The recent theme of dying birds.

Hello.

I've discovered a bit of a theme happening regarding the very emotional deaths of birds.

You can read the stories here:

• The Ramblings

• The Nest

For reasons unknown to me, I have found myself deeply saddened by these losses. 

I am not what you would call a "bird person" although now that I think about it, I had a couple of cockatiels as a kid, and I own some toucan earrings...so, maybe I am?

It might just be that I love animals.

Today I have a new story for you, consistent with the theme of dying birds...

The Sparrow in Peril 

I was having lunch with a friend. 

We were having a very serious discussion, I think we were talking about suicide. 

As he was talking, I noticed behind him there was a small brown sparrow on the ground. 

It looked like it had crash landed! I could see that it was breathing, but it was being weird. 

Now, the events that unfold from this point in the story happen within a space of approximately 7 seconds...

The First Second

I interrupted my friend and said "hey what's the deal with that bird?" 

The Second Second

Before he could turn around to see "what the deal was with that bird", from out of nowhere, a seagull appears and walks up to the sparrow. 

The Third Second

A sense of dread has formed through my body, my friend and I both mutter something like "uh there's a seagull" and then, shit got real. 

The Fourth and Fifth Seconds

The seagull snatched the sparrow up in its cruel orange beak, the sparrow hangs by its wing, and I am shouting from my chair "NO!!! YOU PUT HIM DOWN!!!"

Of course, the seagull does not speak English. 

The Sixth and Seventh Seconds

I have abandoned my friend. I am running towards the birds. The seagull is an absolute bastard and starts to run away from me with the Sparrow still in its bastard seagull beak. Of course, I am faster than a seagull. I pride myself on this. So, as I make a strange kicking gesture towards the bastard gull, the sparrow is released.

-The story returns to normal time now-

I have successfully managed to get the sparrow released from the clutches of a bleak, beaky death.

But now what? 

I am standing in the middle of a concrete area. 

Many people sit outside to eat their lunch here. 

There are cafes and corporate offices surrounding me. 

I stand there and look down at the little bird on its side, panting, talons curled up (flashback to the sparrow from The Ramblings). 

There is another man that must have seen my rather odd bird-chase scene. 

He walks over and is now staring down at the sparrow with me. 

I say to the stranger "I don't know what to do now". 

He says "It's probably going to die anyway".

Hopelessness takes over. 

Now the little thing is just suffering. 

The seagull is circling us like a fucking bastard shark. 

Just waiting for us to back off so he can eat the sparrow*.

Two ladies walk over. 

We briefly discuss the seagull being a jerk, and that "death by seagull" is no way to go. 

One of the ladies bends down, scoops up the little sparrow, and starts checking its wings. 

She says
"The wings aren't broken, so that's good"

I say "Are you a vet?"
She says "I'm a vet nurse"

...

Are you fucking kidding me?

This is like when a person has a heart attack on the street, and someone says "Somebody get a doctor!" and then one of the passers by is like "I'm a doctor!" and IT'S JUST CRAZY AND AMAZING!

I had just mentally prepared myself for the fact that I had saved this bird from being murdered, just so it could die a slow, painful death. But fuck no, there's a god damn vet nurse up in here.

After a bit of an assessment, vet nurse says "I think he's okay, just a bit dazed. Where are you sitting? Just keep an eye on him and he'll fly off in about 10 minutes"

We return to my friend at our table.

Vet Nurse tries to gently nudge the bird on to the chair but he's not having it.

I put my hand out and he climbs onto my finger.

He sits perched on my finger. 

I see a fellow staff member, she notices the bird and calls me "Snow White". 

We sit for 5-10 minutes.

We name him Herbert. I have become emotionally attached. 

But I am also eagerly hoping he will soon fly off and live a happy life.

Shortly, he does fly off...straight into a glass window. What a dingus. 

I'm not sure if he's in shock or just stupid. 

I mean how did he get on the ground in the first place? 

Remember I said it looked like he crash landed? 

It's entirely possible I just interrupted natural selection. 

I scoop him back up, walk him over to some hedges and set him down.

He disappears into the shrubbery.

I don't know what will happen to him. Maybe he'll just die. My friend said maybe Herbert will have babies and maybe his babies have babies and maybe they will save the world or something.

But because in the end everything is about me of course, I feel a little better about what happened with the nest, and my sad encounter with the small sparrow from the ramblings. Because This Sparrow now gets to kick ass and do awesome shit if it wants to, or just fly into glass windows if that's what it's into. 

Here are some drawings:

Since when did birds eat smaller birds! I mean I know owls eat smaller owls...but seagulls eating sparrows!? WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO? My theory is that humans fed seagulls chicken...and now they have the taste of bird flesh they've turned into CANNIBALISTIC MONSTERS.

How are you feeling?

Stop it, you're killing it :'(

The Ramblings.

