My Dorkiest Story Revisited...

Thanks to Miss Understood- for giving me the idea for this post. I may even enter the Dorkiest Story Ever Competition Myself! If you'd like the link try this one- or at least Google it if my first attempt at linking fails.

So here is an earlier post from my blog in which I longwindedly explain my dorkiest ever moment; it was then called The Story Of The Bogey Hole Cutter.

So Enjoy...

Eye.

My third class teacher once told me that I should never begin a story with the word 'eye'. It's a funny word when you say it in your mind, though, isn't it? Like 'sleep'. I'm saying this now because this is how things are for me; and sometimes I'll have to write things with a pen first before I can type them. So things might get a little confusing at times.

I'm telling you now so you know that this is how my story will be told- from the inside out. There are no real character's except for Me. It's nobody's story but mine. To completely confuse you I will add and delete paragraphs as I go, so just try and imagine that I am speaking to you if that will help. Don't be too worried; I'm not from a cult and I don't want to convert you to my way of thinking- I personally wouldn't like to be a clone- and even though I am an ugly witch on the inside, sometimes, basically I think I'm pretty harmless.

These are conversations of my mind, if you like, or trains of thought, and how I live my Life every day. You may have already noticed that there are often more than two meanings to everything I wonder. Eventually that might bother the shit out of you- but try and take the time to figure the words out. I like to remember things that other people don't find memorable too, so if you're the kind of person who hates that kind of thing then I suggest you stop listening right now.

I'm not sure yet if anyone will ever get to read this. For one thing, it will probably become more like therapy the more I get into it; which isn't necessarily a bad thing- for Me anyway- and at least I'm warning you now. For another, I am on a bit of a manic high at the minute, but when that ends I will probably go back to being my unmotivated self and this story will never get written. And I don't want you to hate me for being self-indulgent or insecure either. I can't help the way that I think anymore than I can rewire my brain; which could by all accounts be sitting in a lab in a vat somewhere.

Also; this isn't something I have chosen for Myself. More than likely I need professional help. Believe me- I've tried to get it but not one professional I've seen has yet been able to say what is so wrong about me. It isn't funny being depressed, paranoid and crazy, but it can be something you can learn to live with; even when those who are around you can't. I think I could stop putting the chemicals in- but where's the fun in that? There isn't. So if I'm drunk or stoned for a few hours a day I must deserve to be, right? Why shouldn't I have a few good hours out of an otherwise crappy day?

There. That's enough of an explanation. I hope you understand and are still here. I'll call this first story School Daze. Almost everything is true. It should be relatively painless. Read what I say out loud if it helps and in reverse when you can- it won't make any less sense; and good luck...if you're confused then imagine how I feel.

School doesn't seem like ages ago at all when I think about it. It was about the time that people really started to notice that I was a bit strange sometimes. I've always been a thinker; I like to know the meaning behind things and if I can't find out I'll make one up. Which is how, I suppose, I ended up with the Bogey-Hole Cutter.

I should explain, firstly, that my Grandmother lived in a haunted house at the time but has since moved to a lovely little unit near the shops with only half the number of steps to climb. Apparently when you are eighty, even if you are still fairly fit, this is a fairly important consideration. But the big old house had an old sea-captain named Ernie living there once, and, after he died, he lived in the manhole near Grandmother's bedroom. At night, when the wind came whistling up from the sea with the crash and salty mist of ocean spray, sometimes Ernie would come and make the pictures on the walls move. Or at least I think he did. That house played tricks on your mind.

A lot of my nightmares have been played out here. Every room has got it's own story but my favourite place is on the Landing. You've got three choices of steps to take; choose left and you are with the other kids. Choose right and you can eavesdrop on the adult's conversations at the end of the long corridor, and when we choose going downstairs we love siding down the wooden banister all the way to the bottom. Apparently the Landing is where the Uncle once pulled a gun on the Cousin too, but I liked it so much because there was this set of eight pictures on the wall that I could really relate to for some reason- even then.

It was a story about a family who at first lived the good life, but once they were introduced to the Bottle their lives' went up the shit; and the father ends up murdering the mother, and then he gets sent off to a lunatic asylum- all because of the Bottle. It's almost funny; but that seems to be how my own life is turning out- just like in those pictures. I just haven't been murdered yet and the baby hasn't died from starvation. I got my hands on them again recently. They are mine now, for the time being at least they live in my cupboard. As soon as I'm not being lazy I'm going to paint the walls and hang them in the hallway of my house where they now belong. Perhaps. Or maybe I'll end up having to sell them to pay for my rotten teeth; caused by my own ritualistic experiences with the bottle. Ironic huh? I was fascinated by those pictures when I was younger but how could I have known that those pictures would end up resembling my own life?

