Cirrus@Austlit

'There is a thing about me which you might not know. It's an invisible, enormous pain in the pussy. I'm flippant about this strange and uninvited companion of mine in the same way you might snub someone who used to bully you, or laugh about a lover who long ago jilted you. Mine too is a relationship of resentment and frustration. It's not a secret, exactly, but I have spent a sizeable amount of the last few years trying to beat it into submission. Like so many unpleasant things, I hoped that disallowing it time and thought could diminish its impact, but I am beginning to see that the best way out of this mess is to square my chin at my ghoul and describe what it is doing. The truth of it is something intangible, as chronic pain essentially is. My particular friend is a shifting, agonising pain between my legs; not caused by trauma or tissue damage, signifying nothing, but ringing all the bells of anguish it can hold in its tiny, nerve-ending hands. Described like this it's rather insidious and my desperate attempts to end this pain have created an ambivalence, a toughness and a vulnerability. This weird pain has been both a terrorist and fodder for many inappropriate jokes, but please don't be scandalised by my poor manners - the act of laughing at something which threatens me has been the best therapy of all.' (Publication abstract)