a gauche, mock, sexuality. “Just need a quicky,” he repeats leering now and then if she hadn’t already got the sexual innuendo he turns to me and repeats the performance.

She is quite accommodating and I realise that this is probably not the first time that such an encounter has happened. I don’t know which one to be more embarrassed for.

We have a lunchtime presentation from the Quality Control police. This is a new thing in the organisation and is supposed to earn them something called ‘accreditation’. From what I can work out accreditation will allow them to do exactly as they were doing before but to have a plaque on the wall that says that there are lots of bits of paper around the building that say that they are good at what they do. Everyone listens in what I think is a somewhat enforced enrapture for the first hour then I hear the occasional beeper going off and certain people disappear never to be seen again. Then one of the presenters makes a foolish mistake and asks if there are any questions. They come and it is evident that, for the sake of politeness or maybe misplaced sorrow, they are malicious attacks on the whole concept of Quality Control. The two presenters are professional and they deflect the moans with faint praise and, increasingly, a kind of practiced condescension. Judiciously, they suggest a break for tea and sandwiches and the charade goes on for another half an hour before bothy sides concede a silent defeat and resume their day.

I am in yet another meeting. We are discussing something which I think is marginally related to anything useful in the sphere of things when my fellow worker suddenly rises to her feet and closes the door. Conspirationally she draws herself behind me and whispers that this is a commercially sensitive subject and we should not send out a memo to certain members of staff who may steal industrial secrets. Well, I’m normally bored nine on a scale of ten so I play along with her game. Next, we have her PA in the room and the three of us hatch an elaborate scheme to safeguard our commercially sensitive information. I am enthralled. So this is how they spice up there humdrum lives. I get home that night and find an email, blinking at me from the glowing screen. It informs me to forget everything that was discussed today. That I am no longer flabbergasted by this request tells me that I am slowly being assimilated into the organisation.

The week after I am innocently clearing my emails when one of the industrial spies sidles into my room, looks back down the corridor, and then whispers that he would like to talk to me about a sensitive subject. He quietly closes the door, peering back through the rapidly disappearing crack to make certain that no-one had glided down the hall and has their ear to the wood as he tells me a story full of conspiracies, plots, and Machiavellian machinations. He has been away from work for a few days because he received a vile letter from the business manager and he has been informed that he is slacking and needs to up his work rate if he is to remain in employment. This has caused so much stress that he has been unable to concentrate on his work and has had to contact a union representative. I listen sympathetically to him and start to realise that he is either seriously deluded or it is about time that I started drawing lines in the sand as to who I trust in this place. Rapidly it is becoming a mirror image of my former job. At least I have not been called to intervene and I make a vow that I will remain peripheral to all of this.

Day 36. She comes into my office again to tell me about her latest reearch idea. I don’t for a moment think that she has any desire to do any research. I secretly think that she is trying to seduce me. She poses on one leg and thrusts her chest out as she talks to me. It is not an unattractive sight. She is maybe in her mid thirties and has a very nice looking body which she tends to put at odd angles suggesting (to my warped mind) that these positions could be interesting sexual mechanics that we might try at some future date. This is perhaps her sixth visit and the time she spends with me gets longer and longer. Today she lets slip that she lost her husband to cancer twelve years ago. She also lets slip that although she looks after herself physically she has a bit of tinnae. I nod wisely and say I have a bit of Menieres disease myself, thinking I will dazzle her with my medical knowledge. She doesn’t even blink as she tactfully tells me she gets it after swimming in the physiotherapy pool and not using the mats properly. Then that moment comes. She is describing a creepy person she encountered when she first starting her working life and she starts stroking my arm and shoulder and rubbing up against me. Is this good acting or am I being made? I not so tactfully look at my clock and suggest that we resume this conversation over lunch with twenty other people watching.

Its time for the troops to be cajoled into another period of work. Patient numbers have been down, patient complaints have been up, and the Gumment is looking at cutting yet more costs. The Chief Executive issues a statement. We are to have a mid-winter celebration and he has promised a speaker, AN ANTARTIC EXPLORER, fine food, wine, and A PRTOMINENT BAND. He also sprinkles his newsletter with little snippets of praise, which are followed by WELL DONE’S and BE PROUD’S. I can just imagine him in his skyscraper office, looking down on his minions scurrying to and fro in the hospital lobby. The capital letters are for when he feels that he needs to yell. It probably doesn’t occur to him that the very people he is praising see him as faintly ridiculous.