One thing I hated about my Grandmother's house was turning off the lights in the downstairs hallway at night; you'd pull the string at the bottom of the stairs and then have to bolt all the way to the top of the flight with the wind and I don't know what else chasing you, your heart bursting, until you reached the safety of the big brass bed that sagged in the middle and could dive under the musty patchwork quilt- trying hard to force the visions of Stephen King's pale vampires firmly from your mind. But when you finally do stick your head out to breathe you see at once that the Pink Lady and the Blue Boy are out dancing again. Her skirt is being blown softly in the breeze; you can see the ripples of fabric billowing-even the bow beneath her floppy hat is moving gently with the breeze. She is at once beautiful and scary. I don't like to look at the Blue Boy as much- he generally only wavers for a moment or so, and anyway he's pretty creepy. I, for one, was not upset to learn he got so moth-eaten in the end that he had to be thrown out. All around Us are silhouettes of something. And then there are the black dark nights when you can't see anything at all, and they are somehow worse.

But in the mornings there is the antique telephone to play with and we play secretaries and make prank phone calls. You see, we weren't totally naughty children- I even think Grandmother was fond of us once upon a time. Sometimes we even did normal things. But there was this one time we said in a prank to a vet that our Chihuahua was unconcious in the driveway after having mated with a Great Dane. We didn't even have a dog at the time. I don't suppose that's funny to you- but we still laugh about it sometimes.

We are nosy little beasts as well; a trait we have picked up from every other female in our line, and rummage through desks looking for more exciting things than recipes and receipts. Diaries are a good find but finding a Will is even better, as are personal letters. They have information that can be stored and retrieved when it's necessary. At any one time in our family there is at least one person who is holding a major grudge against someone else. We've all had a few turns at it. No-one's perfect. It's funny, though, that while they are not speaking it seems like everyone else talks about no one and nothing else. At least for the first year. It's not that hard to see why. Everyone needs to have some ammunition when they are under attack, and should gather ammunition in times of 'peace'- so if you can't hide the evidence it should be destroyed, in my opinion.

And it is only my opinion. Some people would have you think that there is nothing wrong with how I am but lots of other so-called normal people have often commented on how warped my life seems to them. The truth is that I don't know how to be any different than what I am. I can't help being circular either, so I deny it and pass it on to my children like it was passed on to me. Some people never learn that the only way to lie really well is to tell most of the truth in the first place-then it's just a case of remembering what details you omitted and, if I'm going to be completely truthful, I do that quite a lot. I fake the facts. But I never forget what really happens either, and the Real story is always the more interesting story of the two anyway, wouldn't you say? My family, more so the older members, have the annoying habit of trying very hard to forget the truth- and then they alter history to suit themselves and that's the version they end up believing. Of course they don't see it this way, but that's just a part of the Disease.

In truth; we didn't spend a lot of time staying over at our Grandmother's house, but I can still remember walking down past the Fort and dangling my legs from the the wafer-thin sandstone cliff tops I perched on- how or why it didn't snap off like a sand-biscuit and get me dashed on the rocks below I'll never know- while watching the hang-gliders sail through the air above. You can see the waterhole from atop the cliff, a swirling mass of froth and foam, and the swimmers- who brave not the icy water or choppy sea but the green kelp that is creeping with crabs and other biting things; things you have to tread on if you want to get into the water. It doesn't help when your Sister's and Cousin are reminding you of this every step of the way, either, and it's dangerously slippery to boot.

At this time the waterhole, known as the Bogey-Hole, holds deep significance for me as my class was learning about it in Social Science, as part of the curriculum for the First Fleet and Settlement, and I am fascinated that the Convicts had been made to dig this hole out of rock as a bath for the Governor. How could they have done it when the water was rushing in on them every second, for instance, and what tools could they have used to dig the rocks out with, deeply enough to form such a deep pool?

I begin to imagine this tool- it would have to be hand-held, with a serrated edge and would probably resemble what Grandmother has in her desk drawer near the antique telephone. I steal it before going home-which takes a bit of effort I might add- and for my homework that night proudly draw this object in my workbook. On the following Monday I arrive at school with my secret and gleefully show my teacher the Bogey-Hole Cutter, which I explain is now my Grandfather's knife that he found near his house up on the Hill when he was building his new garage.

To cut a short story even shorter, I wish I could have seen my own face when the teacher explained that it was not the real Bogey-Hole Cutter at all- but just a very old cheese knife. I still have it too. Well, I can hardly take it back now can I? It's been mine for twenty-four years!

I suppose the most embarrassing part of this story is that I still insisted it was a Bogey-Hole Cutter and got up in front of the entire class and told them all about it. I'm sure that some of them even believed me.

And having said that, it won't come as a surprise, will it, when I tell you that I've been doing and saying stupid things all my life.