Hello, 

I would just like you to know that I have been posting on this blog as a retrospective experience of anxiety and depression. I have been living depression free for 5 years! The anxiety I have had since I was 12, and I have been living with and managing it ever since. 

Unfortunately, this year the depression returned, like a punch in the head.

Over the last couple of months, I have been writing down the thoughts I've been having that I don't usually have. 

The way I think when I'm depressed scares me. But I've documented some of the obscure thoughts here. With some pictures. So... yay?

I don't usually like wordy things unless they're funny. But whatever.


I went to Brunswick last night.
I came home with the following things:

• 1 Big blue vase, 
• 1 Darth Vader shirt for Joey
  (Joey calls Darth Vader "The Captain", I don't know why. It's cute though)
• 1 bottle of eyedrops
• 1 box of antidepressants

It's been a week since I did this and I haven't started taking them yet because I am just too frightened.

~

Last week, I saw one of those little brown sparrows (the ones that are always in shopping centre food courts) lying dead on the ground.
On the side of the footpath in the city, just under a tree with a thin trunk.

• Initial feelings of sadness for the very small bird, alone on the path in the city... 
• overwhelming sense of mortality.

• Imagine my own little body lying dead under the thin-trunked tree, lying on my side, my talons curled up, people just walkin' by, in their suits.
• Stomach ache.

~

My flatmate was trying to justify buying an expensive new phone when his friend said "In a thousand years, none of this will mean anything, nothing will matter" which made my flatmate feel better about buying an expensive phone.

I adapted this into my daily worries. Whenever I become uncontrollably anxious about something, I tell myself "in a thousand years, the stress I feel right now will be so irrelevant to everything, so why does it feel like the biggest, scariest, life changing, universe-altering thing ever?" Basically, I'm trying to put things in perspective, you know, not worry so much about the little things.

Then I become overwhelmed by the idea that I mean nothing, and if I just die it wouldn't matter. Because in a thousand years my existence won't mean SHIT.

~

Jaw clenched so hard, teeth could explode.
Body tremors like a human earthquake.

Body wants to cry, body wants to vomit.
Body hasn't got the energy and won't produce a single tear or slightest bile.
It's like needing to sneeze, but you can't get it out, and then you make this horrible face and you twist your nose in a funny way.

Then numbness, except for a very dull ache in my head.

These thoughts aren't my regular thoughts and yet they're in my head.

Piggy Back

The overstayed welcome.

Get off meeee

The Lady and the Tram : Bleeding man.

Today on the tram something a little bit sad and pathetic happened.

A man boarded the tram and walked right up to the front to sit down. He sat at the "please make this seat available for people who really need to sit down" spot.
You know for Nanna's and pregnant ladies and stuff.

His seat is just in front of mine.
He sits facing to the right, I am facing forwards. So he is in my direct line of vision.

The man has a long beard, but not the hipster kind.
He wears a bucket hat, a flannelette shirt with holes at the elbows, and over the top of that, he wears a long yellow cotton dress. His skin is covered in dirt, and his hand has a cut that has bled, dripped down his hand a little bit, and the blood had started to dry.



The wound is open, not deep, the blood is bright red.

Mine is the next stop.

He notices the line of blood on his hand and starts to try and rub it away. He is neither gentle nor careful. He is vigorously rubbing at the open cut.

I'm 1 minute away from my stop.

I open up my bag, whip out a bandaid, lean over the seat in front of me and say
"Would you like a bandaid? For your hand?"



Like a shy child, he nods and gently takes the bandaid from my hand.

The tram is pulling into my stop.

This is the moment I realise this man has no idea how to open a bandaid.

He starts trying to bite at it, but he can't get it open (cus you know, you've gotta pull that little bit at the top and it just peels open).

So I stand up and walk over to him and ask him if he wants some help.

Again, like small child, he nods, and meekly hands the bandaid wrapper back to me.



I open it up.

Now, there are still 2 plastic bits that need to be removed... So I start to open it up, not the whole way, and I sort of say "so..this bit...goes on the ... umm"

OKAY pause for a second.
Let's get one thing straight.

EVEN PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT WEARING A DRESS OVER A FLANNY HAVE A HARD TIME PUTTING A BANDAID ON YOUR OWN HAND.
It's a two handed operation. This guy couldn't even open it.

OBVIOUSLY I am VERY concerned about making ANY CONTACT with this open wound because I'm not STUPID.

But also, I am stupid, because I couldn't just be like "Okay here you go" hand him the half opened bandaid and get off the tram never to see him again.

I stayed on the tram.

The tram pulls away from my stop. I am still with the man.

He holds his hand up, looks at the cut, then looks to me.

I Very, very carefully place the bandaid on his hand, not making any contact with the skin.

Now I've placed it on there, removed one side of the plastic, and said "Okay, now just pull this bit of plastic this way, pointing the direction he needs to pull so the bandaid will stick down.

He starts pulling the plastic upwards. Disaster. The bandaid shifts out of place and is no longer fully covering the area. I try to say again "you have to pull it this way" I'm miming the movement. He's not on board.

