#the half bottle of red wine i put in my body is nullified by this one cold vegetable and fruit soup amen

[heich0e]

my relationship to green smoothies is a lot like the catholic approach to confession

[harrison-abbott]

gift for the kiddos

It was my niece’s birthday and I was invited to the party. I’d bought her this collection of kids books that I liked when I was wee, when my father used to read them to me. And my brother, my niece’s father, also had that same thespian charm and so I hoped it would be a good set of gifts.

The stap of my bra had died. Snapped, rather, yesterday: and I only remembered when I made to put it back on. And all of my other bras were in the washing basket and smelly.

So I went down to the supermarket to get a new bra for the day, knowing I should have had all of this convenienced by now. In the supermarket I went to the clothes section promptly and I bought a packet of my size. These days I avoided the mirrors and when I was buying clothes items I didn’t test them in the changing rooms for this reason; as I used to be pretty chuffed with my appearance, but I wasn’t in modern days, had lost confidence. And perhaps physical beauty or non beauty is among the most fickle of judgemental aspects, if you think of it: how people can like you for your looks one moment, and the minute your facial structure alters, they lose intrigue, or if you put on a little wait or your hair goes grey, or if simply the depth of eyes goes spoiled and is no longer novel and thus not as gleaming.

When back at home I showered and as the water flumed over my body I worried how my brother might think of me when I arrived and what he thought of me in general. You know, that classic comparing yourself to your sibling, disorder. That historic fallacy which all of us do, if indeed we have siblings. Even if we look at it objectively and we’re in the green light, we still feel threatened that their feats will put is in the red.

I put on the new bra after the shower. It wasn’t comfy. But I put this down to my mentality.

And I had to be there at the house within two hours. So I ate half a sandwich and then headed out. Took the train. With my bags filled with the gifts for the kiddos. And I’d gotten a posh bottle of wine for my bro and his wife.

My brother’s wife didn’t like me that much and I’d never really understood why and my tactics around her had always been to simply be polite and conversational and this tactic had never quite worked for some reason and my brother was deeply embarrassed when I was near her and acted in this macho bully big bully older bro way in a jokey way and so I took the regressive edge and laughed along with his shit banter in order to try and appease her. It was quite like being under a rude assistant manager at work who you have to nullify in order to keep your peasant position.

When I knocked on the door I waited fifty seconds and then she opened the door. She was a very pretty lady indeed. And her smile had nothing behind the shiny teeth; nor did her short hug give off any animalistic warmth.

When my brother saw me he said “Hey Sis!” in this singsong bravado and it was obvious he’d been drinking.

The children were playing videogames in the living room. My niece was watching and I went up and said happy birthday to her and she looked uncomfortable and didn’t respond and her brother, my nephew, was shooting zombies on this big flatscreen. Strafing zombies with a machine gun. And I wondered why my brother had let them do this, bought them this game, that was so gory and tacky and crude … But, who was I to judge, without any kids myself.