A wide-eyed lady frantically pushes buttons on the security door, which prevents our ‘at-risk’ patients from venturing out into areas where they may be unsafe. Dressed in yellow, her hands shake as she cannot work out the simple four-digit code that releases the catch. She looks furtively along the corridor, as if she is trying to avoid meeting someone’s eyes. I ask if I can help with the door and she indicates that she wants to see one of the therapy staff but her husband must not know that she is in the building. I am puzzled but take the staff members name and go looking for him. She stands at the door, looking left and right and I am afraid she may try and escape before I can do my simple job. I notice that she has something large and shiny sticking out the top of her bag and I hope that this is not some instrument of destruction. I find the person she requires and she brushes past me as they move toward his office. Another staff member approaches me and asks where they have gone because yet another staff member wants to see the woman in yellow. I fight my need to find out what this is all about but I suspect it is a common occurrence. A stay in a hospital is often a time to enrich and strengthen a relationship. It is also a time when the bonds or chains are finally broken.

There were images of dead infants and toddlers, lovingly dressed and photographed for posterity. Although some of the children were shown simply lying on their beds, others were carefully posed with dolls or personal belongings. One picture taken by an unknown photographer was particularly haunting: a young girl had been propped up and made to hold drumsticks. In a small, hand-coloured daguerreotype framed in velvet, the little girl played with her favourite toy, even in death.

These family keepsakes may strike contemporary viewers as odd and perhaps even grotesque. Producing and circulating pictures of dead relatives or famous people is no longer an acceptable, everyday practice, even as there is a fascination with dead bodies in films and on television. When photographs appear at funerals today, they are more likely to replace the corpse than to image it. Typically placed atop a closed casket, modern pictures feature the deceased individual in life, often at a younger age or before illness struck

^{I don’t know if it was the light but he looked as though he were made from alabaster. His head was stretched backwards as if he had been straining to see something on the roof of the room. His mouth was open, jaw slack, and a fine line of spittle had spread down the left hand side of his chin. His face was stubbled with grey and white hairs; the nurses must have forgotten to shave him that morning or, figuring he was close to death, left him alone. His wife gently tried to close his mouth but, encountering pressure, her gentleness turned to anger as she forced his lower jaw shut. She wept inconsolably and, looking around her at the silent and unmoved gathering, she expressed loudly that he didn’t look good in death. His previously large vibrant body was parked now. Its engine had finally stopped, position at top-dead-centre.  His pyjama top was open to waist level and his singlet barely covered the matt of grey hairs that grew form his chest. The bottom half of his body was discretely covered with a red hospital blanket, concealing the tubes and drains that punctured his body. He had not died peacefully. He appeared as though he had to be have been wrenched from life, unwilling to commit to this final ignominy.}

^{So it was a shock to see the room where he lay the next day. He had been stretched out, dressed in his best suit (and underwear) and a thin smile had been carved on his face. He was wearing the blue shirt that he hated so much in life and what had the wife been thinking when she matched the suit with his cross trainers. He, who had been so conservative in life with clothing, was going to his final resting place dressed as bizarrely as the pet dog they dressed up and photographed when they had several gins on board. The coffin lay open and the lid was propped up incongruously on the nearby sideboard. A series of photo’s showed the man as he had been in life. Here he posed on his retirement day, hair brylceamed; tie gracefully tucked into his service jacket. Here he reclined on a bench in what must have been his trip to Italy to revisit his wartime haunts. Here, he playfully held his partner in a death lock while grinning at the camera. And here, on the front of his funeral eulogy was the same image. The ultimate revenge.}

^{They spoke of him. Here was a man I didn’t recognise. Had I grown so distant from him that I had forgotten the tenderness he could show to a young grandchild? Had I grown so distant that I didn’t believe the words he said of his son? I didn’t recognise the man or myself.}

^{Then I find myself working in a rehabilitation hospital whee a large part of the client group are males with strokes. I wander down the ward and look into bright, airy rooms, some with beds surrounded by deep blue curtains. I see men, not much different in age to myself, bent over feeding trays, arms dangling uselessly mouths dribbling as they try to move neglected limbs and muscles to give a greeting. A cold, icy fear grips my chest and I hurriedly complete the tasks I have and return to the haven of my room. Did I notice cards and balloons? Did I notice the one litre bottles of sugar filled drink? Did I not detect the faint whiff of cigarette smoke and, in one instance, alcohol?}