At this stage the bandaid is mainly just sitting on regular skin and had moved off the affected area.

Fuck it.

I pull the other side of the bandaid, and so carefully stick it down.

I tell him he needs to wash his hand so it doesn't get infected.

He just looks at me with big eyes and nods.

The tram driver holds his hi-vis evst over half of his face. The man isn't that smelly... The driver says to me "You'll get a disease".

The man looks at me with eyeballs like no one had ever even said hello to him, let alone put a bandaid on his hand.

So I got off at the next stop. Walked home. Washed my hands and wrote this blog post.

So if you don't hear from me ever again. You'll know why.

Together Alone

24 years old feels like forever.

The Nest.

There is a door in my apartment building that remains open 96% of the time.
It is between the small foyer area and the courtyard garden of my building.
I walk through the courtyard garden to get to my apartment every day.
I walk through the open door to the foyer everyday.

A bird built it's nest in the wedge of space between the door and the wall.

I stopped and stared at the position of this nest for some time.

The bird flew away because I was so close.

I thought "This is not a smart place for a birds nest. This is a door, doors open and close. This nest is not secure."

I thought to myself "Perhaps...perhaps I should move the nest?"

Then the following thoughts happened in my whacked out head:

1. I am not quite tall enough to safely dislodge this nest.


2. What if I try to dislodge it and the mother bird thinks I am trying to kill her babies, and then she rightfully tries to kill me? Is death-by-mother-bird really the way I want to go out?



No. I don't think so.

3. What if I move the nest, and as I bring the nest down, the baby birds hatch, see me, and think I am their mother. Am I ready to be a mother to baby birds? Would I be willing to vomit up my lunch into their little squawking mouths?













No. I don't think so.

4. This door remains open 96% of the time. I have only seen this door closed maybe 2 or 3 times. I have lived here and walked through here for the past 300 days approximately. I don't know if the statistic makes sense because I guessed it.

I am not a mathematician. 

5. If someone does close the door, is that natural selection? For building your nest in a doorway?


6. I will leave the birds nest here in hopes no one closes this door. Because I am not ready to be killed by a bird, and I am also not ready to be a foster vomit mother to baby birds. Besides, the nest is so big! People will see it, so they won't close the door. Because people use their eyeballs!

7. I am actually running late for work.

The next few days the nest remains. 
All is well.

This morning I go to leave for work.
I hear the flutter of a birds wings.

Flutter or flapping? I don't know. Flutter is a prettier word.

I think to myself "I am sorry to startle you again motherbird!"

I look up to the trees in the courtyard to see a new nest! 

This one is a little nest.

I think "Hmm, I wonder if the mother bird built a new nest, or if this courtyard garden is just prime property for the mother bird market? I wonder how much rent they pay?"

I walk to the doorway and look up to see the big nest is gone.
"It must be a new nest...I wonder what happened to the doorway nest though"
I look down to the ground and see the nest there. There are no eggs inside. My immediate feeling is relief.

Someone must have had the same thought as me, and removed the nest because it was a silly place for it, and also they were tall enough to reach it. 

Mother bird has built a nice new nest in the tree tops and all is well.

Behind the nest the door mat is propped up against the wall.

Strange. People cannot wipe their feet when the door mat is up against the-

Then I see them.

The little blue egg shell on the ground.

Smashed.

Then I see why the mat is against the wall.
It has a thick yellow yolk crushed into the bristles.

My whole head fills up with salty liquid and heat.

I do not cry even though my eyes are like "yeah you're gonna", because I suppress my emotions before I feel anything too hard.

The unborn bird babies are dead.

And I inadvertently killed them. Negligence. Unborn Baby Bird Murderer Bekky.

Daily

PT II. Money can't buy you happiness but it can buy plants so let's just see how that goes?

As it turns out, plants cannot buy happiness.

PT I. Money can't buy you happiness but it can buy plants so let's just see how that goes?

uh, EVERYTHING.

Social Anxiety:

Gooblins

Baked Goods Appreciation

Zombies Love Brownies

Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it in my gut. All the time.

BLARRY.

 

So Blarry is depression, and he's all up in your shit. 
People are like "Yeah you just need to excercise and eat well and you'll feel better". 

But it's not really that simple, because you've got Blarry on your back, holding you in bed, telling you to order a pizza.

He's a damn jerk and he doesn't leave. 
No one invited him, he just appeared, and stayed, and made a mess of your whole life. 
God dammit Blarry. 

So you just stay at home with him, because if you go out, he'll probably follow you and you'll have to carry him everywhere, and he is just so, so heavy. 

So it's easier to just stay in bed and eat BBQ shapes for dinner.

That's depression.

Worrying.

Fog Fog Fog Fog Fog Fog Fog Fog

What "trying to stay calm" feels like.

Over we go!

I have to get my shit together for the art show on Friday but at the moment I struggle to even get out of bed.